Feminist critique of ancient myths

When Women Lead the World

9/16/2024

The US is poised to elect a woman as President and leader of the free world. There’ve been countless female rulers throughout history, many noted for fierce and effective leadership.
Today’s female leaders are accomplished innovators and role models.

However, as fellow writer and mythologist Monica Frederick points out, ancient myths of “strongman” leadership die hard. She compares Donald Trump’s racist lies about Haitian immigrants during the recent debate to the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.
“In this tale, the hero Gilgamesh seeks to kill Humbaba, a being portrayed as monstrous. However, Humbaba is ultimately just the guardian of his native land, the Cedar Forest, fulfilling the gods’ decree by staying within his domain.”
Gilgamesh casts Humbaba as a threat he must eliminate, similar to the demonizing of Native Americans in America’s so-called Westward Expansion—and Donald Trump scapegoating migrants as evil, pet-eating criminals.

Not all myths of male leadership involve creating monsters to fight.

Prometheus sacrificed himself to bring the gift of fire to humanity (or the art of forging metal in the original myth of Amirani); Jesus and the Buddha are generally considered nonviolent male deities.
There are also many real-life male leaders who rejected “strongman” bluster: Martin Luther King, Jr.; Nelson Mandela; Mahatma Gandhi.

There are also powerful myths of female leadership that offer an antidote to toxic male bullying.
For example, Hi'iaka is a Hawaiian heroine goddess who went on an epic journey to unite the volcano goddess Pele with her beloved. "During this long and dangerous trip, Hi'iaka realizes her own powers as a goddess. She is the healer of land. Pele creates new land and Hi'iaka follows by healing the land, making it fertile and causing things to grow.”
In the legend, Pele fell in love with a young chief named Lohi'au. Hi'iaka volunteered to go on the dangerous journey to retrieve him.
Hi'iaka was endowed with 'Awihikalani (a critical eye), 'Ka lima ikaika' (strength), and Pa'u uila (lightning skirt, referring to the autonomy of supernatural women in Hawai'i, who were not ruled by male gods).

Hi'iaka's journey was filled with many adventures, and she overcame numerous kupua (demons) and mo'o (monsters) of the island forests. These trials helped strengthen her resolve.
When at last Hi'iaka reached Kaua'i she found that the young chief Lohi'au had died. She revived him with chanting and prayer, but Pele, fearing that Hi'iaka had betrayed her and was keeping the handsome chief for herself, sent waves of lava at them.
Hi'iaka was unharmed, but Lohi'au was killed by the lava. Again, Hi'iaka revived him, thus bringing him back to life twice.

The Egyptian goddess Isis also models strong female leadership. Her name means “throne,” indicating her embodiment of sovereignty.
A goddess-queen since at least 3000 BCE, during the Roman Empire her worship spread from England to Afghanistan. She is still a popular goddess among modern Neopagans five thousand years later.

According to Janet and Stuart Farrar, she was known as Aset among the Egyptians. Her most famous myth involved finding and reanimating the corpse of her beloved brother-consort Osiris after he was killed and dismembered by their brother Set. Twice Set murdered Osiris and scattered his remains, and both times Isis mourned her lost love, gathered his desecrated corpse, and brought him back to life.
In this myth, Set represented the destructive desert threatening the fruitful union of the Nile River and the fertile land surrounding it. Osiris was a resurrected vegetation god, regenerated by the tears of Isis in the form of the Nile’s annual flooding.
Isis was a “compassionate motherly goddess who understood suffering from her own experience” after losing her beloved Osiris; she therefore could be counted on to answer prayers.

The myth of Isis finding and resurrecting Osiris was a core belief in Egyptian religion. Pharaohs were likened to Horus, the divine child of Isis and Osiris. The sacred journey, grief, and ultimate triumph of the goddess Isis restoring Osiris to life were celebrated in holy days during the Nile’s annual flooding.
The Book of Goddesses and Heroines describes her agonized search:
“The mourning goddess cut off her hair and tore her robes, wailing in grief.”
Elizabeth Hallam, Ph.D. says: “As divine ruler of Egypt, she introduced marriage, and taught the people to make bread, spin, weave, and cure disease. She was usually portrayed in human form, suckling the infant Horus," her son by Osiris.

