Category Archives: Top Tens

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (3) Norse

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Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the 2013 Marvel film “Thor: The Dark World” – not the most accurate cinematic adaptation of Norse mythology but perhaps the most popular (via the characters in Marvel comics)

 

 

(3) NORSE

 

“We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming”

And now we come to a mythology that is one of the best known, even outside its European continent of origin, thanks to Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the days of the week still named in English for the Norse gods. It is also arguably one of the most hardcore mythologies, with imagery worthy of a metal album cover.

I mean, what else can you say of a mythology that features a ship made entirely of fingernails and toenails (of the dead)? Or its creation myth, in which the world was created from the corpse of a giant. No fluffy let there be light here. Or that the gods are essentially locked into a perpetual cold war (heh) against the giants – complicated by the trickster Loki in their presence, who alternates between getting them into compromising or difficult situations before getting them out of those situations (until he goes one trick too far). And like the historical cold war, the gods are planning for mutually assured destruction – famously gathering slain warriors in Valhalla – when the war turns hot at the end of the world. Or rather, when it turns ice cold at Ragnarok – or Gotterdamerung, the twilight of the gods (in the Fimbulwinter or endless winter).

Of course, Norse is something of a misnomer, as it was a Germanic mythology that extended throughout much of northern Europe, although it is most identified with Scandinavia and Iceland (and Vikings!), also the source of its surviving texts, so hence the epithet Norse.

“The source texts mention numerous gods, such as the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes; the one-eyed, raven-flanked god Odin, who craftily pursues knowledge throughout the worlds and bestowed among humanity the runic alphabet; the beautiful, seer-working, feathered cloak-clad goddess Freyja who rides to battle to choose among the slain; the vengeful, skiing goddess Skadi, who prefers the wolf howls of the winter mountains to the seashore; the powerful god Njord, who may calm both sea and fire and grant wealth and land; the god Freyr, whose weather and farming associations bring peace and pleasure to humanity; the goddess Idunn who keeps apples that grant eternal youthfulness; the mysterious god Heimdall, who is born of nine mothers, can hear grass grow, has gold teeth, and possesses a resounding horn” and of course “Loki, who brings tragedy to the gods by engineering the death of the goddess Frigg’s beautiful son Baldur”

Norse mythology is distinctive in that its gods are not only fallible (even the wily Odin), but also all mortal. They can and do die. And die aplenty on its version of the apocalypse. No foreordained triumph of the gods here – on this day, all gods die, taking their enemies down with them. Well, not all of them, as there are some key survivors to renew the world, but that phrase just has a good ring to it.

That doesn’t stop the Norse gods from being hardcore – from plucking one’s eye out as Odin did for wisdom, or losing one’s hand as security deposit as Tyr did, putting his hand in the mouth of the Fenris Wolf. Which of course brings me to their fearsome adversaries, not just frost and fire giants, led by Loki, but also his three terrible children – the goddess Hel leading the dishonorable dead, the Fenris Wolf leading other monstrous wolves, and the World-Serpent.

Hardcore.

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

From the big guns of Celtic mythology, we move to the even bigger guns of Norse mythology, which has one of the best known of all mythic cosmologies. Celtic mythology may have its famous Otherworld – Norse mythology famously has its Nine Worlds. One of those is of course our own mortal world Midgard, which lent itself to one of the most famous fantasy worlds, Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

However, while there is reference to the Nine Worlds in the original texts of Norse mythology, it is never clearly identified what those Nine Worlds are. Instead, scholars speculate from references to various realms as they occur elsewhere – Midgard or the realm of humanity, the realm or realms of elves and dwarves, the realm of giants, and the realms of fire and ice.

The most famous mythic realm in Norse mythology is Asgard, the realm of the gods (or more precisely one of two realms of the two families or tribes of gods in Norse mythology, the Aesir and the Vanir, with Asgard as the realm of the Aesir) – with the even more famous Valhalla as afterlife abode of the heroic dead.

