Read the other Great Myths here from the Prose Edda: Then spoke Gangleri: ‘What information is there to be given about Ragnarok? I have not heard tell of this before.’ High said: ‘There are many important things to be told about it. First of all that a winter will come called fimbul-winter [mighty or…
Tag: comparative religion
The Great Myths #61: Thor Goes Fishing for the World Serpent (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here Thor went out across Midgard having assumed the appearance of a young boy, and arrived one evening at nightfall at a certain giant’s; his name was Hymir. Thor stayed there as a guest for the night. And at dawn Hymir got up and dressed and got ready to row…
The Great Myths #59: Odin Talks About Valhalla (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here Then spoke Gangleri: “You say that all those men that have fallen in battle since the beginning of the world have now come to Odin in Val-hall. What has he got to offer them for food? 1 should have thought that there must be a pretty large number there.”…
The Great Myths #58: The Love Story of Freyr & the Giantess Gerd (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here [High said:]“There was someone called Gymir, and his wife Aurboda. She was of the race of mountain-giants. Gerd is their daughter, the most beautiful of all women. It happened one day that Freyr had gone into Hlidskialf and was looking over all worlds, and when he looked to the…
Understanding Religion
I’d been interested in religion and mythology long before 2004, when I first read this opening page of Mircea Eliade’s History of Religious Ideas. But from that day until now I have still not come across so brief and powerful a statement about why the study of religion is important, whether for scholars or believers,…
The Great Myths #47: Sacred Language & the Limitation of Words (Taoism)
Two chapters from the Tao Te Ching, and each in three different translations, on the limitations of even the best words: Tao Te Ching #70 My sayings are very easy to recognize, and very easy to apply. But no one in the world can recognize them, and no one can apply them. Sayings have a…
The Great Myths #46: Sacred Language & Homer’s Poets (Greek)
Here are two passages from Homer’s Odyssey featuring the common household bard of prehistoric Greece. The first poet, the description of which probably lent to the legend that Homer himself was blind, performs stories of the Trojan war before a disguised Odysseus, bringing him to tears. The second is the bard at Odysseus’ own home…
The Great Myths #45: Sacred Language Creates the World (Jewish)
Four stories from the great Jewish tradition of the sacredness of the Torah, of Hebrew, and of the letters of the alphabet themselves: Creation by Word In the beginning a word was spoken by the mouth of God, and the heavens and the earth came into being, as it is said, By the word of…
The Great Myths #44: Sacred Language & Two Hymns to Speech (Hindu)
Rig Veda 10:71: The Origins of Sacred Speech Bṛhaspati! When they set in motion the first beginning of speech, giving names, their most pure and perfectly guarded secret was revealed through love. When the wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve, then friends recognized their…
The Great Myths #43 Sacred Language & the Story of Gwion Bach & Taliesin (Welsh)
One of the longer myths I’ll post here, the following story is well worth it, and is indeed a master-class in mythology and folklore. Containing shape-changes, chase scenes, mysterious births, borrowed identities, and competitions of all kinds, it is in the best sense a holy mess, including its sudden and (to us) perhaps unsatisfying ending….
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