Patricia Monghan’s The Goddess Companion contains lovely poetry celebrating this powerful goddess:

“It is I who made justice stronger than wealth, and I who designed penalties for evil. It is I who first created mercy, and I who metes it out. I am the queen of earth and wind and sea, queen of the thunder, queen of the sun. Only I can overcome fate. Only I can overcome death.” —Song of Isis
“The gods above adore her, the gods below adore her. She sets the heavens spinning round the pole. She lights the sun and orders all the universe.
Everything serves her: birds in the air, beasts upon the mountain, serpents in the dust, all tremble in awe of the great good goddess.” —Apelius
“Goddess, comforter, holy one, you nourish the world from your bounty. You are like our mother, turning to us whenever we are troubled. You are the only one who can untangle fate’s knotted skein, you are the only one who can disperse the storms of life and of the sky.” —Apelius

“You will be happy always, under my protection, and when your destined death comes to you, you will be happy in the afterworld as well, because you have known me. When you die, you will see another side of me: queen of death, as I am now queen of life, shining in the darkness then with a light as strong and gentle as this light which shines upon you now.” —Apelius

The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets quotes this Egyptian liturgy:
“Thou givest life unto the flocks and herds… Thou art the bringer of food, thou art the mighty one of meat and drink, and thou art the creator of all things. Thou fillest the storehouses, thou heapest high with corn the granaries, and thou has cared for the poor and needy.”
Caring for the most vulnerable and providing abundance are worthy attributes of any leader, and ones our next president will embody if we are mindful voters.

The “strongman” myth would have Isis confront and vanquish Set, a common theme typified by warrior goddesses. Instead, Isis uses her magical power to restore life.
When I watched the presidential debate (on 9/10/24), I wondered why Vice President Harris didn’t confront Donald Trump’s meanspirited lies directly. Like Hi'iaka, she used her "critical eye" to discern her opponent's weakness and like Isis, she focused on a life-affirming message of abundance and hope.
If myths of strong female leadership are to prevail this election, Vice President Harris will need to draw on the courage and perserverance of both Hi'iaki and Isis to forge her path to victory.

Justice

8/25/2024

As the US enters a supercharged political season, the goddesses Themis of Greece and Maat of Egypt provide apt guidance. Both gods personify justice, truth, and the rule of law.
Although Themis is often blindfolded in modern art, her vision was not originally constrained; instead she was armed with both scales of balance and a sword of justice.
In Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Charlene Spretnak describes Themis as “the force that binds people together. She is the collective conscience, the social imperative, the social order…she became the personification of justice and righteousness.”
The author quotes the goddess: “The young shall be fed and nurtured, protected and loved.” Worthy values, indeed.

Barbara G. Walker suggests Themis was worshiped by the Amazons of the Black sea “in the form of a black stone on their sacred island of Themyscira,” according to The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths of Secrets.

In The Book of Goddesses & Heroines, Patricia Monaghan writes: “The ‘steadfast one,’ the daughter of Gaea, [Themis was an] earth-goddess personified as an unshakable power. [The personification of] social cohesion, Themis was shown bearing a pair of scales; as the fruitful earth, she was shown holding the cornucopia….Themis ruled prophecy, for she knew human nature and the nature of human society and so could predict the outcome of any struggle.”
The Greeks worshiped Themis through group dancing, a joyful way of enhancing community cohesion.

As an oracular goddess, “she was the divine voice (themistes) who first instructed mankind in the primal laws of justice and morality, such as the precepts of piety, the rules of hospitality, good governance, conduct of assembly, and pious offerings to the gods.”

The Egyptian goddess Maat, another deity of justice, was closely associated with judgment of the dead. According to The Book of Goddesses & Heroines, “Maat had no temples but was worshiped in the rhythm of truth, wherever it was perceived.”
From another source: “Ma’at was more than just a goddess to the ancient Egyptians. She represented the crucial concept of how the universe was maintained. The ancient Egyptians believed the universe had an order to it, and it was Ma’at who kept everything in balance.”

