Read the other Great Myths Here Just before his death, Gilgamesh’s friend Enkidu dreams of the Underworld. While what remains of the story is fragmentary, it is remarkable in part for being one of the earliest descriptions in literature of an Underworld. In this case, it is less a place of punishment than one of eternal boredom and gathering dust. […]
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, or for those who are […]
Read the other Great Myths Here In an immensely moving scene, after traveling to the underworld, Aeneas encounters his deceased father there: But in the deep of a green valley, father Anchises, lost in thought, was studying the souls of all his sons to come – though now imprisoned, destined for the upper light. And as it happened, he was […]
Read the other Great Myths Here Here are a handful of translations of verses 138-145 of the Hávamál, found in the Poetic or Elder Edda. The Hávamál is a loose collection of sayings and advice – at times cryptic and at times playful – all attributed to Odin. Among the more cryptic parts, these verses detail Odin’s self-sacrifice upon “that […]
From Kafka’s novel The Trial: Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. A man from the country comes to this doorkeeper and requests admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he can’t grant him admittance now. The man thinks it over and then asks if he’ll be allowed to enter later. “It’s possible,” says the doorkeeper, “but not now.” […]
If forced to choose a favorite short poem of mine, one that brings together nearly everything I’m interested in, it would have to be this one: Fire Houses All the old stories have their fire houses: hostels, banqueting halls, stopping places, some leading to the Otherworld, some made of iron, and all of them set afire, mansions made into ovens, […]
Here’s one of my favorite bits from the Hindu Upanishads, chapters three and four from the Kena Upanishad. The goddess Una takes the male gods to school: Brahman, according to the story, obtained a victory for the gods; and by that victory of Brahman the gods became elated. They said to themselves: “Verily, this victory is ours; verily, this […]
The Sun Sets into the Sea The sun sets into the sea with a hiss and rises with the sound of a driven wheel, the creak of speaking stone, metal and wood. The sun sets into the sea to simmer and rises with the sound of stretched leather and the song of the horse’s chain and bit. The […]
The Making of an Irish Goddess Ceres went to hell with no sense of time. When she looked back all that she could see was the arteries of silver in the rock, the diligence of rivers always at one level, wheat at one height, leaves of a single colour, the same distance in the usual light; a seasonless, unscarred earth. […]
Daedalus & Icarus The old craftsman came to Cumae after a long life of art and flight, love and theft, came alone to the Sibyl’s Italian shore wasted with age and reputation to the one who knew every alphabet, the seeress who saw the future in driven leaves: and warped with the same old age as him, she asked that […]
Those Images What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and wind. I never bade you go To Moscow or to Rome. Renounce that drudgery, Call the Muses home. Seek those images That constitute the wild, The lion and the virgin, The harlot and the child. Find in middle air An […]
Odin & Baldr The High One heard the lowest prophecy: already riddled with the worst of dreams, his boy Baldr would be killed by his brother. And worse: another brother would avenge him, family hacking down family. And worse: these murders would lead to the end, to three winters of war and three more years of only winter, and all […]
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 source, events have a leader. […]
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 in Ithaca. Following the slaughter […]
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 Yahweh the heavens were made […]
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 friendships. A good sign was […]
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. The story also bears all […]
A brother of the monastery is found to possess God’s gift of poetry [A. D. 680] In this monastery of Streanaeshalch lived a brother singularly gifted by God’s grace. So skilful was he in composing religious and devotional songs that, when any passage of Scripture was explained by interpreters, he could quickly turn it into delightful and moving poetry in […]
…And Aegir went on: “How did this craft that you call poetry originate?” Bragi replied: “The origin of it was that the gods had a dispute with the people called Vanir, and they appointed a peace-conference and made a truce by this procedure, that both sides went up to a vat and spat their spittle into it. But when they […]
