Read the other Great Myths here George Bird Grinnell’s classic account (from 1892) of the origin of the Blackfoot Buffalo Dance. It culminates with the buffalo freely offering themselves to the Blackfoot tribe, but only after teaching them the dance that will resurrect the buffalo herds: The people had built a great pis’kun [a buffalo…
Tag: Mythology
Isis in Old Age (story)
Originally published at Bold+Italic It was one of those across the room things, even though the women were both old and long past love, and weren’t even one another’s type. Isis was back at that pub over in Bayswater, the kind chain restaurant London had that served English food to tourists: the interiors dark wood…
The Great Myths #63: Ragnarok (Norse)
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…
The Great Myths #62: Loki is Captured & Punished (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here Then spoke Gangleri: “It was quite an achievement of Loki’s when he brought it about first of all that Baldr was killed, and also that he was not redeemed from Hel. But was he punished at all for this?” High said: “He was requited for this in such a…
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 #60: The History of Odin’s Horse (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here Then spoke Gangleri: “Whose is the horse Sleipnir? And what is there to tell about it?” High said: “You do not know details of Sleipnir and are not acquainted with the circumstances of its origin!—but you will find this worth listening to. It was right at the beginning…
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…
The Great Myths #57: Loki’s Monstrous Children (Norse)
Read the other Great Myths here High continued: “And Loki had other offspring too. There was a giantess called Angrboda in Giantland. With her Loki had three children. One was Fenriswolf, the second Iormungand (i.e. the Midgard serpent), the third is Hel. And when the gods realized that these three siblings were being brought up…
The Endless Variety of Hinduism
Gandhi himself said that, “If I know Hinduism at all, it is essentially inclusive and ever-growing, ever-responsive. It gives the freest scope to imagination, speculation, and reason.” Here are a handful of quotations from Wendy Doniger’s astonishing book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, that say much the same thing. Religion, as always, is variety, response,…