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....
12
I'm afraid they do not. It should be noted that even the Hebrew scriptures, probably the only ones I can think of that has a date of creation so closely tied to generations of men, is not really precise, for a generation is not a precise number.
However, some ancient Greeks did try to come up with dates for certain mythological events, particularly the ...
11
Old Norse
For Old Norse, heimskringla.no has a lot of material, including different editions (also in modern Nordic languages). The site itself is mostly in Norwegian, so it can be tricky to navigate if you don't speak a Nordic language. There are two obvious books to start with:
Snorri's Edda. This is usually the preferable starting point, as it is a ...
10
Seshat, also called Sothis, was the Egyptian goddess of libraries, called Mistress of the House of Books. (She was also goddess of math, reading, measurement and writing.) Her name means "female scribe."
She was connected with Thoth, who invented writing. Different texts described her as his wife, daughter, or female aspect. She wore a leopard-skin dress ...
10
According to a poem by MacLeigh which can be found and discussed in The Annuals of the Four Masters
They fled to Connaught and having seized power from the Milesians in
the 1st century ruled there until the 3rd century, when Aodh son of
Garadh King of Connaught and last king of the Fir Bolg was defeated by
Cormac king of Ireland. The Fir Bolg ...
8
I would use a graph.
Graphs (the data structure) allow interconnections between data in a flexible way, and given the often complex relationships depicted in various mythological traditions, I think this would fit the bill quite well.
Each vertex on a graph can in itself be a container, or its own data structure, allowing you to catalog a large amount of ...
8
Gothic
As mentioned in andejons’ answer, there is not a lot of material in the Gothic language. Apart from Wulfila's Bible translation on the Wulfila project (where you can also find a calendar fragment, the Gothic signatures of the Naples and Arezzo deeds and the Skeireins fragment, a part of a commentary on the gospel of John), there is another website, ...
7
Old Irish
Mary Jones' Celtic Literature Collective This is the best place to find Irish and Wesh language mythology with the original sources. It's actually an amateur project, but I've seen it referenced and students directed there on university courses.
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts A good but limited source of Irish texts of all ages, because it (and ...
6
Well though I see the question has been answered. You have asked for other versions of the myth as well. This story originated in Hindu mythology, It is called 'The myth of Manu'. The Hindi word for man - "Manushya" actually traces its roots to this name. He is purported to be the progenitor of all humans according to the Vedas. So in a way it's a way a ...
6
Yes.
Greco-Roman mythology contains a story precisely about the region to which you refer. It so happens that this desertification narrative, which accounts for cold deserts as well as hot ones, is part of the Greco-Roman Flood myth.
Phaethon, the son of the Sun-Titan Helios and the Oceanid Klymene [Clymene], after being taunted by the accusation that he ...
6
Unfortunately, your Spanish teacher was wrong. Look under Lewis and Short II.C to see that canere (the ultimate root of enchant > incantare > in + cantare = frequentative of canere) was often used in Latin for spells. Under cantare III you'll see enchant that goes all the way back to the first prose writer in Latin, Cato the Elder (De Re Rustica 160.1).
The ...
6
Chinese mythology has a heavy emphasis on deification of scholars, beginning with the Yellow Emperor, whose patronage to mankind was primarily as a teacher, inventor and scholar.
There are several Chinese gods who are patrons to scholars:
Wenchang Wang is a patron of scholars and students, often called upon by those about to take the Imperial exams.
You ...
6
The Perseus Project is an exceptional resource for Greek and Latin Texts (not complete, but quite comprehensive):
Perseus Collection; Greek and Roman Materials
It's particularly useful because you can read most of the texts in either English or the original, and the ancient Greek and Latin words are all hypertext links to lexical entries.
They also have ...
5
It will be very difficult to find a "librarian god or goddess" in the in any pagan culture. There are many gods of knowledge, wisdom, scholarship, education and so on.
The closest example I am able to find is the Armenian god Tir. In Armenian pagan culture he is the god of literature, science and art. Being the god of literature in a sense makes him like ...
5
Yes. A comment already mentioned Norse Freya, Celtic Morrigan, and Greek Artemis.
