Explore Phaethon, son of Helios who drove the sun chariot for one disastrous day, scorched the earth and fell into the Eridanus after Zeus struck him down. Previous Greek Next > Phaethon Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Φαέθων (Phaethōn), meaning "the shining one" Pronunciation FAY-uh-thon Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Son of the Sun, The Fallen Charioteer, The Scorched Boy, The Bringer of Deserts, The Pride of Clymene, The Poplar Brother, The Eridanus Drowned 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 (literary attestation); mythic setting timeless Symbol Chariot, Flame & Tears Tags greek, phaethon, person, helios, sun-chariot, clymene, eridanus, heliades, zeus, thunderbolt Introduction - Overview Phaethon is the shining son of the sun who asked to drive his father's chariot for a single day and fell from the sky in a blaze of fire that scorched the earth and turned the oceans to steam. He is the son of Helios, the Titan who drives the sun across the heavens in a chariot of gold, and Clymene, the Oceanid nymph of fame, and the boy whose pride in his divine blood led him to demand proof that he was truly the child of a god. He is the youth who swore upon the river Styx that his father would grant him any wish, and who used that oath to claim the one thing Helios knew he could not control. He is the charioteer who lost the reins, who let the sun chariot dive toward the earth and soar toward the stars, who burned Libya to desert and froze the Scythian plains until Zeus, the king of the gods, struck him from the sky with a thunderbolt to save the cosmos itself. And he is the brother whose fall turned his sisters into poplar trees, whose amber tears still drip into the river Eridanus, and whose tomb was shown to travellers on the banks of the Po until the Roman Empire itself had crumbled into dust. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Phaethon Phaethon was born in the palace of Helios, the great golden house that stands at the eastern edge of the world where the sun rises from the Oceanus stream each dawn. His mother was Clymene, one of the three thousand Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, or in some accounts she was a mortal woman of Ethiopia, a land so close to the sun that its people were dark-skinned from the constant heat. Phaethon grew up in the radiance of his father's house, surrounded by light, and he was proud of his parentage, perhaps too proud for a boy who had never done anything to earn his own glory. When he went to school with the other sons of heroes and gods, the boys mocked him. They said he was not the son of Helios at all, that his mother was a liar, that no god would claim a boy so ordinary. Phaethon burned with shame, and he travelled to the palace of the sun to demand that his father acknowledge him before the whole world. The palace of Helios was a wonder beyond description. Its columns were of gold, its roof of silver, its floors of polished amber that caught the light and threw it back in a thousand colours. Helios sat upon his throne, wearing a robe woven from the light of the stars, and around him stood the Hours, the goddesses who govern the seasons, and the Seasons themselves, who prepare the chariot each dawn. When Phaethon entered, Helios knew him immediately, for the sun sees everything, and he embraced his son and promised to grant him any wish, swearing by the river Styx, the most terrible and binding oath in the cosmos, the river by which even the gods themselves are bound. Phaethon asked the one thing Helios had hoped he would not ask: he asked to drive the sun chariot across the sky for one day. Helios tried to dissuade him. The chariot was not a toy, he said. It was drawn by four horses, Pyrois, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon, whose names mean Fire, Dawn, Blaze, and Flame, and they were wild beyond any mortal's control. The path across the sky was narrow and steep, rising from the eastern Oceanus to the zenith and then plunging toward the western sea, and if the charioteer lost the reins for a moment, the horses would bolt. The earth would burn, the heavens would freeze, and the cosmos would collapse into chaos. But Phaethon was young, and proud, and he held his father to the oath. Helios, bound by the Styx, could not refuse. He placed the crown of burning light upon his son's head, warned him one last time to hold tight to the reins, and watched with a father's dread as the horses leaped from the eastern gate. The ride began well enough. The horses knew the path, and for the first hours they ran true, pulling the sun across the morning sky. But Phaethon was not strong enough to control them. He was a boy, not a Titan, and the horses felt his weakness. They veered from the track, first rising too high so that the earth below grew cold and the constellations themselves began to smoke, then plunging too low so that the mountains caught fire and the rivers turned to steam. The Sahara was created in that moment, the Libyan desert scorched to sand by the sun's too-close passage. The skin of the Ethiopians darkened from the heat. The ice caps of Scythia melted and then froze again as the chariot rose and fell. The earth cried out to Zeus, the king of the gods, begging him to save the world from destruction. Zeus answered with a thunderbolt. He struck Phaethon from the chariot, and the boy fell like a falling star, trailing fire across the sky, until he struck the river Eridanus in the far west. The waters closed over him, and the fire was quenched, and the chariot, driverless, was caught by Helios himself, who had leaped into the sky to save what he could. Phaethon's body was buried by the river nymphs, and his tomb was shown to travellers for centuries. But his death was not the end of the tragedy. His sisters, the Heliades, the daughters of Helios and Clymene, wept so inconsolably at his fall that the gods transformed them into poplar trees, and their tears became amber, the golden resin that still drips from poplars into the waters of the Eridanus, which the Romans called the Padus and we call the Po. His friend Cycnus, the king of the Ligurians, mourned him so deeply that he too was transformed, into a swan, and placed among the stars as the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, where he still flies across the Milky Way. Summary Phaethon endures as the most tragic example of pride in Greek mythology, the boy who demanded proof of his divine blood and received it in a thunderbolt that saved the world at the cost of his life. From the golden palace of Helios to the waters of the Eridanus, from the scorched sands of Libya to the amber tears of the poplar sisters, his story is one of a wish granted too well and a father who could not say no. A detail worth remembering: the Romans showed Phaethon's tomb on the banks of the Po for a thousand years, and every traveller who saw it understood that the most dangerous thing in the world is a young man who has something to prove. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Phaethon 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 Helios Deity Helios Zeus Deity Zeus 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: - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 1.747-2.400 (c. 8 CE) - primary narrative of Phaethon's demand, the chariot ride, and his fall - Hesiod, Theogony, lines 986-991 (c. 700 BCE) - Phaethon as son of Clymene and Helios in the earliest Greek genealogy - Euripides, Hippolytus, lines 737-741 (c. 428 BCE) - reference to Phaethon's fall and the oath of Helios - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.9.3 (1st-2nd century CE) - the chariot ride, the thunderbolt of Zeus, and the transformation of the Heliades - Hyginus, Fabulae 152-154 (c. 2nd century CE) - the horses of Helios, the fall, and the tomb of Phaethon - Virgil, Aeneid, Book 10.189-193 (c. 19 BCE) - Roman reference to the Eridanus and Phaethon's fall - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1.4.1 (c. 150 CE) - local traditions of Phaethon's tomb and the Heliades - Joseph Fontenrose, "Phoebus and Phaethon: The Sun-God's Chariot" in Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (University of California Press, 1959) - scholarly analysis of the Phaethon myth and its solar symbolism - Paul M. C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford University Press, 1990) - scholarly study of the transformations in the Phaethon narrative Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Galehaut, the half-giant lord who conquered thirty kingdoms but surrendered victory over Arthur for friendship with Lancelot, then died grieving him. Previous Arthurian Next > Galehaut Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Galehaut (Old French), Galehot, Galeholt, Galyot, Galeotto (Italian), Galahalt (Malory) Pronunciation GAL-eh-hoh Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Lord of the Distant Isles, the Haut Prince, the Uncrowned King, the Half-Giant of Sorelois, the Knight of the Forfeit, the Friend of Lancelot, the Man Who Died of Longing Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details French / British Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender Male Time Period 6th century CE (mythic period); literary tradition c. 1215-1230 CE Symbol The banner of thirty kingdoms, the forfeit of certain victory, the tomb at Joyous Gard Tags arthurian, galehaut, person, lancelot, sorelois, guinevere, round-table, vulgate-cycle Introduction - Overview Galehaut is the most powerful knight in Arthurian legend, the half-giant lord who conquered thirty kingdoms and then surrendered them all for the friendship of a single man. He is the son of the Beautiful Giantess and the evil knight Brunor, the towering figure who stood six inches taller than the tallest knight at Arthur's Round Table and whose very name made kings tremble. He is the Uncrowned King who refused the crown of Sorelois and twenty-nine other realms until he could add Logres, the kingdom of King Arthur, to his list of conquests. He is the commander whose army was so vast that Arthur could not match it, who stood on the brink of total victory and then threw it away because he could not bear to destroy the man who fought beside Arthur, the mysterious Black Knight whose prowess on the battlefield stopped his heart with admiration. He is the friend who became Lancelot's companion, who arranged the first kiss between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, and who gave the lovers refuge in his own kingdom when the False Guinevere threatened to destroy them. And he is the man who died of grief at the age of thirty-nine, fasting alone in a locked chamber because he believed that Lancelot was dead, leaving behind a name that Dante would immortalise in the Inferno and that Boccaccio would borrow for the greatest story collection of the Middle Ages. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Galehaut Galehaut was born of a union between the Beautiful Giantess, a figure of such stature that her son inherited both her size and her nobility, and Brunor, the evil knight who held the Castle of Tears on the Giant's Isle, a fortress with customs so cruel that they drove Galehaut from his father's house to seek his own kingdom. He was not a giant like his mother but a half-giant, a man of enormous height and strength who moved through the world with the grace and courtesy of the finest knight in Christendom. He conquered his first kingdom, Sorelois, by defeating and killing its king, Gloier, but instead of destroying Gloier's house he took the orphaned daughter under his protection, a gesture that revealed the generosity that would define his character. From Sorelois he marched outward, conquering twenty-nine more kingdoms, including North Wales and the lands beyond the borders of Galone, until his banner flew over thirty realms and his name was known from one end of the known world to the other. Yet Galehaut refused to be crowned. He would not call himself king, though he ruled more territory than most monarchs ever dreamed of, because he had sworn that he would not accept a crown until he had conquered Logres, the kingdom of King Arthur, the realm that stood at the centre of the Arthurian world and that no foreign army had ever subdued. He gathered his forces, summoned his vassals, and marched on Arthur's lands, laying siege to the territory of Selice, which lay under Arthur's protection. Arthur, caught unprepared, could not gather his full army in time, and it seemed that Logres itself would fall. Only two knights stood between Galehaut and total victory: Gawain, the eldest son of King Lot and the most renowned knight of the Round Table, and a mysterious warrior known only as the Red Knight, who fought with a skill that seemed superhuman. Galehaut's advance was checked, but not stopped. Rather than press his advantage and crush Arthur with an incomplete victory, he did something unprecedented: he gave Arthur a year to gather his entire army, promising to return when the king was at full strength. A year later, the two armies met again on the field before Tintagel. Galehaut's forces outnumbered Arthur's so completely that victory was certain. The battle began, and once again a mysterious knight fought on Arthur's side, this time called the Black Knight, whose deeds were so extraordinary that even Gawain, watching from the field, was struck with wonder. The Black Knight cut through Galehaut's ranks like a scythe through wheat, unhorsing knight after knight, turning the tide of battle by sheer force of arms. Galehaut, watching from his command post, felt something he had never felt before: not fear, not anger, but a kind of awe that bordered on love. He had spent his life conquering men, but he had never seen a man like this. When the battle ended and the Black Knight prepared to ride away, Galehaut stopped him. He begged the stranger to spend the night with him, to lodge in his tent and share his company. The Black Knight agreed, but on one condition: that Galehaut surrender to Arthur the following day. Galehaut, who had been on the verge of conquering the last kingdom he needed for his