One of the greatest stories of a person “living in nature” becoming “civilized” is perhaps the earliest one. Also here is an intense ambivalence towards the role of women in civilization, as well as the gifts of urban life, such as bread and beer. By the time Enkidu encounters all of them, something has certainly been gained; but it’s clear […]
After the Cheyenne had received their corn, and while they were still in the north, a young man and woman of the tribe were married. The woman became pregnant and carried her child in the womb for four years. The people watched with great interest to see what would happen, and when the woman gave birth to a beautiful boy […]
Two bits of old Norse, first poetry & then prose, on the death of Odin’s son, Baldr: All at once the gods were gathered, and all the goddesses came to speak, the mighty deities had a discussion, why Baldr’s dreams were foreboding. Odin rose up, the ancient sacrifice, and on the Sleipnir placed a saddle; he rode down from there […]
But Daedalus was weary; by this time, he’d been exiled in Crete too long; he pined for his own land; but he was blocked – the sea stood in his way. “Though Minos bars escape by land or waves,” he said, “I still can take the sky – there lies my path. Though he owns all, he does not own […]
The sad early life of Parzival is narrated here. His father having died while out on crusade, his mother, Herzeloyde, tries to keep all knowledge of knighthood from her Parzival’s awareness. She retreats to the woods with a small retinue, and of course all of her attempts are in vain. This lady [Herzeloyde] quick to sorrow withdrew from her […]
With June finally done and the rush of bringing out two books behind me, let me thank everyone who has purchased copies. There are still a few of each book left from my initial batch; if anyone is interested, I’m selling them myself much cheaper than Amazon etc., & they will be signed. If you would like a review copy […]
My poetry collection Bone Antler Stone—a panorama of ancient Europe from the painted caves of Lascaux to contact with Greece and Rome—comes out on Thursday. You can order it here. Here’s an essay on how it came to be written: The poems of Bone Antler Stone go way back, as a book about ancient history probably should. My way in […]
One of the great characters in Greek myth who never actually speaks is Astyanax, the son of Hector and the grandson of the king and queen of Troy. Below are two stories: he first appears in the Iliad as an infant, terrified when he sees his father in full armor, in one of the great scenes in all of Classical […]
As usual with such stories, childhood is synonymous with the dangers of being children: The Swahili version of a very popular story runs as follows: Some girls had gone down to the beach to gather shells. One of them picked up a specially fine cowry, which she was afraid of losing, and so laid it down on a rock till […]
When Culand the smith offered Conchubur his hospitality, he said that a large host should not come, for the feast would be the fruit not of lands and possessions but of his tongs and his two hands. Conchubur went with fifty of his oldest and most illustrious heroes in their chariots. First, however, he visited the playing field, for it […]
While always a political poet in some way, Yeats shows at the end of his life where his priorities were, essentially with love & the occult. & amazing too to see how his use of rhyme, which went from the glittering ornamentation of his youth to the simplicity of these poems, is always stunning: Those Images What if I […]
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:1-6: When this boy, Jesus, was five years old, he was playing at the ford of a rushing stream. He was collecting the flowing water into ponds and made the water instantly pure. He did this with a single command. He then made soft clay and shaped it into twelve sparrows. He did this on […]
One day when Rāma and the other little sons of the cowherds were playing, they reported to his mother, “Kṛṣṇa has eaten dirt.” Yaśodā took Krishna by the hand and scolded him, for his own good, and she said to him, seeing that his eyes were bewildered with fear, “Naughty boy, why have you secretly eaten dirt?” Kṛṣṇa said, “Mother, […]
autographed copies of To the House of the Sun are always available directly from the publisher at 40% off (includes shipping), by clicking here SELRES_1bdcfa3c-300a-48ef-b10e-893100acd61SELRES_1bdcfa3c-300a-48ef-b10e-893100acd& the mountain I ascended came from heaven: & the rock I walked on broke away once long ago from the vault of heaven— & so as I walked, I was walking on heaven: & […]
