Free “divine gallery” art sample – OldWorldGods

(2) CLASSICAL

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!”

I believe in all the gods – especially the goddesses!

And I’m into classical mythology for the nymphs.

Or pining for them. As I said for Egyptian mythology, if there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. Of course, the other thing – indeed the foremost – is the decline of classical paganism. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue”

If only we continued to follow the gods of classical paganism! If there is any mythology that tempts to me to actual religion within the deepest levels of my psyche, it’s classical mythology. I can see myself as a devotee of Aphrodite or Dionysus.

Classical mythology is of course the combination of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in ancient Greece as well as the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Even as mythology rather than religion, it is one of the major survivals of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that in turn is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization. Of course, many devotees prefer to refer to it simply as Greek mythology, seeing Roman mythology as Greek mythology with the serial numbers filed off. Which is somewhat ironic, as prior to the so-called Greek revival of the nineteenth century, Europeans primarily referred to names from classical mythology in their Latinized form. It is also a little unfair, as Roman mythology was not entirely derivative of Greek mythology – more a continuity reboot in the words of TV Tropes.

Anyway, you know it – or should. The gods and goddesses, primarily the twelve Olympian gods, but all the other deities as well as the demi-semi-hemi-gods that pop up because the gods can’t keep it in their pants. There are the heroes – a concept that in its very name actually comes from Greek mythology – primarily the heroes of the Trojan cycle. And there’s all the other beings, notably the various monsters that represent all the chaotic or chthonic forces in classical mythology.

And of course there’s the nymphs…

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

What it lacks in the same extent of mythic cosmology as the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, classical mythology more than makes up in the enduring iconic nature of its mythic geography.

I say geography, because the mythic geography or sacred space of classical mythology tended to be actual locations in historical geography, particularly within Greece, albeit transformed with a heroic or numinous nature. Troy is perhaps the most famous such location, although both its location and historicity remained uncertain before its modern rediscovery.

Even the realm of the gods had its portal in the historical geography of Greece with Mount Olympus.

Best of all, you have classical mythology’s recurring tendency to populate virtually every geographic feature with a hot nymph – now that’s sacred space!

As for chthonic blues, there’s the enduring iconic nature of classical mythology’s underworld – with most of its features being adapted wholesale by its successor for most prevalent imagery of the underworld in Western culture and imagination.

APOCALYPSE HOW

In contrast to its sacred space and chthonic blues second to my mythology in top spot, classical mythology is the least apocalyptic mythology in my top ten. Apocalyptic eschatology is not entirely absent from classical mythology.

There are hints that the supreme Olympian god Zeus will fall to the same sort of revolt against him as he led against his own father Cronus to rise to power (with Cronus in turn having risen to power by the same means against his father Uranus).

It’s one of the variant versions told of why Prometheus is chained to a rock with an eagle perpetually eating his liver – that he knew the secret of Zeus’ downfall, according to Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, albeit Prometheus ultimately reconciled with Zeus by confessing the secret. (The secret being that the nymph Thetis would have a son greater than his father, which obviously posed a problem for Zeus as one of her suitors – so instead he arranged for Thetis to marry a mortal Peleus, conceiving Achilles).

There was a similar prophecy for the goddess Metis, except here the problem was that Zeus had already impregnated her – so Zeus pulled the same stunt as his own father and swallowed her, only for his daughter Athena to be born fully grown (and armed) from his head. She was famously one of classical mythology’s virgin goddesses, which I’ve always presumed was in part to avoid any fulfilment of the prophecy through her.

Apart from those hints of the future dethronement of Zeus, there were other revolts against Zeus, invoking the patricidal revolts by Zeus himself against his father Cronus and Cronus before him against Uranus – the primal cosmic battles or war in the heavens of classical mythology encapsulated as the Titanomachy. One is the war of the giants against the gods – the Gigantomachy to match the Titanomachy – and the other, more dangerously, is the attack by the monstrous Typhon on the gods, putting them to flight and even maiming Zeus himself. There’s even at least one coup attempt by other gods, including Zeus’ wife Hera – as told in the Iliad.

But for the most part, the apocalypse of the Olympian gods is more a matter of fading away in the twilight of any active religion or ritual for them. Or even dying, as was famously reported for Pan – “Pan is dead!”

Although ironically, as the argument does, Pan was the one Olympian god who did not die, being reborn with his goat-hooved and goat-halved form as the guise of the Christian Devil – better to reign in a Christian hell than to serve in an Olympian heaven I suppose. Sadly, it seems that argument is overstated but I prefer to believe it.

EQUAL RITES

Classical mythology has a prolific number of goddesses and divine (or semi-divine) female figures, such that it may seem to rival even Hindu mythology for the equal rites of its goddesses, particularly as the twelve Olympians were evenly divided between gods and goddesses – at least unless (or until) Dionysus substitutes for Hestia.

However, classical mythology seems to stop short of a supreme divine female figure (like that of Shaktism within Hindu mythology). As iconic as the divine female figures of classical mythology are, they tend to be subordinate to the divine male figures – particularly the supreme divine male figure of Zeus.

And yet there are hints or at least revisionist interpretations of the original or ultimate predominance of its goddesses or divine female figures. One of the most famous for the latter was by Robert Graves in his study of classical mythology, The Greek Myths (and popping up again in his poetic creed of the goddess, The White Goddess), although my favorite remains that of Barbara Walker in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. As for Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend, there is something of a cottage publishing industry in revisions of classical mythology focusing on its distinctive female figures.

Whatever the truth of such hints or interpretations, classical mythology has to rank high for equal rites if only for both the prolific number of its female figures and their enduring iconic nature.

DIVINE COMEDY

As for the equal rites of its goddesses or female figures, classical mythology has to rank highly for its divine comedy – in the prolific number and enduring iconic nature of myths with comedic elements or trickster figures. Arguably the Odyssey is one long trickster’s tale. Indeed, the origins of dramatic comedy is in Greek theater or drama, which tended to revolve around the tales, themes or tropes of classical mythology.

Of course, as like to quip, life is the laughter of the gods but sometimes they have a black sense of humor.

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

“What ailed us, gods, to desert you?”

Alas, I can’t deny the twilight of the gods of classical mythology – or that it is the one I feel most acutely.

Like Norse mythology, the gods of classical mythology have faded from religious belief and ritual by all but a tiny neo-pagan following. However, they loom even larger than those of Norse mythology in being adapted by their successor or within culture and popular imagination.

RATING: 5 STARS*****
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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******
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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****
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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****
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