crown, agreed without hesitation. He surrendered to Arthur, made peace with the king, and took his place at the Round Table, all for the sake of a single night's companionship with a man whose name he did not yet know. That night changed everything. The Black Knight revealed himself to be Lancelot, the son of King Ban and the foster-son of the Lady of the Lake, the greatest warrior in the world and the man who would one day become the champion of the Round Table. Galehaut had surrendered thirty kingdoms' worth of ambition for the friendship of one man, and he never regretted it. The two became inseparable, riding together on adventures, sharing tents and meals, fighting side by side in every campaign. Galehaut joined the Knights of the Round Table, not for glory but to remain near Lancelot. When Lancelot fell in love with Queen Guinevere, it was Galehaut who discovered the secret, and Galehaut who used his influence with the Lady of Malahaut, a noblewoman who had herself loved Lancelot, to arrange the first kiss between the queen and the knight. He gave way before Guinevere, yielding Lancelot to her as he had yielded his victory to Arthur, not from weakness but from a generosity of spirit that recognised where Lancelot's heart truly belonged. Galehaut's greatest service to his friend came during the affair of the False Guinevere, when an imposter who resembled the queen exactly appeared at Arthur's court and bewitched the king into believing she was his true wife. The real Guinevere was condemned to death, and only Lancelot's challenge to three knights from Camelides saved her. Galehaut offered Guinevere refuge in his own kingdom of Sorelois, sheltering the queen and her lover in his castle until the deception could be exposed and Arthur restored to his senses. It was an act of treason against his king, but Galehaut did not hesitate. His loyalty to Lancelot outweighed every other bond. The end came through a series of cruel misunderstandings. Lancelot was captured by Morgan le Fay, the sorceress queen who was his own half-sister, and imprisoned in her castle. Then, after escaping, he wandered into the wilderness in a fit of madness, living as a naked wild man, eating raw meat and sleeping in ditches. Word reached the Round Table that Lancelot was dying, and then that he was dead. Galehaut, who had learned from his clerk Helyes of Thoulouse that his own life could be prolonged only by keeping Lancelot near him, refused to believe the worst. He set out on a quest to find his friend, searching from castle to castle, forest to forest, but the rumours grew stronger and the silence more terrible. At last, convinced that Lancelot had died and that he had not been there to save him, Galehaut returned to his chamber, bolted the door, and refused all food and drink. He would not see Guinevere, who came to comfort him. He would not see Gawain, who begged for entry. For ten days he fasted, wasting away until a wound broke open and a strange illness seized him simultaneously. When Gawain and his men finally broke down the door with a wooden ram, they found Galehaut dead on the floor, his hand outstretched as if reaching for a friend who was not there. Lancelot, who had been rescued by a hermit and nursed back to health, returned to court too late. He found Galehaut's body laid out in a religious house and carried it to Joyous Gard, the castle he had won from its previous lord and renamed in honour of his happiness. There he buried his friend in a tomb built to consecrate their companionship, and when Lancelot himself died years later, he was laid to rest in the same tomb, beside the man who had given up everything for him. Long after his death, Galehaut's name became a byword for the power of friendship and the tragedy of love. Dante Alighieri, writing in the Inferno, made Galehaut the book that Paolo and Francesca had been reading when they yielded to their adulterous passion, a detail that forever linked his name with the intermediary who brings lovers together. Giovanni Boccaccio used his name as the subtitle of the Decameron, calling it "Il Principe Galeotto" - Prince Galehaut - the one who brings people together through storytelling. In Spanish, galeoto became an archaic word for a pimp, a sad diminution of a name that had once meant nobility and sacrifice. Summary Galehaut endures as the greatest friend in Arthurian legend, the half-giant who conquered thirty kingdoms and surrendered them all for the love of Lancelot. From the Castle of Tears to the field before Tintagel, from the forfeit of certain victory to the locked chamber where he died of longing, his story is the story of a man whose heart proved larger than his ambition. He is the reminder that in the world of Arthurian romance, the most powerful magic is not the spell that kills but the bond that makes one man willing to give up everything for another, and that even the mightiest conqueror may find his truest crown in the friendship of a single knight. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Galehaut 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 Logres Location Logres Guinevere Person Guinevere 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, Prose Lancelot (Vulgate Cycle, Lancelot Proper), c. 1215-1230 - primary source; the Book of Galehaut section, the invasion of Logres, the surrender to Arthur, the friendship with Lancelot, the arrangement of the first kiss with Guinevere, and the death from grief - Anonymous, Prose Tristan, c. 1230-1240 - primary source; Galehaut's parentage as son of the Beautiful Giantess and Brunor, his conquest of Sorelois, and his protection of Gloier's orphaned daughter - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485 - primary source; the English synthesis of Galehaut's character as the Haut Prince and his role in the tournaments at Sorelois and Leverzep - Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto V, c. 1320 - primary source; the reference to Galehaut as the book that brought Paolo and Francesca together - Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, c. 1353 - primary source; the use of "Il Principe Galeotto" as the subtitle, linking Galehaut's name to the intermediary who brings people together - Frappier, Jean, "Le personnage de Galehaut dans le Lancelot en prose," in Amour courtois et table ronde, Geneva: Droz, 1973 - scholarly analysis of Galehaut's character and his function as the emotional centre of the Prose Lancelot - Kennedy, Elspeth, Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose Lancelot, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986 - scholarly study of the Lancelot-Guinevere-Galehaut triangle and its narrative function in the Vulgate Cycle - Mieszkowski, Gretchen, "The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature," Arthuriana, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1995 - scholarly analysis of Galehaut's love for Lancelot and its relationship to medieval concepts of friendship and desire - Hyatte, Reginald, "Recoding Ideal Male Friendship as Fine Amor in the Prose Lancelot," Neophilologus, Vol. 75, 1991 - scholarly examination of Galehaut's feelings for Lancelot as a variation on courtly love conventions - Lacy, Norris J., The Lancelot-Grail Cycle: Text and Transformations, University of Texas Press, 1994 - scholarly analysis of the Vulgate Cycle's treatment of Galehaut and his role in the broader Arthurian narrative Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover the Golden Fleece, the glowing hide of the flying ram that saved Phrixus and lured Jason and the Argonauts to the edge of the world. | Mythopouch Previous Greek Next > Golden Fleece Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s χρυσόμαλλον δέρας (Chrysómallon Déras) Pronunciation GOHL-den FLEES Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Fleece of Chrysomallos, the Golden-Woolled Hide, the Ram's Skin of Colchis, the Prize of the Argonauts, the Golden Skin 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 century BCE (a generation before the Trojan War) Symbol Golden Fleece & Horns Tags greek, golden-fleece, jason, argonauts, phrixus, helle, aeetes, colchis, chrysomallos, medea, argo Introduction - Overview The Golden Fleece is the glowing hide of a flying ram, nailed to an oak at the edge of the world, and the one prize every hero of Greece would have sailed to win. It is the last relic of Chrysomallos, the wonder-working ram sent by the god Hermes to snatch the boy Phrixus from the altar of sacrifice and carry him east across the sea, a flight from which his sister Helle fell into the strait that still bears her name. It is the treasure of King Aeetes of Colchis, hung in the grove of the war god Ares and watched day and night by a serpent that never slept. It is the impossible price set by the usurper Pelias, the task meant to destroy young Jason, and the reason the Argo was built and the finest generation of heroes ever gathered climbed aboard her. And it is the golden bed on which Jason and the witch Medea were wed in a sea-cave far from home, the light that outshone the torches of their wedding, and the trophy that came back to Thessaly having cost far more than it was worth. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Golden Fleece The story of the fleece begins with a stepmother's hatred in the city of Orchomenus in Boeotia. King Athamas had put aside his first wife, the cloud-nymph Nephele, to marry Ino, daughter of Cadmus of Thebes, and Ino could not bear the sight of Nephele's children, the boy Phrixus and the girl Helle. She persuaded the women of the city to roast the seed corn before sowing, so that nothing sprouted and famine gripped the land. When the king sent to Delphi to ask the oracle's counsel, Ino bribed the messengers to bring back a lying answer: the earth would bear again only if Athamas sacrificed his own son. The king, weeping, led Phrixus to the altar and raised the knife. At that instant the cloud-nymph's prayer was answered. Hermes had given Nephele a marvellous ram with a fleece of pure gold, a creature that could fly through the air and speak with a human voice, and now the ram swept down, lifted Phrixus and Helle onto its broad golden back, and sprang into the sky, leaving the knife to fall empty and the city to reckon with its crime. The ram flew east across the Aegean and out over the narrow strait that divides Europe from Asia. There Helle, faint or careless or reaching too far, lost her grip and plunged into the sea below, and the Greeks named those waters the Hellespont, the Sea of Helle, in her memory. Phrixus clung on and was carried far beyond the known world, down the length of the Black Sea to Colchis, a rich kingdom at the foot of the Caucasus where the River Phasis runs to the sea. King Aeetes, son of the sun god Helios, received the boy kindly and in time gave him his daughter Chalciope for a wife. The ram, its journey done, was sacrificed to Zeus Phyxios, the God of Flight, and Phrixus gave its wondrous fleece to the king in thanks. Aeetes hung the golden hide in a sacred grove of Ares, where a monstrous serpent, born of Typhon and Echidna in some accounts, coiled around the tree and never closed its eyes. An oracle had warned the king that his throne and his life were bound to the fleece: while it hung in the grove, Colchis would stand. The ram itself was honoured in heaven, set among the stars as the constellation Aries. For a generation the fleece hung in its grove, half legend and half rumour, until a one-sandalled stranger walked into the sacrifice of King Pelias of Iolcos. Pelias had stolen his throne from his half-brother Aeson, and when Aeson's son Jason came to claim his birthright, the king answered with a trap dressed as a challenge. If Jason was the hero he claimed to be, let him sail to Colchis and bring home the Golden Fleece, and with it the soul of old Phrixus, who cried out in his grave for a Greek ship to fetch his treasure home. No Greek vessel had ever returned from the Black Sea, and Pelias sent the boy out expecting never to see him again. But the goddess Athena helped the shipwright Argus build the fifty-oared Argo, with a speaking timber from the oak of Dodona in her prow, and fifty heroes came aboard: Heracles, Orpheus, the twins Castor and Polydeuces, and the fathers of Achilles and Ajax. No other object in Greek myth ever gathered a generation like that. The fleece did not merely tempt one hero. It summoned them all. When the Argo finally reached Colchis, Aeetes would not give up the treasure on which his throne was prophesied to stand. He set Jason three feats instead: to yoke two bronze-hoofed bulls that breathed fire, to plough the field of Ares with them, and to sow the furrows with dragon's teeth. Jason survived the trial only through the sorcery of the king's daughter Medea, who had been struck by the arrow of Eros and loved the stranger more than her father or her throne. Aeetes still refused to hand over the fleece and plotted to burn the Argo in the night, so Medea led Jason in darkness to the grove of Ares, where the fleece hung among the branches like a sunrise caught in the oak. The sleepless serpent reared up to meet them, vast and gleaming, but Medea sang to it, calling on the powers of night and the witch-goddess Hecate, and sprinkled a sprig of juniper dipped in a sleeping draught across its eyes. The great head sank coil by coil to the earth. Jason lifted the Golden Fleece from the tree, and it was heavy as the hide of a yearling calf and so bright that its light played over his cheeks and brow like flame as he carried it through the dark to the waiting ship. The fleece went home the long way around the world. It rode in the Argo through the Clashing Rocks and past the Sirens, between the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, and when the crew were cornered at last by a Colchian fleet on the island of the Phaeacians, it was spread upon the floor of the cave of Macris as a marriage bed, so that Jason and Medea could be wed that very night and the king could rule, as he did, that a wife could not be torn from her husband. When Jason finally reached Iolcos he laid the fleece before Pelias, the task fulfiled