The story of the Holy Grail’s appearance to a young man named Perceval/Parzival/Parsifal, is told in many places, and goes something like this: he comes by chance upon the Grail Castle, and is introduced to a wounded man, the Fisher King; during a feast that night, the Grail appears, and if only Parzival would ask a human question of his […]
The poet/shaman Väinämöinen, in need of new poems and spells in order to build a boat, goes through an ordeal within the belly of a giant, the keeper of those stories. Here, the giant/ogre figure is more primordial and wise and not simply uncivilized and destructive: Steady old Väinämöinen when he got not words from Tuonela’s dwellings, from the Dead […]
Odysseus and friends land on the island “of the lawless outrageous Cyclopes,” one-eyed giants who know nothing of planting and harvesting, and who live in caves. They find their way to one of these caves: Lightly we made our way to the cave, but we did not find him there, he was off herding on the range with his fat […]
From the Miwok tribe of California, who are now “practically extinct”: Bear’s sister-in-law, Deer, had two beautiful fawn daughters. Bear was a horrible, wicked woman, and she wanted the fawns for herself. So this is what she did. One day she invited Deer to accompany her when she went to pick clover. The two fawns remained at home. While resting […]
What is the reason for gold being called otter-payment? It is said that when the Aesir went to explore the whole world – Odin and Loki and Haenir – they came to a certain river and went along the river to a certain waterfall, and by the waterfall there was an otter and it had caught a salmon in the […]
The Indian legend of the “Face of Glory” begins, like that of the Man-Lion, with the case of an infinitely ambitious king who through extraordinary austerities had gained the power to unseat the gods and was now sole sovereign of the universe. His name was Jalandhara, “Water Carrier,” and he conceived the impudent notion of challenging even Shiva, the supreme […]
In one of the great gymnastic feats of world literature, Dante and Virgil climb the body of Satan, located as it is in the center of the earth. Travelling upside down and changing hemispheres as they go, they emerge to see the Mountain of Purgatory, which was created by the crash of Lucifer’s body as it fell from heaven: “The […]
Then from the moor under misty hillsides, Grendel came gliding girt with God’s anger. The man-scather sought someone to snatch from the high hall. He crept under clouds until the caught sight of the king’s court whose gilded gables he knew at a glance. He often had haunted Hrothgar’s […]
Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu face Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar forests of Lebanon. The tablets where the story is found contain many breaks, indicated throughout with an ellipsis; and the translation used here fills in some gaps by integrating other versions of the story. Also, in our day and age, the story can easily be seen as an […]
& once in Chattanooga, a vision comes: & he sits there stunned among them: & he watches as families eat & drink or just laugh, as if life lasts forever—& then half drop off & disappear: he sees two men in front of a store, & then only one: two women at laundry or two slaves in the street or […]
Then anon they heard cracking and crying of thunder, that them thought the place should all to-drive. In the midst of this blast entered a sunbeam more clearer by seven times than ever they saw day, and all they were alighted of the grace of the Holy Ghost. Then began every knight to behold other, and either saw other, by […]
From a dialogue about the beginning of the world; at one point, a giant called Ymir is mentioned: “Where did Ymir live, and what did he live on?” “The next thing, when the rime dripped, was that there came into being a cow called Audhumla, and four rivers of milk flowed from its teats, and it fed Ymir.” Then spoke […]
And it happened after these things that God tested Abraham. And He said to him, “Abraham!” and he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Take, pray, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall […]
The cow came in from the field, and the companions of great-hearted Telemachos came from beside their fast black ship, and the smith came, holding in his hands the tools for forging bronze, his handicraft’s symbols, the anvil and the sledgehammer and the well-wrought pincers with which he used to work the gold, and Athene also came to be at […]
The first evening is devoted to preparation for the rite. The kam (shaman), having chosen a spot in a meadow, erects a new yurt there, setting inside it a young birch stripped of its lower branches and with nine steps (tapty) notched into its trunk. The higher foliage of the birch, with a flag at the top, protrudes through the […]
