I’d say so. I thought of David when writing the OP: specficially the Absalom cycle. I can’t think of any reasonable definition of myth that includes Homer but excludes the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Acts. And possibly Revelation.
Anyone who mentions Star Wars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer shall of course be beaten with a cudgel.
I would have suggested using the jawbone of a Fox programming director.
Fool of a Philistine! Those are too small to do any damage.
Honestly, did you pay ANY attention in that Disproportionate Vengeance class RhE paid for last summer, or were you just hitting on hot chicks and running up your expense account?
Since the Bible is in, and the stories about David accepted for all their lurid awesomeness, I’d like to recommend Joseph Heller’s God Knows as an excellent retelling of the Bible myths concerning David. That novel never seems to get the press of Catch-22, but I actually like it better.
There was a Christmas pageant on an episode of Northern Exposure that told the tale of how the Raven brought light to the world. A chief kept the sun hidden for himself. The Raven transformed into a pine needle and floated on the water, and the chief’s daughter drank the water and the pine needle. She became pregnant (with the Raven disguised) and gave birth to a child who cried so much that the chief gave him the ball of sun to play with. The child transformed into the Raven, grabbed the sun and took it up into the sky, and the people of the world were no longer in darkness…I so remember this episode, Marilyn was in Native American regalia and danced, looking absolutely regal, it was so beautiful I was in tears.
God Knows is my favorite of all of Heller’s work. It’s the most human version of David I’ve ever come across.
I’m partial to the Chinese legend of theWeaver girl and the Cowherd. It’s charming and delightfully romantic and the idea that the two lovers end up so they are immortal but can only see each other one day a year is the heart of drama.
Prometheus was a god, not a man. Specifically one of the Titans, the elder generation of gods (who weren’t giants, by the way, people who claim they were are not your friends).
Probably not a surprise, but this is the one I was going to post about.
If the Bible is fair game, then I nominate Judges 3:12-30, the story of Ehud, the badass left-handed judge of Israel versus Eglon, the Huttesque king of Moab. It’s got Hollywood-style one-liners as the hero offs the bad guy–“I have a message from God for you”–clueless bodyguards who’re afraid to disturb the king because they think he might be “on the throne”, if you know what I mean (“Uhhh–I dunno–Did he take the sports section from *Moab Today *with him?”) (not to mention they presumably missed finding Ehud’s weapon 'cause it was on the wrong side of his body :smack:)–fun little details like Ehud leaving the weapon, because it kind of gets hung up in the bad guy’s belly fat, plus of course the king’s bowels void. If they ever make a truly epic mini-series of Everything in the Bible, I nominate Quentin Tarantino to direct Episode CCLXXXVIII: Ehud Strikes Back.
I’m rather fond of the story of Lugh:
I’ve always found the story of Count Arnau interesting. A few years back I realized it may be yet another leftover of Herne/Cernunos (the name sounds very similar to Herne and it’s a “dread hunter” type). Google finds a wiki article and a bunch of references, but as it often happens with legends it’s got as many versions as tellers.
In tl:dr form, the version I was told as a child was that this count was a very nasty, independent feudal lord, the Count of Ripollés. He enjoyed spending his time forcing women, hunting anything that moved including travellers and his own people, and generally being a sonabitch (with my apologies to dogs). At one point he was leaving on a hunt and his wife tried to stop him; he hit her so hard that she fell down and hit her head on the stairs, dying.
When he died, he was told that he could not get into Heaven for his sins, but that his wife’s love was barring him entrance to Hell as well*. Thus, he goes on hunting for eternity… on stormy nights, he haunts his former lands on a devil horse with hoofs of fire, following devil hounds of fiery eyes and mouths, who search for the scent of those stupid enough to walk out at such a time.
I’ve long thought there’s great potential to make a movie about Maui, in a slick, dazzling “we’re dealing with Gods here” level, twisting the myths together into a single epic adventure.
That’s the one I mentioned, that Bridge of Birds is based on (with some alterations).
That book is one of my favourite fantasy novels of all time.
And so Hasan, the prodigal son returned to his home town and saw a mother talking to her little son. The son asked his mother, “How old am I now, mother?” The mother pondered and said, “You must be nearly nine years old, my son.” After all, you were born not quite a year after Hasan’s Fart!:o
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a big fan of mythology. If we’re leaving out Greco/Roman and Norse, I’ll go with the story of Baba Yaga.
Baba Yaga is a bony legged, bearded, iron toothed old hag. She is in many ways the very spirit of the land. She eats humans who wander into her forest. But she cannot harm those who are honest and pure of heart. Behind a gate made from the bones of her victims is her hut, which stands on giant chicken’s legs.
Generally, if one meets her one can hope to get something if they are entertaining. Their may be no way to kill her. In the classic tales, the hero or heroine receives aid from a third party due to a good deed, or escapes due to a blessing given by a loved one.
Well researched versions of Baba Yaga appear in Time Life’s Enchanted World series, in several Hellboy miniseries (Minor spoiler, HB shoots Baba Yaga in her left eye. For the next year, a hundred miles around, every baby born is blind in that eye).
Versions of Baba Yaga have appeared in the latest incarnation of Scooby Doo, and Syfy’s Lost Girl.