Maat is described in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths of Secrets: “Egyptian personification of ‘Truth’ or ‘Justice,’ Maat’s symbol was the feather against which she weighed each man’s heart-soul in her underground Hall of Judgment….Maat’s laws were notably benevolent, compared to the harsh commands of later patriarchal gods.”
An Egyptian was expected to recite the following “confession” in Maat’s presence to show they had obeyed Maat’s rules of behavior in life:

I have not been a man of anger. I have done no evil to mankind. I have not inflicted pain. I have made none to weep. I have done violence to no man. I have not done harm to animals. I have not robbed the poor. I have not fouled the water. I have not trampled fields. I have not behaved with insolence. I have not judged hastily. I have not stirred up strife…. I have not born false witness. I have not stolen land. I have not cheated… I have allowed no man to suffer hunger. I have not increased my wealth except with such things as are my own possessions. I have not seized wrongfully the property of others. I have not taken milk from the mouths of babes.

I can think of at least one prominent politician who would fail many if not all of these directives!
The ancient wisdom of Maat and Themis can provide guidance for our personal lives, and help us elect wise and just rulers who respect the rule of law and "good governance."
May Justice prevail~

Fire Goddess Tabiti

6/22/2024

With a heat dome baking most of the US this Midsummer, it seems relevant to honor a solar and heat deity, the Skythian goddess Tabiti or Tapati. Her more common name, Tabiti is the Greek version of the "Scythian *Tapatī, which meant "Burning One" or "Flaming One.” Among the Indo-Iranian descendants of the Scythians, she became the fire god Agni and the Persian concept of holy fire, Atar.
The Skythians made no altars to their gods and left no written records; reconstruction of their religion is based on accounts from Greek historians and by comparing the archeological record to closely related Indo-Iranian cultures.

Tabiti was the primary god of the Scythians. She embodied “primordial fire which existed before the creation of the universe and was the basic essence and the source of all creation, and from her were born Api (Earth Mother) and Papaios (Sky Father).” Tabiti “ruled over a pantheon of seven gods, …This heptatheism was a typical feature of Indo-Iranic religions.”

According to mythologist Patrica Monaghan, Tabiti was a protective goddess, and her worshippers “sacrificed to her any who strayed into their territory.” She also held sacred oaths among the Scythians.
The Ossetians in the Greater Caucasus Mountains, descendants of the Skythians, still honor Tabiti’s sacred fire by swearing their oaths on the hearth chains used to hold cauldrons over the flames.
“As a goddess of the hearth, Tabiti was the patron of society, the state and families who protected the family and the clan.”

Tabiti was associated with a solar calendar, illustrating her role in creating and ordering the universe.
In the fictional mythology of my novel Sky God’s Warrior, she’s named Tabati, and gives rise to colorful curses by the main character, Ayda, (who was fostered among Scythians) such as, "Tabati's flaming toes!"

April’s Goddess: Aphrodite

4/3/2024

The Greek goddess of pleasure, passion, and procreation, Aphrodite (AF-rə-DY-tee), is complex and multifaceted.
In The Grandmother of Time, Zsuzsanna E. Budapest notes that the name April “is derived from Aprilis, a Roman analogue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and death.”
Budapest gives voice to Aphrodite: “I am the heat in cats and dogs. . . . I am the one who makes you sigh all night and look with longing on those who have captured your fancy. . . . I am in the air, dispensing longing and ecstasy in generous measures.” She is also “queen of all organic life.”

In Charlene Spretnak’s Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Aphrodite “drew forth the hidden promise of life.”
Her kiss brings the morning dew, attended by Graces named Flowering, Growth, Beauty, Joy, and Radiance.
Janet and Stewart Farrar describe the goddess as “erotic, beautiful, uninhibited, desirous, desirable, unpredictable, overwhelming, and single-minded.” All attributes associated with falling in love.

Aphrodite’s origin can be traced back to Mesopotamian and Semitic goddesses. According to the Farrars, Inanna of Sumeria became the Mesopotamian Ishtar in the second millennium, BCE. She then became Astarte to the Phonecians and western Semites.
Barbara G. Walker also associates Aphrodite with the ancient Semitic goddess Asherah in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Walker notes that Aphrodite was worshiped as a patron of the arts and culture in the city of Aphrodisias (Aisa Minor) until the Seljuk Turks conquered the city in the twelfth century, C.E.

According to one Greek legend, Aphrodite was born from seafoam impregnated by the dying Titan, Uranus, and floated ashore at Cyprus.
In The Book of Goddess & Heroines, Patricia Monaghan suggests this story of sea birth was “an obvious description of the journey of this Near Eastern goddess to her new home in Greece.”
Monaghan also notes: “The energy that Aphrodite represented, however humanly true, was almost incompatible with [Classical patriarchal] Greek culture. . . . In their attempt to assimilate the alien goddess, the Greeks converted Aphrodite into a personification of physical beauty.”

Aphrodite was the protective deity of the ancient city-state of Corinth. Her temple at Acrocorinth sat on a promontory overlooking the city. According to the Greek geographer, Strabo, male and female temple courtesans dedicated to Aphrodite entertained worshippers, in what Monaghan called “the Near East practice of sacramental promiscuity.” Because of this sacred prostitution, Ancient Greeks warned travelers, “The voyage to Corinth is not for everyone.”

The actual meaning and historical practice of sacred prostitution is unclear. However, that didn’t keep me from giving one of my character’s a tie to Aphrodite's temple at Acrocorinth. In Sky God’s Warrior, the Greek hero, Aietos, was given to Aphrodite’s temple as a baby (his parents were hoping to keep him hidden from lethal clan politics).

Aietos grows up expecting to become a sacred hetaira, or temple prostitute. On the eve of his dedication to Aphrodite, his uncle discovers Aietos and takes him away. The uncle dedicates Aietos to the war god Ares instead, as part of a larger political plot, and trains Aietos to become a soldier.

Celtic Fire Goddess Brigid

2/19/2024

Early February marks the second quarter on the ancient Celtic wheel of the year. It’s the quickening of the growing sunlight when ewes begin birthing lambs.
The Irish Goddess Brighid is traditionally celebrated at this time for her sacred fire, which manifests as healing, the forge of smithcraft, and the bright light of inspiration in the form of poetry.
Her Irish name is variously translated as “bright arrow” or “exalted one” and spelled Brigid, Brigit, Brighid, or Bridget.

A traditional Irish song celebrating Brigid’s Healing Fire:
“Brigid went out in the early dawn,
and saw a horse with a shattered leg.
Bone to bone she knit, flesh to flesh,
vein to vein she sewed, sinew back to sinew.”
(from The Goddess Companion)

Brigid’s Fire Craft:
“She ruled the mysteries of metalworking, an ancient art that aroused awe among early societies.
. . . The smith could use fire to transform stone (the ore-bearing rock) into metal, then shape the metal into tools and weapons.”
(from Candlemas: Feast of Flames)

Source of Poetry:
“Brigit, a female poet . . . the female sage and goddess, whom the poets venerated. It was because of this she was called 'the Poet's Goddes.' ...Brigit is from breo-aigit or fiery arrow."
Brigit supplied awen or the light of poetic inspiration to Celtic poets.
(from The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Myth and Legend and The Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology)

Straw or grass plaited into a Brigit Cross is a traditional way to honor her at the turning of the year toward spring. There’s a great video of an Irishman demonstrating step-by-step how to make a Brigit Cross.
My own efforts have never been quite so neat or symmetrical, but I enjoy the process, and try to use it as a meditative tool to reflect on what I hope to bring into the growing light.

The Celtic festival of Brigid morphed into the Christian holiday of Candlemas and the goddess Brighid became conflated with Saint Brigid of Kildare.
During Candlemas, candles are blessed in Celtic churches in honor of the baby Jesus being presented at the Jewish temple after his mother Mary’s forty-day postpartum seclusion.
Candles are also a wonderful way to chase away the darkness in the dregs of winter.

Warrior Goddesses

12/26/2023

A have a dear friend who has been exploring warrior goddesses, which prompted me to revisit my favorites:

Irish Goddess Morrigan.
The Morrigan (“Phantom Queen”) incites warriors to battle, encourages them to perform brave deeds, and incite fear in their enemies. She sings runes and chants before battle to strengthen her champions. The personification of battle fury, the Morrigan can take the form of a carrion crow and is often seen before battle washing the bloodstained clothing of those doomed to die.
The Morrigan embodies the sovereignty of the land and the power to protect it.

