This is a Basque tale that echoes the tale of Dante and Beatrice somewhat, albeit with a much happier ending…
Category: myth
La Loteria…
I’ve just randomly discovered that those eerie images one sees on Downtown area folkart matchbooks and wooden ladder games does indeed have a history…You know, the images of “The Mermaid” and “El Diablo” and “El Corazon?” The official name is Loteria and it’s yet another example of wild and uncultivated mythology echoing Appalachian English Folk Songs or the African pantheons in Santeria
Loteria is one among many semi-ancient traditions still alive in Mexico by way of long journeys through history, migration and traditional lore. It is part Tarot, part “bingo” game and part esoteric mystery cult. The cards are the symbolic answers to riddles or rather the question to each answer, like a Jeapordy game hosted by the Sphynx…
A guide to Loteria Riddles
Examples:
“The Blanket of the Poor” equals The Sun
“He that sang to St. Peter will not return to sing again” is The Rooster
There’s not a lot out on the web re the deeper meaning of all this, but being who I am I am of course about to go all Robert Graves on it and traverse the wilds of the electronic frontier to delve into the history and meaning of it all. Armchair Mythologists of the world unite and take over…
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Currently listening : In the Aeroplane Over the Sea By Neutral Milk Hotel Release date: 1998-02-10  |
The Picts
The Picts were the early inhabitants of Scotland, so called “barbarian” tribes who often skirmished with the Celtic Britons living to the south of them, sometimes living on the spoils of their attacks. Little historic documentation is available regarding them, as Scotland gradually became Celticized itself. The only text left to us by the Picts is their king-list, which gives the names and the lengths of the reigns of 60 or more Pictish kings. The list ends with Causantin mac Cinaeda, who died in 876. The only other written source from around the “Arthurian” era is Adomnan’s Life of Columba. The terms “Picts” and “Pictland” were used in speaking of the inhabitants and the area up until 900, when the country began to be called “Alba.”
The Picts had a warrior society, “and warlords needed strongholds. When St. Columba visited the Pictish king, Bridei, son of Maelchon, in 565, he went to one of the royal fortresses; it was ‘near the river Ness’ and the most widely accepted identification is Castle Urguhart on Loch Ness… where the medieval castle overlies earlier occupation…” (Nicoll 23) Several Pictish forts have been excavated, revealing that the warlords lived in style, wearing great silver chains and beautiful jewelry. A Pict’s life was not altogether different than that of his southern Celtic neighbors; they all spoke a very similar language, as the Pictish language is convincingly argued to have been Preceltic or Brithonic.
Minimal archaeological evidence exists though some survives in the form of uncovered Pictish treasure hoards. Brooches and dress-pins have been found, as well as small painted stones used as charms. An absence of valuables in Pictish grave sites, may imply that the Picts did not believe in a physical afterlife. Some oral traditions claim that Pictish deities were later mythologized as “Pixies” and faeries and that many Scottish folk traditions derive from Pictish belief. Since there is little physical evidence, it is hard to prove or disprove this line of thought. Most modern day Scots have at least some Pictish blood in them, and it’s very possible that they may carry with them some Pictish wisdom as well.
For more information and speculation, see the following sites:“The Pictish Papers” and “Pictish Nation”.
Dangerous Needlework
A tale of Mary Queen Of Scots…
Happy Celtic New Year
may the wheel of the year spin brightly this time around.
Even Japanese mythology is bizarre…
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Once upon a time there was a monk who was in service to a high priest. He
was married and had children.
One summer day, this man accompanied his master to Mii temple. It was a hot
day and he was sleepy so he took a nap in a hidden corner in the hall of the
temple. He had a dream and in his dream he was visited by a beautiful woman.
They made love in the dream and the sensation was so vivid and intense that
he climaxed in ecstasy.
When he awoke he found a large snake laying by his side. His own clothes
were wet with his ejaculation but he was astonished to see the snake lying
dead with its mouth wide open. He was even more shocked to see his semen in
the mouth of the snake. He had been making love with this snake in his dream
and the snake had choked and died afterwards.
The man was afraid and secretly washed himself. He wanted to tell others of
the strange thing that had happened to him, but refrained for fear of
damaging his reputation. He became sick for a while, but nothing else came
of it.
Be careful where you sleep, if others are not around!
Corbid’s Blog: http://members.cox.net/corbid/exponentialdetritus.html
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Slave House
When I was ten, visiting the ancestral familial stomping grounds of the Southern Illinois-Kentucky border, I was taking to visit the following “tourist attraction.” I don’t know if it’s haunted or not. I just know the horror of it is absolutely chilling. The absolute worst of what mankind can inflict on mankind. The stalls where they lived were dark and cold and had no room to sit or lay down – they slept standing. They were bred like horses. Anyone who can walk into that place and not feel crushing sadness and horror and guilt at being part of a species who could do this to itself is an inhuman monster indeed.
Old Slave House: Cries, whimpers of a haunted past
Oct 30 2001 12:00AM By
By MARY KAYE DAVIS Register-News
ALTON – Troy Taylor, president of the American Ghost Society, says one of his favorite haunted spots in Illinois is Hickory Hill – better known to many Southern Illinois residents as the Old Slave House. The Slave House closed to the public in 1996 and has been purchased by the state of Illinois. Plans call for the home to open as a state historic site in the near future. Hickory Hill was built in 1842 by John Hart Crenshaw. In those days, it was illegal to own slaves in Illinois, but because it was so difficult to find anyone to work the brutal salt mines of Saline County, it was allowed that slaves could be leased from other states to work in Illinois, according to information from Taylor. Crenshaw owned several salt tracts and began to put slaves to work. He initiated a scheme that would bring him more money than the salt mines could offer, devising a plan to kidnap free blacks and put them to work in the salt mines. He also sold the free blacks back to slave owners in the South, creating a reverse “underground railroad,” Taylor said. When the house was completed, Crenshaw added a few touches, such as having a carriage door that opened directly in the house so slaves could be taken up a secret passage directly to the attic. The slaves were kept In the attic at night and, some say, subjected to brutal torture. According to the stories, there was also an underground tunnel that led from the basement to the river, where slaves could be loaded at night. Crenshaw devised another plan, historians say. He wanted to create slaves of his own, so he selected a slave for his size and stamina, then had the man breed more slaves. This man, known as Uncle Bob, was said to have fathered as many as 300 children. He lived until age 112, dying in 1948. Taylor describes the attic at Hickory Hill as a chamber of horrors. A dozen small cells had bars on the windows and contained iron rings where shackles could be bolted to the floors. The air was stifling because there was only a small window at each end of the attic; a whipping post was also located there. In 1842, Crenshaw was brought to trial for selling a free family into slavery, but the case couldn’t be proven until after the trial was over. Crenshaw’s slave-trading days were over, however. He died in 1871. Many years later, Crenshaw’s house was opened as a tourist attraction, and tourists reported hearing strange noises coming from the attic – noises which sounded like cries and whimpers, along with rattling chains. An “exorcist” from Benton, Hickman Whittington, wrote an article about the house in the local newspaper. Whittington was in perfect health when he visited the mansion, but later in the evening he fell violently ill, dying hours later. As the years passed, no one would dare spend a night in the house’s attic, but in the late 1960s, two soldiers who saw action in Vietnam ran screaming from the house, reportedly after being surrounded by ghostly shapes. The owner refused to let any more visitors in the home after dark, but in 1978 he relented and let a Harrisburg reporter named David Rodgers spend the night. Despite hearing a lot of strange noises, Rodgers beat out 150 previous challengers to become the first to brave the night in the attic. Taylor said he’d asked a former owner if he believes the house is haunted. The former owner said he’d never encountered a ghost in the home, but his wife hadn’t been so lucky. And she refused to set foot in the former slaves’ quarters.
In honor of “Little Phil”
Lizzie. please print this or pass on this link to your lovely niece.
The price of which is that she promise to read Edith Hamilton’s
In fact, if the rest of you would read the frigging thing, I wouldn’t have to explain this shite to you all the time, you’d just understand…
Mythology isn’t “old and boring and out of date.” It’s a context. It’s a frame of reference. It’s Jung as opposed to Freud, Dream as opposed to Dogma. Symbolism to complement science. It’s the Independent Cinema of the ancient world, for prechrist’s sake.