My personal favorite that wasn't mentioned is the West African Oya (aka: Oiá, Yansá or Iansá), who I see associated with all kinds of things depending on the source, but storms and destruction seem to be the most common. She's said to be invincible. I've seen her depicted with ...
5
Unknown
First, note that it's Brokk's brother who is clearly the master smith and does the actual smithing, while Brokk works the bellows. This brother is given as either Eitri or Sindri in different manuscripts of Snorri's Edda. The name Sindri also appears in Völuspa, where it is told he had a hall in Nithavellir ("the Dark fields").
The forge in itself ...
5
I can find no other story than the Sirens. They agree with the above by all aspects, that is:
Their father is either Acheloos (the river god) or Forkys (a sea deity) and their mother is either Chthon (Earth) or a Muse (usually Terpsechore).
They are not necessarily beautiful but their singing is delightful. I think I need not repeat the story from Odyssey ...
4
Different mythologies being consolidated, mainly.
Originally—by which I mean as far back as we have evidence to speculate—Poseidon seems to have been married to the earth-deity Dā. The oldest attested form of his name is Maecenean po-te-da-on, presumably from potei Dāōn, "husband of Dā"; this would make him the son-in-law of Demeter (Dā-mātēr, "Dā's mother")...
4
Plato famously blames the Egyptian god “Theuth” (Thoth) for the invention of writing in Phaedrus 274c–275b. Yes, blames rather than credits, because although Plato was himself a writer, writing was long and widely considered a gimmick and unserious during the classical period in Greece.
In any case, the true and original home of myth is in ...
4
Family Tree.
Mythology is really just a genealogy from one god to the next generation. Then you could have some bubbles underneath them when the mouse hovers over them to tell them the information. Most people don't know who gave birth to who, or whose son/daughter a couple's are, so it is a lot easier just to have a big family tree.
4
The following work on Freemasonry gives a broad overview of its historical development: from its origins in the era of Solomon's Temple up to the 19th century, with an emphasis on Freemasonry's plans of the past few centuries for the destruction of the Catholic Church:
Msgr. George F. Dillon's Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked (audiobook)originally entitled:...
4
It would be more productive, perhaps, to think of those not as of fields, but rather as of separate data entities of different kinds. Why? Because there are simply no obligatory singular characteristic which you could apply to any deity. Not even name, as a single deity might have been known under different names in different regions, but it wold still be ...
4
Beyond what others listed, there's also Anat:
In a fragmentary passage from [the Epic of Baal], Anat appears as a fierce, wild and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled ...
4
Mythology serves many functions. We assume that originally it was a religious function, but it's hard to separate from the entertainment aspect. Before there were books, people likely sat around telling stories, and when humans started writing, myths were one of the subjects.
Religious function
Stories of the gods and goddesses and of creation. ...
4
"Solve et coagula" is the principle underlying alchemy: dissolve materials to their constituents and re-assemble these into something else.
Fulcanelli writes of this quote:
If you know how to dissolve the fixed,
And to make the dissolved fly,
Then to fix the flying in powder,
You have something to console yourself with.
3
In terms of stature, role and primal nature, the only deities from the Greek Pantheon I can think of are
the Furies.
They are older than the Olympians, and relentlessly pursue evildoers.
In terms of the concrete stories similar to Durga, that of the hero slaying monsters or demons in the role of benefactor to the gods or humans, I am hard pressed to ...
3
Also, Norse myth has these gaps. Thor's goats have names, while Freyja's cats don't (that we know of). The forge may or may not have had a name in the myths, but @andejons is right to say that it was the smiths that were the focus of the story.
3
As Hinduism is a living culture, its mythology is not just in texts but in the minds of the people, and there are various folk stories, family traditions, and even half-remembered distortions in memory, none of which I wish to discount. Perhaps "during the prelude to war", as Wikipedia claims citing some random book, seems the "logical" place to some, and no ...
3
Buddhism has the belief that nothing lasts forever and therefore basically doesn't believe at least in an eternal after life(which is what I believe you were implying).
A passage in the Nirvana Sutra called the “Verse on Impermanence”
tells the story of Sessen Doji, who, during his Buddhist practice, was
willing to lose his life in order to hear the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
