Sunday Funnies

There in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, It's a Woman Sitting Upside Down in a Chair!

Now that I'm a dad of a little girl, I look at things differently than I did when I only had little boys.  For instance, if someone came up to me saying that they were better looking than my daughter, I would unleash some crazy monster that I happen to keep in my backyard to eat someone they love.  Those of you with little girls understand me.  I would like to take credit for such a great idea, but someone beat me to it.  This guy is like Father of the Year in my book.  Here's the story:

One day, a beautiful woman named Cassiopeia was sitting on her balcony playing one of her favorite games: I'm-More-Beautiful-Than-______.  I'm sure all you females out there play this game often.  Being a queen, she had a very high balcony and could see a lot of different people that she was more beautiful than.   It was a fun game, but as most of her subjects were rather ugly, she began to get bored of it.  That is until she looked a bit farther away and saw some beautiful Nereids.  These creatures were not mere mortals and were super beautiful.  Cassiopeia, however, using an objective judge (herself) determined herself the winner in this little beauty challenge and declared herself the world champion.

The Nereids did not like this at all.  They cried and posted stuff on their Facebook (which back then was called Facescroll) about how mean she was. Then they went to daddy and complained.  Daddy, being Poseidon, decided that no one makes his little girls cry and went straight over to Cassiopeia to set the matter straight.  He made them offer their daughter, Andromeda, up as a sacrifice to one of his sea monsters.  They did and watched as the monster came forward to devour their little sweetheart. 

Perseus just happened to be flying by on his way back from killing Medusa when he saw this beautiful, naked woman strapped to a rock about to be eaten by a monster.  He flew down to Cassiopeia and her husband Cepheus to ask if he could marry her (always the opportunist that Perseus).  Cepheus says yes, if he can beat the monster and save the girl.  As he just happens to have the head of Medusa in his back pack (I'm imagining this as a Dora the Explorer episode - "Can you see anything in my back pack that could defeat the monster?  Say, Medusa!   Louder!) he turns the monster into stone.  Strangely enough, Poseidon doesn't really care.

Cepheus and Cassiopeia, however, renege on their promise since they really want Andromeda to marry some dude named Phineus (which was her uncle - EWWW!).  Perseus turns everyone against him into stone, scoops up Andromeda and lives happily ever after.

Now, I lied a bit above (I am prone to do that from time to time).  I said that Poseidon didn't care about the loss of his sea monster.  That is not entirely true.  Poseidon does punish Cassiopeia after her death by turning her (and her husband) into constellations.  This is usually reserved as a reward; however, she was placed in a chair that spends half its time in the sky upside down.  Early drawings show her being strapped to a torture chair.  Later drawings show her holding a mirror. 

You can see her right now, if you live in the northern hemisphere.  Just look north and up.  If you don't know which way is north, pay attention to the sun as it sets.  Apollo always sets it in the west.  Then face that direction and turn right.  Viola!  North! 

What you are looking for is pretty easy to spot.  It is five stars in the shape of a W.  You can't miss it.  If you have a pair of binoculars or a telescope, looking in that direction is a pretty neat thing too.  This constellation is right in the middle of the Milky Way, so you will be bombarded with stars.

This should give you something to do if you are stuck with your in-laws over the holidays and just need to get out for a moment. 

Pictures from: http://www.storiesinthestars.com/constellations/cassiopea.html

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Have you ever heard of this guy?

I can't find a picture of this guy anywhere.  His name is Deiphobus.  He is one of the sons of Priam, King of Troy.  That means he is the brother of Hector, Paris, and Helenus.  During the Trojan War, Paris dies.  The only two sons left are Helenus and Deiphobus.  The argue over who gets Helen of Sparta Troy.  Deiphobus wins, but when Menelaus finally gets in the walls of the city, Helen of Troy Sparta rats him out and Menelaus cuts out his liver and bowels. 

Nice story, huh?

I challenge you to find a picture of him.  I gave up.

Sr. Perseus

How Many Kids Did Zeus Have?

Also, at the same site that I presented in the last post, is a .pdf file that shows the family tree of the gods.  I'm a little miffed about Percy Jackson being left off...

Anyway, it came from that same site: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_lit.classics.html and here is a screen shot of it:

Once again, this shot is hard to see.  It really looks a lot better as a .pdf.  You can get the file here: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Gods_n_DemigodsGrk.pdf.  I love how for Athena it has Zeus and Headache!

Any other family trees that you can think of?

We Are the Titans, the Mighty, Mighty Titans

A friend of mine (yes, I do have one or two) sent me a link to another mythology teacher's web page.  I encourage you to go to it at: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_lit.classics.html.  On it, I found a pretty good .pdf file that has a titan family tree.  Here is a screen shot:

This view is a little hard to see, but you can see that it has a nice look to it.  Could definitely be used in a class or just to reference who is who.

The actual file can be found directly at: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Gods_n_TitansGrk.pdf

Enjoy!

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Ho! Ho! Ho!