Don’t limit yourself, man. A little Classical mythology and a little Shakespeare never killed anyone, eh? Don’t you wish you could say the same with that bloodthirsty gorefest of a bible?
King Wenceslas
“Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.”
You’re probably familiar with this old Christmas carol. But did you know that Wenceslas was a real person? He was born into the royal Premysl or Przemyslid dynasty of Bohemia (located in what is now the Czech Republic).
According to legend, the original Premysl was a plowman who married a Bohemian princess named Libuse or Libussa during the 8th century. Their descendants eventually united the warring tribes of Bohemia into one duchy. The first known Premysl ruler was Wenceslas’s grandfather, Duke Borivoy I, who made Prague Castle the family seat. He married a Slav princess named Ludmila, and both eventually became Christians. Borivoy and Ludmila tried to convert all of Bohemia to Christianity, but failed. When Borivoy died he was succeeded by his sons, Ratislav and Spythinev. Ratislav was Wenceslas’s father.
Wenceslas was born around 907 in the castle of Stochov near Prague. The castle is gone now, but there is still an oak tree there that was supposedly planted by Ludmila when Wenceslas was born. His nannies watered the tree with his bath water, which supposedly made the tree strong. The church Wenceslas attended also exists today.
At first Wenceslas was raised by his grandmother, Ludmila. Then, when he was about 13 years old, his father died. Wenceslas succeeded him as duke. But because he was too young to rule, his mother, Drahomira, became regent. Drahomira was opposed to Christianity and used her new power to persecute followers of the religion. She refused to let Wenceslas see Ludmila because she was afraid they would scheme to overthrow her. Not long after Ratislav’s death, Ludmila was murdered at Tetin Castle — strangled, it is said, at Drahomira’s command. After her death Ludmila was revered as a saint.
But the loss of his grandmother did not stop Wenceslas from seizing power. At the age of 18 he overthrew his mother’s regency, just as she had feared, and began to rule for himself. A stern but fair monarch, he stopped the persecution of priests and tamed the rebellious nobility. He was known for his kindness to the poor, as depicted in later verses of the carol. He was especially charitable to children, helping young orphans and slaves.
Many of the Bohemian nobles resented Wenceslas’s attempts to spread Christianity, and were displeased when he swore allegiance to the king of Germany, Henry I. The duke’s most deadly enemy proved to be his own brother, Boleslav, who joined the nobles who were plotting his brother’s assassination. He invited Wenceslas to a religious festival and then attacked him on his way to mass. As the two were struggling, Boleslav’s supporters jumped in and murdered Wenceslas.
“Good King” Wenceslas died on September 20, 929. He was in his early twenties and had ruled Bohemia for five years. Today he is remembered as the patron saint of the Czech Republic.
The words to the carol “Good King Wenceslas” were written by John Mason Neale and first published in 1853. The music is from a 13th century song called “Tempus Adest Floridum,” or “Spring Has Unwrapped Her Flowers.” The music was first published in written form in Finland in 1582 as part of a collection of songs called Piae Cantiones. It is also used for another carol, “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child.” And in case you’re wondering, the Feast of Stephen is celebrated on December 26 — the day after Christmas.
This article was first published at Suite101.com.
� Copyright 2001-2003 by Cinderella.
All rights reserved.
Thetis, Mother of Achilles
by James Hunter
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Thetis was one of the Nereids. Zeus desired her, but she rejected his advances. The goddess Themis then revealed that Thetis was fated to bear a son who was mightier than his father; fearing for his dominion, Zeus gave Thetis as bride to a mortal, Peleus, and all the gods attended the wedding.
Thetis bore one son, Achilles, whom she tried unsuccessfully to make immortal. In one version of the story, she anointed the infant’s body with ambrosia and then placed it upon a fire in order to burn away the mortal parts; when she was interrupted by the child’s horrified father, she deserted their household in a rage. In a later version, she dipped the child in the river Styx holding him by the heel; all the parts that the river touched became invulnerable, but the heel remained dry. Achilles was later killed in the Trojan war.
Related information
Pronunciation
{thee’-tis}
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