As for chthonic blues, Norse mythology also has one of the most famous underworlds (sometimes reckoned as one of the Nine Worlds or as part of the mythic realm of ice) – the one named for the goddess of the dead and that lent its name to (or came from the same source as) that of an even more famous underworld, Hel.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

Norse mythology has one of the most famous or iconic apocalypses of mythology, exceeded by only one other entry in this top ten – Ragnarok or Gotterdamerung, heralded by Fimbulwinter. Interestingly, unlike the most famous or iconic apocalypse, it is not so much the victory of good over evil as it is the mutually assured destruction of both.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

While Norse mythology leans heavily into its warrior male ethos for its theos, it remains that it does have its strong female figures that are among the best known of mythology – Freya foremost of course but also Idun and Sif.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

For a mythology of icy warrior gods holding the line against chaos before being swallowed up by it (literally in the case of Odin), Norse mythology is surprisingly comedic. Part of that comes from the prevalence of tricksters within it, including the head of its pantheon Odin – who always reminds me of a compulsive gambler trying to string out one trick after another to hold off the house.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

The trope namer – since that is what Gotterdamerung literally translates as – but ironically not quite the definitive example of how I am using that phrase here, the persistence or decline of its deities in religious belief or cultural imagination.

Sure, it ranks highly in decline of religious beliefs, as the Norse deities have faded from active religious belief by all but the tiny slither of population that is neo-pagan or “heathen” (and even then I query how much of that is genuine religious belief). However, they continue to loom large in culture and popular imagination, second to none but one other mythology in this top ten list when it comes to European pantheons.

 

RATING: 5 STARS******
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (3) Barbara Walker – Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets

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HarperCollins 1983 paperback edition (the edition I own) – my favorite cover art for the book!

 

 

(3) BARBARA WALKER – WOMEN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS (1983)

 

She is the goddess and this is her body!

Also behold the monomyth! Not of Joseph Campbell’s universal hero, but of the universal goddess (although all heroes are her heroes). Or rather – the Goddess, since she is ultimately all goddesses. Virgin, mother, crone – god the mother and mother of god.

Now we get into my top trinity of my top ten books of mythology – the three B’s as I like to call them, although admittedly I have to force that a little for this entry from the first letter of the author’s first name. Interestingly, Barbara Walker has also written a number of classic references to knitting. Obviously our interest here consists of her books in neo-pagan feminism, of which this entry was first and foremost – as an encyclopedia reference to mythology and religion through the lens, or rather the dance, of the Goddess. Essentially, throughout all entries there is Walker’s monomyth of the archetypal Goddess throughout mythology and history – or rather prehistory (or perhaps herstory), as the Goddess was displaced, firstly into many goddesses, and secondly by male gods or God.

However, like neo-paganism or the goddess movement in general, Walker’s monomyth is not so much a matter of historical accuracy (as many of her historical sources and interpretations don’t hold up under scrutiny) as it is historical reconstruction – the goddess as sacred poetry rather than sacred history. Or as sacred dance – the ghost dance of the Goddess as it were.

Walker herself is an atheist, so she doesn’t believe in the Goddess as a supernatural entity but as a symbol – and one she proposes as healthier for our society.

As she quotes Eugene O’Neill in one of her entries:

“We should have imagined life as created in the birth-pain of God the Mother. Then we would understand why we, Her children, have inherited pain, for we would know that life’s rhythm beats from Her great heart, torn with the agony of love and birth, and we would feel that death meant reunion with Her, a passing back into Her substance, blood of Her blood again, peace of Her peace.” – Eugene O’Neill, “Strange Interlude”

Of course, Walker’s not just talking your New Age Goddess here, all sweetness and light or maiden and mother – baptized between her breasts. She’s also talking your Old Testament bitch-goddess, apocalyptic wh*re or classic White Goddess of Graves – crucified between her thighs.

But meh – that’s no different from my life anyway:

“Sometimes I am the sister who befriends you, sometimes I am the mother who holds you, and sometimes I am the lover who sticks one in your back.”

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (4) Astromancy

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Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

 

 

(4) ASTROMANCY

 

The fault in our stars.

Yes – I’m talking astrology, except it should be called astromancy rather than coopting a suffix that should rightly be applied to an actual science, instead of forcing that science to go by astronomy instead.

Astromancy – divinatory astrology – needs little introduction, as it sadly persists even today, although we often overlook distinctions between different traditions of astrology. The predominant tradition is that of Western astrology, which can be traced back to Mesopotamia, although Eastern or Chinese astrology is also popular. Year of the Dragon and all that.