and the bargain called in. The usurper kept his throne anyway, and met his end in Medea's cauldron soon after. What became of the fleece itself, the old stories do not agree: some say Jason dedicated it to Zeus Phyxios in the temple at Orchomenus, where the crime of Athamas had first set it flying; others that it passed into the keeping of the gods, the debt of Phrixus paid and the treasure of Colchis lifted out of mortal quarrels for ever. The Greeks understood the fleece as a sign of kingship itself, the visible luck of a ruler, which was why Aeetes' life was bound to it and why Pelias could demand it as the price of a throne. Others have looked east for its shadow in the real world. The geographer Strabo records that the rivers of Colchis ran rich with gold dust washed down from the Caucasus, and that the people there stretched fleeces across wooden frames in the mountain streams so the wool caught the gold, a sheepskin thick with dust that a stranger from across the sea might well remember as a ram's hide of pure gold. In heaven the ram kept its place as Aries, the sign of the returning sun, and on earth the fleece became the oldest shorthand there is for the quest: the shining thing at the far edge of the map that a man must be half mad to go after. When Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, founded an order of knighthood in 1430 he named it the Order of the Golden Fleece, and its knights still wear the ram's hide on a chain of flint and fire. From the altar at Orchomenus to the oak of Colchis, from the Argo's prow to the courts of Europe, the golden skin remains what it always was: proof that the most precious thing in the world is the one someone swore you could never have. Summary The Golden Fleece stands as the greatest treasure of Greek mythology, the golden hide of the flying ram that carried Phrixus from the altar to the edge of the world and drew Jason and the Argonauts after it a generation later. From Ino's murderous plot to the sleepless dragon of Colchis, from Medea's sorcery to the marriage cave of the Phaeacians, its story is the thread on which the whole age of heroes is strung. Every quest for an impossible prize, and every king whose crown rests on a captured relic, carries a gleam of the ram's golden wool. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Golden Fleece 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 Phrixus Person Phrixus Medea Person Medea Aeëtes Person Aeëtes Pelias Person Pelias Jason Person Jason 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: - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, Books 1-4 (3rd century BCE) - the full epic of the quest and the taking of the fleece - Pindar, Pythian Ode 4 (462 BCE) - the earliest full account of the fleece and its recovery - Homer, Odyssey 12.69-72 (8th century BCE) - the Argo "in all men's minds" - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.9.1 and 1.9.16-28 (1st-2nd century CE) - the crime of Athamas and the voyage of the Argonauts - Herodotus, Histories 1.2 and 7.197 (5th century BCE) - the fleece in the Persian chain of grievances, and the cult of Zeus Laphystios at Alos - Euripides, Phrixus (lost tragedy, fragments, 5th century BCE) - the sacrifice at Orchomenus - Hyginus, Fabulae 2-3, Poeticon Astronomicon 2.20 (1st-2nd century CE) - Athamas, Phrixus and the constellation Aries - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 7 (c. 8 CE) - the quest and Medea's sorcery - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica (1st century CE) - the Roman epic of the voyage - Strabo, Geography 11.2.19 (c. 20 CE) - gold dust gathered with fleeces in the rivers of Colchis - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993) - chapters on Athamas, Phrixus and the Argonauts - Braund, David, Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia (1994) - the real Colchis and the gold of the Caucasus Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Python, the earth-born serpent guardian of Delphi whose slaying by Apollo founded the Pythian Games and gave its famous oracle the sacred name Pytho. Previous Greek Next > Python Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Πύθων (Pythōn) Pronunciation PIE-thon Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Pytho, Delphyne, Drakaina, The Earth-Serpent, The Guardian of Delphi, The Rotting One 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 Female Time Period 8th-7th century BCE (earliest attested in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) Symbol Serpent & Stone Tags greek, delphi, apollo, serpent, oracle, gaia, parnassus, pythian-games Introduction - Overview Python is the earth-born serpent who coiled around the omphalos stone at Delphi, the navel of the world, and spoke oracles before any Olympian god set foot on Mount Parnassus. She is the daughter of Gaia, the primordial Earth herself, born from the rotting slime left behind when Zeus sent the great flood to destroy the race of men. She is the guardian whose single body sprawled across so many acres that her scales ground ancient oaks to powder, and whose poisoned breath made the Castalian Spring run black. She is the monster who pursued Leto, the daughter of the Titan Coeus, across the lands while the goddess was heavy with the twins Apollo and Artemis, forcing the wind to carry her to the floating island of Delos. She is the serpent slain by Apollo when he was only four days old, a hundred arrows emptying his quiver into her bloated coils until she rotted where she fell, giving the sacred place its name of Pytho. And she is the namesake of the Pythian Games, the Pythia who sat upon the tripod, and the very word python that still coils through our language as the name of a constricting snake. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Python Python was born from Gaia, the primordial Earth, who had been coated with the slime and mud left behind after Zeus, the king of the gods who rules from Olympus, sent the great deluge to destroy the race of men. From that warm, rotting earth, Gaia brought forth a serpent such as the world had never seen, a drakaina with a woman's head and breast and a serpent's coils that stretched across the mountainside. The Greeks called her Python, from the word pytho meaning to rot, because she was born from decay and because her corpse would one day give the sacred place its name. She made her home in the caves beneath Mount Parnassus in Phocis, coiling around the omphalos, the stone navel that the Greeks believed marked the very centre of the world. Before Apollo ever came to Delphi, the oracle belonged to the earth itself. Gaia spoke first, then her daughter Themis, the Titaness of divine law, and then the Titaness Phoebe, another daughter of Gaia. Python guarded the shrine and the sacred spring, ensuring that no unworthy mortal approached the place where the earth's voice could be heard. The serpent's path crossed with the gods even before Apollo drew his bow. When Leto, the daughter of the Titan Coeus, became pregnant by Zeus, Hera, the queen of the gods and Zeus's wife, was consumed with jealousy. She sent Python to pursue Leto across every land, forbidding any place to offer her shelter for the birth. The great serpent hunted the goddess for months, her jaws gaping and her three-tongued mouth athirst, until the wind Boreas, the north wind, carried Leto to the island of Ortygia, which Poseidon, the god of the sea, covered with waves to hide her from sight. There, clinging to an olive tree, Leto gave birth to the twins Artemis and Apollo. Python returned to her lair at Parnassus, never knowing that the infant she had failed to kill would soon be the instrument of her death. Some said she had been sent by Hera, others that she acted from her own malice, but all agreed that the serpent's pursuit of Leto sealed her doom. Apollo was four days old when he set out from Delos to claim his oracle. He travelled with his mother Leto and his sister Artemis, the virgin huntress, to Mount Parnassus, where the serpent still coiled around the sacred stone. The young god, still beardless and rejoicing in his flowing locks, found Python at the Castalian Spring, the sacred fountain of Delphi, her bloated body sprawled across the hillside and her poison fouling the waters that the nymphs drank. She moved to block his path to the oracular cleft, for she knew that the son of Zeus had come to take what was hers. Apollo drew his bow, a gift from Hephaestus, the lame smith-god of Olympus, and let fly a volley of arrows. The shafts struck her again and again, a hundred wounds pouring black poison across the soil. She writhed and rolled, her coils crushing ancient oaks to powder, her gasps filling the wood with an awful noise. Darkness covered her eyes, and the holy strength of Helios, the Sun, made her rot away where she fell. The killing of Python was no simple victory. Apollo had slain a child of Gaia upon her own sacred ground, and the earth was enraged. Zeus ordered the young god to purify himself for the sacrilege, and Apollo travelled to the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly, a gorge sacred to him, where the river Peneus washed away the blood-guilt. Some said the Cretans purified him instead, or that he came to Sicyon for cleansing. To placate the anger of the earth and to honour the fallen serpent, Apollo instituted the Pythian Games, athletic and musical contests held every four years at Delphi in memory of the monster he had slain. He buried her bones in a cauldron within his temple and placed her image upon his tripod. The priestess who spoke his oracles took the name Pythia, after the place that bore the serpent's name, and for a thousand years her cryptic verses would guide kings and cities. The serpent was dead, but her name lived on in every prophecy breathed from the sacred cleft. For centuries, the image of Apollo slaying the serpent was carved into temple pediments and painted upon vases, the young god standing triumphant with his bow while the monster lay dead at his feet. The story became the founding myth of Delphi, the explanation for why the oracle belonged to Apollo rather than to the earth. The serpent's body sprawled across so many acres that it seemed to blight the land itself, and Apollo's quiver was nearly emptied before she finally stilled. The name Python passed into Latin and then into English, where it became the word for any great constricting snake. In the modern age, it names a family of serpents and a programming language, but its oldest meaning remains the rotting corpse of the earth-dragon whose death gave the world its most famous oracle. Summary Python stands as the eternal symbol of the old order giving way to the new, the earth-born serpent whose death made room for the Olympian god of light and prophecy. From the mud of the great flood to the omphalos stone of Delphi, from the pursuit of Leto across the lands to the hundred arrows that emptied Apollo's quiver, her story is one of primal power confronted by divine youth. Every Pythian Game, every oracle spoken from the tripod, and every time the word python is spoken carries her memory. She is the reminder that even the earth itself must yield to the gods, and that the most sacred places are often built upon the bones of what came before. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Python 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 Leto Titan Leto Apollo Deity Apollo Gaia Deity Gaia 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, Hymn to Pythian Apollo (c. 522 BCE) - lines 300-374, the slaying of the drakaina and the founding of the oracle - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - lines 306-332, 821-822, the offspring of Gaia and the primordial order - Hyginus, Fabulae 140 (c. 100 CE) - the pursuit of Leto and the four-day-old Apollo's vengeance - Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.438-451 (c. 8 CE) - the birth of Python from the flood-slime and Apollo's arrows - Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.6.5 (c. 150 CE) - the etymology of Pytho and the rotting of the serpent - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.1 (c. 100-200 CE) - Apollo's acquisition of the oracle and the slaying of Python - Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (1959), University of California Press - scholarly analysis of the Python myth and its political dimensions - Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (1985), Harvard University Press, Chapter III.2 - Apollo's takeover of the Delphic oracle and the chthonic background Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Anchises, the Trojan prince loved by Aphrodite, father of Aeneas and patriarch carried from burning Troy with the Penates in Greek and Roman mythology. Previous Greek Next > Anchises Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Ἀγχίσης (Ankhísēs) Pronunciation an-KY-seez Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles Father of Aeneas, The Thunderstruck, The Pious Burden, Lord of Dardanus, The Trojan Exile Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Roman 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. 13th century BCE (legendary); c. 7th-6th century BCE (literary crystallisation in Homeric Hymn) Symbol Clasped Penates Tags greek, anchises, aeneas, aphrodite, troy, penates, underworld, drepanum, elysium Introduction - Overview Anchises is the Trojan prince who became the father of Aeneas through a night with the goddess Aphrodite, and who was carried from the burning ruins of Troy on his son's shoulders, the sacred images of the household gods pressed to his chest. He is the handsome herdsman of Mount Ida whom Zeus, the king of the gods, chose as the instrument of Aphrodite's humiliation, filling her heart with desire for a mortal man so that she might know the shame she had inflicted on others. He is the boastful lover who could not keep the secret of his divine bedfellow and was struck by Zeus's thunderbolt, crippled for life but spared from death. He is the aged patriarch who refused to leave Troy until the gods themselves sent a sign, and who then became the living bridge between the fallen city and the future empire of Rome. And he is the ghost who met his son in the underworld near Cumae and showed him the long parade of Roman heroes yet to be born, from Romulus to Augustus Caesar, a vision that made the cost of exile bearable. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Anchises Anchises was born into the royal house of Troy, the son of Capys and a descendant of Dardanus, the legendary founder of the city that would one day bear his name. The line of Dardanus ruled the land of the Dardanelles, the narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia, and Anchises grew up as a prince of that ancient blood. But he was not a warrior-king. He was a herdsman who tended his cattle on the slopes of Mount Ida, the forested mountain that rises above the plain of Troy, and it was there that his fate found him. The goddess Aphrodite, the immortal embodiment of love and desire, had long made sport of the other gods. She had caused Zeus himself to fall in love with mortal women, and Hera, the queen of the gods, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, had suffered her pranks as well. To teach her a lesson, Zeus filled Aphrodite's own heart with an irresistible longing for Anchises, the handsome Trojan herdsman. She came to him on Mount Ida disguised as a mortal maiden, a princess of Phrygia, and when she revealed her true form the next morning, Anchises was struck with terror. She told him they would have a son named Aeneas, a name that means terrible grief, and she warned him never to boast of their union. If any mortal asked, he was to say the boy's mother was a mountain nymph. But Anchises, proud and foolish, could not keep the secret. He boasted that he had lain with the goddess of love herself, and Zeus in his anger hurled a smoking thunderbolt. Aphrodite interceded and diverted the bolt so that it struck at Anchises's feet rather than killing him outright, but the shock left him lame or blind, a broken man who would never walk freely again. For five years the infant Aeneas was raised by mountain nymphs on the slopes of Ida, hidden from the world. Then Aphrodite brought the boy to his father in Troy, and Anchises accepted him into the royal household. He married a mortal woman, some say Eriopis, and had other children, but Aeneas was always the one upon whom the gods smiled. Anchises grew old in the shadow of his son's destiny, too crippled to fight in the Trojan War but present in the city as the siege ground on for ten long years. He watched from the walls as Hector, the heir to the Trojan throne and the greatest warrior the city possessed, fought and fell. He saw the Greek champion Achilles, the son of the sea-goddess Thetis whose single weak spot was his heel, cut down Trojan after Trojan. And he waited, knowing that an ancient prophecy had foretold that the descendants of Aeneas, not Priam's own line, would one day rule the Trojans. When the Greeks left the wooden horse outside the walls and the city burned, Anchises at first refused to flee. He was old, he was lame, and he would not abandon the house of his fathers. But the ghost of Hector appeared to Aeneas in a dream and commanded him to save the household gods, the Penates and the Lares, the sacred images that protected the Trojan hearth. Aeneas returned to his house and begged his father to come. Anchises prayed for a sign, and it came: a tongue of flame played about the head of his grandson Ascanius without burning him, and a falling star traced a path across the sky from the palace roof to the mountain of Ida. Convinced at last, Anchises gathered the sacred images to his breast and allowed Aeneas to lift him onto his shoulders. With his son carrying him, his grandson holding his hand, and his wife Creusa following behind, Anchises passed through the burning streets of Troy and out into the night. Creusa was lost in the chaos, her ghost appearing to Aeneas to tell him that he must go on without her, but Anchises survived. The Trojans built ships at Antandrus and sailed west. They stopped at Thrace, where the ghost of the murdered prince Polydorus warned them away, and at Delos, where the oracle of Apollo sent them onward. They tried to settle on Crete but were driven off by plague. Through every trial, Anchises remained the voice of tradition and memory, the keeper of the old ways who reminded the exiles of who they had been. But he was old and weakened by the journey, and when the fleet reached the western coast of Sicily, at the harbour of Drepanum, his strength finally gave out. He died peacefully and was buried with honours on that Sicilian shore. Aeneas mourned him as no other, for with Anchises died the last living link to the Troy they had lost. Years later, when Aeneas reached Cumae on the Italian mainland, he begged the Sibyl, the prophetess who spoke for Apollo, to lead him down into the underworld so that he might speak with his father one last time. She guided him through the cavern at the edge of the dark lake, past the ferryman Charon and the three-headed dog Cerberus, into the Elysian Fields where the blessed dead dwell in green meadows beneath a sunless sky. There Anchises waited, his spirit whole and strong again, no longer lame. He embraced his son and then showed him a vision that would sustain the Roman imagination for centuries: a long procession of souls waiting to be born into the world of the living, each one a great Roman yet to come. He named the kings of Alba Longa, the city that Aeneas's son Ascanius would found. He pointed to Romulus and Remus, the twins who would one day build Rome upon the seven hills. And finally he showed Aeneas the figure of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor, under whose rule the world would know peace. Anchises explained the mysteries of the universe, the cycle of death and rebirth, and the meaning of the Roman destiny. When Aeneas emerged from the underworld, he carried his father's vision with him, ready to accept the burden of empire. Summary Anchises stands as the living memory of Troy, the broken prince who survived thunderbolt and siege to become the spiritual father of Rome. From the slopes of Mount Ida to the burning streets of Troy, from the harbours of Sicily to the Elysian Fields of the underworld, his story is one of pride punished, duty accepted, and vision transmitted across the gulf of death. Every Roman who traced his lineage to the gods through Aeneas, every poet who wrote of the underworld as a place of revelation rather than mere darkness, and every father who passes a legacy to a son carries some echo of Anchises, the herdsman who loved a goddess and lived to see his blood rule the world. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Anchises 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 Aeneas Person Aeneas Aphrodite Deity Aphrodite Hector Person Hector Zeus Deity Zeus 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: - Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, lines 45-290 (c. 7th-6th century BCE) - the seduction, warning, and birth of Aeneas - Homer, Iliad, Book 5.260-273, Book 20.215-240 (c. 8th century BCE) - Aeneas's lineage and Anchises's role in the royal house - Virgil, Aeneid, Books 2, 3, 5, 6 (c. 29-19 BCE) - flight from Troy, death in Sicily, and underworld vision - Hesiod, Theogony, lines 1008-1011 (c. 8th-7th century BCE) - parentage of Aeneas through Aphrodite and Anchises - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, Epitome 5.21 (c. 1st-2nd century CE) - escape from Troy with the Penates - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 13.623-715 (c. 8 CE) - fall of Troy and Anchises's rescue - Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 8.12.8 (c. 2nd century CE) - local traditions of Anchises in Arcadia - Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - entry on Anchises, classical synthesis - Faulkner, Andrew. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (2008) - Oxford University Press, scholarly edition - Austin, R. G. Aeneid Book Six (1977) - Oxford University Press, commentary on the underworld episode - Putnam, Michael C. J. Poetry of the Aeneid (1965) - Harvard University Press, analysis of Anchises's role in Roman ideology Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Tintagel, the Cornish castle where King Arthur was conceived, from Geoffrey's sea-girt fortress to the real Dark Age citadel beneath. | Mythopouch Previous Arthurian Next > Tintagel Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Tintaieol (Geoffrey's Latin), Tintagil (Malory), Tre war Venydh (Cornish) Pronunciation tin-TAD-juhl Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Castle of Gorlois, the Fortress of the Deception, the Conception-place of Arthur, the Seat of the Dukes of Cornwall, King Mark's Castle Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British/Celtic 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 5th-6th centuries CE (the real citadel of Dumnonia); literary tradition c. 1136-present Symbol The sea-girt rock reached by a single narrow way, the hall of Igraine, the bronze figure above the waves Tags arthurian, tintagel, castle, cornwall, igraine, uther-pendragon, gorlois, merlin, king-mark, dumnonia, archaeology, geoffrey-of-monmouth Introduction - Overview Tintagel is the castle where the Arthurian age was conceived, the sea-girt fortress on the north coast of Cornwall where Gorlois locked away his wife Igraine and where Merlin's craft admitted a king in a borrowed face. It is the impregnable rock of Geoffrey of Monmouth, ringed by the sea but for one narrow way, that no army could take and one enchantment entered without a blow. It is the castle of King Mark in the Tristan legend, the seat from which the sorrow of Isolde was ruled, and the shore where one tradition has Merlin find the infant Arthur, cast up naked by the waves. It is also a real place: a citadel of the Dark Age kings of Dumnonia, rich with wine and oil from the Mediterranean, where archaeologists have uncovered the grandest stronghold of Arthur's century. And it is a castle built backwards: the ruins that crown the headland today were raised in the 13th century by an earl who wanted to own the legend, making Tintagel that rare thing, a fortress that became real because of its story. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Tintagel Geoffrey of Monmouth set the whole cycle on this rock around 1136. When Uther Pendragon's desire for Igraine broke his court, her husband Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, placed her for safety in Tintagel, a fortress, Geoffrey says, on the sea at the farthest edge of Cornwall, girded by the waves on every side, with no way in but a single narrow rock path that three armed men could hold against a kingdom. Force could not touch it, so the story sent in magic instead. Merlin gave Uther the duke's own face, the guards opened to their lord, and in the chamber above the sea Arthur was conceived, on the very night the real Gorlois died at his other castle. The legend keeps the conception and the geography precisely: an impregnable place entered by deception, so that the greatest king in story begins in a locked room, in the dark, in disguise. Malory follows Geoffrey, and the later tradition has gone further and made Tintagel Arthur's birthplace as well, the castle from whose postern gate the infant was handed to Merlin's keeping. The fortress has a second legendary life as the dark double of Camelot. In the Tristan romances, and in Malory's Book of Sir Tristram, Tintagel is the seat of King Mark of Cornwall, the husband of Isolde, and the stage of that court's long agony: the drinking of the potion's aftermath, the spies and the dwarf, the lovers discovered and condemned, and in Malory's ending the blow from behind that kills Tristram as he sits harping before his lady. Where Camelot is the court of justice, Tintagel is the court of jealousy, and the same rock holds both the deception that began the age and the envy that poisons it. Beneath the legend the ground itself has answered back. The headland at Tintagel, a high rock called the Island joined to the cliffs by a narrow neck, was excavated in the 1930s by Ralegh Radford, who read its terraces of buildings as an early Christian monastery. Later work turned that reading on its head. The terraces are the halls and stores of a secular citadel of the 5th and 6th centuries, exactly Arthur's period, occupied by the rulers of Dumnonia, the post-Roman kingdom of Cornwall and Devon. The rubbish is astonishing: amphorae that carried wine and oil from the eastern Mediterranean, fine tableware from North Africa, more imported luxury pottery than at any other British site of the age. Whoever held Tintagel in the 5th century was rich, connected to the trade of the whole known world, and literate: a slate found in 1998 carries the carefully cut Latin of one Artognou, father of a descendant of Col, and a further inscribed slate names members of a cultivated household. The press called the Artognou stone proof of Arthur; the scholars said no such thing, and they are right. But Geoffrey chose for the Duke of Cornwall a place that truly had been a royal fortress of Arthur's century, and the old Welsh records name a Dumnonian ruler, Cunomorus, whom the saints' lives call Mark. The castle a visitor climbs through today is not the citadel of the legend but its monument. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III and later elected King of the Romans, bought the headland in the 1230s and built upon it a castle of no military value at all, already old-fashioned as it rose, whose whole purpose was possession of the story: to hold Arthur's fortress was to hold a share of Arthur. His walls are the ruins that crown the Island now. The Victorians completed the work, drawn by Tennyson's Idylls, where Merlin finds the naked babe upon the sands of wild Tintagil; the sea cave beneath the castle took Merlin's name; and our own age has added a bronze figure standing eight feet high upon the cliff and a footbridge that joins the Island to the mainland once more. Every generation builds Tintagel again. Geoffrey set a fiction on a real royal rock, the fiction persuaded an earl to crown it with stone, and the stone keeps the fiction alive. Every Arthurian story is, in the end, a journey back to Tintagel. Summary Tintagel endures as the birthplace of the Arthurian world, the Cornish fortress where one deceived night in Igraine's chamber set the whole cycle in motion. From Geoffrey's sea-ringed rock to the jealous court of King Mark, from the real wine-rich citadel of the Dumnonian kings to the picturesque ruin an earl built to own the legend, it has been remade by every age that needed it. It is the reminder that some places are so haunted by their stories that the stories become stone, and that the golden age of Camelot began on a wild Atlantic cliff, in disguise. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Tintagel 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 Igraine Person Igraine Uther Pendragon Person Uther Pendragon Merlin Person Merlin 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: - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136 - the fortress of Gorlois and the deception of Igraine - Wace, Roman de Brut, 1155 and Layamon, Brut, c. 1190-1215 - the story retold in French and English - The Prose Tristan, 13th century - the castle as King Mark's seat - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, c. 1470 (Caxton edition 1485) - the castle of Tintagil; Igraine's chamber and Mark's court - Tennyson, Alfred Lord, Idylls of the King, "The Coming of Arthur", 1859-1885 - the naked babe on the sands of wild Tintagil - Radford, C.A. Ralegh, Tintagel Castle (HMSO, 1935) - the pioneering excavations and the monastery reading - Thomas, Charles, Tintagel: Arthur and Archaeology (Batsford/English Heritage, 1993) - the reinterpretation as a Dumnonian royal citadel - Barrowman, Rachel C., Christopher E. Batey and Christopher D. Morris, Excavations at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, 1990-1999 (Society of Antiquaries, 2007) - the modern excavations, including the Artognou stone - Padel, O.J., Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (University of Wales Press, 2000) - the Cornish and Welsh background - English Heritage, Tintagel Castle (official site history) - Earl Richard's castle and the site today Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Uncover the Book of the Dead, the ancient Egyptian scroll of spells that guided souls through the underworld to the Weighing of the Heart. - Mythopouch Previous Egyptian Next > Book of the Dead Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s rw nw prt m hrw (Egyptian) Pronunciation BOOK of the DEAD Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Book of Coming Forth by Day, The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, Pert em Hru, the Spells of Going Forth by Day, the Egyptian Funerary Papyrus, the Todtenbuch Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Egyptian Region Category Artifact/Object/Weapon Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Historical Gender N/A Time Period c. 1550-50 BCE (roots in the Pyramid Texts, c. 2400 BCE) Symbol Book of the Dead cover Tags egyptian, book-of-the-dead, afterlife, weighing-of-the-heart, osiris, papyrus-of-ani, spells, duat Introduction - Overview The Book of the Dead is the guidebook that every Egyptian hoped to carry into the grave, a scroll of some two hundred spells that promised to steer a soul through the perils of the underworld and into paradise. It is the book of the Negative Confession, the forty-two denials of sin spoken before the tribunal of the gods: I have not stolen, I have not killed, I have not made anyone weep. It is the book of the Weighing of the Heart, the most famous scene in all Egyptian art, where the jackal-headed god Anubis balances a human heart against a feather while a monster waits to devour the guilty. It is not one book at all but a family of scrolls, no two alike, each made to order by priestly workshops that left blank spaces for the buyer's name. It is the descendant of the oldest religious writings on earth, the Pyramid Texts carved for kings and the Coffin Texts painted for nobles, carried down at last onto papyrus for anyone who could pay. And it is the ancestor of every image of the Egyptian afterlife ever filmed, painted, or printed, the source of the scales, the feather, and the green-faced judge who decides who lives forever. Gallery Other depictions of the Book of the Dead from ancient Egypt. Main Article - Who or What was... Book of the Dead Around 2350 BCE, in the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara, the royal cemetery of ancient Memphis, Egyptian craftsmen carved columns of tiny hieroglyphs onto the walls of the burial chambers, producing the oldest substantial religious texts anywhere on earth. These were the Pyramid Texts, nearly three hundred spells, hymns, and instructions meant to launch a dead king into the sky to join the gods, and for centuries they belonged to royalty alone. Then the privilege leaked downward. In the Middle Kingdom, around 2100 BCE, nobles and officials began painting similar spells, now called the Coffin Texts, onto the wooden sides of their coffins, along with maps of the underworld and guides to its gates. The message had changed: eternal life was no longer a royal patent. By the start of the New Kingdom, around 1550 BCE, the spells had moved onto papyrus, the paper of the ancient world made from river reeds, and the collection took the name the Egyptians themselves used, the Book of Coming Forth by Day, because it let a soul leave the tomb each morning and return each night, free as a bird. The Book of the Dead was never a single book. It was a loose pool of roughly two hundred spells, and no two surviving copies contain the same selection in the same order. Priestly workshops kept master scrolls and produced copies to order, often writing the spells in advance and leaving gaps where the buyer's name and titles would later be inked in, sometimes by a different hand, sometimes never filled in at all. A fine copy was costly and could stretch twenty or thirty metres long, its columns of hieratic, the cursive priestly handwriting, broken by vivid painted scenes called vignettes: the dead man adoring a god, his ba, the human-headed bird of his personality, hovering over his mummy, his wife and children bringing offerings. Cheaper versions shrank to a few key spells on a scrap of papyrus, a linen shroud, an amulet, or a mummy bandage. What mattered was not beauty but presence. The words had to go into the grave with the body, close enough to be read in the dark. The scrolls read like a traveller's manual for the Duat, the shadowy underworld that every soul had to cross. The early spells deal with the funeral itself, above all Spell 23, the Opening of the Mouth, in which a priest touched the mummy's lips with ritual tools so the dead could breathe, eat, and speak again. Others are passports and passwords. The soul must know the names of gates and the names of the doorkeepers who guard them, demons with names like He Who Lives on Snakes and He Who Eats the Excrement of His Own Mother, and must recite the right formula to pass. Some spells promised transformation: to become a falcon of gold, a lotus flower, a heron, a phoenix rising from the fire. Spell 30B, usually carved on the heart scarab, a beetle-shaped amulet laid over the mummy's chest, pleaded with the heart itself not to stand against its owner as a witness. Because ahead, at the end of the road, lay the one test that no spell could guarantee. The climax of the book is Spell 125, the scene the whole world now knows. The dead man or woman is led into the Hall of the Two Truths, where Osiris, the green-skinned god who rose from his own murder to rule the dead, sits enthroned beneath a canopy. Before him stand forty-two judges, one for each crime, and the soul must address each by name with a denial: I have not robbed, I have not been violent, I have not made anyone weep, I have not dammed the floodwater. Then comes the weighing. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of mummification, sets the heart in one pan of the great scales and the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth and cosmic order, in the other. Thoth, the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, stands ready with his palette to record the verdict. Crouched beside the scales waits Ammit, the Devourer, part crocodile, part lion, part hippopotamus, for if the heart sinks heavy with wrongdoing she will gulp it down and the soul will cease to exist, the only true death the Egyptians feared. If the scales balance, Horus, the falcon-headed son of Osiris, leads the vindicated soul to his father, and the dead are welcomed into the Field of Reeds, an eternal Egypt of ripe grain and cool water where life goes on as it did at its best. Thousands of copies were made across fifteen centuries, and the most beautiful of all belonged to a man named Ani, a royal scribe and temple accountant at Thebes around 1250 BCE. His papyrus, more than twenty-three metres long and glowing with painted vignettes, was acquired in Luxor in 1888 by E. A. Wallis Budge, the British Museum's keeper of Egyptian antiquities, who spirited it out of the country and cut it into thirty-seven sheets for display. The Papyrus of Ani remains the most famous manuscript of ancient Egypt. Other masterpieces followed it into the light: the papyrus of Hunefer, a royal scribe whose judgment scene is reproduced in every schoolbook, the papyrus of the temple singer Anhai, and the Greenfield Papyrus of Nesitanebetashru, a priestess of the tenth century BCE, which unrolls to thirty-seven metres, one of the longest scrolls ever made. Copies grew cheaper and cruder in later centuries, and by the Ptolemaic period, when Greek kings ruled Egypt, some workshops were selling ready-made scrolls with the name spaces never filled in, stock merchandise for an anonymous grave. The last Books of the Dead were written around the first century BCE, replaced in Roman times by shorter works called the Books of Breathing, and when the temples closed the art of reading them died with the priests. The title by which the whole world knows the book is modern, for the Egyptians never called it the Book of the Dead. The German scholar Richard Lepsius coined the name Todtenbuch in 1842 and numbered the spells from 1 to 165, a numbering later extended to 190 as new chapters surfaced. Champollion, the Frenchman who had deciphered the hieroglyphs in 1822, had been among the first to recognise that the funerary papyri flooding into Europe all belonged to one great work. Ever since, the book has fed the modern imagination of Egypt: the scales and the feather, the devouring monster, the mummy who rises, all descend from its painted pages. Every museum hall of Egyptian antiquities is, in a sense, its reading room. Summary The Book of the Dead endures as the supreme map of the Egyptian beyond, the scroll that turned death from a terror into a journey with passwords, gates, and one great examination at its end. Some spells were already so ancient that the scribes no longer understood their grammar, yet copied the errors faithfully, like misprinted scripture. Every drawing of the scales and the feather, every film of the risen mummy, every child who learns that a heart must be lighter than a feather carries the mark of its pages. In the human imagination, the Book of the Dead remains the eternal traveller's guide, the promise that the way through the dark can be written down and carried. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Book of the Dead 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 Ammit Creature/Monster/Animal Ammit Thoth Deity Thoth Anubis Deity Anubis Maat Deity Maat Osiris Deity Osiris 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, Pyramid of Unas, Saqqara (c. 2350 BCE, 5th Dynasty) - the ancestral corpus of Egyptian funerary spells - Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom, c. 2055-1650 BCE) - the spread of afterlife literature from royalty to nobles - Papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead, Spell 125 (c. 1250 BCE, 19th Dynasty, British Museum EA 10470) - the fullest surviving vignette of the Weighing of the Heart - Greenfield Papyrus of Nesitanebetashru (c. 950 BCE, 21st Dynasty, British Museum EA 10554) - one of the longest surviving copies of the book - Thomas George Allen, The Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day (University of Chicago Press, 1974) - the standard scholarly translation of the corpus - Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (British Museum Press, 1972) - translation of the Papyrus of Ani and the principal spells - Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife (Cornell University Press, 1999) - scholarly survey of Egyptian funerary literature - John H. Taylor, Journey through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (British Museum Press, 2010) - study of the scrolls, their makers, and their owners Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore the Black Dog of Maelgwn, a spectral monster from Welsh Arthurian lore tied to Maelgwn Gwynedd, folklore and haunted tradition | Mythopouch Previous Arthurian Next > Black Dog of Maelgwn Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s The Black Dog of Maelgwn, Welsh: Ci Du Maelgwn Gwynedd ("The Black Dog of Maelgwn of Gwynedd"); also associated with Cŵn Annwfn ("Hounds of Annwn") Pronunciation BLAK dog ov MILE-goon Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Spectral Hound of Maelgwn, Maelgwn's Dog, the Dog of Gwynedd, the Hound of the North Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Creature/Monster/Animal Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender N/A Time Period 6th century (literary emergence c. 950-1200 CE) Symbol Dog Paw Tags arthurian, monster, dog, spectral Introduction - Overview The Black Dog of Maelgwn represents one of the most spectral and historically grounded monsters of early Welsh Arthurian tradition-a creature that bridges the gap between folklore, historical chronicle, and the supernatural landscape of medieval Wales. To understand the Black Dog, one must first understand its master: Maelgwn Gwynedd (Maelgwn Hir, "Maelgwn the Tall"), a historical 6th-century king of Gwynedd whose court at Deganwy featured prominently in early Welsh Arthurian poetry and whose life was chronicled by the monk Gildas in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (c. 540 CE). Maelgwn's name itself carries canine associations: it translates as "Princely Dog" or "Warrior Hound" (mael "prince/warrior" + gwn "hound/dog"), connecting the historical king to the animal that would become his supernatural familiar. Gildas condemned Maelgwn as a tyrant who had once been a monk but abandoned his vows to seize power, describing him as the "dragon of the island" whose sins included murder, fornication, and the persecution of the church. The spectral black dog enters Arthurian tradition through the fragmentary Welsh poetry and triads that preserved the legends of Maelgwn's court. In the Black Book of Carmarthen and related manuscripts, Maelgwn's court at Deganwy appears as a setting where Arthurian heroes interacted with historical Welsh kings, blurring the line between history and legend. The spectral hound associated with Maelgwn belongs to the widespread British tradition of the "black dog" as a death omen and guardian spirit-creatures known variously as the Black Shuck in East Anglia, the Barghest in Yorkshire, and the Gwyllgi in Wales. These dogs were typically described as enormous, shaggy, black hounds with glowing eyes that haunted roads, churchyards, and the estates of the powerful, serving as omens of death or as guardians of forbidden treasures. In Maelgwn's case, the dog may have represented the king's own moral corruption given supernatural form-a hellish familiar appropriate to a ruler Gildas portrayed as demonic. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Black Dog of Maelgwn Maelgwn Gwynedd's court occupied a significant place in early Welsh Arthurian tradition as one of the great royal centers where Arthur and his warriors were said to have gathered. The poem Pa Gur yv y Porthaur from the Black Book of Carmarthen places Arthur and his warband at the gates of various strongholds, and Maelgwn's Deganwy appears in related traditions as one of the courts where Arthur held presence. The Welsh triads mention Maelgwn as one of the "Three Tribal Thrones of the Island of Britain," establishing his historical prominence. Yet Gildas's De Excidio portrayed him as the worst of British tyrants-a man who murdered his uncle to seize the throne of Gwynedd, abandoned the monastic life he had once embraced, and ruled through fear and violence. This dual tradition-historical king and legendary villain-created the perfect context for a spectral hound to emerge as his supernatural attribute. The Black Dog of Maelgwn operates within a broader constellation of Welsh canine and lupine symbolism. Gildas himself used wolf and eagle imagery in his condemnation of Maelgwn, describing how these animals had lured him away from the monastery and back to the worldly pursuit of power. In Welsh legend, the wolf (blaidd) and the hound (ci) occupied liminal spaces between the wild and the domestic, the mortal and the supernatural. The name Maelgwn-"Princely Dog" or "Warrior Hound"-suggests that the king himself was identified with canine qualities, and a spectral black dog may have served as his fetch or spirit-double in folk tradition. The connection between Maelgwn and dogs also appears in the Colloquy of the Two Sages (Immacallam in dá Thuarad), an Irish text with Welsh parallels, where wisdom and authority are contested through elaborate animal metaphors. Maelgwn's dog would have been understood by Welsh audiences as both a real hound and a supernatural manifestation of the king's own nature. The Cath Palug-the monstrous cat of Anglesey-may also be connected to Maelgwn's canine symbolism through opposition. Scholar Geoffrey Ashe and others have suggested that the Cath Palug, as one of the "three great plagues" of Anglesey, could represent the rise of Druidic or pagan resistance in Gwynedd during Maelgwn's reign, with the monstrous cat serving as a symbol of forces antagonistic to the king. If so, then the Black Dog of Maelgwn and the Cath Palug may form a paired opposition in Welsh folklore: the king's spectral hound versus the island's demonic cat, each representing different aspects of the supernatural landscape of 6th-century Wales. This reading, while speculative, illuminates how Welsh Arthurian tradition wove historical figures, political conflicts, and supernatural beasts into a single symbolic tapestry. The Black Dog of Maelgwn also connects to the Arthurian theme of the May Day births and the massacre of the innocents. In the Vulgate Cycle, Arthur orders all children born on May Day drowned to prevent Mordred's survival; Maelgwn's historical reign similarly included violent acts against kin and subjects. The spectral dog may have served as a reminder of these crimes-a ghostly hound that haunted the king's court as punishment for his sins. In Welsh folklore, black dogs frequently appeared as the spirits of the wrongfully dead, and Maelgwn's many victims would have provided ample material for such a haunting. The dog thus functions as both omen and conscience-a supernatural mirror reflecting the tyranny of its master. Summary The Black Dog of Maelgwn emerges from the intersection of Welsh history, Arthurian legend, and British folklore as the spectral hound associated with Maelgwn Gwynedd, the 6th-century king whose court featured in early Welsh Arthurian poetry. Gildas's condemnation of Maelgwn as a tyrannical "dragon of the island" and the king's own name-meaning "Princely Dog" or "Warrior Hound"-created a context in which a supernatural black dog could serve as his spirit-familiar or doom-laden omen. Operating within the broader British tradition of spectral hounds as death omens, the Black Dog of Maelgwn represents the supernatural shadow cast by a historical ruler who occupied the ambiguous space between Arthurian ally and villain. Its presence in Welsh tradition connects the Arthurian world to the deeper folk beliefs of medieval Britain. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Black Dog of Maelgwn 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 Cŵn Annwfn Creature/Monster/Animal Cŵn Annwfn Gildas Person Gildas Gwyn ap Nudd Deity Gwyn ap Nudd 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 et Conquestu Britanniae, c. 540; Black Book of Carmarthen, pre-1250; Welsh Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein); Pa Gur yv y Porthaur; Wizzley, "The Semi-Mythical Maelgwn Gwynedd"; Westwood, Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Eurydice, the nymph whose death sent Orpheus to the Underworld and whose rescue was lost by a single backward glance - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Eurydice Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Εὐρυδίκη (Eurydikē) Pronunciation yoo-RID-ih-see Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Lost Wife, The Woman Orpheus Could Not Save, The Bride of the Underworld, The One Glance That Cost Everything, The Nymph of the Meadow Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Greek Region Category Person Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Mythological Gender Female Time Period c. 1st century BCE (Virgil); earlier traditions Symbol The snake Tags greek, eurydice, orpheus, underworld, love, tragedy, thrace, snake Introduction - Overview Eurydice is the nymph whose death by a snake bite sent her husband Orpheus into the Underworld, and whose rescue was undone by a single backward glance. She is the wife of the greatest musician in Greek mythology, the Thracian poet whose songs could move stones and tame beasts and whose voice charmed even the gods of the dead. She is the bride who died on her wedding day, or shortly after, while walking through a meadow in the Vale of Tempe, a valley in Thessaly famous for its beauty. She is the woman who followed her husband up the dark path from Hades, the kingdom of the dead, silent and hopeful, only to vanish the moment he turned to look at her. She is the ghost who spoke one last time before dissolving into the shadows, telling Orpheus that his love had failed at the final step. And she is the eternal symbol of love lost at the threshold, the name that poets and composers have invoked for two thousand years as the archetype of the beloved who cannot be reclaimed. Every opera about a musician descending into darkness, every story of a love that dies at the last moment, carries her shadow. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Eurydice Eurydice was born a nymph, one of the spirits who inhabited the rivers and meadows of Thrace, the wild region of northern Greece that bordered the Hellespont, the narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia. She was beautiful, gentle, and young, and she caught the eye of Orpheus, the son of Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, and Oeagrus, a Thracian king. Orpheus was the greatest musician who ever lived. His voice could charm the trees into moving their roots, his lyre could tame wild animals, and his songs were so powerful that even the rocks of the mountains would roll toward him to hear better. He fell in love with Eurydice, and she with him, and they were married in a ceremony that the nymphs and gods themselves attended. The tragedy struck soon after. While Eurydice was walking through a meadow in the Vale of Tempe, a valley in Thessaly where the river Peneus ran between Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, and Mount Ossa, she stepped upon a snake hidden in the grass. The serpent struck her ankle, and the venom killed her instantly. Some said she was fleeing from Aristaeus, a rustic god who desired her; others said she was simply gathering flowers with her nymph companions. Either way, she died young and beautiful, and her body was laid in a tomb while Orpheus wept with a grief that no music could soothe. Orpheus could not accept her death. He took his lyre and descended into the Underworld, the realm of shadows and silence where the dead dwelt forever, ruled by Hades, the god of the dead, and Persephone, the maiden who had become queen of the darkness after her abduction by Hades. Orpheus played his lyre at the gates of the Underworld, and his music was so beautiful that Cerberus, the three-headed hound who guarded the entrance, lay down and slept. The Furies, the spirits of vengeance who tormented the wicked, wept tears of sorrow. Even Hades and Persephone were moved. The king of the dead listened to the song of Orpheus and agreed to release Eurydice on one condition: Orpheus must lead her up the path to the world of the living, but he must not look back at her until they had both reached the surface. If he turned before she was fully in the light, she would be lost forever. Orpheus agreed. He led Eurydice up the dark path, through the caverns of the Underworld, past the river Styx, the boundary between the living and the dead, and toward the faint light of the upper world. Eurydice followed in silence, her footsteps soft behind him, her hand perhaps touching his, though no account tells if they touched. She was still a shadow, not yet flesh, and she needed only the final steps into daylight to be restored. But Orpheus, consumed by doubt and love, could not bear the silence. He needed to see her, to know that she was truly there. At the very threshold of the upper world, just before the light, he turned his head. Eurydice vanished. She dissolved into the darkness like mist in the sun, her form fading before his eyes. She spoke one last time, or perhaps Orpheus heard her voice in the silence, telling him that his love had failed at the final step. She was drawn back into the depths, and the gates of the Underworld closed behind her. Orpheus was left alone at the entrance, his lyre silent, his heart broken beyond repair. He tried to descend again, but the gods would not permit it. The dead do not return twice. Orpheus wandered the earth in despair, shunning the company of women and singing only songs of grief. Eventually he was torn apart by the Maenads, the frenzied women who worshipped Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy, or by Thracian women enraged by his rejection of them. His head and lyre floated down the river Hebrus, the great river of Thrace, still singing, and were carried to the island of Lesbos. Eurydice remained in the Underworld, and in some tellings she was reunited with Orpheus after his death, the two shades walking together in the Elysian Fields, the blessed meadow where the virtuous dead found peace. Summary Eurydice stands as the eternal beloved who cannot be reclaimed, the nymph whose life ended with a snake bite and whose second chance ended with a glance. From the meadows of Thrace to the dark path of the Underworld, from the lyre that moved the gods of death to the silence that swallowed her at the threshold, her story is the most famous love tragedy in Western mythology. Every opera, every poem, and every story of a love that dies just as it is about to be saved carries the memory of Eurydice, the woman who was almost free. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Eurydice 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 Maenads Group Maenads Orpheus Person Orpheus Aristaeus Deity Aristaeus Hades Deity Hades Persephone Deity Persephone 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: - Virgil, Georgics (c. 29 BCE) - Book 4, lines 453-527 - Ovid, Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) - Book 10, lines 1-85 - Plato, Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) - lines 179d-179e - Euripides, Alcestis (c. 438 BCE) - lines 357-362 - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (c. 100 BCE) - Book 1, chapter 3, section 2 - Hyginus, Fabulae (c. 2nd century CE) - section 164 - Segal, Charles, Orpheus: The Myth of the Poet (1989) - Johns Hopkins University Press - Warden, John, Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth (1982) - University of Toronto Press - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993) - Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 721-724 Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Chiron, the wise centaur who trained Achilles, Heracles and Asclepius, and gave up his immortality to end his suffering - Mythopouch. Previous Greek Next > Chiron Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Χείρων (Cheiron) Pronunciation KYE-ron Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Wise Centaur, The Wounded Healer, The Teacher of Heroes, The Immortal Who Chose Death, The Master of Pelion, The Surgeon of the Gods 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 (Hesiodic tradition); Theban and Argonautic cycles Symbol Horseshoe & hand Tags greek-mythology, chiron, centaur, teacher, achilles, heracles, healer, constellation Introduction - Overview Chiron is the only centaur in Greek mythology who was wise, civilised, and kind, a creature of healing and music in a race of drunken brutes. He is the immortal son of the Titan Cronus and the Oceanid Philyra, born half-man and half-horse when Cronus, the king of the gods before Zeus, took the shape of a stallion to escape his wife Rhea's notice. He is the foster son of Apollo, the Olympian god of music, prophecy, and medicine, and of Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, from whom he learned every art of healing and archery. He is the teacher who raised Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Trojan War, and Jason, the captain of the Argo, and Actaeon, the hunter torn apart by his own hounds, and Asclepius, the mortal who became god of medicine, and Peleus, the father of Achilles, and Heracles, the hero who completed twelve impossible labours. He is the wounded healer who was accidentally struck by a poisoned arrow from Heracles and suffered in agony for centuries, until he gave up his immortality to die and was placed among the stars as the constellation Centaurus. And he is the namesake of the word chirurgeon, the old term for surgeon, a legacy that still lives in every healer who treats what they themselves have suffered. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Chiron Chiron was born from an act of deception. The Titan Cronus, who had castrated his father Uranus, the primordial sky-god, and seized the throne of the cosmos, was married to his sister Rhea, the goddess of fertility. But Cronus desired Philyra, one of the Oceanids, the three thousand daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, the primordial deities of the sea. To hide his infidelity from Rhea, Cronus transformed himself into a stallion and lay with Philyra in the form of a mare. When Philyra gave birth, she found herself holding a creature with the torso and head of a man and the body and legs of a horse. Horrified, she begged the gods to change her into something else, and she was transformed into a linden tree. The infant Chiron was left alone, but the gods did not abandon him. Apollo, the Olympian god of music, prophecy, and medicine who drove the sun across the sky in his golden chariot, and Artemis, his twin sister, the virgin goddess of the hunt whose silver bow never missed, took him to Mount Pelion in Thessaly, a mountain thick with forests and springs, and raised him as their own. Under Apollo's tutelage, Chiron learned to play the lyre, to read the signs of the stars, and to heal wounds that would kill ordinary men. From Artemis he learned the art of the hunt, the tracking of beasts through the forest, and the use of the bow and spear. He grew into a creature unlike any other centaur. The other centaurs were the wild offspring of Ixion, the king of the Lapiths, who had tried to assault Hera, the queen of Olympus, and was tricked into lying with a cloud made in her shape. Those centaurs were drunken, violent, and lustful, famous for the battle at the wedding of Pirithous, the king of the Lapiths, where they tried to carry off the women and were driven out by the heroes. But Chiron was their opposite. He lived in a cave on Mount Pelion with his wife, the nymph Chariclo, and their daughter Hippe, and he welcomed mortal heroes into his home to teach them the arts of war, music, and medicine. The list of his pupils reads like a catalogue of the greatest names in Greek myth. Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons and father of Achilles, came to Chiron as a boy, and the centaur raised him on the mountain, teaching him to wrestle and to hunt. Actaeon, the Theban hunter who would later be transformed into a stag by Artemis and torn apart by his own hounds, was another pupil. Jason, the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus who had been deposed by his half-brother Pelias, was brought to Chiron as an infant and raised in the centaur's cave until he was old enough to reclaim his throne and lead the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Heracles, the hero forced to complete twelve impossible labours, spent time with Chiron on Pelion, and the centaur taught him the arts of music and warfare. But the most famous of all Chiron's pupils was Achilles, the son of Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis, who was hidden on Mount Pelion as a boy to keep him from the Trojan War. Chiron fed him the marrow of lions and bears to make him strong, taught him to play the lyre, and trained him in every art of combat until Achilles was the deadliest warrior who ever lived. Chiron was also the teacher of Asclepius, the mortal son of Apollo and the mortal woman Coronis, who would become the god of medicine. The centaur taught him the use of herbs, the reading of dreams, and the surgery of wounds, and it was from Chiron that Asclepius learned to raise the dead, a skill so dangerous that Zeus, the king of the gods, struck him down with a thunderbolt to keep the balance between life and death. Chiron's own healing abilities were legendary. When the hero Heracles was wounded in battle, it was Chiron who treated him. But the centaur's fate was sealed by the very poison he had helped to create. Heracles had dipped his arrows in the blood of the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed serpent whose venom was fatal to any mortal and agonising to any immortal. One day, while the centaurs were fighting with Heracles, a stray arrow from the hero's bow struck Chiron in the knee. The wound would not heal. Because Chiron was immortal, he could not die, but the Hydra's poison burned through him with unending pain. For centuries, Chiron suffered. The gods offered him no relief, for the poison of the Hydra was beyond even their power to cure. In the end, he chose to trade his immortality for death. When Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire for mankind and was chained to a rock where an eagle ate his liver each day, was to be freed, Zeus demanded that an immortal must take his place in Tartarus, the dark pit beneath the earth. Chiron volunteered. He gave up his immortality and died, and in his place Prometheus was released from his torment. The gods, mourning the loss of the wisest of the centaurs, placed his image in the night sky as the constellation Centaurus, the figure of a man-horse holding a spear, forever circling the southern heavens. In some accounts, the constellation Sagittarius is also associated with him, though that figure is more often identified with Crotus, another centaur. Chiron's name survives in the word chirurgeon, the old English term for a surgeon, and in the asteroid Chiron, discovered in 1977, which orbits between Saturn and Uranus in the cold outer reaches of the solar system. Summary Chiron stands as the eternal symbol of the wounded healer, the teacher who gave everything he knew to the heroes who would shape the world and who suffered for an accident that was never his fault. From the cave of Mount Pelion to the constellation that bears his name, from the lyre of Achilles to the medicine of Asclepius, his legacy is woven through every great story of Greek myth. He was the only centaur who chose wisdom over wine, the only immortal who chose death over endless pain, and the only monster who was more human than the men he taught. Every surgeon who heals what they have suffered, every teacher who raises a child not their own, carries something of his spirit, a reminder that the greatest gifts often come from the most unlikely sources. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Chiron 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 Asclepius Deity Asclepius Achilles Person Achilles Apollo Deity Apollo Cronus Titan Cronus 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 11, Lines 830-832 (Peleus entrusting Achilles to Chiron) - Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 16, Lines 143-144 (Achilles taught by Chiron on Pelion) - Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - Lines 1001-1002 (Chiron's daughter Hippe and the constellation) - Pindar, Pythian Odes (c. 474 BCE) - Ode 3, Lines 1-106 (Asclepius and Chiron's teaching) - Pindar, Nemean Odes (c. 485 BCE) - Ode 3, Lines 43-63 (Achilles raised by Chiron) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 1.2.4 (birth of Chiron from Cronus and Philyra) - Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 2.5.4 (Chiron wounded by Heracles and death) - Ovid, Fasti (c. 8 CE) - Book 5, Lines 379-414 (Chiron's death and transformation into a constellation) - Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) - Volume 1, pp. 143-147 (Chiron's mythology and variants) - Kirk, G. S., Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge University Press, 1970) - Chapter on centaur mythology and the Chiron figure Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Explore Astolat, the Arthurian home of Elaine where Lancelot wore her red sleeve before the Fair Maid died of unrequited love and floated to Camelot by barge. Previous Arthurian Next > Astolat Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Ascolot, Askalot, Escalot, Scalot, Scalliotto, Shallot, Shalott Pronunciation AS-toh-lat Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Castle of the Maid, the City of the Lily Maid, the Home of Elaine, the Place of the Floating Barge, the Town of the Red Sleeve, the Castle of Sir Bernard Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Location Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender N/A Time Period 5th-6th centuries CE (mythic period); literary tradition c. 1215-1485 CE Symbol Barge, Dead Maiden & Lily Tags arthurian, astolat, place, elaine-of-astolat, lancelot, lady-of-shalott, camelot, guinevere, guildford, unrequited-love Introduction - Overview Astolat is the castle and city near Camelot where the most famous tragedy of unrequited love in Arthurian legend unfolded, the home of Sir Bernard and his daughter Elaine, the Fair Maid of Astolat, who died for love of Sir Lancelot and floated down the river to Camelot in a white barge with a lily in her hand. It is the place where Lancelot stayed before a great tournament, where he accepted a maiden's red sleeve upon his helmet, and where he was nursed back to health from wounds that should have killed him. It is the castle whose daughter's devotion was so absolute that she refused all food and drink after Lancelot rejected her, pining to death in ten days and leaving a letter that accused no one but confessed everything. It is the town that gave Tennyson his "Lady of Shalott," the island tower and the curse and the mirror, though the poet moved the scene to a more remote and mysterious setting. And it is the Arthurian location that Thomas Malory identified with Guildford in Surrey, a real English town that still stands beside the River Wey, a place where the boundary between history and legend has always been as thin as the water's surface. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Astolat Astolat first appears in the early 13th-century French prose romance Mort Artu, the Death of Arthur, where it is called Escalot and its lady is the Demoiselle d'Escalot, a young woman who dies of love for Lancelot and drifts down a river to Camelot in a boat. In the 14th-century English poem Stanzaic Morte Arthur, the place becomes Ascolot and the maiden is the Maid of Ascolot. But the fullest version of the tale comes from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, composed in the 15th century, where Astolat is the castle of Sir Bernard, a knight of moderate standing who has two sons, Tirre and Lavaine, and one daughter, Elaine, called the Fair Maid of Astolat. Malory places the castle near Camelot, and in his geography Astolat lies on the road between the royal city and Winchester, where King Arthur holds a great tournament. The story begins when Lancelot, seeking to compete in the tournament in disguise, asks Sir Bernard for shelter. The old knight gladly receives him, and his daughter Elaine falls in love with the stranger at first sight. She begs Lancelot to wear her token, a sleeve of scarlet cloth, upon his helmet so that she may claim him as her champion. Lancelot, who has never worn any woman's token before because his heart belongs utterly to Queen Guinevere, agrees only because he is in disguise and the queen will not recognise him. He rides to the tournament wearing the red sleeve, fights with devastating skill, and wins the day. But in the melee he is gravely wounded by a spear thrust, and his horse carries him from the field. Lavaine, his squire and the younger son of Sir Bernard, finds him bleeding in a hermit's cell and brings him back to Astolat, where Elaine nurses him through fever and delirium for many days. When Lancelot recovers enough to leave, Elaine confesses her love. She begs him to marry her, or at least to be her lover, offering him everything she has and everything she is. Lancelot, bound by his secret and forbidden love for Guinevere, refuses with gentleness but with absolute finality. He tells her that his heart is given elsewhere, that he cannot love her as she deserves, and that she must find a worthier knight. He offers her a thousand pounds of gold and the promise that he will always be her champion if she marries another. Elaine is devastated. She faints in his arms, and when she wakes she refuses all food and drink. For ten days she