Mythology and Folklore

Bibliography Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-ancient-egyptian.html  Ra—King of the gods Shu—wind god Tefnut—sends the rain Seb—Earth god Nut—Sky goddess Osiris—god of the dead (eventually) Set—brother of Osiris Isis—wife of Osiris (eventually)     Isis was a mortal woman who wanted to live among the gods. To do this, she made a snake out of the earth and the god’s spit. The serpent bit Ra, causing him to fall to the ground and cry out in pain. Isis came forward and offered to heal him, in return for his secret name (secret names hold a lot of power in Egyptian myths). The god gave her his name, Isis healed him, and Isis was made a goddess because she now shared the power of Ra.   As Ra got older, mortals thought that he was getting to old to rule. Hearing this, Ra called Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, and Nu to him. The other gods advised him to send Hathor to punish the mortals....

 I am planning on doing more of an anthology than anything else with these stories. First story will be the story of Helen. Information about Helen Story of Helen Information on Eidolons Paris and the Golden Apple Second will be Cassandra Information on Cassandra Cassandra and Troy Third will be Andromache Information on Andromache   Information on Epirus Women in the Iliad Information about Andromache I am probably going to go third person limited point of view here, just because I want to tell their stories from their point of view, but I do not want to do first person. I feel like first person would take away a little bit of the 'ancient myth' vibe from their stories, and I do not want to do that.  I feel like a lot of people ignore the women when they think about The Iliad or The Odyssey . It is easy to do. Homer did not make them front and center the way he did the men. They were not the focus of the story. I want to tell their stories here. I picked these three beca...

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 When we hear the word ‘myth’, we hear something that is not true. For example, if you swallow a piece of gum, it does not stay in your stomach for seven years. That is a myth. However, there are other kinds of myths, that have significance and staying power. There are some people that say myths only include creation stories, some that include gods, and some that include heroes. When mythologists first began studying myths, it was thought that they were ‘primitive cultures’ way of explaining what was happening in the world around them. When mythologists combined with anthropologists, they started focusing on what ‘primitive cultures’ knew rather than what they did not know. Now, people are looking at the context of how/when/why people tell myths. Heroes appear in stories of just about every culture for every age. What makes heroes? Fighting villains, being a protagonist, being a good role model? Monomyth—series of events that appear in multiple stories across multiple culture...

 Bibliography:  Story source:  Apuleius's  Golden Ass , as translated into English by Tony Kline (2013). http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-apuleiuss-cupid-and.html Venus goes off on Cupid and threatens to make on of her ‘slave boys’ her son instead. Venus rushes to get revenge on Psyche, only to run into Juno and Ceres, who basically tell her to chill out. Psyche goes to one of the shrines of Ceres and begs the goddess to help her. Ceres tells Psyche that Venus is her niece and they share friendship ties beside that. Ceres cannot afford to offend Venus. Ceres sends Psyche away, saying to be thankful that Ceres is not keeping her to give to Venus. Psyche leaves, crying, and stumbles across one of the shrines of Juno. She begs the goddess to help her. Juno says that she has always loved Venus as a daughter and will not go against her. Psyche decides to find Venus herself, thinking perhaps that will mollify her. However, Venus has already gon...

Bibliography:  Story source:  Apuleius's  Golden Ass , as translated into English by Tony Kline (2013). http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-apuleiuss-cupid-and.html A young woman is taken captive by a band of robbers on her wedding day. She is very upset, and an old woman who is also with the robbers tells her a story to calm her down. There was a Princess, who was the youngest of three daughters, that was said to be an exceptional beauty. Tales of the girl’s beauty spread throughout the land, and eventually, people started journeying to see her. Venus, goddess of love and beauty, took note of these tales. Her shrines were being neglected, her statues ignored, and her altars left cold. Instead, people worshipped the Princess in her place. Enraged, Venus called her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a man who did not have “rank, wealth, even health”.   Psyche’s sisters were married, although no one had asked for Psyche’s hand. The p...

