Greetings, myth lovers! For the upcoming #BookLoversDay we are asking: what are your favourite mythology-themed #books?
Tell us about the #myth and the #book with the hashtag #MythologyMonday for boosts!
Let's swap some awesome recs, all right? 😊
Your host @AimeeMaroux is looking forward to all your #book reports! 😚
The hindu mythology forms a poetic background for the groundbreaking Science Fiction #book Lord of Light. Zelazny has a few other #Myth inspired books, but this #Hugo winning book really set a standard.
@mythologymonday Mary Renault‘s Theseus books are still some of my favorites. A thrilling re-envisioning of an ancient time, that keeps a sense of its strangeness instead of infecting it with contemporary language and mores.
In #Norse cosmology, there is no such thing as "the world".
Creation myths explain how parts of the cosmos were created (e.g., the sky is the skull of Ymir¹) and that several worlds are separated from each other. To be precise, there are nine.
Shamans can travel with the soul, but it should be physically possible too. Often, the methods described are quite strange, but fascinating:
• Walking on the rainbow
• Diving in some pools of water
• Walking in the dark
• Through memorial barrows²
• Traversing inaccessible forests and mountains
Also, gods have such powers that can break the barriers among them.
It was said, for example, that the lightning was #Thor striking Jötnar (the giants) with its hammer, and the thunder was the sound of the creature falling apart.
Our world, thus the reality we see, is called Midgard³, inhabited only by humans.
Interestingly, the other worlds don't have a specific direction (e.g. to the West) – they're just "far away".
At the center of Norse cosmology there is Yggdrasil⁴, a huge #tree (maybe an ash tree) which connects all the worlds. Its name could mean "Horse of the Terrible One" because Odin used its branches to quickly move among the worlds.
Here is a quick list:
Asgard – home of the Æsir gods
Jotunheim –home of the evil giants
Alfheim – home of the elves, (never described in any resource)
Nidavellir – where dwarves lived
Vanaheim – home of Vanir gods (never described!)
Hel – the underworld
Muspelheim – a world made of Fire
Niflheim – a world made of Ice
Midgard – our world, the only one not part of the "Otherworld"
It is extremely confusing, and in the past, people who tried to join the lines were confused, too! Here is a scheme from XIX century, which does not help at all 😅
This week's #MythologyMonday theme is work.
Four deities spring to my mind when I think of work: #Demeter, #Hermes, #Hephaistos, and #Athena. #AncientGreece was an agricultural society with 80% of the population being involved in this line of work. In Greek mythology, it was Demeter who invented agriculture but according to Diodorus Siculus she burnt all the grain when her daughter #Persephone vanished out of grief and anger.