39
If you only look at the greatest Greek heroes, yes, of course their offspring don't surpass them. They are the greatest heroes, after all. I mean, Telemachus is no slouch, but you're comparing him to Odysseus.
The greatest heroes do have heroic fathers as well:
Peleus was king of the Myrmidons, a member of the Argonauts, and participant in the hunt for ...
23
Sumer, sometime in the 4th or 3rd millennium B.C.
My first instinct was to check out the Wikipedia article again. One interesting quote was
The presence of dragons within Chinese culture dates back several thousands of years with the discovery of a dragon statue dating back to the fifth millennium BC from the Yangshao culture in Henan in 1987, and jade ...
21
Strangely, the Pastafarian mythos doesn't seem to support the notion of strainers as religious headgear. The most prominent mention is the colander in the flood myth:
He produced a great Colander of Goodness and He did collect water in
an enormous pot, which He heated; and He did drop in a heaping portion
of pasta and slowly simmer the sauce for so ...
21
The source of the story is the Þrymskviða poem (The Lay of Thrym), which is included in the Poetic Edda.
It was Thrymr, king of the jötnar, who stole Mjölnir. He then demanded the gods allow him to marry Freyja, in order to return it. Thor travelled to Jötunheimr to claim back his hammer, and he managed to sneak in dressed as a bride.
Loki wasn't ...
18
As said already, your story is taken from Þrymskviða. There's a retelling of the story named The Children of Odin, which refers to that in a more easily comprehensible way:
The actual story does not say that Loki stole the hammer from Thor.
Then when they were far from Jötunheim Thor missed Miölnir, missed the hammer that was the defence of Asgard and ...
17
The Pomola is a snow bird spirit in Native American mythology, it lived on Mt Katahdin and caused cold weather
In Penobscot folklore, the Pomola was a bird spirit that lived on Mt Katahdin. It was associated with night, wind, snow, and storms. Apparently it had a moose's head according to some legends. The Penobscots and Abenakis avoided climbing to the ...
17
The Norse flood myth is actually a flood of blood, created when Odin, Vili and Vé slew Ymir, the primeval ancestor of the jötnar. From Snorri's Prose Edda:
The sons of Bor slew the giant Ymer, but when he fell, there flowed so much blood from his wounds that they drowned therein the whole race of frost-giants; excepting one, who escaped with his household....
16
This is the myth of Baucis and Philemon.
Here is the Wikipedia page: Baucis and Philemon, and here is one website with the full text (I think): Tales Beyond Belief: Baucis and Philemon.
By the way, the two gods were Zeus and Hermes, and the two trees were oak and linden.
16
There's a wolf transformation in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and as written texts go they don't come any earlier. Although in this case it was a spell cast upon him and he never had a chance to transform back into human form.
There may of course be earlier oral mythology.
15
The myth you're looking for is first outlined in Hesiod's Theogony.
Theogony 535-558:
[535] For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mecone, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to deceive the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering ...
15
It wasn't permanent, but I did find a similar story. In Hittite mythology, the sky/storm god Tarhunt had as his nemesis a snake/dragon god Illuyanka. Note the similarities here between the story of Thor and the World Serpent. Both are Indo-European peoples, so this is likely not coincidental.
There are two surviving accounts of this story, both from CTH 321....
15
In Greek mythology, the giant Alcyoneus had seven daughters: Phthonia, Anthe, Methone, Alcippe, Pallene, Drimo, and Asteria.
When their father was slain by Heracles, they threw themselves into the sea, and were changed into ice-birds.
To be more specific, the species they transformed into was the kingfisher.
source: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...
15
The World Turtle (Wikipedia)
This motif is very well known. Not a god per se, but close enough. (Btw: I think it represents a ship).
Rainbow Serpent (Wikipedia)
The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity, often a creator god, in the mythology and a common motif in the art of Aboriginal Australia.
It is named for the obvious identification ...
14
The strongest candidate for a god of writing would be Hermes, the god of - amongst other things - language:
Also the Guide, the Slayer of Argus, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora, because all they who dwelt ...
