Discover Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt whose fiery uraeus crowned every pharaoh and guarded the infant Horus. - Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Wadjet Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s wȝḏyt (Egyptian), Uto (Greek) Pronunciation WAD-jet Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Edjo, the Green One, the Uraeus, the Fiery Eye, Lady of the Devouring Flame, Lady of the Spells, Mistress of Buto, one of the Two Ladies Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Ancient Egypt Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period c. 3100 BCE - Roman period Symbol Striking Cobra Tags egyptian, wadjet, cobra, uraeus, buto, two-ladies, lower-egypt, eye-of-ra Introduction - Overview Wadjet is the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt, the rearing serpent who coiled upon the brow of every pharaoh and spat fire and poison at his enemies. She is one of the Two Ladies, the pair of goddesses who together embodied the united kingdom: Wadjet the cobra of the Delta and Nekhbet the vulture of the Nile valley, whose twin names were carved into the royal titulary of every king. She is the Fiery Eye of the sun god Ra, the blazing serpent power that defended the solar barque on its nightly voyage and burned the enemies of the gods to ash. She is the guardian of the infant Horus, who was hidden in the papyrus marshes of the Delta to escape Seth, the red god of chaos who had murdered his father. She is the Green One, the goddess of the papyrus country, whose sanctuary at Buto held one of the most famous oracles in the ancient world. And she is the oldest symbol of Egyptian kingship, the cobra on the crown, which endured for three thousand years. Gallery Other depictions of Wadjet like as a snake. Main Article - Who or What was... Wadjet Wadjet was born of the marshes. Her home was Buto, the city the Egyptians called Per-Wadjet, the House of Wadjet, a town of the northern Delta where the Nile broke into a hundred channels and the land was a wilderness of papyrus, water, and birds. There she was worshipped as a cobra, the deadly serpent that reared from the reeds with its hood flared, and her name, the Green One, bound her to the papyrus thickets that were her kingdom. From the most ancient times she was the protector of Lower Egypt, the northern half of the land, and the Red Crown that its kings wore was believed to be her gift, kept in her sanctuary when it was not upon the royal head. She could also take the form of a lioness when she hunted, and of a woman with a cobra's head when she walked among the gods. When the two lands of Egypt were joined into one kingdom, around 3100 BCE, Wadjet did not lose her place. She was joined to Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Nekheb in Upper Egypt, the southern half of the land, and together they became the Two Ladies, the divine patrons of the united kingdom. Every pharaoh thereafter carried their names in his own: the Nebty name, the second of the five great royal titles, proclaimed that the king ruled by the grace of both goddesses, cobra and vulture, Delta and valley. On the pharaoh's brow the two powers sat side by side, the rearing cobra and the hovering vulture, and no king of Egypt was complete without them. For three thousand years, through every dynasty and every invasion, the Two Ladies held their place at the very front of the crown. The cobra on the brow was no ornament. She was a weapon. As the uraeus, Wadjet was the Fiery Eye of Ra, the sun god's own blazing power in serpent form, and from the forehead of the king she spat flame and venom at every enemy who dared approach. The Egyptians said she burned the foes of the pharaoh as a cooking fire burns dry reeds, and her titles were Lady of the Devouring Flame and Lady of the Spells, for her strike was both poison and magic. At night, when Ra sailed his barque through the underworld and the chaos serpent Apep rose from the dark waters to swallow the sun, it was the fiery cobra upon the sun god's brow who reared and spat her burning venom into the monster's eyes. She was coiled around the sun disk itself, and her hiss was the sound that chaos feared. The most tender of Wadjet's duties was the protection of a baby. When Isis, the great enchantress, gave birth to Horus after the murder of her husband Osiris, she fled with the infant into the papyrus marshes of the Delta, to the floating island of Chemmis near Buto, to hide him from Seth, the red god of chaos who had killed his father and hunted the child to prevent his revenge. There, among the reeds and the biting flies, Wadjet became the boy's guardian and nurse. The cobra goddess wound herself through the papyrus around his hiding place, rearing at every shadow, striking at every danger, while Isis went out to beg for food. It was from the marshes of Wadjet's kingdom that Horus grew to manhood and went out to challenge Seth for the throne of Egypt, and it was because of her protection that the cobra thereafter guarded every king, for every pharaoh was Horus upon the throne. Wadjet's fame outgrew Egypt. Her oracle at Buto was consulted from across the ancient world, and when the Greek traveller Herodotus came to Egypt in the fifth century BCE he wrote of her sanctuary and of the floating island where the goddess, whom the Greeks called Leto, had hidden the divine child. The Greeks called Wadjet herself Uto, and Buto remained a holy city into the Roman age, its temple thronged with pilgrims seeking the word of the cobra goddess. Long after the last pharaoh fell, the rearing serpent kept her place on the crowns of Ptolemies and emperors who ruled the Nile. Of all the gods of Egypt, none sat so close to power for so long. The cobra on the brow outlasted the pyramids, the temples, and the kingdom itself, and she is rearing still in every image of the pharaohs. Summary Wadjet endures as the serpent soul of Egyptian kingship, the cobra goddess who crowned three thousand years of pharaohs and burned their enemies from their brows. From the papyrus marshes of Buto to the barque of the sun god, from the titulary of the Two Ladies to the hiding place of the infant Horus, she wove herself through every level of the Egyptian world. A detail worth remembering: the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, one of the oldest royal emblems on earth, was believed to be her gift and rested in her sanctuary at Buto between coronations. In the human imagination, Wadjet remains the eternal guardian, the serpent who rears between the innocent and the knife. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Wadjet From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Eye of Ra Artifact/Object/Weapon Eye of Ra Ra Deity Ra Horus Deity Horus Nekhbet Deity Nekhbet Isis Deity Isis Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, c. 2345 BCE) - Wadjet as the fiery uraeus and the Eye of Ra - Metternich Stela (30th Dynasty, c. 360 BCE) - Isis hiding the infant Horus in the Delta marshes - Herodotus, The Histories, Book II (c. 440 BCE) - the sanctuary of Buto, the goddess called Leto, and the floating island - Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (Thames & Hudson, 2003) - Wadjet's cult, the uraeus, and the Two Ladies - Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford UP, 2002) - the Eye of Ra and the serpent goddesses - Barbara S. Lesko, The Great Goddesses of Egypt (University of Oklahoma Press, 1999) - Wadjet and Nekhbet in kingship ideology Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Oceanids: Three thousand freshwater nymphs, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, presided over springs, rivers, lakes, clouds and sacred waters | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Oceanids Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Ὠκεανίδες) Pronunciation oh-SEE-uh-nidz Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Three Thousand Freshwater Nymphs; Daughters of Oceanus Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Group Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period Archaic Greek period (c. 8th century BCE in Hesiod's Theogony) Symbol Wave Tags greek, spirit, sea, nature Introduction - Overview The Oceanids are the three thousand daughters of Oceanus, the Titan god of the world-encircling river, and Tethys, his sister and wife, the Titaness of the fertile waters. They are the nymphs of every spring, fountain, well, and freshwater stream that flows from the earth, and the guardians of the liquid boundary that separates the known world from the lands of the dead. Every mortal who draws water from a sacred spring speaks to the Oceanids whether they know the names or not. The eldest among them, Styx, the nymph of the river that borders the underworld, is so sacred that the gods themselves swear their most binding oaths upon her waters, and any god who breaks such an oath is cast into a coma for nine years. Other famous daughters include Metis, the first wife of Zeus who was swallowed whole while pregnant with Athena, and Doris, the mother of the fifty sea-nymphs called the Nereids. The Oceanids are not merely decorative spirits of nature; they are the mothers of gods, the witnesses of divine treaties, and the living network of freshwater that makes civilization possible. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Oceanids Members: 1. Styx - The eldest and most powerful, the nymph of the river Styx that forms the boundary between Earth and the underworld; her waters are the most sacred oath of the gods, and by her name Zeus himself swears inviolable vows 2. Doris - The bounty of the sea, mother of the fifty Nereids by the sea-god Nereus; she represents the rich abundance of fish and the gentle fertility of coastal waters 3. Electra - The amber-eyed nymph who bore the rainbow goddess Iris and the Harpies, the storm-winds that snatch souls and food; she embodies the sparkling brilliance of sunlit water 4. Metis - The cunning counsel, the first wife of Zeus who was swallowed by him when she was pregnant with Athena; she represents the deep wisdom that lurks beneath the surface of still waters 5. Eurynome - The wide-wandering, the mother of the three Charites, the goddesses of grace and beauty, by Zeus; she is the nymph of broad pasturelands nourished by ocean-fed rivers 6. Clymene - The famous name, mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius by the Titan Iapetus; she is the nymph of renown and the stories that travel on the tongues of men 7. Perseis - The destroyer, mother of the sorceress Circe and the fire-breathing king Aeetes by the sun-god Helios; she is the nymph of the burning salt and the transformative power of the sea 8. Pleione - The many, mother of the seven Pleiades, the star-nymphs who guide sailors and weep for their lost brother Hyas; she is the nymph of multitude and the clustered lights of the night sky 9. Tethys - Not to be confused with her aunt Tethys the Titaness, this Oceanid is the mother of the Nile by Oceanus himself; she represents the great rivers that civilize the desert 10. Idyia - The knowing one, mother of the sorceress Medea by King Aeetes of Colchis; she is the nymph of hidden knowledge and the secrets whispered by underground springs Oceanus and Tethys were among the eldest of the Titans, the primordial generation of gods who ruled before Zeus and the Olympians overthrew them in the Titanomachy, the ten-year war between the old gods and the new. While most Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, the dark pit beneath the earth, after their defeat, Oceanus and Tethys remained free because they had not taken sides in the war. They withdrew to the outer waters, the great river that encircles the entire world like a serpent biting its own tail, and there they had three thousand daughters and three thousand sons, the Potamoi, the river-gods. The Oceanids were born in those outer waters, and from there they dispersed across the world, each taking up residence in a spring, a fountain, a well, or a quiet pool. They are immortal but not all-powerful, beautiful but not invulnerable, and their number is so vast that no poet ever named them all. The most famous of the Oceanids is Styx, the eldest, whose river forms the boundary between the living world and the house of Hades, the grim king of the dead. When the Titanomachy began, Styx was the first to side with Zeus, bringing her children Zelos, Nike, Kratos, and Bia, the personifications of zeal, victory, strength, and force, to fight for the Olympians. In gratitude, Zeus decreed that the gods would swear their most binding oaths upon her waters, and any deity who broke such an oath would fall into a coma for nine years, denied the nectar and ambrosia that sustain immortality, and would be cast out of the divine council for a further nine years after waking. The water of Styx is so potent that Thetis, the sea-goddess mother of Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks, dipped her infant son in it to make him invulnerable, holding him by the heel that would one day prove his doom. When the hero Heracles, forced to complete twelve impossible labors, needed to enter the underworld to fetch the hound Cerberus, the three-headed guard of the dead, he crossed the river Styx with the guidance of the nymph herself. Another powerful Oceanid is Metis, whose name means simply "cunning counsel." She was the first consort of Zeus, and she helped him devise the plan to free his