Norse Goddess Freyja.
Freyja is the Vanadis, ruling ancestor of the elder gods, the Vanir.
When the patriarchal Aesir gods arrived (Odin, Thor, and company), they tried to destroy Freyja. Three times they burned her as a witch, and three times she emerged unscathed. Thus Odin was forced to concede the first choice of battle dead to Valfreyja and her Valkyrie corpse-maidens. Valfreyja welcomes the dead to her Marsh-hall, to be reborn in the moist womb of the earth.
Freyja drives a chariot pulled by cats and uses a cloak of falcon feathers to fly. The namesake of Friday, she’s associated with magic and a lust for life.

Hindu Goddess Druga.
Durga (“Impassable", "Invincible”, or “Unassailable") drinks the blood of her enemies and rides a lion (or tiger) into battle. During a fierce stand-off with the demon army, the other gods handed their weapons to Durga, who was stronger than all the other gods combined. She used their weapons in her many arms to dismember and destroy the demons.
Durga’s name comes from Durg, meaning “fortress, something difficult to defeat or pass”. She is portrayed as a beautiful yellow-skinned woman who fights oppression and wickedness.

Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet.
Sekhmet (“The Powerful”) is a lion-goddess of war.
When humans rebelled against the aging sun god Ra, he sent Sekhmet to quell the uprising, but Sekhmet became uncontrollable, rampaging and slaughtering everyone. Her fury terrified the gods, who mixed 7,000 vats of pomegranate juice and beer, which she mistook for human blood. Sekhmet chugged the red beer and became too intoxicated to continue fighting.
Sekhmet breathes the hot fiery winds of the desert. She is the most frequently represented god in amulets and statues from ancient Egypt.

Mesopotamian Goddess Tiamat.
Tiamat is a primordial dragon goddess of the shining sea, who “roared and smote in the chaos of original creation.” When her children-gods killed her consort, Mother Tiamat went into battle against them. They sent a war god, Marduk, to defeat her.
In some versions of the myth, Marduk divided Tiamat into two parts, and her body became the heavens and earth. In other translations, the battle continues, with the hero Marduk swallowed every year by the water-dragon Tiamat when the spring rains arrive. More on Tiamat.

Resources: The Book of Goddesses and Heroines by Patricia Monaghan; The Enclycopedia of Amazons by Jessica Amdanda Salmonson; Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by James MacKillop; The Witches' Goddess by Janet and Stewart Farrar; The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker; and Wikipedia.

Genderqueer Gods

10/7/2023

Recent archeology reveals at least three genders in the ancient Near East (twenty percent of people were buried with both male and female grave goods).
Incorporating third-gender people and gods in my historical fantasy series creates exciting opportunities for inclusive worldbuilding. Several characters are middle-gendered shua, and the nomadic Skuda denote gender by occupation (warrior, priest, hearthkeeper), rather than physical characteristics.

In my fictional mythology of Kolkha, Bindi, is a middle-gendered god of rainbow-hued Twilight. Bindi embodies transitional, timeless, in-between states of liminality and endless possibility.
Bindi is a sibling of the bright and fierce Sun Woman and their brother Night Rider. These three divinities manifest the spiraling cycles of time and the dance of dusk/dawn, day, and night.
Bindi was inspired by third-gender gods of many world cultures.

Middle-Gender in Sumeria
The Sumerian myth, "The Creation of Man," from ~2000 BCE, lists a number of people created by the goddess Ninmah, including "the woman who cannot give birth" and "the one who has no male organ or female organ", which have been regarded as being third gender or androgynous.
The Akkadian mythical epic Atra-Hasis contains another iteration of this story, in which the sky god Enki specifically requests that Nintu create a "third-category" of third-gendered people.
Also, worship of the goddess Inanna in ancient Mesopotamia included "soothing laments" sung by third-gender priests called "gala."

Celtic Gender-Shifting
In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, based on ancient Welsh mythology, the semi-divine brothers Gwydion and Gilfaethwy (Gil-va-thu-ey) are transformed by their Uncle Math into a series of mated animal pairs: Gwydion becomes a stag for a year, Gelfaethwy a hind deer; then Gideon is a sow and his brother a boar; finally Gideon becomes a wolf, and Gilfaethwy a she-wolf.
Each year they mate and produce an offspring: a fawn, a piglet, and a wolf cub. After three years Math releases his nephews from their punishment. This myth can be regarded as a shamanistic initiation ritual for the two nephews.