Helen: So, apparently, there is a story that says the Helen of Troy we all know—the one who is blamed for the ten year Trojan war—was an eidolon, or an empty copy of someone. The real Helen was in Egypt the entire time. Helen was promised to Paris after Paris judged Aphrodite the fairest goddess. Hera offered Paris wealth and power and Athena offered Paris knowledge. Aphrodite offered Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. Some say that Athena and Hera replaced Helen with a copy in order to get back at Aphrodite. After the Trojan war, Menelaus winds up in Egypt. He and Helen recognize each other. The eidolon of Helen vanishes into thin air, and Menelaus and the real Helen sail away. Story of Helen Information on Eidolons Paris and the Golden Apple Cassandra:  Cassandra was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. She had the gift of prophecy. When she would not sleep with Apollo, he cursed her so that no one would ever believe what she prophesied. She saw the fall of Troy before it...

  How to Give Feedback Without Being a Jerk by Adam Grant talks about ways to preface feedback. Although the common thing is to go compliment-feedback-compliment, Grant says that usually only serves to make people defensive. Instead, he recommends that you explain why you are giving the feedback. Next, you should take yourself off a pedestal. Make sure that they know you are in/were in their exact position. You can also ask if the person wants feedback to see if they are open to it or not. You should also be extremely transparent with your dialogue. This all sounds really good to me. I think having a transparent dialogue is extremely important. If people feel like you are trying to manipulate them, they are going to be angry and defensive right from the start.                                                                 ...

     Odysseus and his men came upon an island filled with greenery, goats, and plenty to eat. The men killed many sheep to eat, and once their hunger was satisfied, Odysseus and a few others set off to see who lived on the island. They stumbled across a cave, filled with cheese and wine. Seeing that someone lived here, Odysseus and his men waited. The first sign they had of something coming toward the cave was a rumbling noise, almost like an earthquake. A herd of goats made their way into the cave with a giant following them. The giant then moved a boulder that Odysseus and his men could not move even with a team of horses in front of the door. Odysseus and his men paled. This giant only had one eye, right in the center of his forehead. He was a Cyclops, a child of Poseidon. Odysseus, thinking quickly, rose to greet this Cyclops. Before he could say anything, however, the giant saw that his stores of cheese and wine had been depleted. Enraged, the Cyclops accused Odysseu...

  Bibliography Homer's Odyssey , translated by Tony Kline Odysseus and his men summon the ghosts of Elpenor and Teiresias. Elpenor asks Odysseus to remember him and build him a burial mound on Ithaca. Then Odysseus sees his mother, who had been alive when he left for Troy. Teiresias appears and tells Odysseus that he and his crew have angered Poseidon. If Odysseus and his men manage to sail to Thrinacia, and not touch the herds of Helios, they may reach home. If they touch the herds, though, they will be shipwrecked. Even if Odysseus manages to get home, his house will be filled with suitors for his wife, which Odysseus must kill. Teiresias adds that Odysseus must make a sacrifice to Poseidon after he kills the suitors. Then Odysseus speaks with his mother, Anticleia. They exchange news of each other and of Ithaca. Anticleia says she died out of yearning for Odysseus. Odysseus then speaks with the wives or daughters of other heroes. Why could he not just speak to the heroes if th...

 Bibliography Homer's Odyssey , translated by Tony Kline They entered a land that they knew essentially nothing about. Odysseus is talking about the savagery of the land and how they are taken care of by the gods without having to do anything. Odysseus and his men killed and ate the Cyclopses goats. “Nine goats were given to each of the twelve ships in my command, and there were ten left for me.” So…118 goats were killed? Odysseus takes twelve men to go see about the people living on the island. Odysseus did not allow his men to steal from Polyphemus, but they ate the cheese he had made in his cave. How does that make sense? Polyphemus killed two men that night and ate them. Because they could not move the boulder that Polyphemus used as a door, they were trapped there and could not kill the Cyclops. Then he killed another two men and locked them in the cave. Odysseus and his men made a spear out of the Cyclops’s club. When Polyphemus came back, he killed another two men. Odysseus ...