Toy Vault made (and I bought) a plush hut on chicken legs and a Baba Yaga. The toy line Monster In My Pocket had a Baba Yaga figurine- a wart covered naked ogress riding in a flying cauldron. White Wolf made Baba Yaga a VERY important figure in their old World Of Darkness games. Their are several Dungeons & Dragons adventures set in her hut. Sierra Online’s Quest For Glory series of computer games has her in several episodes.
Oh, as I learned when I moved to neighborhood full of ex Soviets (and as they got right on Lost Girl) the proper pronunciation is Baba yih GAH
I am partial to the Chinese creation myth of Pan Ku.
Briefly: In the beginning there was a giant egg. The dwarf Pan Ku broke out of it and commenced chipping away at the shell, taking ten thousand years to complete his masterpiece. Then he dropped dead from exhaustion. The white carved shell became the moon while Pan Ku’s corpse became the earth; the hairs on his body became trees and plants, the bones became stone, the skin became dirt, his blood and veins became rivers and the parasites on his body became the animals of the world, including man.
I like it because it has such a contrast to most creation myths, which give man some kind of an exalted central role. The myth of Pan Ku makes the existence of earth and its flora and fauna a byproduct of something bigger.
I like the corollary to the myth of Amaterasu (Japanese goddess of the sun) having to be coaxed from a cave: She shut herself into the cave because her brother Susanowo (god of storms) broke her loom. Susanowo was banished and went to earth, where he walked along a river and met an elderly couple grieving because they had to sacrifice their last daughter to an eight-headed dragon. He told them to make eight tubs of sake and then set their daughter on a rock with the eight tubs around her. On a moonlit night, as predicted, the dragon came. As it approached it saw the sacrificial girl’s face reflected on the surface of the eight tubs of sake and eagerly drank up her beauty (with the Sake) and fell unconscious. Susanowo came out of hiding and chopped its eight heads off, then decided to be especially thorough and chop the beast into chunks no longer than a foot (roughly). When he cut into one of the eight tails, he was surprised to hit metal. He split that tail open and found a curved sword, which he gave to his sister, Amaterasu, to apologize for his mischief.
Amaterasu eventually gave that sword to Jimmu Tenno, the first emperor of Japan, along with a mirror and a jewel. They have been passed down along the same family line ever since. Imperial Regalia of Japan - Wikipedia
The Grateful Crane and the Dancing Kettle are more out of the realm of Japanese Folklore, rather than mythology (usually no shrines or particular deities involved nor explanations of natural or cosmic phenomena; just tales to convey mores and values, superstitions or refutations thereof). As a child I had several books of Japanese folklore, including the Dancing Kettle, the Grateful Crane, and a dozens more. I once told my wife the tale of the “Old Man of the Flowers.” This version is shortened:
A kindly old man and his wife lived in a small village. They had no children, but the old man found a stray puppy that was all white and they named it Shiro (white) and took care of it.
One day, the man was clearing a path of snow out of his garden so he could reach the street, Shiro followed him around, then suddenly began barking and pawing at the ground. The old man got a shovel and dug where the dog was pawing, and discovered a bucket-full of gold coins.
The neighbor heard about this, and asked to borrow the dog. He dragged Shiro around his yard, commanding him to find treasure and getting more and more angry as time wore on. Finally, when the dog barked and pawed in fear, he dug where the dog indicated and discovered a pile of rocks. With his anger at its peak, he struck the dog with the shovel and killed it.
The kindly old man learned that his dog was dead and asked for the corpse, then took it home and cremated it in the fireplace. Then he scooped out the ashes and took them to the garden to make a burial plot. A gust of winter wind blew through the garden and whipped up some of the ashes, which floated out and got caught on a cherry tree. Wherever the ashes touched the tree, cherry blossoms immediately sprouted. The kindly old man thought that was fantastic and, being kindly, took the box of ashes to the center of town and threw handfuls into the air. Again, wherever the ashes touched a tree, beautiful pink cherry blossoms would sprout. The local lord saw the old man making the trees bloom in mid-winter and rewarded him with a bucket of gold.
The greedy neighbor heard about this and scooped out the last few bits of ash from his neighbor’s hearth. Then he went to the town center, waited for the local lord to pass by on his regular evening walk, and started throwing ashes into the air. The chilly winter wind caught the ashes and whipped them up. They splattered the streets and smudged walls, they stained people’s clothing and blew into the face of the local lord and his guards to sting their eyes… The local lord understood the neighbor’s motivations, accused him of impersonating the kindly old man, and threw him in jail for causing a public nuisance.
My wife liked that story so much, she named our dog Shiro.
The folk tale of John Henry is considered to be based on a real life person, and it’s well known among folk singers. I learned the tale in the music section of my fifth grade [The teacher couldn’t play an instrument, so he played records with folk music and handed out songbooks for us to follow along.] Bruce Springsteen does a great rendition of the Ballad of John Henry. [Look on YouTube for “Bruce Springsteen & The Seeger Sessions Band: John Henry” from 2006]
–G!
Legends are born. Myths are created. Folktales evolve.
I’ve got a couple of collections of fables from Eastern European Jews, and I am fond of the writings of the Sufi wise man/funny man Nasrudin.