No, the title today has nothing to do with Santa, but everything to do with giants.  There is an e-mail floating around that tells of a gas explosion that revealed some bones underground.  Archaeologists came in and excavated to find an amazing discovery:

Pretty amazing, right?  All those myth stories about giants just gets a bit better.  No crack in between the eyes, so I assume this isn't Goliath!* 

Not so.  You see, in the days before Snopes, these e-mails were a lot more fun.  But now, you just look it up and find out that this was merely a clever photoshop done at worth1000.com.  Here is the original that the fake was made from:

1000worth.com is a website devoted to good photoshopped pictures.  This was part of a contest.

However, all is not lost.  These pictures are also floating around on the internet and Snopes cannot find where they originated, although they say that the square-cube law makes these images impossible.  I read a little on this law. It bored me, so I didn't get very far.  I'll just try to suspend disbelief enough to say, here are some REAL pictures of giants! 



* Couldn't be Goliath even if the picture was a real one.  According to the bible, Goliath was only about 9 feet tall.  That's not too far out of reach.  The tallest man in the world that we have record of is Robert Pershing Wadlow, he was 8 feet 11 inches.

 Maybe there is some magic left in the world after all! 

The Good Year Wingfoot

Almost everyone is familiar with the Good Year blimp and the simple logo that represents that company.  You may have even paid attention to the fact that there is a winged foot in between the words.  I wondered how closely was it to mythology and how much was it just a need to have a symbol for speed and someone chose that one. 

Goodyear has a history page on their website that explains all that.  It seems that the founder of the company, Frank Seiberling, grew up with a statue of Hermes/Mercury in his house.  It made an impact on him and when the time came, he wanted to somehow use this god as part of the company logo.

In 1900, a meeting was held to figure out how to make this work.  Out of several sketches, this one was the one that stuck:

This works great because of the speed symbol that a Hermes allusion brings, but also because of the fact that he is the god of commerce.  However, it was the messenger status that really led to using Hermes as a symbol.  Seiberling loved the idea of the good news that the messenger god brought and wanted people to feel that by using Goodyear products that they too were getting good news.

Can you think of any other logos with mythology allusions?

Pegasi? Pegasuses? A Herd of Flying Horses!

NOTE - I have updated the post to include reader contributions at the bottom.  If you've already seen the post, scroll down for more pics.

There is only one Pegasus.  He came out of Medusa after Perseus chopped her head off.  She had gotten pregnant by Poseidon, but since Athena turned her into a monster, she never gave birth.  The babies just continued to grow inside her.  No wonder she was so cranky.  Pegasus has a brother that is a human warrior, who sprang out fully grown. 

While mythology only gives us one of these magnificent creatures, artists have created millions more.  Here are 10 of the best Pegasus pictures I have seen:

from http://www.samimatilainen.com/category/art/fine-art/page/2/



from fx.worth1000.com/search/hybrid

I really like the shadow effect.  Unfortunate tail placement, though.

from www.polyscene.com/wire/papershapers/pegasus.htm

 I have got to get one of these for my little girl when she is big enough.

You can get one at  www.rockinghorseworks.co.uk/pegasus_on_bows.html

Interesting combo. 

from http://www.zazzle.com/peacock_pegasus_print-228474187834540150

Here's a picture of Medusa holding her baby Pegasus.  Doesn't quite fit the timeline I'm used to, but hey!  We're talking snakes for hair and flying horses.  I'll get over it.

Are those little cherubs attacking the poor horse?

from unicornland.freehomepage.com/photo2.html

Wouldn't constellations be more fun if they looked like this?  When you look for it, it is liable to be only the four stars making the box for the body that you see.  Just as this picture shows, the constellation has no curple (this is the only word that rhymes with purple and it means a horse's rear end).

From http://www.whoguides.com/who-discovered-constellation-pegasus

from www.fanpop.com/.../5759037/title/black-pegasus

from http://www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/show_image.php?imageID=3148

Do you have any to add?  Drop me the link in a reply and if it meets the high quality standards of our team of experts here at Bubo's Blog, we'll post it here!

Below are the reader's contributions:

Thansk to ANJ for:

I really like this one.  I wish I had found it for my earlier list!
from http://nenethomas.com/mini-lithographs/carousel-horse-angel-white/

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Who's that girl? Or boy... Or monster... Or god...

Ran across a site that is pretty fun that you might be interested in.  It is called Akinator and it has a genie that guesses a person (real or fictional, dead or alive) that you are thinking of.  My students have been having a blast with it and are frustrated that they cannot defeat it (without cheating of course).  I tried it recently with a few mythology names and it is good! It guessed Zeus (O.K., easy), it guessed Perseus (easy), it guessed Loki (a little harder), it guessed Set (that impressed me a bit), it did give up and admit defeat on Hermaphroditos.  Then it impressed me by asking a few questions so it could add Hermaphroditos to its database.  Can you trick it?  If so, leave a comment for me and tell me which myth figure you used to beat the game.

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