And as opposed to other forms of divination or magic, often seen as grubby, particularly by Christianity, astrology has always seemed to command a respectable status, even an elevated one, perhaps consistent with the heavenly bodies of its subject, typically seen as divine or gods of themselves, or at least reflecting the design of gods or God.

Again, it is likely to be one of the first methods of divination, certainly as demonstrated by its pedigree in recorded history or archaeology, but probably in prehistory.

The sensory power of the night sky and stars may be somewhat diminished to the average inhabitant of modern cities with artificial illumination (and corresponding light pollution), but its raw elemental vision loomed large to our ancestors – such that historian Geoffrey Blainey in his History of the World devoted a chapter to the impact of the night sky in history.

The night sky and stars are literally heavenly and hence archetypally divine – a compelling Rorschach test upon which humanity has avidly projected meaning.

While its root Greek word would strictly only apply to divination by the stars or their movements, astromancy or astrology (sigh) typically extends to other heavenly bodies (such as the planets). As such, it includes things that are occasionally styled as more specialized – such as heliomancy or lunamancy for sun and moon, or cometomancy for comet or their tails, and so on.

As a method of divination, astromancy is undoubtedly popular, reflecting the emotional power of the sight of heavenly bodies, but it would also seem to have the problem of its sheer scale – that is, how cosmic movements or positions can relate to individual events or people.

As a school of magic, it varies on interpretation. If limited to invoking the quality of the stars themselves, as visually impressive as they are, they don’t do much else other than shine, at least as we experience or see them, and then only at night (mostly). Although even conjuring starlight in darkness can be potent, as Frodo and Sam found in Shelob’s Lair.

Of course, astromancy become more potent if it extends to conjuring or invoking stars in all their stellar or astral symbolism or metaphor – often dreamlike, fey or ethereal in nature.

Once you throw in the moon and even more so the sun, astromancy starts playing with power. That’s particularly so if it extends to lunar symbolism or metaphor – lunacy, tides and so on. Or literal or figurative solar power – light, heat, growth, fertility (or aridity).

Ironically, if one combines the cosmic conjuration of astromancy with the actual science of stars of astronomy or astrophysics, astromancy potentially becomes ridiculously overpowered on godlike levels.

For example, conjuring cosmic forces of nuclear fusion, radiation, the speed of light and electromagnetic spectrum, gravity, time, entropy, the vacuum of space, absolute zero, supernovae, black holes and singularities. Not to mention either end of the Big Bang or heat death of the universe – and all the various theories of cosmology.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR SHOULD THAT BE STAR-TIER?)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (4) Celtic (Arthurian)

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Nigel Terry as King Arthur in the 1981 film “Excalibur”, directed by John Boorman – King Arthur in the 1981 film Excalibur – still the best cinematic adaptation of Arthurian legend

 

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

 

For mine is the grail quest –
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast

This entry is essentially for the whole of Celtic mythology in all its diversity, reflecting the diversity of the Celts themselves. The Celts extended through time, from at least the sixth century BCE through various survivals to the present day, and even more substantially through geographical space – from their original homeland in central Europe throughout Europe, most notably to the British isles. The Celts even extended into modern Turkey (where they were known as Galatians) and perhaps most famously as the Gauls threatening Rome in its infancy (before being conquered by Rome in turn).

And I find all Celtic mythology fascinating. The mythology of Gaul – which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! – is mostly from surviving names and images, cited by Roman writers inclined to “transmit any bizarre and negative” information about the people they conquered.

The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses.

Of course, the Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (mostly as recorded by Christian monks) were for those Celts who maintained their identities – in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles. The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and its great hero Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle as well as its great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool) and his Fianna warrior band. And the Cycle of Kings of historical legend. Much of this mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled into the fairy folklore of Europe.

However, if I’m to pick the one strand of Celtic mythology that is foremost in familiarity and fascination for me, it’s that strand that moved through to folklore and above all to historical legend – the legend of King Arthur, as part of the so-called Matter of Britain or legendary history of the Kings of Britain.

Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His father Uther. The wizard Merlin. The Lady in the Lake. The sword in the stone or Excalibur. His queen Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay (often conflated with another character, Morgause, as the mother of usurper Mordred). The knights of the Round Table – most famously Lancelot but also Gawain, Galahad, Perceval and Bedivere. The Holy Grail. Avalon – and so on.

And of course its ongoing adaptations – which essentially started from its very inception with medieval literature – including its cinematic adaptations, of which two films remain my favorite, Excalibur, and Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend).

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

Now we’re getting to the big guns of mythology, particularly when it comes to sacred space or mythic worlds. The Celtic Otherworld is perhaps one of the best known and most definitive concepts of the otherworld in mythology – that realm of the deities or the dead, often overlapping, although the Celtic Otherworld “is more usually described as paradisal fairyland than a frightening place”, more fey than infernal.

The Otherworld looms large in Arthurian legend in various guises – a recurring numinous presence depicted well in the film Excalibur. One guise is as Fairyland but perhaps even more so as that mystical place with some of the highest name recognition among mythic worlds – Avalon, which overlaps with the underworld as King Arthur’s final resting place.

Celtic mythology in general and Arthurian legend in particular also has their distinctive mythic geography in our world, particularly in Britain with its historical sites as identified with locations in myth or legend.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

Arthurian legend has its apocalyptic battle between good and evil, indeed one of the better known ones at that – the Battle of Camlann, the legendary final battle between Arthur and his son Mordred as usurper. Like another apocalypse of a mythology in a higher place to come in this top ten, it ends not so much in triumph but mutually assured destruction, after which the old world fades away with the birth of a new – although one of more popular legend in Arthurian legend is that Arthur remains as sleeper under the hill with his knights, awaiting England’s greatest hour of need to rise again and do battle against its enemies.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

While Celtic mythology may rival even Hindu mythology for the equal rites of its goddesses, particularly in more matriarchal interpretations of it, Arthurian legend seems less so for the equal rites of its maidens as against its knights and above all its king as central figure.

That said, it has some of the most distinctive female figures in Western culture – foremost among them Morgan Le Fay and Guinevere but also Elaine (or more precisely a number of figures named Elaine), Igraine as Arthur’s mother, Morgause (often conflated with Morgan Le Fay), Iseult, the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, and the Nine Sorceresses. So much so that there’s arguably something of a cottage industry in revisions of Arthurian legend focusing on them, with the foremost example as The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

While Arthurian legend might seem very earnest, it has quite the comedic streak to it, often linked to the Otherworld or Fairyland.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

Not quite the twilight of the gods but not far from it, as the figures of Arthurian legend fade away after the Battle of Camlann, although they have remained as vivid presences in Western culture ever since.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (4) Katharine Briggs – A Dictionary of Fairies

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Cover – Viking 1976 edition (the edition I own)

 

 

(4) KATHARINE BRIGGS –
A DICTIONARY OF FAIRIES (1976)

 

What it says on the tin, the definitive guide to that classic subject of British folklore – fairies.

A classic book, alternatively titled An Encyclopedia of Fairies, which now seems sadly out of print (but still available online), by a classic British folklorist – indeed THE classic British folklorist.

Of course, the term fairies now conjures up images of cute little gossamer-winged pixies like Tinkerbell.

In British folklore, fairies were much different, most aptly styled as the Fair Folk, itself a euphemism for things that would flay you and walk around in your skin – because you sure as hell didn’t want to draw their attention or conjure them up by using names more true to their nature, or worse yet, their true names. In fairness (heh), they weren’t always as extreme as to literally flay you and walk around in your skin, only on occasion and only some of them. Some of them were more neutral or even nice, although even the nice ones were usually weird or had weird alien morality. Indeed, alien is an apt description, as in many ways, the fairies of British folklore have been replaced with the aliens of modern folklore. And this book is a fascinating exploration, arranged as a dictionary in alphabetical entries (cross-referenced to other entries) of the various beings, creatures, attributes, themes and tropes of fairy folklore.

Also there’s an annual Katharine Briggs Folklore Award from 1982, named and awarded by the Folklore Society in honour of Briggs (who served as their president).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (5) Geomancy

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Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

 

(5) GEOMANCY

 

O sweet spontaneous
earth… how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods…
thou answerest
them only with
spring”

Standing stones, ley lines and feng shui (although technically the latter translates as wind-water)

“Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand” – which prompts me to speculate if it had origins in prehistoric tracking.

It might also extend to lithomancy, or divination by stones – or crystals, including scrying into crystals or crystal balls. Or to spelunking for visions in caves – or climbing for them on mountains (oromancy or divination by mountains). Shoutout also to topomancy or divination by geography or geological formations.

As a method of divination, geomancy seems somewhat, well, meh – lacking the versatility, potency or intensity of the other methods of divination in our top ten so far, which begs the question of its ranking above them.

To be honest, part of its top ten ranking was to complete the set of four classical elements – although that still begs the question of why it is ranked over pyromancy, hydromancy and aeromancy. However, the major part of its ranking is more as a school of magic or mysticism – channeling or harnessing the magical or mystical energy of the earth itself.

Of course, there is something of an overlap with divination, but what might be considered a more proactive form of divination – not passively attempting to divine good fortune from physical features, but actively attempting to channel or harness their energy to make good fortune, literally grounding the expression that you make your own luck.

The archetype of this active creation of good fortune is the Chinese tradition of feng shui – “manipulating the flow and direction of energy based on aesthetics, location, and position of objects and buildings”.

At its widest, that archetype of geomancy is extended to things that are broadly dubbed “Earth mysteries” in Western popular culture – including those projected back to megalithic or monumental history or prehistory. The megaliths or standing stones of Europe, pyramids in general and particularly in Egypt, so-called ley lines, and so on.

As a school of magic harnessing the power of the earth itself, geomancy ranks high in potency, even more so if one combines it with actual geology – not to mention such things as earthquakes, volcanoes, lava or earth’s molten core, geological time, tectonic plates, earth’s electromagnetic field, and gravity. Or the metaphorical or symbolic meanings of earth and ground.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (5) Egyptian

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Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

 

(5) EGYPTIAN

 

“I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra…
“Who was that
dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode
from town”…
Go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow
I’m going into town after Set”

If there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. If only the Roman Empire could have gone the way of the ankh instead of the cross. Or if only the Egyptian gods had returned out of the desert, as opposed to Islam and swept Christianity out of Egypt!

What’s not to love about those funky animal-headed gods and those slinky goddesses? Especially the goddesses – lithe and svelte in their form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk. Of course, Egypt was, quite frankly, the sexiest ancient civilization – admittedly perhaps not for its population’s vast majority of peasants who farmed the Nile or worked on those useless tombstones known as pyramids, but certainly for its elite, who pretty much invented style. You know it’s true – just look at the figures in their art!

Or what’s not to love how the gods kept shifting and swapping out with each other as they rose and fell within the pantheon? My personal favorite trinity of Egyptian mythology (well apart from Anubis, one of my favorite dog gods of mythology) – Osiris, Isis and Horus as they square off against their adversary Set. O yes – Isis. Goddess of magic who seduced the secret name from the sun god Ra and lover of Osiris who resurrected him after he was dismembered by his evil adversary Set to conceive the divine hero Horus (who then avenges Osiris)

Or what’s not to love about its different and contradictory creation myths? Particularly the one where the god Atum (who swapped out as supreme god from time to time) created the world by, ahem, mastrbating it into existence. Now that’s creationism! Indeed, Egyptian mythology could get downright kinky. Isis essentially s€xes up all her magic, including that briefly reviving Osiris to conceive Horus. Or how Set and Horus essentially strive to, ahem, out-ejculate each other…

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

Egyptian mythology may well be the most chthonic of mythologies – albeit not so much in the name recognition of its underworld (Duat) and more in terms of the afterlife in general. Indeed, ancient Egypt almost seems a necropolis, with its religion and ritual predominated by preparation for the afterlife – and its monumental statues or architecture as portals to it, such that Egypt itself appears as its own sacred space.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

Somewhat surprisingly for its focus on the afterlife, Egyptian mythology is somewhat devoid of any apocalypse to popular recognition, although it did have its cosmic battles between good and evil.

