Mythology Blog Fall 2019

Herakles, the man that became a greek god. Image from:  https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/hercules For the extra credit reading this week, I watched the videos over the ancient Mediterranean. I learned a lot from these videos. I was familiar with some of the myths that were told in the videos but the video helped me look at them from a new perspective. The one that really to opened my eyes the most was the one where they started talking about how not all gods are created with the intent of explaining natural phenomenon, rather some of them are created to explain human nature. I had never really thought about this but as the video progressed and continued to talk about the greek gods it all made sense.  The greek gods weren't perfect, they were actually quite a ways from perfect, but that made the gods seem less distant and more relatable. The stories of the gods and their defects provide great examples of what not to do. What the gods struggled with were th...

I really do enjoy these stories. So simple and different. The one about the king chameleon was funny, the poor guy ended up all alone. I'm also glad they stopped talking about Mr. Spider. The one about how mushrooms were created was also really funny. The debt just kept transferring over and over. I really like how these stories end. If I was to write one, I would hope to imitate the unexpected ending ones. Some weird looking mushrooms: Link Today's stories were from:  https://archive.org/details/westafricanfolkt00barkrich/page/n8 West African Folktales  by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

I think these spiders are so cute. This is how I imagine Anansi. Picture from: Link This week's stories were fascinating. I really enjoyed them. Usually, when I think about creation stories, I think of these super intricate and highly detailed stories. These were short and sweet and often didn't end the way I expected them too. I wasn't a big fan of the spider, that guy was a real jerk hiding food from his own family. He was so selfish, I assume that's why his stories are an excellent way to teach lessons about generosity and kindness. The son seemed like a fascinating character. He was just as intelligent as his dad, yet he only ever used it to teach his father a lesson when he was selfish. These stories had a really interesting father-son dynamic. My favorite one was "Anansi and Nothing" I think it demonstrated a very important lesson and ended in a way I could have never imagined. It explained why little kids cry. This really caught me off guard and...