Rig Veda 1:162 – The Sacrifice of the Horse Mitra, Varuṇa, Aryaman the Active, Indra the ruler of the Ṛbhus, and the Maruts – let them not fail to heed us when we proclaim in the assembly the heroic deeds of the racehorse who was born of the gods. When they lead the firmly grasped offering a in front of […]
Around the year 627, when King Edwin of Northumbria and his advisors were discussing the possibility of converting to Christianity, one of them replied this way: Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through […]
One of the many preludes to the great Irish epic, The Táin: What caused the two pig-keepers to quarrel? It is soon told. There was bad blood between Ochall Ochne, the king of the síd in Connacht, and Bodb, king of the Munster síd. (Bodb’s síd is the “Síd ar Femen,” the síd on Femen Plain; Ochall’s is the síd […]
When Kloskurbeh, the All-maker, lived on earth, there were no people yet. But one day when the sun was high, a youth appeared and called him “Uncle, brother of my mother.” This young man was born from the foam of the waves, foam quickened by the wind and warmed by the sun. It was the motion of the wind, the […]
& he’s brought out & led down a dim hallway to a small room & a little table to sit next to the hunched old man—& the old fisherman smiles, but he’s dying: & he looks to the door—& two young men enter. Conrad’s age—& twins—one wears a grey uniform & the other blue: & the Union boy wears a […]
In the clear light Of the fire, [Perceval] could see, behind him, The page in charge of his weapons And armor, and handed him The sword, to hold with the rest. And then he rejoined his host, Who’d done him so great an honor. They sat in a hall lit As brightly as candles can make An indoor room. And […]
In ancient Thebes, the king, Pentheus, has refused to worship the god Dionysus; the god in turn has driven the women of Thebes into an ecstatic religious frenzy, as a messenger describes to the king: Messenger: About that hour when […]
This whole world is to be dwelt in by the Lord, whatever living being there is in the world. So you should eat what has been abandoned; and do not covet anyone’s wealth. Just performing works in this world, you should desire to live your hundred years. Thus, and not otherwise, in fact, does work not smear off on you. […]
God has a tree of flowering souls in Paradise. The angel who sits beneath it is the Guardian of Paradise, and the tree is surrounded by the four winds of the world. From this tree blossom forth all souls, as it is said, “I am like a cypress tree in bloom; your fruit issues forth from Me.” (Hos. 14:9). And […]
[Amid the long illness that leads to Enkidu’s death:] As for Enkidu, his mind was troubled, he lay on his own and began to ponder. What was on his mind he told his friend: “My friend, in the course of the night I had such a dream!” “The heavens thundered, the earth gave echo, and there […]
After Thorolf died, a good many people found it more and more unpleasant to stay out of doors once the sun had begun to go down. As the summer wore on, it became clear that Thorolf wasn’t quiet, for after sunset no one out of doors was left in peace. There was another thing, too: the oxen which had been […]
[Before the crucifixion] Jesus told us to form a circle and hold each other’s hands, and he himself stood in the middle, and said, “Respond to me with ‘Amen.’” The Song So he began by singing a hymn and declaring, “Glory be to you, father.” And we circled around him and responded to him, “Amen.” “Glory to you, word. Glory […]
Wuraka came from the west, walking through the sea. His feet were on the bottom but he was so tall that his head was well above the surface of the water. He landed at a place called Allukaladi, between what are now known as Mts. Bidwell and Roe, both of which he made. His first sleeping place, after coming out […]
Óengus was asleep one night when he saw something like a young girl coming towards the head of his bed, and she was the most beautiful woman in Ériu. He made to take her hand and draw her to his bed, but, as he welcomed her, she vanished suddenly, and he did not know who had taken her from him. […]
Somewhere at a place where the prairie and the Maka Sicha, the Badlands, meet, there is a hidden cave. Not for a long, long time has anyone been able to find it. Even now, with so many highways, cars, and tourists, no one has discovered this cave. In it lives a woman so old that her face looks like […]
Many thanks to the editors of Crannóg, who published my poem “Cauldron & Drink” in their most recent issue. It’s one of my favorites from my upcoming book of poems from old Europe. For readers outside of Ireland and the UK, I’ve pasted an image from the journal below, although I would encourage everyone to subscribe.