siblings from the belly of their father Cronus, the Titan who had swallowed them at birth to prevent a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him. Metis gave Cronus a potion that forced him to vomit up Zeus's brothers and sisters, and after the Titanomachy she became Zeus's wife. But a prophecy warned that Metis would bear a son more powerful than his father, and so Zeus, repeating the very crime he had condemned in Cronus, swallowed Metis whole while she was pregnant. The child was not a son but Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, who sprang fully armed from Zeus's forehead when Hephaestus, the smith-god, split it open with an axe. Metis survived inside Zeus, becoming the source of his wisdom, and she remains there still, the hidden counsel that the king of gods cannot escape. Doris, the bounty of the sea, married Nereus, the old man of the sea, a shape-shifting god who could foretell the future and who was renowned for his gentleness. By him she bore fifty daughters, the Nereids, the nymphs of the Mediterranean who attended the sea-god Poseidon and who guided sailors through storms. The most famous of the Nereids is Thetis, the mother of Achilles, who was so beautiful that both Zeus and Poseidon desired her until a prophecy warned that her son would be greater than his father. Thetis was married instead to the mortal king Peleus, and their wedding on Mount Pelion was attended by every god except Eris, the goddess of discord, whose uninvited gift of the golden apple marked for the fairest set in motion the chain of events that led to the Trojan War. Doris's other daughters include Amphitrite, the wife of Poseidon, and Galatea, the beloved of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Perseis, the destroyer, lay with Helios, the sun-god who drives his blazing chariot across the sky each day, and bore two children who would shape the fate of heroes. Her daughter Circe, the sorceress of Aeaea, an island in the western sea, transformed the crew of Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca who spent ten years struggling home from the Trojan War, into swine with her magic potions, and later became his lover and bore him a son. Her son Aeetes became the king of Colchis, a kingdom on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, and the guardian of the golden fleece, the hide of a winged ram that was the object of the quest of Jason and the Argonauts. Pleione, the many, bore the seven Pleiades to Atlas, the Titan condemned to hold up the heavens, and these star-nymphs became the guiding lights of sailors and the weeping sisters of the hunter Orion, whom they fled into the sky to escape. Idyia, the knowing one, was the wife of Aeetes and the mother of Medea, the sorceress who helped Jason steal the golden fleece, murdered her own brother to delay pursuit, and later killed her children in revenge when Jason abandoned her for another woman. Every major myth of the Greek world traces back to an Oceanid mother, a spring of divine blood flowing from the outer waters into the heart of the story. Summary The Oceanids are the invisible infrastructure of Greek mythology, the three thousand daughters of the world-river whose springs sustain every god, hero, and mortal. They are the mothers of wisdom and war, of sorcery and starlight, and their waters bind the gods to truth more absolutely than any law. From Styx's sacred oaths to Metis's swallowed counsel, from Doris's fifty sea-daughters to Perseis's sorcerer children, the Oceanids prove that power does not always thunder from Olympus. Sometimes it murmurs from a hidden spring or flows unseen beneath the earth. Every river and well was a doorway to their realm. They are the reason the world is not a desert, and the reason the gods themselves must keep their word. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Oceanids From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Tethys Titan Tethys Nereids Group Nereids Oceanus Titan Oceanus River Styx Location River Styx Metis Titan Metis Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Hesiod, Theogony (lines 346-370) - The birth and naming of the Oceanids - Hesiod, Theogony (lines 775-806) - Styx and her role in divine oaths - Homer, Iliad, Book 14 (lines 200-204, 271-276) - Oceanus and Tethys as the source of all gods - Homer, Iliad, Book 15 (lines 36-39) - The oath of the gods by Styx - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 1.2.2-3 - The children of Oceanus and Tethys, the Oceanids - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 1.3.1 - Metis and her swallowing by Zeus - Pindar, Olympian Odes, Ode 1 (lines 1-11) - The water of Styx and the invulnerability of Achilles - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (lines 136-143) - The daughters of Oceanus visiting Prometheus - Plato, Cratylus (402b-c) - Oceanus and the origin of all things from water - Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (1985) - Chapter 2, "The Titans and the Oceanids: Water and the Divine" - West, M.L., Hesiod: Theogony (1966) - Commentary on lines 346-370, "The Catalogue of Oceanids" - Larson, Jennifer, Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (2001) - "The Oceanids: From Cosmic Rivers to Local Springs" - Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod's Cosmos (2003) - "The Daughters of Oceanus: Structure and Genealogy" - Hardie, Philip, Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature (2012) - "The Oceanids and the Spread of Divine Knowledge" Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, from the dragon comet and Stonehenge to the deception of Igraine at Tintagel and the poisoned spring. | Mythopouch Previous Arthurian Next > Uther Pendragon Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Uthyr Pendragon (Welsh), Uterpendragon (Middle English), Uthyr Pen Pronunciation YOO-thur pen-DRAG-un Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Dragon's Head, the Father of Arthur, the Brother of Aurelius, the Raiser of Stonehenge, the Deceiver of Tintagel Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British/Celtic Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period 5th-6th centuries CE (mythic Arthurian period); literary tradition c. 1136-present, with earlier Welsh roots Symbol The golden dragon standard, the comet with the dragon's beam, the horse-litter of the sick king Tags arthurian, uther-pendragon, king, merlin, igraine, tintagel, stonehenge, aurelius-ambrosius, gorlois, dragon, britain, saxons Introduction - Overview Uther Pendragon is the father of King Arthur and the storm before the golden age, the fierce, lovesick and war-haunted king of Britain whose single night at Tintagel begot everything that followed. He is the younger brother of Aurelius Ambrosius, who fought the Saxons at his brother's side, led the expedition that carried the Giant's Dance from Ireland to raise Stonehenge, and took the dragon's name from a blazing star that promised him the crown. He is the king who burned with desire for Igraine, the wife of his own Duke of Cornwall, and who wore another man's face, by Merlin's craft, to enter her chamber while her true husband died that same night at his siege. He is the sick king carried in a litter to his last victory, poisoned by the spring he trusted, and laid to rest among the stones he had raised. And he is the darker half of the Arthurian beginning, the passion to Arthur's justice, the deception that made the king and planted the seed of all that came after. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Uther Pendragon The name is older than the story. Welsh poetry knew an Uthyr Pendragon long before the French romances: the Book of Taliesin preserves the Death-song of Uthyr Pen, a eulogy spoken in the voice of a formidable warrior, and the Welsh Triads credit Uthyr with one of the three great enchantments of Britain, which he taught to the magician Menw. The title itself is Welsh: pen means head or chief, and dragon, borrowed long before from the Roman legions' standards, meant in Welsh verse a warlord. Uther Pendragon is therefore something like Supreme Warrior, the dragon's head. It was Geoffrey of Monmouth, however, who made him a king and a biography. Geoffrey even supplies an explanation for the name, and it is one of his finest inventions. In the Historia Regum Britanniae, completed around 1136, Uther is the youngest son of King Constantine and the brother of Aurelius Ambrosius. When the usurper Vortigern falls with his Saxon allies, Aurelius takes the crown, and Uther fights beside him against Hengist and the broken invaders. It is Uther who leads the expedition to Ireland, with fifteen thousand men and Merlin for his engineer, to fetch the Giant's Dance from Mount Killaraus, the circle of enchanted stones that Merlin re-erects on Salisbury Plain as a memorial to the British nobles murdered by Hengist's knives at a peace parley, the Treachery of the Long Knives. Stonehenge is thus, in the Arthurian telling, Uther's monument before it is his tomb. While Uther fights Vortigern's son Pascentius and his Irish allies in Wales, a Saxon named Eopa, disguised as a physician, poisons Aurelius at Winchester. That same night a star of wonderful brightness climbs the sky, trailing a beam that ends in a ball of fire shaped like a dragon. Merlin reads it: Aurelius is dead, Uther shall be king, and the dragon's outstretched ray is the son who shall come from him, whose power shall cover all the lands it touches. Uther takes the name Pendragon, and has two golden dragons made, one for the cathedral at Winchester and one to carry before him into battle. Then comes the story for which he is remembered. At a high feast in London, Uther sees Igraine, the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and his desire is open and instant. Gorlois takes his wife from court; Uther makes war on Cornwall; the duke shuts Igraine in the sea-girt fortress of Tintagel and holds himself at the castle of Dimilioc. Uther, wasting with longing, turns to Merlin, who agrees to help on terms that will shape the age. By his craft Merlin gives Uther the face and form of Gorlois, and disguises himself and the king's chamberlain Ulfin as the duke's knights. That night Uther enters Tintagel unchallenged, lies with Igraine as her husband, and Arthur is conceived. That same night the real Gorlois sallies from Dimilioc and is killed. The scandal dissolves into convenience: the duke is dead, the widow is free, and Uther marries Igraine, who bears him Arthur and, in Geoffrey's account, a daughter, Anna. The end comes as it came to his brother. The Saxons rise again under Octa, the son of Hengist, and Eosa his kinsman, and Uther, grown old and sick, lets his lords quarrel until the realm is in peril, then has himself carried in a horse-litter to Verulamium, where the Britons win the field and take the Saxon leaders prisoner. The defeated invaders take their revenge by stealth: they bribe the king's servants, and when they learn that the sick Uther drinks only the water of one clear spring, they poison the spring. Uther dies, and the Britons carry him to Stonehenge and lay him within the stone circle beside Aurelius Ambrosius, the brother whose crown the comet had promised him. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur compresses and darkens the tale. His Merlin does not offer help as a favour but drives a bargain: Uther shall have his desire of Igraine, and the child that comes of it shall be delivered to Merlin to be reared as he will. Uther swears, and keeps the oath. Igraine's daughters by Gorlois are disposed of in marriage and religion: Margawse to King Lot of Orkney, Elaine to King Nentres of Garlot, and the youngest, Morgan, to a nunnery, where she learns her necromancy, before she is given to King Uriens of Gore. The infant Arthur is handed to Merlin and fostered in secret by Sir Ector, and within two years Uther falls sick, wins his last field from a litter at St Albans, lies speechless for three days, and dies with the succession hidden, leaving the realm in jeopardy until the sword appears in the stone. The tragedy of Malory's Arthur is planted exactly here, in his father's night of deception, for the disguised king who begot a son on a deceived wife will have that sin answered in kind. Uther endures because he is the necessary shadow before the light. He is the passion to his son's justice, the war that won the peace Arthur would rule, the dragon whose banner and name descended to the greater king. The romances make him the patron of their greatest wonders: Stonehenge stands because he fetched the stones, and the Round Table, in the Vulgate tradition, is made by Merlin in his reign. Modern tellings have made him harsher still, from the desperate warlord of the film Excalibur to the magic-burning tyrant of the BBC's Merlin, where he rules Camelot as the stern father Arthur must both honour and surpass. He is the reminder that the golden age was conceived in disguise, and that Merlin built the future out of very flawed materials. Summary Uther Pendragon endures as the shadowed beginning of the Arthurian story, the dragon-bannered king whose wars won the peace his son would rule and whose one night of deception begot both Arthur and all that Arthur's reign would answer for. From the Welsh death-song of Uthyr Pen to Geoffrey's comet, from the raising of Stonehenge to the poisoned spring, he is the fierce older world that Merlin bent toward a design it never understood. He is the reminder that the golden age was conceived in disguise, and that the father gave the son everything except a clean beginning. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Uther Pendragon From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Gorlois Person Gorlois Merlin Person Merlin Igraine Person Igraine Tintagel Location Tintagel King Arthur Person King Arthur Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Book of Taliesin, Marwnat Uthyr Pen (The Death-song of Uthyr Pen), 14th-century manuscript of older Welsh verse - the earliest surviving Uthyr - Welsh Triads - Uthyr Pendragon and the great enchantments of Britain - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136 - the full biography: Aurelius, the comet, Stonehenge, Igraine and the poisoned spring - Wace, Roman de Brut, 1155 - the Norman-French retelling of Uther's reign - Layamon, Brut, c. 1190-1215 - the English expansion of the story - Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle), the Estoire de Merlin, c. 1215-1235 - Merlin, the Round Table and Uther's reign - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, c. 1470 (Caxton edition 1485) - the bargain for the child, Terrabil, the fostering of Arthur and the speechless death - Stewart, Mary, The Crystal Cave, 1970 - the modern Uther and Ambrosius - Padel, O.J., Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (University of Wales Press, 2000) - the Welsh evidence for Uthyr Pendragon - Loomis, Roger Sherman, The Development of Arthurian Romance (Hutchinson, 1963) - Uther across the traditions Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Cyrene, the Thessalian huntress who wrestled a lion, was carried to Libya by Apollo and became queen and namesake of the wealthy Greek city of Cyrene. Previous Greek Next > Cyrene Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Κυρήνη (Kyrênê) Pronunciation sai-REE-nee Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Kyrene, The Lion-Slayer, Queen of Libya, Daughter of Hypseus, The Huntress Nymph Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Female Time Period Heroic Age; first attested in Hesiod (8th century BCE) Symbol Javelin & Lion's Hide Tags greek, thessaly, apollo, aristaeus, idmon, libya, huntress, lion-slayer, chiron Introduction - Overview Cyrene is the Thessalian princess who wrestled a lion with her bare hands and caught the eye of a god. She is the daughter of Hypseus, king of the Lapiths, the fierce mountain people of Thessaly, and of Chlidanope, a Naiad nymph of the river. She is the huntress who spurned the loom and the banquet hall, who slept little and rose before dawn to guard her father's cattle with a bronze javelin and a sword. She is the girl who, when a monstrous lion attacked the flocks on Mount Pelion, did not run for help but met the beast in single combat and killed it. She is the bride whom Apollo, the god of the sun and the lyre, carried off in his golden chariot to a land across the sea, where he founded a city and named it after her, making her queen of one of the richest kingdoms in the Greek world. And she is the mother of Aristaeus, the rustic god who taught mankind beekeeping, cheesemaking, and the cultivation of the olive, and of Idmon, the seer who sailed with the Argonauts and knew he would die on the voyage. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Cyrene Cyrene was born in Thessaly, the rugged northern land of mountains and horses, to Hypseus, the king of the Lapiths, and Chlidanope, a Naiad nymph of the springs. The Lapiths were a people famous for their warlike nature and their disastrous encounters with the gods. Hypseus himself was the son of Peneus, the river god whose waters flowed through the Vale of Tempe, and of Creusa, a daughter of Gaia, the primordial Earth. Cyrene grew up in the glens of Mount Pelion and Mount Pindus, a princess who rejected every expectation of her sex. She did not pace beside the loom. She did not join the merry feasts of her household companions. She did not sleep late. Instead she rose before dawn, took up her bronze-tipped javelin and her sword, and went into the wilds to hunt the beasts that threatened her father's herds. She was a companion of Artemis, the virgin huntress goddess of the wilderness, who gave her two hunting dogs, and with their help she won a prize in the funeral games of Pelias, the old king of Iolcus whose death had been contrived by Medea. Nonnus, the late Greek poet, called her "a deer-chasing second Artemis, the girl lionkiller," and praised her as "a champion in the leafy forest with lionslaying hands." The defining moment of her life came on the slopes of Mount Pelion. A monstrous lion, one of the great beasts that roamed the Thessalian highlands, broke from the forest and attacked her father's flocks. Most princesses would have fled, or called for men, or hidden behind walls. Cyrene did none of these. She went out alone, unarmed but for her courage and her strength, and she wrestled the lion. She seized the beast, matched her strength against its fury, and killed it. The fight was fierce, the dust rising around them, the roar of the lion echoing across the mountain. And Apollo, the long-haired son of Leto, was watching. He had come to Pelion on some god's errand, or perhaps he had been drawn by the sound of the struggle. He saw the girl, lovely-armed and fearless, bring the king of beasts to the ground, and he fell in love. Not with her beauty alone, though that was great, but with her courage, her wildness, her absolute refusal to be what the world expected her to be. Apollo wanted her, but he was not certain. A god may desire a mortal, but marriage is a different matter. He went to Chiron, the wise centaur who lived in a cave on Pelion, who had raised Achilles and Jason and who knew the hearts of gods and men. Chiron smiled when Apollo asked his counsel. He told the god that he already knew everything - the number of leaves that would sprout in spring, the grains of sand moved by every wave, the whole course of time itself - and that his question was merely a formality. But if the god wished to hear it, Chiron would speak plainly. Cyrene was fit to be the bride of Apollo. He would carry her across the sea to Libya, the third continent, and there he would make her queen of a city that would bear her name. She would bear him a son, and that son would be raised by the Hours and Gaia on nectar and ambrosia, and he would become Aristaeus, the guardian of flocks, the delight of men, a god in all but name. Apollo needed no further encouragement. That very day he took Cyrene in his golden chariot and drove across the sky to Libya. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, welcomed them when they arrived, laying her light hand upon the god's chariot and casting modesty over their union. She joined them in marriage, the immortal god and the mortal huntress, and Apollo laid with Cyrene in a chamber of gold. There, on the Hill of Myrtles, he founded the city of Cyrene and made her its queen. The land was rich beyond measure, a garden of Zeus where fruits grew in abundance and flocks grazed without number. Libya herself, the goddess of that broad land, welcomed the new queen into her golden halls and gave her a portion of the earth to rule as her lawful possession. Cyrene bore Apollo at least two sons. The first was Aristaeus, a child of such promise that Hermes, the messenger god, carried him from his mother's arms to the thrones of the Hours and to Gaia, the Earth herself. They fed the infant nectar and ambrosia, the food and drink of the gods, and made him immortal. He grew up under the care of Chiron in his Pelian cave, learning the arts of the countryside: beekeeping, cheesemaking, olive cultivation, and the care of flocks. The Greeks called him Agreus, the Hunter, and Nomius, the Shepherd, and they worshipped him as a god who protected the harvest and the herds. Her second son by Apollo was Idmon, a seer of such skill that he joined the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, though he knew from his own prophecies that he would be killed by a boar before the voyage ended. Some sources add a third son, Autuchus, mentioned by Apollonius of Rhodes. In another tradition, Cyrene also bore a son to Ares, the god of war: Diomedes, the king of Thrace who owned the man-eating mares that Heracles would later steal as one of his twelve labours. Apollo did not leave Cyrene to age and die. He transformed her into a nymph, granting her a long life so that she could hunt forever in the Libyan wilds. He visited her often, standing beside her on the Hill of Myrtles, lifting her hunting nets and showing her the land that was now hers. The historical Greeks, centuries later, founded a real colony on the same spot, sent by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi from the island of Thera. They named their city Cyrene after the mythic queen, and it became one of the most prosperous Greek cities in Africa, famous for its horses, its silphium, and its philosophers. The myth and the history became inseparable. The colonists believed they were fulfilling Apollo's ancient promise, and the poet Pindar, writing his ninth Pythian Ode for a victor from Cyrene in 474 BCE, made the city's divine origin the centrepiece of his song. Summary Cyrene stands as the supreme huntress-queen of Greek myth, the princess who killed a lion with her bare hands and was carried across the sea to rule a kingdom. From the glens of Mount Pelion to the golden chamber in Libya, from the bronze javelin to the city that bore her name, her story is one of wildness rewarded. Every woman who has ever refused the loom for the hunt, every colony that claims divine foundation, every god who falls in love with courage rather than beauty carries something of Cyrene in it. She reminds us that in Greek myth, the greatest marriages are sometimes made not in palaces but in mountain passes, and that a girl who can kill a lion may end up ruling a continent. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Cyrene From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Aristaeus Deity Aristaeus Chiron Person Chiron Apollo Deity Apollo Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fragment 92-93 (trans. Evelyn-White) (8th century BCE) - Cyrene's beauty and Aristaeus as her son - Pindar, Pythian Ode 9.5-70 (trans. Conway) (c. 474 BCE) - the earliest and most authoritative poetic account of the lion hunt, the abduction, and the foundation of Cyrene - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.498-527 (trans. Rieu) (3rd century BCE) - Cyrene as a shepherdess, her abduction, and the birth of Aristaeus - Callimachus, Hymn 2 to Apollo 85-96 (trans. Mair) (3rd century BCE) - Apollo's love for Cyrene and the Carneian feast at Cyrene - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.81.1-3 (1st century BCE) - Cyrene as daughter of Hypseus and mother of Aristaeus - Hyginus, Fabulae 14, 161 (2nd century CE) - Idmon as son of Apollo and Cyrene, and her parentage - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.300, 29.179 (c. 450-470 CE) - Cyrene as "deer-chasing second Artemis" and "lionkiller" - Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 4.42, 4.317 (4th-5th century CE) - Cyrene's parentage and her transformation into a nymph - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993) - Volume 1, pp. 88-89, the Cyrene myth and its variants - Calame, Claude, "Narrating the Foundation of a City: The Symbolic Birth of Cyrene" in Edmunds, L., ed., Approaches to Greek Myth (Johns Hopkins, 1990) - pp. 277-341, the mythic foundation and its political function - Chamoux, Francois, Cyrene sous la monarchie des Battiades (Paris, 1953) - the historical city and its mythic origins Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore the Club of Hercules, the hero's massive olive-wood cudgel used through his labours against monsters including the Hydra, Geryon and Erymanthian Boar. Previous Greek Next > Club of Hercules/Heracles Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Ρόπαλον Ἡρακλέους (Ropalon Herakleous) Pronunciation KLUB of HUR-kyuh-leez HAIR-uh-kleez Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Olive Club, The Wild-Olive Cudgel, The Club of the Strongman, The Heraclean Bludgeon, The Oak Club, The Lion-Slayer's Staff, The Club of Heracles, Hercules Club Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Artifact/Object/Weapon Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A Time Period 13th-12th century BCE (mythic age of Heracles) Symbol Hercules's Club Tags greek, hercules, club, heracles, olive-wood, weapon, labor, hydra, geryon Introduction - Overview The Club of Hercules/Heracles is the first weapon the hero ever carried, the olive-wood cudgel that became as famous as the lion skin on his back and the bow on his shoulder. It is the club that failed against the Nemean Lion, the beast whose hide no blade could pierce, and yet served him through every other labor and adventure of his long and violent life. It is the weapon he used to smash the heads of the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed serpent that lived in the marshes of Lerna, and to drive the man-eating Stymphalian Birds from their lake with a noise like thunder. It is the cudgel that crushed the skull of the triple-bodied giant Geryon, the shepherd-monster of the western isle, and that broke the bones of every bandit and tyrant who preyed upon the weak from Thessaly to Egypt. And it is the symbol that has outlasted every other attribute of the hero, the simple wooden club that appears in the hands of every statue, every coin, and every story of Hercules from archaic Greece to the modern day, a reminder that the greatest strength needs no edge. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Club of Hercules/Heracles The Club of Hercules/Heracles was born from an olive tree. Some say the hero found it on the slopes of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, the mountain sacred to the Muses, the nine goddesses of inspiration who presided over poetry, music, and dance. Others say he tore a branch from a wild olive tree near Nemea, the city in the Argolid where the Nemean Lion had made its lair, and shaped it with his own hands into a weapon. The club was not forged in fire like the swords of heroes, nor blessed by gods like the spears of champions. It was simply wood, gnarled and heavy, with knots where branches had grown and a weight that only a man of divine strength could lift. But in the hands of Hercules, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, it became the most terrible weapon in Greece. Hercules came to the club early in his life, before the madness sent by Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, who hated him for being the child of her husband's infidelity. Before he killed his wife Megara and their children in that divine frenzy, before he went to Delphi to seek atonement and was told he must serve Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for twelve years, Hercules had already chosen his weapon. He rejected the sword and the spear, the weapons of noble warriors, and took up the club instead. It suited him. He was not a nobleman fighting for honour or a king defending his realm. He was a force of nature, a man who solved problems by breaking them, and the club was the perfect expression of his nature: direct, brutal, and impossible to ignore. The club's first test came at Nemea, where Eurystheus sent Hercules to kill the Nemean Lion, the beast born of Typhon and Echidna whose hide no weapon could pierce. Hercules approached the lion's cave on Mount Tretus and struck it with his club, but the blow only staggered the beast without wounding it, for the hide turned aside even the force of a demigod's swing. He shot arrows, and they bounced off. He tried his sword, and the blade bent. In the end he dropped every weapon and strangled the lion with his bare hands, the first proof that his strength was greater than any monster. But the club had not been useless. It had shown Hercules the limits of weapons against divine beasts, and it had given him the confidence to trust his own hands when all else failed. From that day forward he kept the club, not as his only weapon but as his first resort, the tool he reached for when subtlety was not required. The club proved its worth in the second labor, the Lernaean Hydra. The Hydra was a monstrous serpent that lived in the marshes of Lerna near Argos, a creature with nine heads, one of which was immortal, and a breath so venomous that even its tracks killed whatever stepped in them. Hercules wore the Nemean Lion's Pelt, the impenetrable hide he had won at Nemea, as armour, and he waded into the marsh with his club raised. He smashed the heads one by one, but for every head he crushed, two more grew in its place. His nephew Iolaus, who had come to aid him, burned the stumps with a burning brand to keep them from regenerating, and together they destroyed the beast. But the club had done the heavy work, breaking bone and crushing skull while Iolaus applied fire to the wounds. Without the club, the Hydra's many heads would have overwhelmed them both. The club appears again in the fourth labor, the Erymanthian Boar, a monstrous beast that ravaged the region around Mount Erymanthus in Arcadia. Hercules drove the boar from its lair with shouts and stones, then chased it through deep snow until it was exhausted, and finally bound it with chains. But before the chase ended, he struck it with his club to stun it, a blow that would have killed any lesser creature but only slowed the boar long enough for the hero to wrestle it into submission. In the sixth labor, the Stymphalian Birds, man-eating creatures with bronze beaks and claws that infested a lake in Arcadia, Hercules used the club to strike a bronze rattle given to him by Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. The noise terrified the birds into flight, and he shot them down with arrows. The club was not always the killing blow. Sometimes it was the tool that made the killing possible. In the tenth labor, Hercules used the club to kill Geryon, the triple-bodied giant who ruled the island of Erytheia at the western edge of the world. Geryon was a monster with three heads, three torsos, and six arms, and his herd of red cattle was guarded by the two-headed dog Orthrus and the herdsman Eurytion. Hercules journeyed to the far west, killed the dog and the herdsman with his club, and then confronted Geryon himself. The giant attacked with spears and shields, but Hercules smashed through his guard with a single swing of the olive-wood cudgel, crushing all three of his skulls at once. The club had crossed the world and come back with the blood of a giant on its knots. Beyond the labors, the club served Hercules in countless adventures. He used it to kill the centaur Nessus, who had tried to abduct his wife Deianira, and from the centaur's poisoned blood would come the shirt that would one day destroy the hero himself. He used it to smash the heads of the bandit Cacus, the fire-breathing son of Vulcan who had stolen cattle from the hero's herd. He used it to break the gates of the Underworld when he descended to fetch the hound Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to Hades' realm. In every story, the club was there, simple and terrible, the weapon of a man who did not need elegance to be deadly. In later ages, the club became the most enduring symbol of Hercules. Greek sculptors paired it with the lion skin in every representation of the hero, and the two attributes became inseparable. Roman emperors struck coins showing Hercules with his club to symbolise their own strength and their protection of the weak. The club passed into the medieval imagination as the weapon of the Christian strongman, and Renaissance painters placed it in the hands of every Hercules they depicted. In the modern world, the image of the hero with a club has never faded, from circus strongmen to comic-book heroes to the very word herculean, which means requiring enormous strength. The Club of Hercules is the oldest symbol in Western art of strength without refinement, power without politics, and the simple truth that sometimes the best solution is the most direct one. Summary The Club of Hercules/Heracles stands as the most iconic weapon of Greek mythology, the olive-wood cudgel that smashed the Hydra's heads, stunned the Erymanthian Boar, and crushed the triple skull of Geryon. From the slopes of Mount Helicon to the western isle of Erytheia, from the marshes of Lerna to the gates of the Underworld, it is the symbol of brute strength applied with purpose. Every image of a hero who fights not with a blade but with the force of his own arm, and every story of a man who breaks what he cannot bend, descends from the gnarled club that Hercules shaped with his own hands. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Club of Hercules/Heracles From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Hydra Creature/Monster/Animal Hydra Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 2.5.1-2 (the Nemean Lion and the Lernaean Hydra), Book 2.5.4 (the Erymanthian Boar), Book 2.5.6 (the Stymphalian Birds), Book 2.5.10 (Geryon) - Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (1st century BCE) - Book 4.11.3-4 (the club and the first labors) - Pindar, Isthmian Ode 4.57-60 (466 BCE) - Hercules and his club - Theocritus, Idyll 25 (3rd century BCE) - the fight between Hercules and the Nemean Lion, with the club - Euripides, Heracles (c. 416 BCE) - lines 359-363, 572-573 (the hero's weapons and strength) - Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century CE) - Book 9.24.3 (the wild olive of Mount Helicon) - Sophocles, Women of Trachis (c. 450 BCE) - lines 555-577 (the death of Hercules and the club) - Virgil, Aeneid (19 BCE) - Book 8.193-267 (Hercules and Cacus, with the club) - Boardman, John, Athenian Black Figure Vases (Thames and Hudson, 1974) - pp. 224-227 (Hercules and the club in vase painting) - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) - Volume 2, pp. 378-383, 395-401 (the labors and the club) - Galinsky, G. Karl, The Herakles Theme (Basil Blackwell, 1972) - Chapter 2 (the iconography of the club) - Stafford, Emma, Herakles (Routledge, 2012) - Chapter 3 (the twelve labors and the club as primary weapon) Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Elaine of Astolat, the lily maid who died for love of Sir Lancelot, whose funeral barge to Camelot inspired Tennyson's Lady of Shalott. | Mythopouch Previous Arthurian Next > Elaine of Astolat Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Elaine le Blank (Elaine the White), la Donna di Scallota (Italian) Pronunciation ih-LAYN of AS-tuh-lat Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Fair Maid of Astolat, the Lily Maid of Astolat, Elaine the White, Elaine the Fair, the Lady of Shalott Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Female Time Period 5th-6th centuries CE (mythic Arthurian period); literary tradition c. 1300-1859 CE Symbol The red sleeve she gave Lancelot to wear on his helmet, the funeral barge draped in black samite, the letter in her cold hand, the lily Tags arthurian, elaine-of-astolat, lancelot, lady-of-shalott, unrequited-love, camelot, tennyson, malory Introduction - Overview Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who died of love for Sir Lancelot, the greatest knight of King Arthur's Round Table, whose heart already belonged to Queen Guinevere. She is the girl who nursed Lancelot back to life after a spear nearly killed him at a tournament, and who loved him the more hopelessly with every day of his healing. She is the owner of the red sleeve embroidered with pearls that Lancelot wore on his helmet as a disguise, the only lady's favour he ever carried into battle. She is the tragic centre of the tale Thomas Malory, the fifteenth-century writer of Le Morte d'Arthur, called his most noble story of Lancelot, in which her body was laid in a funeral barge and rowed down the Thames to Camelot with her last letter in her hand. And she is the inspiration for Alfred Tennyson's Lady of Shalott, the cursed weaver whose death-boat became one of the most painted images of the Victorian age, making Elaine the most famous of all the women who loved Lancelot in vain. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Elaine of Astolat Elaine was the daughter of Sir Bernard of Astolat, an old baron whose castle stood near Winchester, and the sister of Sir Lavaine and Sir Torre, two young knights of promise. Her story first appears in an Italian book of tales written around 1300, where she is called the Maid of Scalot, but it was Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur of 1485 that made her immortal. In his account, King Arthur, the once and future king of Britain, proclaimed a great tournament at Winchester, which his court also called Camelot. Sir Lancelot, the champion of Arthur's Round Table fellowship and the secret lover of Arthur's queen, Guinevere, chose to attend in disguise and lodged at Astolat as a stranger. There Elaine saw him, and in that first meeting she loved him with a love that would cost her life. Lancelot borrowed the plain shield of the wounded Sir Torre so that no one would know him, and left his own famous shield in Elaine's keeping, a trust that bound her heart to him completely. Before they rode out, Elaine begged Lancelot to wear her token at the tournament, a red sleeve embroidered with pearls. Lancelot, who had never worn any lady's favour in his life, agreed, thinking it the perfect disguise, for no one would believe the queen's own knight would bear another woman's colours. At the jousts he fought beside young Lavaine and outdid every knight of the Round Table who came against him. His own kinsman Sir Bors, not knowing him, struck him through the shield and into the side with a spear whose head broke off deep in the wound. Lancelot barely kept his saddle. Lavaine drew him from the press and carried him, bleeding and near death, to the hermitage of Sir Baudwin, a former knight of the Round Table turned holy man, who staunched the wound. When Elaine learned where he lay, she went to him and nursed him herself, day and night, until he could sit upright again. When Lancelot was healed enough to travel, Elaine went to him and spoke plainly. She loved him, she said, and if he would not be her husband she would die. Lancelot answered as gently as he could: he could not marry, for his heart was given elsewhere, and he named no name. He offered instead to be her champion for the rest of his life and to dower her richly when she wed another man. Elaine refused his comfort and told him that as he was a noble knight he should have mercy on her. When he would not, she turned her face to the wall and would neither eat nor sleep. Within ten days she was dead, having confessed