 The first article,  Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt by John Spencer, talks about ways to manage self-doubt. He says that self-doubt probably will not ever go away entirely. One of the ways that he suggests is getting rid of perfectionism. This stuck with me the most. In anything you do, whether it be painting, sculpting, writing, teaching, etc., there are going to be people that are ready and willing to poke holes in it. Accept that there are always going to be critics of your work—you are always going to get feedback from people. Accept it and move on. Feedback is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it is negative. The second article,  Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head by Sabina Nawaz, talks about the negative voices in our heads and ways to stop listening to them or to even (hopefully) stop them completely. After all, you cannot get away from the voices in your head. She suggests focusing on the positive by actively looking for positive things, hearing positiv...

Option 1: There were six children born to Kronos and Rhea—Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. Most everyone concentrates on Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Hera, Demeter, and especially Hestia are forgotten a lot of the time. I could tell the story of the first female goddesses; one who was married to a god who would never be faithful, one who lost her daughter to another god, and the firstborn who was overlooked by most everyone—and lost her seat on Mount Olympus to Dionysus.                                                      Image of Hestia Information about Hestia Information about Zeus' Mortal Children Option 2: In the popular movie Clash of the Titans, there are several scenes that fell flat for me. The first is where Zeus disguises himself as Danae’s husband and sleeps with her (which is rape). Danae’s real husband (who had offended Zeus...

     There once was a Tiger trapped in a cage. A Brahman, having happened upon his cage, felt sorry for the clearly distressed Tiger and decided to let him out. The Tiger rumbled gratefully at the Brahman and sank into a stretch, grumbling about being quite famished. The Tiger did not know why the Brahman paled at this, but that thought was soon driven from his head when the Brahman offered to bring him something to eat. The Tiger, who had been trapped in the cage for a long time and was quite famished, wondered into the shade of a nearby tree and laid down. The Brahman took off at a run.      Now, this Brahman, having been second guessing his decision to let the Tiger out of the cage, had misheard what the Tiger said. This Brahman was now under the impression that he was going to be eaten for dinner. Distraught, he decided to ask the advice of the things around him. Firstly, he happened upon a pipal-tree. The pipal-tree, who was quite bitter about being st...

I ndian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912). https://sites.google.com/view/mythfolkloreanthology/tricksters The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal Image of a Tiger It is interesting that the Jackal is the Trickster in this story. When I think of Tricksters, I think of the coyote or the raven, or the god Loki. The Tiger is the most interesting character of this story for me. Maybe I can change it to where the Tiger did not actually say he was going to eat the Brahman? He just thought he heard the Tiger say that. The Jackal tricks him for nothing, and the Tiger dies for nothing. Then it turns into more of a fable about stereotypes and how appearances can be deceiving than a story about tricksters. I would have to figure out a reason for the Tiger to still be there when the Brahman and the Jackal go back to the cage though. Maybe the Tiger thought the Brahman would bring him d...

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4. Week 3: Homer's Odyssey  Week 4: Cupid and Psyche  Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6. Week 5: Ancient Egypt Week 6: Arabian Nights Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.] Week 7: Brer Rabbit  Week 9: China (Folktales) Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11. Week 10: California/Southwest Week 11: Great Plains Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13. Week 12: King Arthur  Week 13: Celtic Tales Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Ashliman  Week 15: Hunt I am very excited about the Celtic Tales and King Arthur. My family is Celtic, and I have always loved the legends about the Once and Future King. I think I will also enjoy seeing how fairytales such as Red Riding Hood and Snow White differ in the Grimm version versus what I know.  Celtic Triskele , said to represe...