lies in her chamber, growing thinner and paler, her life draining away with her hope. On the tenth day she calls her father and dictates a letter to be placed in her hand when she dies. The letter tells her story without blame, confessing her love and Lancelot's innocence, and asking only that he pray for her soul. Elaine died, and her body was laid in a white barge upon the river, dressed in a gown of white samite, a lily in her right hand and the letter in her left. The barge drifted down the Thames to Westminster, where King Arthur and Queen Guinevere stood upon the bank with the court. Gawain, who had once courted Elaine himself, recognised the boat and the maiden. Lancelot read the letter and was overcome with grief and guilt, for he had never meant to cause such suffering. Arthur ordered a royal funeral, and Elaine was buried with all the honour due to a queen. Guinevere, reading the letter, understood that Lancelot had been faithful to her even in his rejection of the maiden, and her anger at him melted away. But the tragedy of Astolat remained, a place where love had been offered without reservation and refused without cruelty, yet the result was death all the same. In the 19th century, Alfred, Lord Tennyson took the story of Elaine of Astolat and transformed it into "The Lady of Shalott," one of the most famous poems in the English language. Tennyson kept the river, the barge, the lily, and the letter, but he moved the maiden to a tower on an island, gave her a curse that forbade her to look directly at the world, and made her death the result of seeing Lancelot in her mirror and leaving her loom to follow him. The tower of Shalott became a symbol of artistic isolation, the mirror a symbol of indirect experience, and the poem a Victorian meditation on the cost of engaging with reality. Tennyson returned to the original story more directly in his later Idylls of the King, in the poem "Lancelot and Elaine," where the tower is gone and the maiden is once more the daughter of a lord near Camelot, dying of love in a barge upon the river. Malory had identified Astolat with Guildford in Surrey, a real town beside the River Wey, and though modern scholars debate whether the identification was deliberate or merely convenient, the connection has endured. Guildford still claims the legend, and the name Astolat lives on in the Arthurian imagination as the place where a young woman's love was so pure that it became her doom. Summary Astolat endures as the most tragic setting in Arthurian romance, the castle where love was nursed in a sickroom, declared in a chamber, and buried in a barge upon the river. From the red sleeve on Lancelot's helm to the lily in Elaine's cold hand, from the tournament fields of Winchester to the banks of the Thames at Westminster, the place is inseparable from the story of the Fair Maid who gave everything and received nothing. It is the reminder that the greatest tragedies need no villain, only a heart that loves too much and a world that cannot return it. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: 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 Camelot Location Camelot Elaine of Astolat Person Elaine of Astolat Guinevere Person Guinevere 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, Mort Artu (Death of Arthur), early 13th century - primary source; the earliest version of the Escalot maiden who dies for love of Lancelot and drifts downriver to Camelot - Anonymous, Stanzaic Morte Arthur, 14th century - primary source; the English version with the Maid of Ascolot, the tournament, and the barge upon the river - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485 - primary source; the full story of Astolat, Sir Bernard, Elaine, Lavaine, the red sleeve, the nursing, the rejection, and the floating barge - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott," 1832 and 1842 - primary source; the poetic transformation of the Astolat legend into the tower, the curse, the mirror, and the river - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Lancelot and Elaine" in Idylls of the King, 1859 - primary source; the later poetic retelling closer to Malory's original narrative - Lacy, Norris J. (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (Routledge, 1995) - scholarly source; the identification of Astolat with Guildford and the evolution of the Elaine legend across traditions - Vinaver, Eugène (ed.), The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Oxford University Press, 1947; revised 1990) - scholarly critical edition and textual analysis of Malory's Astolat episode - Pearsall, Derek, Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction (Blackwell, 2003) - scholarly analysis of the unrequited love motif in Arthurian literature and its development from Mort Artu to Tennyson - Silverstein, Theodore, "The Lady of Shalott and the Arthurian Tradition," in Modern Philology (University of Chicago Press, 1952) - scholarly study of Tennyson's transformation of the Astolat material into Victorian myth Previous --- End of Record --- Next >

Discover Logres, the ancient name of King Arthur's kingdom of Camelot and the Round Table, land of the Grail quest and the Dolorous Stroke. | Mythopouch Previous Arthurian Next > Logres Name in Non-English, or Alternative Name/s Lloegr / Lloegyr (Welsh), Loegria (Latin), Logris, Logroys Pronunciation LOG-res Arthurian List Egyptian List Greek List Also known as, and/or Titles and Roles The Kingdom of Arthur, the Land of the Grail, the Kingdom of Ogres, Loegria, the Waste Land Mythopouch artistic interpretation Details British/Welsh Regional Information Additional (if applicable) Arthurian Region Category Location Historicity (actuality or factual truth of persons, events, and claims) Legendary Gender N/A Time Period 5th-6th centuries CE (mythic Arthurian period); literary tradition c. 1136-1945 CE Symbol The crown of Arthur, the Round Table, the sword in the stone, the Bleeding Lance Tags arthurian, logres, camelot, grail-quest, dolorous-stroke, waste-land, britain, lloegr Introduction - Overview Logres is the name of King Arthur's kingdom in medieval romance, the mythic heart of Britain ruled from Camelot by the once and future king and his knights of the Round Table. It is the land of the Holy Grail, for the romances call the wonders of that sacred quest the adventures of the kingdom of Logres, the enchanted marvels that drew every true knight out on the road. It is the land blasted by the Dolorous Stroke, when the knight Balin struck King Pellam with the very spear that had pierced Christ on the cross, and three kingdoms lay waste in a single blow. It is the realm the poet Chretien de Troyes called the old kingdom of ogres, a land prophesied to be destroyed by a lance that bleeds by itself. It is a name older than Arthur, drawn from Lloegr, the ancient Welsh word for England, which the chroniclers said was named for Locrinus, the eldest son of Brutus of Troy. And it is the name modern writers reached for when they wanted Britain at its most sacred, the hidden kingdom of the spirit behind the everyday world. Gallery Main Article - Who or What was... Logres The name Logres is far older than any romance. Lloegr is the ancient Welsh word for England, the land of the enemies of the Cymry in early Welsh poetry, and its true origin is lost. When Geoffrey of Monmouth, the twelfth-century cleric who first made Arthur a king of European fame, wrote his History of the Kings of Britain around 1136, he gave the old word a founder. The Trojan exile Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy, conquered the giants of Britain and divided the island among his three sons. To Locrinus, the eldest, went the midland between the Humber and the Severn, called Loegria after him. To Kamber went the lands beyond the Severn, called Cambria, now Wales. To Albanactus, the youngest, went the north, called Albany, now Scotland. Twenty years later the Norman poet Wace turned Geoffrey's Latin Loegria into French verse, and Logres was born. The name first appears in Arthurian romance in the Lancelot of Chretien de Troyes, written about 1177, and in his Perceval, the first Grail story, a lord prophesies that the whole kingdom of Logres, which was once the kingdom of ogres, will one day be destroyed by a lance that bleeds by itself. In the great French story-book of the legend, the Vulgate Cycle of about 1215 to 1235, Logres is the stage for everything. Arthur is its king; Camelot, his brightest city, stands at the very entrance of the kingdom. Its capital is the city of Logres, which the scribes often simply called London, and it is before the archbishop's church there that the sword in the stone appears on the Christmas Eve after King Uther's death, the sign by which the unknown boy Arthur is chosen king. Around it lie the border realms of the adventures: Cameliard, the kingdom of Guinevere's father Leodogran; the wild land of Gore; and the forest of Bedegraine, where the young king broke the rebellion of the kings who refused him homage. Into this land, the romances say, the family of Joseph of Arimathea, the man who buried Christ, brought the Holy Grail, the cup of the Last Supper, and Logres became the land of the sacred quest. The darkest day in the history of Logres is the Dolorous Stroke. The knight Sir Balin, called the Knight with Two Swords, came to the feast of King Pellam, the keeper of the Grail, and there cut down the king's brother Garlon, an invisible knight who had murdered Balin's companions. Pellam attacked Balin in vengeance and broke his sword. Fleeing from room to room, Balin burst into the chamber where the Grail stood, and seized the only weapon at hand: the spear of the Roman soldier Longinus, the very lance that had pierced the side of Christ on the cross. With it he struck Pellam through both thighs. A voice rang through the castle declaring that a great enchantment would fall upon Logres, and it did: the walls crashed down, the people fell dead or senseless, and three kingdoms withered into the Waste Land, where no tree bore fruit and no child was born. The wounded king lay in his ruined castle for twenty-two years, unable to die and unable to be healed. Healing came with Galahad, the pure knight, son of Lancelot, the greatest of all Arthur's warriors. When Galahad sat in the Siege Perilous, the one seat at the Round Table reserved for the knight who would achieve the Grail, the adventures of the kingdom of Logres began in earnest. He rode the Waste Land with the knights Perceval and Bors, came at last to the Grail castle of Corbenic, and anointed the Maimed King with blood from the sacred spear, closing the wound the stroke had opened. The age of marvels closed with it. Sir Thomas Malory, the fifteenth-century knight who gathered the whole legend into his Le Morte d'Arthur of 1485, kept the old name alongside his plainer word England, and gave the surname de Logres to several of his knights, but after his book the ancient name slept for four hundred years. Modern writers woke it again as the name of the sacred Britain. Charles Williams, the poet and novelist who walked with the Inklings at Oxford, made Logres the living heart of his Arthurian cycle Taliessin Through Logres of 1938, a kingdom that is a province of the spirit as much as a place on the map. His friend C.S. Lewis carried the word into his novel That Hideous Strength of 1945, where Logres is the true and hidden Britain, the land of Arthur and Merlin that survives beneath the modern country and must rise against it. Between them they fixed the meaning the name still carries: Logres is Arthur's kingdom not as it was, but as it ought to be. Summary Logres endures as the true name of Arthur's Britain, the kingdom of Camelot, the Round Table and the Grail, drawn from a word older than the legend itself. Later Welsh poets mourned it as the lost lands, the country their people lost to the invading Saxons, and the romances made it a realm that could be wounded by one unholy blow and healed only by the purest knight alive. From Locrinus to Arthur, from the Bleeding Lance to the coming of Galahad, Logres remains the name for Britain when Britain is at its most enchanted, the kingdom where every adventure began and to which every true knight longed to return. Now enter the Mythopouch World! You’ve discovered: Logres 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 Camelot Location Camelot Guinevere Person Guinevere 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: - Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136, Book II.1 - primary source; Brutus divides Britain among Locrinus (Loegria), Kamber (Cambria) and Albanactus (Albany) - Wace, Roman de Brut, c. 1155 - primary source; the Latin Loegria rendered into French as Logres - Chretien de Troyes, Perceval, le Conte du Graal, c. 1181-1191, line 6169 - primary source; the prophecy that the kingdom of Logres, once the kingdom of ogres, will be destroyed by the Bleeding Lance - Anonymous, Vulgate Cycle (Estoire del Saint Graal and Merlin), c. 1215-1235 - primary source; Logres as Arthur's kingdom, the city of Logres, and the sword in the stone - Anonymous, Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, c. 1230-1240 - primary source; the Dolorous Stroke and the wasting of Logres - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485, Books II and XVII - primary source; Balin's stroke against King Pellam and Galahad's healing of the Maimed King - Charles Williams, Taliessin Through Logres, 1938 - primary literary source; Logres as the mystical province of the Grail - C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945 - primary literary source; Logres as the true and hidden Britain - Lacy, Norris J. (ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (Garland, 1991) - scholarly reference; Logres across the medieval cycles - Bruce, Christopher W., The Arthurian Name Dictionary (Garland, 1999) - scholarly reference on the name and its variants - Kennedy, Elspeth, Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose Lancelot (Clarendon Press, 1986) - scholarly study of the Vulgate world in which Logres is the central kingdom Previous --- End of Record --- Next >