her love to God and made her final arrangements with the same clear mind she had shown in life. Before she died, Elaine dictated a letter and commanded that her body be laid in a rich bed within a barge, covered over with black samite, with the letter placed in her right hand. A single trusted man was to row the barge down the Thames to Westminster, where the court then lay. The black-draped barge drifted up to the palace as Arthur and Guinevere stood watching, and the king had it brought before him. He read the letter aloud to all the court: here lay the Fair Maid of Astolat, dead for true love of Sir Lancelot, asking only a royal burial and his prayers for her soul. Guinevere turned on Lancelot and told him he might have shown the girl such gentleness as would have saved her life. Lancelot answered that love must rise from the heart of itself and cannot be commanded, and that he was sorrier for her death than anyone knew. Arthur ordered her buried with full honour, and Lancelot rode to the funeral and offered richly for masses to be sung for her soul. Four centuries later, the Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson, Britain's Poet Laureate, found her in Malory's pages and split her into two legends. In The Lady of Shalott, first published in 1833, he transformed her into a cursed weaver imprisoned in an island tower, forbidden to look directly at Camelot. She sees Lancelot ride flashing past in her mirror, turns to look, and the mirror cracks from side to side. She lays herself in a boat and floats down the river, dying before she reaches the city, and the frightened courtiers gather on the wharves to read her name written on the prow. In his Idylls of the King of 1859 Tennyson retold Malory's version almost scene for scene, calling her the lily maid of Astolat. Victorian painters made her one of the most depicted women in British art, and the image of the pale girl in the black-hung boat, drifting towards Camelot with her letter and her song, has never since left the imagination of the English-speaking world. Summary Elaine of Astolat endures as the purest image of unrequited love in Arthurian legend, the maiden who would not take half a heart when she had offered her whole one. When Lancelot refused her hand, he promised her a thousand pounds a year in lands for her and her heirs, and she would have none of it; what gold could not buy, grief could still take. From Malory's black-draped barge to Tennyson's cracking mirror, she remains the reminder that the heart obeys no court and no king, and that the gentlest casualty of Camelot's glory was a girl who simply loved the wrong man. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Elaine of Astolat From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Astolat Location Astolat Sir Gawain Person Sir Gawain Camelot Location Camelot Guinevere Person Guinevere Sir Lancelot Person Sir Lancelot Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Anonymous, Il Novellino, Novella LXXXII (La Donna di Scallota), c. 1281-1300 - primary source; the earliest version of the story, the Maid of Scalot who died for love of Lancelot - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485, Book XVIII (A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake) - primary source; the complete account of the tournament, her death, and the funeral barge - Alfred Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott, 1833, revised 1842 - primary literary source; the transformation of Elaine into the cursed weaver of the island tower - Alfred Tennyson, Elaine, in Idylls of the King, 1859 - primary literary source; the fullest poetic retelling of Malory's account - Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 1765 - early printed revival that returned Malory's Arthurian episodes to wide circulation - Simpson, Roger, Camelot Regained: The Arthurian Revival and Tennyson, 1800-1849 (D.S. Brewer, 1990) - scholarly study of Tennyson's Arthurian sources and the nineteenth-century revival - Poulson, Christine, The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art, 1840-1920 (Manchester University Press, 1999) - scholarly analysis of Elaine and the Lady of Shalott in Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian painting - Lacy, Norris J. (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (Garland, 1991) - scholarly reference; entries on Astolat, Elaine, and the Italian sources of the tale Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Fire-breathing Lycian hybrid: lion head, goat midsection, serpent tail. Slain by Bellerophon on Pegasus. Daughter of Echidna and Typhon | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Chimera Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (Χίμαιρα) Pronunciation kye-MEER-uh Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Fire-Breathing Monster; The Three-Headed Beast; Chimaera Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Creature/Monster/Animal Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A (sometimes referred to as female) Time Period Archaic Greek period (c. 8th century BCE in Hesiod's Theogony) Symbol Fire Lion Tags greek, monster, fire, chaos Introduction - Overview The Chimera is the fire-breathing monster that terrorized the kingdom of Lycia, a beast so terrible that even the gods looked upon her with dread. She is the creature with three heads upon one body, the forepart of a lion, the middle of a goat, and the tail of a serpent, each head capable of killing in its own way. She is the offspring of Typhon, the storm-giant who challenged the gods themselves, and Echidna, the half-woman half-serpent who mothered nearly every monster in Greek myth. She is the beast that was slain by Bellerophon, the hero who rode the winged horse Pegasus and rained down spears from the sky. And she is the namesake of every impossible fantasy, every creature stitched together from parts that do not belong, a word we still use today when we speak of something that is part one thing and part another and altogether unnatural. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Chimera The Chimera was born from two monsters who were themselves children of the primordial earth. Her father was Typhon, the storm-giant with a hundred serpent heads who waged war against Zeus, the king of the gods, and was buried beneath Mount Etna as punishment. Her mother was Echidna, a creature with the face of a beautiful woman and the tail of a coiled serpent, who lived in a cave deep beneath the earth and gave birth to nearly every monster that would haunt the Greek world. From this pairing came the Chimera, a beast that combined the worst qualities of all three animals she resembled. She had the strength of a lion, the horns of a goat, and the venomous bite of a serpent. She breathed fire from her goat head, a flame so hot that it could melt stone. The Chimera made her lair on Mount Cragus in Lycia, a region on the southern coast of what is now Turkey. From her mountain stronghold she descended upon the cities below, burning fields and devouring livestock. The king of Lycia, Iobates, had been sent a letter by Proetus, the king of neighboring Tiryns, who wanted a young man named Bellerophon killed. Proetus wrote that Bellerophon had tried to seduce his wife, and begged Iobates to dispose of him. Iobates saw an opportunity. He sent Bellerophon to face the Chimera, a task that no mortal had ever survived. Bellerophon was not an ordinary hero. He was the son of Glaucus, a king of Corinth, and he possessed Pegasus, the winged horse born from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa, a creature so terrible that one look at her face turned living things to stone. Bellerophon had tamed Pegasus with the help of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, who gave him a golden bridle. Now he rode this divine steed into battle against the Chimera. The monster breathed fire that scorched the earth and roared with three voices at once, but Bellerophon stayed above her reach, wheeling in the sky on Pegasus's wings. From that height he rained down spears, and finally one found the soft flesh where the goat head met the lion body. The Chimera fell, her fire extinguished, her three heads silenced forever. The death of the Chimera did not end her story. In the underworld, the realm of Hades, the god of the dead, she continued to exist as a spirit of terror. The poet Homer, writing in the eighth century BCE, placed her among the horrors that the dead must face, alongside the Gorgon and the Hydra and other monsters slain by heroes but never truly destroyed. Later artists would depict her in ever more elaborate forms, adding wings and extra heads. But the core of her legend remained the same: she was the monster that should not exist, the creature that proved nature could go wrong, and the beast that only a hero riding a divine steed could defeat. The word "chimera" has outlasted the monster herself. In modern biology it means an organism made from two different sets of DNA. And in everyday speech it means any wild fantasy or impossible dream. All of these meanings trace back to a monster on a mountain in Lycia, a beast with three heads and one heart, who breathed fire and died under the spears of a hero on a winged horse. She was the first chimera, the original impossible thing, and her name still reminds us that the boundary between the natural and the unnatural is thinner than we like to believe. Summary The Chimera stands as the eternal symbol of the unnatural made flesh, the monster that proved nature could twist itself into nightmares. From her birth in the cave of Echidna to her death on the slopes of Mount Cragus, she embodied the terror of the unknown and the courage required to face it. Her slayer Bellerophon and his winged horse Pegasus became legends in their own right, but the Chimera herself never truly died. She lives on in every hybrid creature, every scientific chimera, every impossible dream that refuses to be real, a reminder that the most frightening monsters are the ones that should not exist at all. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Chimera From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Echidna Creature/Monster/Animal Echidna Pegasus Creature/Monster/Animal Pegasus Bellerophon Person Bellerophon Iobates Person Iobates Typhon Creature/Monster/Animal Typhon Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 6, Lines 179-183 (Bellerophon and the Chimera) - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 16, Lines 328-329 (The Chimera in the underworld) - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - Lines 319-325 (Birth of the Chimera from Typhon and Echidna) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (c. 1st-2nd century CE) - Book 1, Chapter 9, Section 3 (Bellerophon slays the Chimera) - Kirk, G.S., Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (1970) - Chapter 4: "The Monster in Greek Myth" (pp. 78-92) - Fontenrose, Joseph, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (1959) - Chapter 3: "The Lycian Monster" (pp. 89-104) - West, M.L., Hesiod: Theogony (1966) - Commentary on lines 319-325, pp. 251-253 - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993) - Volume 1, pp. 310-315 (Chimera and Bellerophon) Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Apshait, the flesh-eating beetle of the Egyptian underworld, feared in the Book of the Dead as a threat to the preserved body | Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Apshait Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s (ꜥpšꜣyt) Pronunciation AP-sheh-it Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Apshayt; Flesh-Eating Beetle; Corpse-Gnawing Insect Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Creature/Monster/Animal Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A Time Period New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070 BCE), in the Book of the Dead Symbol Beetle Pincers Tags egyptian, monster, book-of-the-dead, beetle, underworld, destruction Introduction - Overview The apshait is a malevolent creature of Egyptian funerary theology, appearing in Spell 36 of the Book of the Dead as a flesh-eating beetle or insect that threatens to consume the body of the deceased in the afterlife. Its Egyptian name, transliterated ꜥpšꜣyt, incorporates hieroglyphic determinatives depicting a beetle or insect, underscoring its identity as an entomological threat to postmortem preservation. In Egyptian belief, the integrity of the physical body was essential for eternal survival. The deceased needed their body to be preserved in order for the ba (soul) and ka (life force) to reunite and achieve resurrection in the Field of Reeds. The apshait represented a direct attack on this necessity - a force of corruption and decay that could destroy the physical vessel upon which immortality depended. Gallery Other depictions of Apshait as a beetle devourer. Main Article - Who or What was... Apshait Spell 36 of the Book of the Dead - titled "Chapter whereby the Apshait is kept back" - is the primary source for this creature. In the standard translation from the Theban recension, the deceased identifies with the creator god Khnum to command the creature's retreat: "Away from me, thou with parted lips! I am Khnum, the Lord of Shennu, who am bringing the words of the gods to Ra." The phrase "parted lips" (or "lips which gnaw") describes the apshait's anatomy as adapted for chewing - a direct threat to the intact mummy. The apshait likely originated in observations of real carrion insects that infested poorly preserved mummies. Egyptologists including E.A. Wallis Budge noted that beetles - particularly dermestid species - were sometimes found crushed in mummy bandages, having burrowed into the corpse. This practical reality was transmuted into mythological danger: the apshait became a demonic entity in the Duat, one of many devouring monsters the deceased had to name and repel through magical knowledge. Vignettes accompanying Spell 36 often depict the deceased spearing a beetle-like creature or confronting it with a knife and staff. The apshait is paired in protective sequences (Spells 33-39) with other threats including serpents and crocodiles, forming a comprehensive programme of bodily defence. Some later interpretations have equated the apshait with cockroaches or other scavenging insects, though the precise zoological referent remains debated. The creature functions as the malevolent counterpart to the scarab deity Khepri, who embodied regeneration and solar rebirth. Summary The apshait was a flesh-eating beetle of the Egyptian underworld, documented in Book of the Dead Spell 36 as a threat to the deceased's bodily integrity. Real carrion insects likely inspired its mythological form, which was ritually repelled through identification with Khnum and apotropaic magic. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Apshait From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Khepri Deity Khepri Mummy Creature/Monster/Animal Mummy Book of the Dead Artifact/Object/Weapon Book of the Dead Duat Location Duat Field of Reeds Location Field of Reeds Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Wikipedia: "Apshait" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apshait) - Grokipedia: "Apshait" (https://grokipedia.com/page/apshait) - E.A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead (1898 edition) - Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (1972) - Salima Ikram, Divine Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt (2005) Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Peleus, king of Phthia who held Thetis through every transformation, fathered Achilles and lived to see his heroic house transformed by tragedy and war. Previous Greek Next > Peleus Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Πηλεύς (Pēleus) Pronunciation PEE-lee-us Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Father of Achilles, The Husband of Thetis, The King of Phthia, The Argonaut, The Man Who Held the Sea, The Survivor of Aegina Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period c. 8th century BCE (Homeric attestation); mythic setting pre-Trojan War Symbol Spear, Lion's grip & Wedding Torch Tags greek, peleus, person, achilles, thetis, phthia, argonauts, cheiron, aegina, calydonian-boar Introduction - Overview Peleus is the king of Phthia who won the sea-goddess Thetis by holding her through every shape she could take, the mortal whose grip was stronger than fire, water, lion, serpent, and tree, and who became the father of the greatest warrior Greece ever produced. He is the son of Aeacus, the king of Aegina, and the grandson of Zeus, the king of the gods, a prince whose divine blood was diluted by mortality but never extinguished. He is the Argonaut who sailed with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, the hunter who stood beside Meleager against the Calydonian Boar, and the exile who killed his half-brother Phocus and fled to Thessaly to build a new kingdom. He is the husband of Thetis, the Nereid whose beauty attracted both Zeus and Poseidon until a prophecy warned that her son would be greater than his father, and who was given to Peleus because no god dared to risk the fate that had befallen Uranus and Cronus. And he is the old king who outlived his only son, who sent Achilles to Troy knowing he would never return, and who died alone in Phthia while his grandson Neoptolemus avenged the father he had lost. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Peleus Peleus was born on Aegina, the island in the Saronic Gulf that his father Aeacus had made famous as a kingdom of justice and order. Aeacus was the son of Zeus and Aegina, the nymph from whom the island took its name, and he had three sons: Peleus, Telamon, and Phocus. Phocus was the favourite, beautiful and athletic, the son of a different mother, and his brothers grew jealous of the attention he received. The jealousy turned to murder. In some accounts, Peleus and Telamon plotted together to kill Phocus during a discus throw, hurling the stone disc at his head. In others, Peleus acted alone, striking his half-brother in a moment of rage. Whatever the truth, Phocus died, and Aeacus, in his grief and his sense of justice, exiled both Peleus and Telamon from Aegina forever. Peleus wandered northward to Thessaly, where he was purified of his blood-guilt by Eurytion, the king of Phthia, and given the hand of Eurytion's daughter Antigone in marriage, along with a third of the kingdom. He became a king in exile, a man who had murdered his way out of one life and built another from the wreckage. In Thessaly, Peleus proved himself a warrior of the first rank. He sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, the crew of the ship Argo who sought the Golden Fleece in the distant land of Colchis on the Black Sea, and he fought in the great hunt of the Calydonian Boar, the monstrous creature sent by Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, to ravage the fields of Aetolia. In that hunt, he accidentally killed his father-in-law Eurytion with a javelin cast amiss, a second death by his hand that forced him to flee Phthia and wander again. He found refuge on Mount Pelion, in the cave of Cheiron, the wisest of the Centaurs, the creature who was half-man and half-horse and who trained the greatest heroes of the age. Cheiron took Peleus in, taught him the arts of war and medicine and music, and restored him to a kingship that he had twice lost through blood. The defining episode of Peleus's life was his courtship of Thetis, the sea-nymph whose beauty was so great that both Zeus and Poseidon had desired her. Thetis was one of the Nereids, the fifty daughters of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, and she had been raised by Hera, the queen of Olympus, who loved her as a foster daughter. When Zeus and Poseidon learned of a prophecy that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father, they withdrew their suits, for no god wished to suffer the fate that had befallen Uranus, castrated by Cronus, and Cronus, overthrown by Zeus. Thetis must marry a mortal, the gods decided, and Peleus, with his divine grandfather and his proven courage, was chosen as the bridegroom. But Thetis did not submit willingly. She was a goddess, or nearly so, and she would test the mortal who claimed her. The test was a wrestling match of supernatural ferocity. Peleus found Thetis sleeping in a cave on the coast of Thessaly, and he seized her and held on as she transformed herself into every shape the natural world could produce. She became fire, and her body burned with a heat that should have reduced a mortal to ash, but Peleus held on. She became water, and her body flowed like a river through his fingers, but Peleus held on. She became a lion, and her claws tore at his flesh, but Peleus held on. She became a serpent, and her fangs struck at his throat, but Peleus held on. She became a tree, and her bark hardened into iron, but Peleus held on. Through every transformation, his grip never loosened, and finally Thetis, exhausted and impressed, returned to her true form and consented to be his wife. The wedding was celebrated on Mount Pelion, and all the gods attended. Apollo played the lyre, the Muses sang, and the Centaurs danced, and from the union of Peleus and Thetis was born Achilles, the hero whose name would outlast every other name of the age. Peleus's later life was shadowed by loss. Thetis, unable to bear the mortality of her husband, left him and returned to the sea, though she continued to watch over her son. Peleus raised Achilles alone, with the help of Cheiron, and he gave the boy the divine armour and the immortal horses that would carry him to Troy. When the Trojan War began, Peleus was already an old man, too old to fight, and he watched his son sail away with the fleet that Agamemnon had gathered at Aulis. He knew the prophecy: Achilles would die young and famous at Troy, and he would not see his father again. Peleus outlived his son by several years, ruling Phthia in lonely old age, and he died before Neoptolemus, Achilles's son by the Trojan princess Deidamia, returned from the war with the ashes of his father. The tomb of Peleus stood in Phthia, and the Greeks who passed through Thessaly on their way to Delphi or Olympus would stop to honour the king who had held a goddess in his arms and who had paid for that glory with the loss of everything he loved. Summary Peleus endures as the most determined mortal lover in Greek mythology, the king of Phthia whose grip outlasted fire, water, lion, serpent, and tree to win the sea-goddess Thetis and father Achilles. From the murder of Phocus on Aegina to the cave of Cheiron on Mount Pelion, from the wrestling match that tamed a goddess to the lonely death in Phthia while his son burned at Troy, his story is one of exile, courage, and the terrible price of loving the divine. A detail worth remembering: every god who attended Peleus's wedding gave him a gift, and the only gift that mattered was the one he gave himself, the refusal to let go. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Peleus From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Thetis Deity Thetis Achilles Person Achilles Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Homer, Iliad, Book 18.78-93, Book 24.534-551 (c. 8th century BCE) - Peleus as father of Achilles and his old age in Phthia - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.13.1-6 (1st-2nd century CE) - Peleus's parentage, exile, marriage to Thetis, and the birth of Achilles - Pindar, Nemean Ode 4.54-68, Nemean Ode 5.23-37 (c. 490 BCE) - Peleus's wrestling match with Thetis and their divine wedding - Catullus, Poem 64.19-30 (c. 1st century BCE) - Roman poetic account of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, Book 1.90-95 (c. 3rd century BCE) - Peleus as one of the Argonauts - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 11.221-265 (c. 8 CE) - the death of Achilles and Peleus's grief - Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) - comprehensive analysis of Peleus in early Greek literature and art - Malcolm Davies, The Greek Epic Cycle (Duckworth, 1989) - scholarly study of Peleus's role in the pre-Iliadic tradition and the Trojan War cycle Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Europa, the Phoenician princess abducted by Zeus as a white bull, whose name became the continent of Europe and whose sons ruled Crete - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Europa Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Εὐρώπη (Eurōpē) Pronunciation yoo-ROH-puh Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Bull-Rider, The Mother of Minos, The Phoenician Princess, The Namesake of Europe, The White Bull's Bride Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Female Time Period c. 8th-7th century BCE (literary tradition); mythic Bronze Age Symbol Cow head Tags greek-mythology, europa, zeus, white-bull, crete, minos, europe, taurus Introduction - Overview Europa is the Phoenician princess whose abduction by Zeus, the king of the gods, in the form of a magnificent white bull gave her name to the continent of Europe and set in motion her brother Cadmus's founding of Thebes. She is the daughter of King Agenor of Tyre and Queen Telephassa, the sister of Cadmus who sowed the dragon's teeth to found Thebes, of Cilix who gave his name to Cilicia, and of Phoenix who gave his name to the Phoenicians. She is the mother of Minos, the king of Crete whose labyrinth held the Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull; of Rhadamanthus, who would become one of the three judges of the dead in the underworld; and of Sarpedon, the Lycian prince who would fall at Troy. She is the maiden who rode the bull across the Mediterranean Sea from the shores of Tyre to the island of Crete, where Zeus revealed his true form beneath a cypress on Mount Ida. And she is the namesake of an entire continent, the word "Europe" deriving from her name, a legacy that has outlasted every empire that rose and fell upon the land. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Europa Europa was born in Tyre, the Phoenician city on the coast of Lebanon, to King Agenor and Queen Telephassa. She had three brothers: Cadmus, who would found Thebes by sowing dragon's teeth; Cilix, whose name would be given to Cilicia; and Phoenix, whose name became that of the Phoenicians. Europa was renowned for her extraordinary beauty. She dreamed Asia and a nameless land fought over her, with the nameless land prevailing. The dream was an omen, though Europa did not understand it. One day, while Europa played with her maidens on the seashore near Tyre, a white bull appeared among them. The creature was beautiful, hide gleaming like snow, horns curved like the crescent moon, breath smelling of crocuses. It was gentle and tame, and the maidens dared to approach it. Europa, enchanted, wove flowers into its horns and climbed upon its broad back. The moment she was seated, the bull plunged into the sea and began to swim. It was Zeus, the king of the gods, who had transformed himself to escape his wife Hera, queen of Olympus, notoriously jealous of his affairs with mortal women. The bull swam across the Mediterranean with Europa on its back, while the Nereids, fifty sea-nymph daughters of the old sea-god Nereus, rose to marvel, and Poseidon calmed the waters. They landed on Crete, beneath a cypress on Mount Ida, the mountain where Zeus had been hidden as an infant to escape his father Cronus, the Titan who swallowed his own children. There Zeus shed his bull form and revealed himself. He lay with Europa beneath the cypress, and from their union three sons were born. The first was Minos, who would become king of Crete. The second was Rhadamanthus, a man of such justice that after his death he would be made a judge of the dead in the underworld, realm ruled by Hades. The third was Sarpedon, who would rule Lycia and fight at Troy. After bearing these sons, Europa married Asterion, king of Crete, who raised the boys as his own heirs. Minos became the most famous of her children. He prayed to Poseidon for a sign of divine favour, and Poseidon sent a white bull from the waves. Minos was supposed to sacrifice it, but he kept it, and in revenge Poseidon caused Minos's wife Pasiphae, daughter of the sun-god Helios, to fall in love with the bull. From that union came the Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull that fed on human flesh, which Minos imprisoned in the Labyrinth designed by Daedalus. Rhadamanthus was driven from Crete by Minos and became a judge of the dead in the underworld. Sarpedon went to Lycia and became a great warrior. When the Trojan War broke out, he led the Lycian forces to Troy and was slain by Patroclus, beloved companion of Achilles. Europa herself did not return to Phoenicia. She remained on Crete, honoured as wife of the king and mother of heroes. But her name lived on in ways she never imagined. The land to the north and west of the Greek world came to be called Europe in her honour, and the name eventually covered the continent. In the heavens, Zeus placed the image of the white bull among the stars as the constellation Taurus, so that the animal that carried her across the sea would be remembered. In art, Europa was depicted riding the bull across the waves, her garments flowing behind her, a scene that became one of the most enduring images of Greek mythology, painted by artists from vase-painters to the Renaissance masters. Summary Europa stands as the bridge between East and West, the Phoenician princess whose abduction by a god gave her name to a continent and whose sons shaped legends of Crete, justice, and war. From the seashore of Tyre to the cypress groves of Mount Ida, from the white bull that carried her across the sea to the constellation that remembers it, her story is one of beauty that launches empires and names that outlast. Every map that shows Europe, every star chart that marks the Bull, and every painting of a maiden riding a wave-borne beast carries the memory of the girl who crossed the Mediterranean on the back of a god and changed the world forever. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Europa From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Cadmus Person Cadmus Zeus Deity Zeus Poseidon Deity Poseidon Minos Person Minos Pasiphae Person Pasiphae Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Moschus, Europa (c. 2nd century BCE) - Lines 1-165 (the complete narrative of Europa's abduction by Zeus as a bull) - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 2, Lines 876-877; Book 16, Lines 419-683 (Sarpedon at Troy, his lineage and death) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 3, Chapter 1 (Europa and the bull, her sons and their fates) - Ovid, Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) - Book 2, Lines 833-875 (the abduction of Europa, the bull, the sea journey) - Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century CE) - Book 3.13.3 (Europa at Amyclae); Book 7.20.1-7.20.2 (Europa at Sparta) - Herodotus, Histories (c. 440 BCE) - Book 1.1-1.2 (Europa as a Phoenician woman); Book 4.45 (Europe named after her) - West, M.L. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins (1985) - Oxford University Press, pp. 120-128 (Europa in the Catalogue of Women) - Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion (1985) - Harvard University Press, Chapter 3 (Europa and the bull cult in Greek religion) - Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993) - Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 1, pp. 208-213 (Europa narrative survey) - Lopez-Ruiz, Carolina. When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East (2010) - Johns Hopkins University Press, Chapter 4 (Europa and Near Eastern parallels) - Dowden, Ken. The Uses of Greek Mythology (1992) - Routledge, Chapter 3 (Europa as colonisation myth) Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore the Thames, Britain's ancient sacred river, where Celtic offerings, Arthurian legend and Christian miracles shaped a waterway at the heart of history. Previous Arthurian Next > Thames Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Tamesis (Latin), Tamesa (Celtic), Temese (Old English) Pronunciation TEMZ Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Dark River, Old Father Thames, The Sacred River, The Guardian River, The River of Boundaries, The River of the Goddess Isis, The River of Brutus Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British/Celtic/English Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Location Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Historical Gender N/A Time Period Prehistoric to present; Celtic period c. 500 BCE - 43 CE; Roman period 43-410 CE; literary tradition from Gildas 6th century CE and Geoffrey of Monmouth c. 1136 CE Symbol Old Man Visage Tags arthurian, thames, british, place, river, celtic, tamesis, old-father-thames, sacred-river, gildas, geoffrey-of-monmouth Introduction - Overview The Thames is the dark river that runs through the heart of Britain, a sacred waterway whose Celtic name Tamesa means "smooth" or "wide spreading" and whose Latin form Tamesis gave the world the deity known as Old Father Thames, the river god with flowing beard and hair who carries an urn of plenty. It is the river that the Britons regarded as a living being, an important member of the community and the lifeblood of the land, into whose waters they cast swords, shields, and precious offerings for two thousand years to appease the spirits that dwelt beneath the surface. It is the guardian river of Gildas, the sixth-century chronicler who declared that the Thames was always the river of boundaries, the liminal space between two jurisdictions where kings met to negotiate and saints were martyred. It is the river where Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas and the legendary founder of Britain, came ashore to build Troia Nova, the city that would become London. And it is the river that St. Alban parted with prayer in the fourth century, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side so that the martyr could walk across dry ground to his execution, a miracle that made the Thames a Christian holy river while never fully dispelling the older gods who still linger in its currents. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Thames The Thames was sacred long before the Romans arrived. The Celtic Britons called it Tamesa, from a Brythonic root meaning "dark" or "smooth," and they treated it as a living thing with indwelling spirits who must be acknowledged and nurtured. Archaeologists have recovered thousands of votive objects from its waters: polished stone axe heads, bronze swords, iron spearheads, and precious metalwork cast into the river as offerings to the powers beneath. The Thames was a transitional space, a door between the world of the living and the Otherworld of the dead, and the Celts buried some of their dead in its waters and deposited treasures at its confluences to secure the goodwill of the river spirits. The river was never merely geography; it was a member of the tribe, a deity in liquid form whose moods determined the fortune of every settlement along its banks. When the Romans came, they recognised the sacred nature of the Thames and gave it a deity worthy of its stature. They Latinised the name as Tamesis, and the river acquired a tutelary god: Old Father Thames, a figure with flowing beard and hair who resembled the river gods of the Nile and the Tiber, carrying an urn that symbolised the plenty and renewal that the river brought to the land. The Romans also associated the Thames with other divine powers. An altar dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus was found on the banks at Little Wittenham, and a ritual carving of a goddess was excavated at Bablock Hythe. The confluences of the Thames with its tributaries were especially holy ground, guarded by the three seated goddesses known as the Matres and by Condatis, the Celtic god of the watersmeet whose name means literally "god of the two streams." At the mouth of the Kennet, where the tributary joins the main river at Reading, offerings were made for centuries, and the Horseshoe Bridge that spans the confluence still carries an ancient symbol of fortune. The Thames had no single Celtic goddess of its own, unlike the Severn which was guarded by Sabrina or the Dee by Deva, but the absence only made the river more mysterious, a deity whose true name was hidden. The Thames entered the legendary history of Britain through Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. In Geoffrey's account, Brutus, the grandson of the Trojan hero Aeneas, sailed to Britain after the fall of Troy and came to the Thames, where he founded a city called Troia Nova, New Troy, which would later be known as London. The river was thus woven into the very foundation myth of Britain, the water that received the first Trojan settlers and the boundary that defined the capital of the realm. The sixth-century chronicler Gildas, writing centuries before Geoffrey, had already called the Thames the guardian river, the river of boundaries, the place where kings met to negotiate and where religious synods were held. The same liminal quality that made the Thames sacred to the Celts made it politically essential to the Saxons and the Normans who followed. The Christian transformation of the Thames began in the fourth century with the martyrdom of St. Alban. The Venerable Bede and the earlier chronicler Gildas recorded that Alban was led to execution on 20 June 304, but the bridge across the Thames was so crowded with spectators that he could not cross. Alban prayed, and the river parted before him, its waters standing upright like walls on either side, creating a dry path across the channel. The miracle echoed the parting of the Red Sea and the crossing of the River Jordan, and it placed the Thames firmly within Christian sacred geography. In the seventh century, St. Birinus converted the first Saxons to Christianity by baptising them in the Thames at places such as Somerford Keynes, Taplow, and Dorchester, establishing the river as a fountain of grace. Yet the old spirits never wholly departed. As late as the eighteenth century, statues of Old Father Thames adorned bridges and public buildings, and royal pageants on the river featured nymphs and sea gods in costumes that preserved the memory of the water deities. T.S. Eliot would lament in The Waste Land that "the nymphs are departed," but the lament itself proved that the memory of the river's sacred inhabitants still haunted the English imagination. The source of the Thames is a place of ancient enchantment. At Thames Head in the Cotswolds, a small group of stones marks the origin, and an ash tree has stood there for approximately two centuries guarding the spot. In Norse mythology, the ash is the World Tree Yggdrasil, whose roots reach into the lower world and whose trunk connects the circles of existence, and beside every World Tree there is a spring or pool from which a river flows. Whether by coincidence or by the deep patterning of human imagination, the ash at Thames Head stands where the river emerges from darkness into light, a metaphor of birth and death that has drawn pilgrims and poets for centuries. The river begins in mystery, flows through the heart of a kingdom, and empties into the sea that leads to the edge of the world, and at every stage it has been treated as a god, a boundary, a grave, and a gateway. Summary The Thames endures as the most sacred river in Britain, the dark water that has received votive offerings from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, that was guarded by Old Father Thames and the three seated goddesses, and that St. Alban parted with a prayer. From the Celtic Tamesa to the Roman Tamesis, from the confluence at Reading to the founding of Troia Nova, from the baptisms of St. Birinus to the nymphs of the royal pageants, its story is the story of a river that has never been merely geography. It is the reminder that every river is a deity in disguise, and that the water that flows beneath London Bridge has been flowing since before London existed. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Thames From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Geoffrey of Monmouth Person Geoffrey of Monmouth Merlin Person Merlin Gildas Person Gildas Uther Pendragon Person Uther Pendragon King Arthur Person King Arthur Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, c. 540-547 CE - primary source; the Thames as the guardian river and river of boundaries, and the miracle of St. Alban parting the waters - Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, c. 731 CE - primary source; the martyrdom of St. Alban and the parting of the Thames - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136 CE - primary source; Brutus founding Troia Nova by the Thames and the river's place in the foundation myth of Britain - The Venerable Bede, Life of St. Alban (in Ecclesiastical History), c. 731 CE - primary source; the detailed account of Alban's crossing of the Thames and the waters standing like walls - Ackroyd, Peter, Thames: Sacred River (Chatto & Windus, 2007) - comprehensive study of the Thames from prehistory to the present, including Old Father Thames, votive offerings, and the sacred source - Aldhouse-Green, Miranda, Sacred Britannia: The Gods and Rituals of Roman Britain (Thames & Hudson, 2018) - scholarly study of Romano-Celtic religion and river deities in Britain, including the Thames - Ross, Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition (Routledge, 1967) - scholarly analysis of Celtic water cults and votive deposits in British rivers - Bradley, Richard, The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 2007) - scholarly archaeological study of prehistoric ritual deposits in the Thames and other British waterways - London Museum, "The Sacred River Thames" (2025) - archaeological and historical source; the Bronze Age sword and votive objects recovered from the Thames, and the river's sacred status from prehistory - TheCollector, "How Celtic Britons Used the River Thames" (2024) - historical source; the Celtic name Tamesa, the river as a living being, and the transitional space between the living and the dead Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Poseidon, the earth-shaking god of the sea who pursued Odysseus, rivaled Athena for Athens, and ruled the waves with his mighty trident - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Poseidon Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Poseidon (Greek: Ποσειδῶν), Neptune (Latin) Pronunciation puh-SY-dun Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Earth-Shaker, The Lord of the Sea, The Blue-Haired God, The Horse-Tamer, The Trident-Bearer, The Brother of Zeus Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Deity Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Male Time Period 8th century BCE (earliest literary references) Symbol Trident & ocean waves Tags greek, poseidon, god, sea, trident, earthshaker, odysseus, athena Introduction - Overview Poseidon is the god of the sea, the second most powerful deity on Olympus, the sacred mountain where the twelve great Olympian gods made their eternal home, and the only god whose anger could shake the earth and raise waves tall enough to swallow fleets. He is the brother of Zeus, the king of the gods and wielder of the thunderbolt, and Hades, the god of the dead who ruled from the darkness beneath the earth, the three sons of the Titan Cronus who overthrew their father and divided the cosmos between them, with Zeus taking the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea. He is the earth-shaker whose trident, forged by the Cyclopes, the one-eyed giants who were the first smiths of the gods, could split mountains and summon earthquakes that toppled cities. He is the creator of the horse, the beast that he shaped from the foam of the sea in a contest with Athena, the goddess of wisdom born fully armed from the head of her father Zeus, for the patronage of Athens, a contest he lost when the people chose Athena's olive tree over his salt spring. He is the pursuer of mortals, the god who flooded the plains of Attica when King Cecrops chose Athena, who cursed the hero Odysseus with ten years of wandering for blinding his son Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant, and who demanded the sacrifice of virgins to his sea-monsters when cities failed to honor him. And he is the father of heroes and monsters, the sire of Theseus, the Athenian hero who slew the Minotaur, and of the Cyclops Polyphemus, of the winged horse Pegasus born from Medusa's blood, and of countless other beings who shaped the Greek world between wonder and terror. Gallery Various depictions of Poseidon as god of the seas, oceans, horses and his trident. Main Article - Who or What was... Poseidon Poseidon was born to the Titan Cronus and his sister-wife Rhea, the earth goddess, in the dark age before the Olympian gods rose to power. Cronus, terrified by a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him, swallowed each infant as Rhea gave birth, imprisoning them in his belly. Rhea, grieving, hid her sixth child, Zeus, on the island of Crete, and when the boy grew to manhood, he returned and forced his father to vomit up his siblings, Poseidon among them. The brothers and sisters, now fully grown, waged war against Cronus and the older generation of Titans in a conflict called the Titanomachy, the war between the old Titans and the young Olympian gods, which lasted ten years and shook the cosmos to its foundations. When the Titans fell, the three brothers drew lots to divide the universe. Zeus took the sky and the throne of Olympus. Hades took the underworld and the realm of the dead. Poseidon took the sea, all the waters of the earth, and the power to shake the land itself. He built his palace beneath the waves at Aegae, a place of coral and gold where the light of the surface filtered down in shifting patterns, and there he ruled with his wife Amphitrite, one of the Nereids, the fifty daughters of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. Poseidon's most famous rivalry was with Athena, the goddess of wisdom, for the patronage of the city of Athens. When the city was founded by the autochthonous king Cecrops, half-man and half-serpent, the two gods competed to become its protector. Poseidon struck the rock of the Acropolis, the citadel that would become the heart of Athens, with his trident, and a salt spring gushed forth, symbolising the sea power he offered. Athena planted an olive tree, symbolising peace, prosperity, and the sustenance of civilisation. The people of Athens, led by their king, chose Athena, and Poseidon was enraged. He sent a great flood to drown the plains of Attica, the region surrounding Athens, and demanded that the women of Athens be forbidden to vote in future contests. Some traditions say that the men of Athens were divided, and that the women, who outnumbered them, cast the deciding vote for Athena, and that Poseidon's punishment was to make the land barren of water. To this day, the salt spring remains on the Acropolis, a reminder of the god's fury and the city's choice. Poseidon's wrath was legendary and his vengeance patient. When the hero Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca who spent ten years wandering the Mediterranean after the Trojan War, blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus, Poseidon's one-eyed giant son, the god pursued him across the sea with storms and shipwrecks for a decade. Polyphemus had trapped Odysseus and his men in his cave on a remote island, devouring two of them for dinner each night, until Odysseus tricked the giant with wine and blinded him with a sharpened stake. As Odysseus sailed away, his pride overcame him, and he shouted his true name, allowing Polyphemus to pray to his father. Poseidon heard the prayer from his palace beneath the waves and answered it with relentless fury. He smashed Odysseus's ships, drowned his crew, and cast the hero alone onto foreign shores, ensuring that no vessel would carry him home until every god had forgotten the offence, which only happened when Odysseus had suffered enough to earn the pity of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who had always favoured him. Poseidon also cursed the Phaeacians, the blessed people who had finally sailed Odysseus to Ithaca, turning their ship to stone as it entered harbour and surrounding their island with mountains to prevent them from ever helping travellers again. Poseidon was also a god of creation and fertility, particularly associated with horses and bulls. In some myths, he created the horse by striking a rock with his trident, and the first horse sprang forth, foam dripping from its mane. In others, he invented the horse in a contest with Athena, shaping it from the sea foam as she shaped the olive tree. He was worshipped at the Isthmian Games, one of the four great athletic festivals of Greece, held near Corinth on the narrow isthmus that connected the Peloponnese to mainland Greece, where horse races and chariot contests honoured his power. He was also the god of earthquakes, the earth-shaker who could split the ground with his trident and swallow cities whole. The Greeks, who lived in a seismically active region, feared his anger more than almost any other god's, for a storm at sea could be survived but an earthquake could not. Temples to Poseidon stood on headlands and capes, where sailors could see them and pray before voyages, and sacrifices of bulls and horses were offered to him to ensure safe passage and calm waters. Poseidon's children were as varied as the sea itself, ranging from heroes to monsters. He fathered Theseus, the greatest hero of Athens, with Aethra, a princess of Troezen, a city in the northeastern Peloponnese. Theseus would grow up to slay the Minotaur, the half-man half-bull monster that lived in the Labyrinth of Crete, and to unify the scattered villages of Attica into the city-state of Athens. But Poseidon also fathered Polyphemus, the man-eating Cyclops, and the giant Antaeus, who drew his strength from contact with the earth and was slain by Heracles, the hero forced to complete twelve impossible labours. He was the father of the winged horse Pegasus, born from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa when Perseus severed her head, for Medusa had lain with Poseidon in Athena's temple, a desecration that led to her transformation into a monster. He fathered the sea-monster Cetus, sent to devour Andromeda, and the giant Orion, the hunter who was placed in the stars. And in Plato's later myth, he was the divine founder of Atlantis, the island kingdom beyond the Pillars of Hercules that was destroyed by his own earthquakes when its people grew corrupt, sinking beneath the waves in a single day and night of misfortune. Poseidon was not a god of simple good or evil but of the sea's own nature, beautiful and terrible, life-giving and deadly, calm one moment and murderous the next. Summary Poseidon endures as the embodiment of the sea's dual nature, the god who could bless a voyage with fair winds or destroy a city with a wave, who created the horse and the earthquake with the same trident. From the contest for Athens to the pursuit of Odysseus, from the founding of Atlantis to the fathering of heroes and monsters, his story runs through Greek mythology as a reminder that the forces of nature answer to no mortal law and that the gods who rule them demand respect above all else. Every sailor who has ever prayed for calm waters, every city that has ever trembled before the earth's shaking, has felt the shadow of Poseidon, the earth-shaker whose kingdom lies beneath the surface of the world. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Poseidon From Myth to Game Join to access FREE real-world mythology "Learn Quests" and "Courses". Sign up to the newsletter for new releases, game updates, insider news, and more as Mythopouch brings real mythology to life. EARN the right to purchase an offline board game by completing FREE modules. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER! Email* Join Our Mailing List I want to subscribe to your mailing list. It's FREE to join as a MEMBER! Log In Not ready to join? Get the newsletter instead below Related Entries Polyphemus Creature/Monster/Animal Polyphemus Zeus Deity Zeus Amphitrite Deity Amphitrite Athena Deity Athena Odysseus Person Odysseus Looking for others? Click into the field below to search, or click the icon to go to full page search function! Search References Validation References: - Homer, Iliad, Book 15, lines 184-217 (8th century BCE) - Poseidon's role in the Trojan War, his rivalry with Zeus - Homer, Odyssey, Book 5, lines 282-332; Book 9, lines 528-535 (8th century BCE) - Poseidon's persecution of Odysseus, Polyphemus's prayer - Hesiod, Theogony, lines 453-506, 930-933 (c. 700 BCE) - birth of Poseidon, Titanomachy, his marriage to Amphitrite - Pindar, Olympian Ode 7, lines 50-76 (464 BCE) - Poseidon and the founding of Rhodes - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Book 3, chapter 14.1 (1st-2nd century CE) - contest with Athena for Athens - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1, chapter 26.5; Book 2, chapter 1.7 (2nd century CE) - temples and cults of Poseidon at Athens and the Isthmus - Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985) - chapter on Poseidon and sea cults - Marinatos, Nanno, "The Cosmic Journey of Poseidon" in Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen (2004) - analysis of Poseidon's role in Greek cosmology and cult Previous --- End of Record --- Next >