However, like voodoo and meso-American mythology, I sometimes tend to see ancient Egypt itself as post-apocalyptic in mindset – a civilization huddled around the Nile with the apocalypse of the desert surrounding it on all sides. And while the Nile was reliably fertile, when it did fail it could be apocalyptic – those Biblical plagues had some basis in the historical reality of how apocalyptic it could get.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

Perhaps not quite as highly as Hindu mythology, Egyptian mythology does rank highly for equal rites in the prominence of its divine female figures (and pharaonic figures) – with Isis in particular, so much so that she came closest of any divine female figure to becoming a universal monotheistic Goddess during the Roman Empire (and was a major inspiration for the veneration of Mary within Christianity).

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

There would seem to be little room for the laughter of the gods in a mythology between the desert and the deep blue sea, but surprisingly Egyptian mythology does come to the party with some divine comedy, albeit some of it would seem unintentional and more to modern readers – as well as working blue. There’s the creation myth, admittedly one of many, of a god literally mast*rbating the cosmos into existence – or of the sacred scarab or dung beetle rolling the sun like dung. And the less said about Horus’s special sauce in his salad dressing the better, although I presume that must have been intended as a dirty joke.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

Sadly, one of the mythologies where the divine figures have mostly faded away in the twilight of the gods, apart from their tiny revival within neo-paganism – although they remain far more within popular imagination (and name recognition) as compared to other ancient Middle Eastern mythologies, mainly due to the enduring fascination with their visual depiction within Egyptian art and sculpture.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (5) Peter Dickinson – The Flight of Dragons

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1st edition, Pierrot Publishing, 1979

 

 

(5) PETER DICKINSON –
THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS (1979)

 

Here be dragons!

And how! It’s like Jurassic Park, only even more awesome – with dragons! This is a work of “speculative natural history”, which addresses that most awesome question – how dragons might have really existed?

Or more precisely, is there an evolutionary hypothesis that could explain the existence of dragons of mythology and lore?

In doing so, it addresses the question posed by the title – the flight of dragons. Clearly, something extra is needed for the mass of dragons to be lifted by their limited wing area – and if not magic, what?

The answer is the central hypothesis of the work – that dragons were essentially fantasy dirigibles, held aloft by sacs of hydrogen, produced from their own digestive hydrochloric acid. From that, we have their evolution from dinosaurs to most of the tropes of dragons in fantasy, not least their fiery breath, evolved to burn off excess hydrogen but finding use as a weapon – although it also offers explanations for their toxic (or more precisely acidic) blood, their hoards and most other dragon tropes, with an element of legendary embellishment thrown in (intelligence and speech for example).

It also offers explanation for the saddest dragon trope – their absence from reality. Obviously, they were hunted to extinction by humanity and their acidic blood dissolved any bodily remnants that remained behind (so no dragon fossils – alas!)

It’s a nice fantasy theory, even if it seems somewhat contrived or forced at times by standards of biology – but damned if I don’t half believe it, and even more damned if I don’t totally wish that somewhere here or there be dragons…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (6) Aeromancy

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Free ‘divine gallery’ sample art from OldWorldGods

 

(6) AEROMANCY

 

What the thunder said.

Aeromancy is not so much divination from the classical element of air, given that air is invisible and intangible of itself, but more divination from atmospheric conditions or weather.

As such, it has a long pedigree in history. Obviously, humans have always been concerned with atmospheric conditions or weather, albeit perhaps more to divine those atmospheric conditions or weather themselves rather than divining other things from them – particularly for agriculture.

Still, the sky and weather readily lend themselves to expressions or perceptions of the divine or supernatural reality – storms particularly so. Even now, for me one of the primary aspects of modernity is how we have harnessed the divine power of lightning for our own use, as our prehistoric ancestors harnessed the divine power of fire.

Yet again, there’s probably enough variations of aeromancy for their own top ten, but I’ll focus on those corresponding to different atmospheric or weather conditions.

Anemomancy or austromancy – divination by wind (depending on whether one goes by the Greek or Latin root for wind)

Ceraunomancy – divination by thunder and lightning. Of course, one can divide that further into divination by lightning or astropomancy, and divination by thunder or brontomancy.

Nephomancy – divination by clouds, no doubt replicating much of that favorite childhood game of seeing shapes in clouds, as humanity was also to do with the stars (but more on that later).

Wikipedia also lists chaomancy for divination by aerial visions, and uranomancy for divination by the sky, in its long list of methods of divination, but these would seem to largely correspond with one or another of the above.