Norse Myth
Some of the Norse gods were capable of changing sex at will. For example Loki, the trickster god, frequently disguised himself as a woman. In one myth, he turned himself into a mare and had sex with the stallion Svaðilfari, later giving birth to Sleipnir, an eight-legged foal.
Archeologist Brit Solli suggests that the sky god Odin's practice of women's magic may connect Odin to a shamanistic cult that viewed gender transgression as a source of power.

Greek Gender bending
Apollo, an eternal beardless youth, had the most male lovers of all the Greek gods. In spite of having no male lovers himself, the love god Eros was sometimes considered patron of pederastic love between males.
Hermaphroditus, the two-sexed child of Aphrodite and Hermes, was transformed into an hermaphrodite after being attacked by a naiad (water sprite). In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the character Caeneus changes sex.

Other Transgendered Gods
Many deities change gender, manifest as different genders at different times, or combine to form androgynous or hermaphroditic beings in Hindu mythology.
Other transgender deities include the rainbow serpent god Ungud of the Indigenous Australians, and the transgender fertility god/dess Lakapati, of pre-Christian Philippines.

Sacred Third Gender
In addition to the Sumerian gala of Inanna, the māhū ('in the middle') of Native Hawaiin and Tahitian culture, the Tongan fakaleitī, and Samoan faʻafafine are traditional third-gendered people. Transgender shamans were common in ancient Scythia (enaree), and among the Southeast Asian shamans of Indonesia (bissu), Malay (sida-sida), and Burma (nat kadaw), and the Ibak Dayak people (manang).

Exploring or imagining worlds beyond the gender binary helps me rethink the limitations of our society. The male-female gender binary is deeply ingrained in Western culture.
The first question most people ask new parents: Is it a girl or a boy? Not: How are the parents faring? Not: What stars was your child born under? Not: What destiny has the oracle foretold?
For more on queer and transgender expression, I recommend Another Mother Tongue by Judy Grahn and Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg. For an exploration of natural gender diversity read Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemil, Ph.D and Evolution’s Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden. All should be available at your local library--if not, request them!

Animism: Sacred Mythology

7/24/2023

Animism was commonplace in the ancient world, and resonates today as a means of reconnecting with our living world. The world of Kolkha (the setting of my fantasy novels-in-progress), is informed by animism as well as the more familiar historical mythology of polytheism (multiple gods).

“The color of the sky, the rush of waves--every aspect of the earthly sensuous [can] draw us into a relationship fed with curiosity and spiced with danger.” So says David Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous, his exploration of animism, oral traditions, and the philosophy of phenomenology.
He urges us “to wander and bask in the scents drifting up from the nightriver...it’s the unfathomable otherness of things--the strange perspective of an orb-weaving spider spinning the cosmos out of her abdomen; the outrageously different sentience of a humpback whale or an albatross; the complex intelligence of an old-growth forest dank with mushrooms…that makes any attentive relation with such beings a genuine form of magic”

Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life") is a religion that recognizes places and creatures as having distinct spiritual essences. The sacred oak groves of Celtic druids, the dryads and naiads of ancient Greece, Skythian gods of sky, rain, and fire--these all harken to a time when the world was experienced as a living place full of spirits.
This mystic unity with the natural world resonated in all areas of society:
Self-identity among animists is based on relationships with others. Instead of focusing on the "individual," persons are viewed through social relationships (one among many), some of which are with non-humans.

Anyone who has formed a deep friendship with a cat, dog, horse or other companion animal has experienced a non-human social relationship.
Our animist ancestors would have had similar bonds with the forests and fields, the sky and rivers, with ravens and bears, and the earth.

Rupert Sheldrake asks “If nature is alive, if the universe is more like an organism than a machine, then there must be self-organizing systems with minds at all levels, including the earth, the solar system, and the galaxy--and ultimately the entire cosmos.”
“Our direct experience of nonhuman nature can lead us beyond our limited selves to a direct connection with the more-than-human world and the more-than-human consciousness that underlies it.”

