Epics, Mythology and Legends

As cool as Norse Mythology is, Celtic Mythology is always going to be my pet mythology for a number of reasons

1. I be (half) Irish. I have an obligation to prefer Celtic Mythology over others.

2. Wacky awesome heroes. There's a guy who threw spears with his feet (and went into lovecraftian battle-rages, but the feet-spear thing amuses me more)! There's two others that were all-knowing and wise as long as they were sucking their thumb! Even the guy best known for being Finn McCool's ex-fiance's prettyboy boy toy was damn badass.

3. Speaking of Finn McCool. There's an entire saga dedicated to a guy named Finn McCool. Does your mythology have an entire saga dedicated to a dude as awesomely named as Finn McCool? I think not.

4. Epic battles were fought over cows.

5. Emer. Emer's like my mythology crush.

6. The Morrigan. She's like Ares, only a Fae goddess. And crazier.

7. The Fair Folk. Granted, urban fantasies tend to over-rely on them when they're not rehashing vampires, but they're still an awesome concept.

And the foot-spear was covered in barbs! Cu Cuhlain was a sweet hero.

Although I'll never figure out how or why he has seven pupils in each eye (or four in one and three in the other. The cycle's not very consistent with that). I mean, I know seven's an important number and everything, but what's the point of that?

It's a heroic cycle, it doesn't need a point, it just need to be cool.

Cuchulain's also supposed to have peppermint-striped hair. How's that for loopy? If you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out the novel The Red Branch for a fairly good summary of the Cuchulain legend.

I'm a little Austrian and a little Irish. What do I do X_X

Get hammered?

One star for you.

Thread hop!

Okay, so Jewish myth and legend has the Torah, and Norse myth has the Poetic and Prose Eddas, and the sagas. By this, I mean that each mythology has a most authoritative text in which the oral traditions were immortalized by people directly familiar with the oral tradition.

What would be Greek myth's Poetic Edda?

Theogony?

Do you mean in terms of something that lays down the fundamentals of the mythological system, or just a specific work of the mythology that has been immortalized? 'Cause if it's the latter, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are the obvious winners.

The most influential individual stories are Homer's. The most complete set of myths in one poem is Ovid's The Metamorphoses. Because of the unity of the Metamorphoses ("of bodies changed to other forms I sing"), the only Classical text where you can read every myth (or could, if the end hadn't been lost) is the Library of Pseudo-Apollodurus.

edited 1st Jun '11 3:22:35 PM by Rottweiler

Hey, is there an equivalent of this for Celtic myth?

We've got the cycles (Mythological, Ulster, Fenian, and Historical/Kings).

No love for the Thunderbirds?

They saved Earth from invading evil lizards, they were willing to leave their element to combat demons in the water, they kept balance with the strongest monsters the underworld, they would take on human form to test human's characters and were devout servants of the great spirit.

Admittedly, North American Indian myths are hard to find, but they had/have a lot of interesting stuff. Why such a small fanbase?

RAVEN IS THE SHIT! COYOTE CAN EAT ME, RAVEN IS THE ULTIMATE NORTH AMERICAN TRICKSTER!

edited 2nd Jun '11 6:39:55 PM by FurikoMaru

Doesn't Raven look exactly like the guy who put the world together? That's kind of an unfair advantage.

In the version I heard he is the guy who put the world together; he pulled everything out of a clamshell along with a couple of kids who were the first humans.

Hey, I remeber reading something about this a few years back. Raven makes the world. Pretty neat stuff. Plus, I like ravens a lot, they're great birds. Too bad they're usually depicted as evil death-bringers in other cultures. Or pests, at best.

Ravens are generally positive. The Inuit, the Chukchi and the Norse liked them, to name a few.

That they did, but most other cultures disliked them. They're still considered a symbol of death in general, after all. Still, it's nice to see that their depiction varies through myths. Adds more complexity to the role of animals in mythology.

Love mythology in every form, shape and region.

If have Spanish blood, does that mean I'm a descendant of Mil Espaine?

I was born and raised Christian, so what I'm currently devouring are the myths and legends of the Semitic people. It's fascinating to read up how all those beliefs interacted with one another and how even today it has influenced the great Abrahamic faiths.

Also, my first crush ever was Medea.

My guess is that it came from the Christians trying to demonize pagan religion. Odin was represented by the raven, so to get rid of Odin, they had to present the raven (and thus Odin) as evil.

I don't think it was just the Christians, really. Ravens and crows, as carrion birds, were always flocking to battlefields and pecking out eyes and whatnot. Plus, consider their black plumage and the "horrible" cawing sound as opposed to all those beautifully-coloured songbirds. Makes sense that cultures would make them ominous birds.

There are a lot of good depictions of ravens and crows, but there are equally some evil ones as well.

Yeah, that's my theory as well.

And after all, Odin was the god of war and death on the battlefield. His animal being the raven was no coincidence.