As a method of divination, aeromancy would appear to be almost as versatile as hydromancy, particularly in combination of all its variations, although similarly lacking quite the same potency for visions as pyromancy. On the other hand, divination by thunder or lighting would seem more dramatic than hydromancy – similarly to the use of thunder or lightning as effects in stage or film.

As a school of magic, aeromancy would seem similar in versatility to hydromancy, particularly if one extends it through all atmospheric or weather conditions, although they also seem to overlap in such things as clouds, fog, mist, rain, sleet and snow.

I always thought that the airbenders in Avatar were unfairly nerfed to being essentially just windbenders – anemomancers or austromancers rather than true aeromancers in our parlance of mancy. At very least, I call shenanigans in the series giving lightning to firebenders.

Indeed, there are few things in nature with such raw elemental power as storms, up there with tsunamis (for hydromancers) or volcanic eruptions and earthquakes (for pyromancers and our next entry).

Similarly to pyromancy and hydromancy, aeromancy becomes even more potent if one extends it to sound, or more metaphorical uses of air as a medium such as breath (including the breath of life) and voice.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (6) Middle Eastern – Babylo-Sumerian

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Ereshkigal – free ‘divine gallery’ art sample from OldWorldGods

 

 

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

 

Dare I say it – the ur-mythology!

The mythology, that is, of the long-standing and predominant civilization in the ancient Middle East that shaped so much of their successors in civilization and mythology – the states of Mesopotamia.

By the states of Mesopotamia, I am referring to the fluctuating city-states or states collectively best known to history as Sumer and Babylon, with the latter’s imperial franchise having at least one reboot as the neo-Babylonian empire. That also includes the other empires that bubbled up from that area such as the Akkadian empire and Assyrian empire (which also rebooted itself as neo-Assyrian empire). The political history is long and messy, although much of the mythology or religion stays the same, albeit with different names – what might be called the classical mythology of the region, which I’ll dub Babylo-Sumerian. Yes I know Sumer preceded Babylon, but Babylo-Sumerian just sounds better.

Indeed, this entry is intended to be representative of ancient Middle Eastern mythologies in general, including the various so-called Canaanite mythologies which we mostly know as the bad guys in the Bible (although the Assyrians and Babylonians also feature prominently as bad guys there, particularly the latter)

But to return to the selection of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology for this entry. Yes – it’s not quite as funky as a certain other neighboring mythology with its animal-headed gods, but it does have some interesting features – two in particular. The first is the epic of Gilgamesh and his quest for eternal life, notable as the first epic of a mythic hero in writing. The second is the slinky goddess to rival other slinky goddesses in mythology – Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of love and war (or her Sumerian counterpart Inanna) and her most famous myth, her epic strip-teasing descent into the underworld.

There are also other features of interest – various other deities (Marduk in our feature image for example), Tiamat the primordial goddess-dragon of chaos (best known to Dungeons and Dragons players as a supreme evil dragon goddess) and various stories recycled in the Bible, notably the Flood (and the Sumerian Noah, Utnapishtim, who features in the epic of Gilgamesh).

Oh – and a certain god who became the demon antagonist of The Exorcist film, which I know better than to name here (or anywhere) because that’s just tempting fate.

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

When the concept and very word of paradise itself originates from the ancient Middle East – Persia in particular – then you know its mythology ranks highly for sacred spaces and mythic worlds, even more so for its enduring influence for the paradises and underworlds of other mythologies.

Speaking of underworlds, the Mesopotamian underworld was equally as influential as Persian paradise, not least for the descent of Inanna or Ishtar into it.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

Middle Eastern mythology – particularly Persian mythology – had an apocalypse, the final triumph of the supreme good divine being Ahura Mazda over the evil destructive divine force Angra Mainyu, that was highly influential on the apocalypse of other mythologies, especially my top mythology.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

Middle Eastern mythology seems mostly masculine with one fundamental exception – Inanna or Ishtar, a divine female figure that influenced or inspired similar divine female figures throughout the ancient Middle East and beyond, extending to my two top entries.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

There’s some divine comedy or tricksters but Middle Eastern mythology seems mostly serious.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

Sadly, we’ve now moved to a mythology or mythologies which mostly faded away in the twilight of their gods, but for their cultural impact or influence, mostly on other mythologies.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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