Neil Price gives a visceral description of animism in Children of Ash & Elm: A History of the Vikings:
“The Vikings…shared their world with…a whole host of beings, spirits, and creatures….The Vikings didn’t believe in these things…they knew them.”
The same is true of many oral cultures embedded in the natural world.
I strive to recreate this sacred animism in my stories, to give my readers a chance to know the magical, living world surrounding us.

Dragon Moon Origins

6/26/2023

“Dragon Moon” is one of many myths created for my novels-in-progress based on my fantasy world Kolkha.
I used my background in Anthropology and extensive reading in feminist analysis of world mythology to craft the mythological background of Kolkha. The world of Kolkha is inspired by the archeological and historical record of the ancient kingdom of Qulka (Colchis in the Greek).

The sky god Tiamar is a blend of the native Georgian sky goddess Tamar and the Mesopotamian Tiamat.
Waves of migrants from Andoulu (Anatolia) would have brought their own gods, including Tiamat, a primodial water god associated with Spring. In “Dragon Moon,” I chose to modify the myth of Tiamat and Marduk, inspired by the resilience of Tamar in Georgian myth.

For example, in one version of myth, the lightning-sky god Kopala is transformed into a smith, solidifying Tamar’s role as the premier firmament/sky and weather god.
Similarly Kukhili (Thunder) also known as Perkhili (Thunder-shaker-striker), was demoted from a sky god to become the name of Tamar’s sword.

Invading nomadic horse archers off the northern steppe likely imported their preeminent fire goddess Tabiti and their father-sky god, who also must have been absorbed by Tamar.
Tabiti plays a critical role in my third novel, which reimagines the ancient Greek myth of Medea.
More? Download my illustrated, three-page PDF outlining the imaginary mythology of Kolkha.

Formidable: Grendel’s Mother in Beowulf

4/27/2023

I recently read two very different translations of the ancient Angle-Saxon epic, Beowulf, which spurred me to do a deeper dive into the character of the antagonist Grendel’s unnamed mother.
The poem tells the story of a Nordic hero, Beowulf, who travels to Denmark to defeat the monster Grendel, who is murdering warriors of a Danish king. Beowulf wrestles Grendel bare-handed and gives him a mortal wound. The next night, Grendels’ mother kills one of the Danish king’s advisors to avenge her dead son. She is then killed the next evening by Beowulf according to the text.

Maria Dahvana Headley, in her wonderfully fresh Beowulf: A New Translation, notes that both the hero Beowulf and his nemesis Grendel are referred to by the term algaeca, usually translated as “hero” for Beowulf and “monster” when referring to Grendel--or his mother. According to Dahvana Headley, this word is “likelier to mean something akin to ‘formidable’.”
Grendel’s mother is referenced in the poem as ides, aglaec-wif, meaning “formidable noblewoman.”

Dahvana Headly says: “Grendel’s mother doesn’t behave like a monster. She behaves like a bereaved mother who happens to have a warrior’s skill.” Grendel’s mother “lives in a hall, uses weapons, is trained in combat, and follows blood-feud rules.”
In his extensive blog on Beowulf, Nicholas Zacharewicz adds that “Grendel’s mother only kicks into action once she learns that her son has been killed. So she’s plainly motivated by revenge and the sort of anguished sorrow that only a parent who loses a child can really know.”

In Grendel’s Heroic Mother, Kevin Kiernan observes that she "accepted and adhered to the heroic ethic of the blood-feud . . . exacting retribution for the death of her son. In heroic terms, her vengeance for the death of her kinsman Grendel." Blood-feud was considered an honorable exercise at the time, and would have been understood as such by the poem’s audience.

Kiernan further notes that Grendel and his mother belong to a class of people called eotens. He notes that Beowulf “destroyed a race of eotens” prior to the poem's action and was sent to Denmark as an eotenweard, a “guard against eotens.” The poem also mentions a hero Sigemund who had “slain with swords a great many races of eotens.” This suggests underlying racism driving the poem’s storyline.

I can’t help but wonder if Grendel and his mother, relegated to the fens and bogs on the outskirts of the Danish king’s land, were in fact the original inhabitants--demonized by their conquerors in the all-too-familiar trope of colonialism. Viewed through this lens, the actions of both Grendel and his mother against their oppressors become sympathetic--and their defeat at the hands of Beowulf (the true monster of the tale?) become tragic rather than easily justifiable.

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