Markup View

Author: LordGro

Jun 30th 2014 at 1:46:07 PM

Some actual content on Charybdis. Charybdis is not the UrExample; the Ur Examples are real whirlpools.

[[AC:Mythology]]
* In ClassicalMythology, Charybdis is a sea-monster that causes whirlpools. Charybdis lives in a sea-strait, often specified as the Strait of Messina (where tidal whirlpools occur). Thrice a day, Charybdis swallows huge amounts of water and thus creates a maelstrom. After a time, it spits the water out again; afterwards there is a period of calm before Charybdis begins to swallow again.
** In ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', Charybdis is situated under a rock which is opposite to a cliff inhabited by the sea-monster Scylla. When Odysseus sails through the strait, he stays as far away from Charybdis as possible, following Circe's advice who had warned him that not even Poseidon can save ships that are sucked into Charybdis' whirlpool. When the shipmates are watching the maelstrom in terror from a safe distance, six of them are seized and eaten by Scylla.
:::Later, Odysseus' ship has been wrecked by a storm, and Odysseus is drifting on a piece of wreckage back into the strait, when Charybdis starts to suck in the sea. The raft is sucked into the whirlpool, but Odysseus manages to hold on to a branch of the large fig tree growing on the rock above Charybdis. At evening, Charybdis regurgitates the water, and the raft comes up again. Odysseus recovers it and paddles away.
** In book 3 of ''Literature/TheAeneid'', Aeneas' fleet of Trojan refugees draws near the Strait of Messina with the intent to pass it, when the growing current and a thundering noise make them realize at the last moment that they are approaching the infamous Charybdis. They immediately turn around and row for their lives, and, hours later and utterly exhausted, manage to escape the suction of Charybdis.
* NorseMythology: According to ''Literature/ProseEdda'', King Frodi of Denmark had a  magical mill called Grotti which was so huge  it had to be turned by two giantesses. Grotti was robbed by the viking Mysingr, who loaded it on his ship and used it to create salt. But his greed was so great that he did not make the mill stop even when the salt was becoming too heavy, and the ship went down. The mill is still turning on the sea-bottom, making the sea salty and causing a maelstrom where the sea falls into the mill-eye.