After receiving an email from a reader interested in the mythology surrounding bears, I remembered my own obsession with the boar. This was written some time ago, and one day will hopefully be expanded for a small illustrated book. Forgive the in-line citations, which may be an eyesore, but it would take too long to turn them into footnotes. The […]
Buy the book here Visit the publisher’s website here Signed copies are now available at a steep discount, directly from the publisher—only $14.95. Order them from Amazon here, and choose S4N Books as the seller. December 16 The poet and historian Jeff Sypeck participated in Via Negativa’s year-end Favorite Poetry Book survey, and kindly wrote this about To the House of the Sun: The best poetry book I read this year was To the House of the Sun (S4N Books, 2015), Tim Miller’s epic poem about the travels of an Irish-born Georgian seeking revenge against his own father during the Civil War. Miller contacted me back in the spring because he found me online and thought I might like his work. He was right: To the House of the Sun is a sprawling, strange, deeply moving poem inspired by the the world’s great religious texts and definitely in conversation with them. It’s a difficult, harrowing, inspiring, incantatory book, and I’ve never read anything like it. September 28 The poet Daniel Paul Marshall had these good words to say about To the House of the Sun: Tim is the author of the American Civil War epic poem To the House of the Sun, which I have been fortunate enough to read. It isn’t just a work of literary pulchritude, but in addition, a work of scholarly dedication to a variety of traditions, myths, histories, traditions, of literature & the humanities generally. […]
Going through my computer the other day, I found the .pdfs of these classic book sets, and thought to post them here for whoever wants them: Frazer’s The Golden Bough, The Mythology of All Races, and Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Whatever their limitations now, they are still great resources. I can’t remember where I found […]
Many thanks to the editors at Literary Juice, who just published my poem “Odin & Baldr”.
One of my favorite stories from Hinduism comes from the Bhagavata Purana, on the childhood of Krishna: ….One day when Rama and the other little sons of the cowherds were playing, they reported to his mother, “Krishna has eaten dirt.” Yasoda took Krishna by the hand and scolded him, for his own good, and she said to him, seeing that […]
Notebook 7: Varieties of Religious Practice & Belief (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) This simple sentence, found in a […]
Notebook 6: Suffering & Justice (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) One of the largest obstacles to belief in a […]
Notebook 5: All Religions Act This Way (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) For insight into how much suffering is […]
Notebook 4: Religion Against the World & for the World (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) The first way for […]
Notebook 3: Religion as Mystery, & the Limitations of Knowledge (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) Near the end of […]
NOTEBOOK 2: RELIGION & ORIGINALITY (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) One of the ways in which all religions justify […]
NOTEBOOK 1: GOD’S WILL & INTERPRETING HISTORY (As an appendix to Humility is Endless, the seven-part Notebook is a collection of connected quotations from scripture, interpretation, and history, which further illustrates the destructive nature of fundamentalist belief and religious certainty of any kind. My own commentary is the thread running through them all.) As an addition to this essay, here are more instances from history where, to our peril, various contemporary events were interpreted as obvious manifestations of divine action. While the superficial justification for anti-Semitism has always been a variation on, “[Because] Jews suffered proved that Jews deserved to suffer,”[1] this is also generally true for everyone at some time or another: it is always assumed there is an obvious, divinely sanctioned correspondence between our religious or political or civic affiliations, and the fates of those religions and nations, even though there rarely is. Even worse, throwing such explanations on the sufferings of others allows us to ignore that suffering entirely, or even grin in assuming that it is deserved. The refrain is this: there is simply no reliable or coherent way to ever interpret material or political events of any kind, and of anyone, as the result of divine pleasure or displeasure. And so there is no basis for judging people of other political or religious persuasions when things go good or ill for them, or for us. Each of the following quotations suggests the folly, and attendant […]
Below are excerpts from three of my favorite Underworld journeys from mythology, which also informed my own Underground scene in To the House of the Sun: Book Six of Virgil’s Aeneid, where Aeneas comes upon the shade of his father, who is amazed to see his son, still alive, visiting the land of the dead; Tablet Seven of Gilgamesh, where […]