14
This tale appears to come from Toltec mythology, related to us by the Aztec and preserved in later Mexican source. The Ixtlilxochitl your source cites is almost certainly Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, an early modern native historian from New Spain. He wrote that:
In the year 8 Tochtli, which was 1,347 years after the second calamity and 4,779 ...
14
That story appears in one of the most beautifully written stories that can exist. In Herodotus Histories, chapter 1.
The Athenian lawgiver Solon is visiting the richest man in the world
the Lydian Croesus and Croesus want to impress Solon and show him how
rich and wealthy he is and after asks him who is the happiest
man:
My Athenian guest, [...] I ...
12
The excellent answer by HDE mentions the Chinese dragon from 4700-2900BC, but did not explore further. This answer will attempt to source the claim for the Chinese dragon, which is arguably older and more complete than the Sumerian dragon.
A photo of the dragon, made from clams embedded within sandstone, can be found here:
1987年在河南省濮陽縣西水坡仰韶文化遺址發現的用蚌殼堆積的龍形圖案，...
12
Apart from Hermes, Prometheus takes pride that he gave letters to humans. According to Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound (v.460):
ἐξηῦρον αὐτοῖς, γραμμάτων τε συνθέσεις
which translates to
I invented for them, and the combining of letters
12
For Egyptian, you'd have several choices. Going from the largest (at least in the Heliopolitian cosmology):
Nuun (Nun) is the cosmic ocean that our universe is a bubble in:
https://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/nun/
Atum includes the concept of "Completeness". In a sense He/She would be related to the universe we know, and precipitated himself/...
12
Coyote! (A key figure in Navajo mythology.)
Also Iktomi in Lakota mythology.
12
I love this story! According to good ol' Wiki, which is sourced, this story comes from an Icelandic rímur cycle. It is also cited in the Gylfaginning.
Your story and the rest of it are from the third and fourth rímas, emphasis mine:
As Thor and his companions approach Útgarða-Loki's fotress they face a strong locked fortress gate (v. 3-6). Unable to open it,...
answered Dec 13 '16 at 18:33
Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
1,8811 gold badge9 silver badges20 bronze badges
12
Achilles son of Peleus.
Peleus was a minor hero and companion of Hercules in various of his adventures, and was also with Jason as an Argonaut.
His son Achilles was more famous as the leading warrior of the Trojan War.
11
The name of the deity represented by the planet in question, strictly speaking, is Lucifer, or Luciferus, that is, as far as Roman mythology is concerned. His Greek equivalent has a few different names, the commonest of which are Eosphoros and Phosphoros. The majority of Roman mythology is older Greek stories copy+pasted into new files with the Greek names ...
11
The Flying Spaghetti Monster!
The Flying spaghetti monster is a piece of Spaghetti, which is obviously not human.
11
Raven (Xu'uya) is the creator god in the Haida stories (from islands off the West Coast of Canada). This is one of the main cultures that used totem poles.
Although many of the stories from Haida have been lost, you can find much amazing artwork, and there are anthologies written up.
Raven found the first men in a clam shell (you can find a related ...
11
To answer your question if there is a god specifically for clones, the answer would be no.
Since there was no such thing as cloning in ancient times they did not have a deity or creature for it (just like there is no such thing as an ancient god of automobiles or smartphones).
Although some creatures and deities have the power to clone themselves a specific ...
11
I know one for certain, the pre-adamite Jinn in Islamic mythology.
A Jinn is an invisible entity, created by God out of a "mixture of fire" or "smokeless fire", who roamed the earth before Adam.
The community of the Jinn race were like those of humans, but then corruption and injustice among them increased and all warnings sent by God were ignored. ...
10
The example seems to be a particularly bad counterexample. I reproduced the relevant part of the article you cited:
"On 29th January (1818), another body of the Peshawa's cavalry was caught in a defile of the Ghats . . . between the hammer and the anvil of an infantry detachment and a cavalry force, and slain or scattered. . . . Fort after fort tumbled ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible