#ancient myths retold

[starfall-spirit]

I couldn't help but sneak this timeless quote into chapter 7 of AtMotS

“Don’t you know, Feyre darling, death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it a while.”

@the-lonelybarricade, you'll appreciate this one, I think.

[corikane]

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

There’s no drama like ancient Greek drama – they’re the original drama queens and kings and many of them were indeed kings and queens, like ancient Kardashians whatever they did changed lives. Even if you, like me, were interested in Greek mythology at some point, you may not remember Elektra. She’s a minor player in one of the best-known tales of this ancient world: the story of Troy. But the…

[vaspider]

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

[desos-records]

The EPIC Circe Saga making Odysseus' love for Penelope what ultimately saves him from Circe just healed a massive hole in my heart.

Because YES the Odyssey like all of Ancient Greek Mythology has a misogynist streak a mile wide, but that primarily comes down to the written text, preserved by Athens--no one hates women more than Athens--and translated into English for centuries by sexist men who wanted to see a powerful woman tamed by a man.

But the Odyssey and the Iliad come from ancient oral tradition. They were told and retold and everyone, EVERYONE, got a say in how to interpret them. Why can't we?

Why can't the story be: Odysseus' love for his wife and his family is what saves him. Hermes tells him the only way to protect himself from Circe is to seduce her. Agamemnon, who lied and betrayed his wife, warns him that trusting women will get him killed. But Odysseus doesn't listen. Instead, he passes Circe's test of character where others failed. He trusts Penelope and does right by her and she does the same for him. The secret of their marriage bed serves as a symbol of loyalty and commitment upheld by them both, not just Penelope.

Why can't it be that? Greek Myth is already brutal, why do we have to willfully make it more so?

[vampire-cenobite]

Metamorphosis - Daphne and Apollo / Armand, Pandora, and Marius

The myth of Daphne and Apollo was an ancient Greek myth retold in Ovid's 'Metamorphosis'. In Ovid's retelling, Apollo is struck by a golden arrow meant to bring love, while Daphne (daughter of Peneus) is struck by an arrow made of lead, meant to make love 'run off'.

Daphne runs away in fear from a lovestruck Apollo, crying to her father for help, and she is transformed into a laurel tree.

Apollo and Daphne in The Vampire Chronicles

In 'Blood and Gold', Marius describes painting Daphne and Apollo, and how he finds that the Daphne he painted greatly resembled Pandora.

In 'The Vampire Armand', the myth of Apollo and Daphne is mentioned twice. First, when Armand first tours the Palazzo he sees a marble statue of Daphne and Apollo.

Then, in the moments before Armand's turning, Marius brings him to his painting of Daphne and Apollo, to witness the metamorphosis, before Armand’s own.

The metamorphosis myth greatly compliments the transformation into a vampire. Armand and Pandora were both transformed by Marius and thereby forever separated from him, he was no longer able to see into their minds.

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

[sarafangirlart]

Found another really cool Perseus retelling:

It’s interesting how Dionysus’s myth is tied to all this, in this telling Zeus impregnated Danaë as revenge against Acrisius for not believing and worshiping Dionysus, idk if any ancient sources state this as the reasoning but… it actually makes sense??? Idk I actually don’t hate it, I wouldn’t mind if a retelling of the war between Perseus and Dionysus does this bc it could actually add extra flavor to their conflict.

There’s this really funny scene where nymphs were fawning over Perseus and getting him all these gifts to remember them and return to them only for Perseus to silently take them and never come back lmao one even went to Hads to ask for his helmet. This is especially hilarious with how Perseus didn’t gaf about these literal goddesses but was head over heels for Andromeda.

Also these final lines go hard

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Source You may have noticed I'm a little bit obsessed with Silverwolf, a story that seems to be told and retold by the Aristasians since the 80s (or before? I haven't finished reading through all The Coming Age issues!) about a school girl who finds herself transported to a fantastical world where she's a beautiful warrior. This theme of average school being a secret warrioress is also repeated in the Romantia era with Miss Wonderful, although Miss Wonderful seems to be set in Novaria rather than Amazonia. This particular screen shot is not just interesting because it's about Silverwolf, or that it's by Miss Mushroom Princess, most probably authoress of Silverwolf, pretending that it's just some interesting piece of historia that she stumbled across, but because of the following quote:

"The story revolves around four super-powered maidens from an "ancient world" which seems to have a lot in common with Aristasia Pura"

This almost comes out and says something that I have felt was true for a while: that throughout the years, everything this group did was centered around their fantasy world of Aristasia, but it was less and less veiled as time went on. Silverwolf was originally released as just a piece of fiction set in an ancient matriarchal world, a world which the Madrians said was really part of our world, in the way that they believed many myths were real. It mostly seemed to be a piece of media that was palatable for us bongos, but which celebrated their Madrian myths and values. But here Miss Mushroom is wink wink nudging us that this mythical world in Silverwolf was actually Aristasia Pura all along. Ultimately, this cumulated in Chelouranya, where perhaps all the veils were torn away and we saw this fantasy world in it's true form. Aristasia was no longer named after a favored brand of stockings (or Aristotle if you believe that version), but was Sai Herthe, Aristasians were called Chelouranyas. Circling right back around to the very beginning to their secret language of Rhennish. I can't help but think of what those who were involved in the early Madrian cultures but became disenchanted with the Lux Madrian group had to say, that they were "living in someone else's fantasy world".

[subzeroparade]

hello there, I would just like to say that you are an inspiration to me and my own writing journey. you have such a profound way of skillfully weaving a story, I adore your works. it really reminds me a lot of madeline miller and her amazing stories (I really like a specific style of writing, lol)

may I ask what your writing process is? I myself have trouble sticking to motivation and finishing my own works. hope this message reaches you well, cheers <33

(Long post warning, and sorry to the people still languishing in my inbox, especially anon who sent me a similar writing ask - I will get to it, but hopefully in the meantime you can glean something useful from this, too.) 

Thank you! Also, yes - I came back to creative writing a few years ago (after many years of nothing but academic writing, grad and post-grad) around the same time Miller published Circe, and my ER work definitely pays tribute to that. In the genre of modernised(not modern)-greek-myth-retellings, hers are the only ones I tolerate. (That’s not true, I do like Pat Barker’s work to an extent, though she’s much less lyrical than Miller. But sometimes you need that). 

To answer your ask, here's my writing process - but first, a couple of disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: Everyone’s method is different, etc etc; this is a given. But I also have a decade’s worth of disciplined professional writing under my belt, which is very helpful when it comes to sitting down and just choking something out on paper, even when my brain is unwilling, or the spark is not there. This takes time to cultivate. 

Disclaimer 2: No writing method or process is going to work if you are not actively reading. All the time. There is never a time I don’t have at least one book going. When I am feeling cheeky, I commit to four or five at once, all very different: novels (from disparate genres), edited volumes, anthologies, non-fiction; regardless, a wealth of different voices to draw from. If you are super busy, and we all are, at least try to read a bit before bed, it’s good for you. 

Anyway! Process:

STEP 1: A thing I might want to write: a scenario. A scene. An interaction between two characters. A short sequence of events. A long history. This particular climax, and its aftermath. The POV of that particular character. How am I going to do that? What do I need to know? What are the possible approaches - which POV, past or present, told or retold, and in what manner? 

Ex: before I sat down to write Litanies (Bloodborne), I knew I was interested enough to commit to a fic about the Fishing Hamlet. There are a million ways to do this. It was only while reading/watching certain material - journals, accounts of 19th century expeditions, a book about piecing together the mystery of a murder on another planet through conflicting eye-witness testimony, watching AMC’s The Terror - did it make sense to do an “interview” style, slow-burn mystery-box-esque piece, in which an interviewer has to piece together first-hand accounts of what happened (just like us, the Hunter!). Could I have done it another way? Yes. Would it have been nearly as interesting from a storytelling perspective? Not remotely. 

Tdlr; Who and what will I write about? In what way, and how will that approach make the work even stronger? How many things do I need to clarify about where and how this is going before I start writing? The tighter your plan - it doesn’t even need to be written down - the less likely you are to hit a wall later because you don’t know where you’re trying to go or what you’re trying to say. 

STEP 2: I start plotting scenes. For Vanitas (Elden Ring), I knew I wanted to write the history of Godwyn’s war and subsequent allegiance with the ancient stone dragons. I would need battle scenes, political intrigue and broader worldbuilding, alongside more intimate, dialogue-focused exchanges with Fortissax. On my shitty little notes app, I started writing these as they came to me, as I mulled over the ways to make them fight, meet, agree, quarrel, separate. Mostly, I start with the core of a scene - what is the question being answered, the main point, the crux of it? - and then build the rest of the scene around that. In that way it’s rarely, if ever, meandering and useless. Especially in short works - every scene should matter, and keep its focus where possible. You will be surprised how many disparate scenes you can merge into a single one for more impact.

Tldr; elevator-pitch style, what’s this work actually about??? And what scenes do I need for my readers to get it?

Big huge disclaimer here: at this stage, if I am starting to construct little bits and pieces in my notes app (everything from swathes of dialogue to jumbled “then he does this” reminders) they are in a very raw form. HOWEVER, at this point, I need to know how the story will end, especially if it is multi-chapter. I need to have outlined how these scenes flow into each other, and why. If it’s a vignette or one-shot, I need to know exactly what I will show, mood and message, so that it never becomes any longer than necessary, or loses the thread that holds it together, so to speak. 

STEP 3: I have a lot of material in my shitty little notes app (this will vary, depending on the size of your piece. The outline of A History of Iniquity (Elden Ring) was about 8k, which makes sense for a work that’s gonna top out at 80k). It’s time to bring it over to proper writing software. There, I start sorting my notes into scenes, as well as supplementary material (stuff that feels useful, or important, like worldbuilding tidbits, but that I have yet to weave into the story progression). Personally, separating all my notes into these individual scenes makes me feel like I have a better handle on the work, and can bounce around from scene to scene without having to work in linear progression, which I almost never do. 

Tldr; organise. Today I feel like writing scene 4, tomorrow scene 2. Because I have a handle on the work’s structure and I always know where it will end up, this is easy to do. 

STEP 4:

Write it.

Sloppily, badly, plainly. Commit to writing a scene, or x number of words per day, and get it done. A bare minimum of what happens in that scene. Dialogue. Actions. This then that and then this. Just put it down.

This is my big secret: I am a good writer, but I am a better editor (alas, a thing you could never tell from the state of some of my Tumblr posts). Writing is the painful part. Editing is a joy. It’s all there - what is left for me to do but to make it smoother, shinier, more polished? Remove what is superfluous, add a punch where needed. I much prefer making a drab paragraph sing than the initial act of writing that paragraph. 

I spend more time on editing than I do writing. I read, I reread. I go away. I come back, fresh, and reread again. I reread my work until I know enormous amounts of it by heart, then I go away, put it out of my mind, read something else, come back and edit again. There is no way around this, especially if you are writing fic and you don’t have a beta (or at least a first/second reader). It can always, always, always be better. The more aggressively you edit, the better you train your critical eye, and the sharper you are on your next first draft, or if you’re kind enough to beta for someone else. I am a ruthless editor (and I can and should be even worse), only because that’s what helped me, and I’d hope anyone better than me taking the time to look at my stuff would do me the same courtesy. 

STEP 5: Publish, go away, cry. If it’s fanfic, come back and read it for some last little edits. If it’s in an academic volume, cringe and hope no one reads it (/jk. Mostly). 

To come back to your initial point about motivation and sticking the landing -  some of that is going to have to come from you, personally. On my end, I finish what I start for three reasons.

I do not truly start the honest-to-god writing unless I have that body of notes already, and it’s hefty enough to serve as a skeleton. If I’m unsure, I’ll often leave ideas in this nebulous state of notes/ideation until I can come back with a clearer vision of what it would look like as a finished piece.

I do not start unless I am 100% committed to putting this work out there. If it’s too daunting, I’ll write it as a vignette or a one-shot, which is great practice, and there’s no excuse not to finish one. 

I do not start a work unless I know exactly how I am going to finish it. I more often than not know the last sentence of my work before I make it to the first draft stage. I know in amateur circles/fic writing it’s fine to just see where the work takes you, or leave the chapter count open, or whatever - it’s all practice, anyway - BUT I do think that if your main goal is closing a piece, then you need to be strict about how you get there. There’s plenty to do along the way, but at minimum know the scenes you need to make it to the finish line, and give yourself the tools to get there. 

THIS IS SO LONG I am terribly sorry, clearly I lied about being a good editor. 

Hope this helps! 

[cardicoven]

🥀Book Review: Persephone's Pathway: Wisdom, Magick & Growth by Jennifer Heather

Full Title: Persephone's Pathway: Wisdom, Magick, Growth Author: Jennifer Heather Published by: Heather Publishing (seemingly self published) 2020 Good Reads: Link My Quick Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5) stars. Persephone’s Pathway which while flawed and at times meandering is perhaps the best resource available for the modern pagan worshipping or working with Persephone and I wholly recommend it. Official Blurb: Persephone's Pathway is one of balance and duality; embrace the dual goddess archetype of Underworld Queen and Spring Maiden in order to achieve harmony. This book shares the wisdom of Persephone, along with spells and rituals to help you in your daily life. Shadow work exercises encourage you to work with the Underworld aspect of the Dark Goddess, whilst flower magick celebrates the joy and gentleness of the Spring Goddess. Blend the dark and light aspects together to experience how they shine a light on each other in this celebration of wholeness and authenticity. Personal Reason for Purchasing: Was looking for a pagan/witchy perspective on Persephone and stubbled across this one. (Bought from Amazon UK)

Overview of the book's contents. Introduction: A solid introduction, focusing on what the purpose of this book will be, and the author’s goals in writing it, namely ‘an exploration of the mythology and Symbolism surrounding Persephone, along with chapters dedicated to a facet of what she can teach us’, ‘both a collection of information and tribute to her’. Chapter 1: 'Who is Persephone': Introduction to Persephone, her role, dual nature, The Eleusinian mysteries, possible connections to Erishkegal (a mesopotamia goddess originating 4000 BC), and of course the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Chapter 2: 'Historic Origins': An exploration of the genesis of Persephone in Mythology, through to the Evolution of her story in present day literature. (A personal highlight). Chapter 3: 'A Myth Retold': A modern retelling of the hymn to Demeter by the author. Chapter 4: 'Symbolism': An exploration of the artefacts associated with Persephone, both modern and ancient, the creation of a unique glyph/sigil for Persephone and an extensive and detailed discussion of association/correspondences, some ancient, some contemporary and lastly her common epithets. Chapter 5: 'Creating an Altar': A collection of suggestions and guidelines on creating your own altar for Persephone and common offerings to gift the Goddess. Chapter 6: 'Persephone Magick: Begins with a basic beginners to magickal practice, followed by a recipe for a Persephone Anointing oils, a guide to connecting to Persephone, an innovation and an adaption of the Orphic Hymn to Proserpina.

The Seeds of Persephone A collection of chapters surrounding what the Author considers to be the six core aspects/values which Persephone embodies. Seed 1: 'Union': Focuses on Shadow-work, divine alignment for body and Spirit union, and includes a spell for Spiritual union of lovers, guidance surrounding meditation, shadow-work rituals, and a recipe for a love attraction oil. Seed 2: 'Balance': Begins with a discussion of how to, and the importance of maintaining balance in one’s life, including a meandering discussion of grounding, living with the seasons, incorporating nature into your life, meditation, seasonal altars, self-care, massage, and yoga. Lastly it includes recipes for a Persephone Beauty Elixer’ cream/lotion, a medicinal tonic, a spell for resolution, and a spell for making a decision. Seed 3: 'Intuition': Looks at ways to develop one’s intuition, including an outline for a Persephone focused Lithomancy technique (10 planetary stones, 6 Persephone stones (named for each of the author’s ‘Seeds’: Fertility, Justice, Balance, Union, Sovereignty and Intuition), three tarot spreads and the script for a guided meditation. Seed 4: 'Sovereignty': Is a discussion of [personal Sovereignty, and self-esteem, with journal prompts. Guidance on enchanting a power talisman, and a spell for protecting personal boundaries. Seed 5: 'Justice': Focuses heavily on Persephone in her Queen of the Underworld Aspect, touching on several myths in which she acted as a Purveyor of justice, (Orpheus and Psyche, and a discussion on Trust in regards to the Goddess. Followed by Several spells for truth telling, reflection on behaviour and fair resolutions. Seed 6: 'Fertility': Focuses on Persephone's Spring/Maiden Aspect. Followed by a discussion of Maiden goddesses, Flower Magick, creating Floral elixirs, cleansing sprays, a flower bathing ritual, and spell jars/Witch’s bottles. Followed by the Associations/correspondences and finally a script of a guided meditation, to meet Persephone in her Spring Aspect. Appendix: The Orphic hymn to Proserpina, translated by Taylor Thomas 1792.

Personal Thoughts and Review. I’m conflicted about this book. The first half is an excellent primer on Persephone and including her into one’s personal practice however, the second half the ‘Seeds of Persephone’ are at times Meandering, unfocused and clumsy, but there are jewels among the ramblings.

The book appears to be self published, so I’m inclined to be kinder to the Author than I would otherwise be; however, Persephone’s Pathway could really use reformatting (text justified etc), and would benefit immensely from an informed and passionate editor. Nevertheless this book is an excellent edition to the libraries of those of us who work with Persephone.

Aspects in detail. General content: The first half goes over a lot of content around Persephone, in some detail and is appropriately referenced through allowing the reader to research further. The Second half (the Seeds) is a mixed bag and approaches certain subjects extremely casually, namely Shadow-work and herbal medicine. Persephone’s correspondences: Primarily contained to Chapter 4, the Correspondences are in depth, reference and diverse. However, there are inaccuracies, the most obvious is a mention of Corn/Maize being cut as a part of the Eleusinian Mysteries. As a New World crop Corn was not in ancient Greece at the time and as such has no historical connection to the Mysteries. From my own understanding the crop cut during the Mysteries was likely Barley, a grain though to have great significance to the Eleusinian Mysteries as a part of the hallucinogenic cocktail thought to be drunk by initiates, barley is also part of the offering given by Oddyseus to summon Persephone (“first with milk and honey, then with sweet wine, then with water; and sprinkle white barley-meal above”). Rituals and Spells: It’s Always interesting to see another practitioner's approach, and covering a very broad scope although, I wish they were indexed since they appear throughout the book. Origin Myth retelling: An interesting retelling, possibly my favourite version, however it is not without flaws. Guided Meditations: Enjoyable and Interesting, these scripts approach many aspects of Persephone’s Mythos. Journaling Prompts: These appear seemingly at random in the latter half of the book, but are nevertheless thought provoking. Recommended Reading: While good to see, it is worthy of note that none of these books reference Persephone, Hellenic Polytheism, or Shadow-work. Which are the topics I would like to see additional material given some of my concerns with the book itself. Bibliography: Extensive and good practice.

The Seeds in Detail. Given their significance to the book I’ll review these chapters separately: Union: a clumsy chapter whose advice on Shadow-work is surface level and possibly dangerous for a beginner or someone who is mentally vulnerable. But this chapter does handle the topic of Love workings with the required levity. Balance: Waffling and honestly feels like filler, of the seeds this one is disappointing and feels like lost potential. Intuition: a major highlight of the book, a detailed exploration of Lithomancy, well written and thought provoking. Sovereignty: A good chapter, if a little long winded. Justice: Spectacular, discussion of Queen Persephone and of how to connect to the Underworld Aspect. A personal highlight. Fertility: An excellent close to the book but desperately needs reformatting.

Final Thoughts. I wholly recommend this book especially as a gateway into working with or worshipping Persephone. Despite its flaws, it is the best resource I’ve found on Persephone from a pagan/witch perspective, and my practice is better for reading it.

[dearartemis]

hi hi @sunlit-arrow here✨

First: I'd love a temple to lady artemis 💕

Second: Do you have any reading recs for new devotees? (of Artemis ofc). I am currently reading She Who Hunts by Carla Ionescu. Have you read it?

Third: I’ve been struggling with the meaning behind the myth of Callisto. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your interpretation?

Sorry for the long ask, I love your blog✨💕

Ah! I am so glad someone else would be interested in something like that! It is currently in progress as we speak! I do have some book recommendations! Artemis by Stephanie Lynn Budin,

The pagan portals Artemis book Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming Our Wild Nature by Vanessa Chakour

"Artemis: Virgin Goddess of the Sun & Moon" by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine

"Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman" by Jean Shinoda Bolen

"The Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron: A Guide" by John Papadimitriou

"The Huntress: Artemis and the Feminine Power of the Wild" by Cait Johnson

"Artemis: The Feminine Divine" by Rachael Patterson

"Goddess Artemis: Mythology and Modern Archetype" by Courtney Roberts

"Artemis: Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion" by Buxton Richard

"The Nature and Worship of Artemis" by Donald E. Strong

"Artemis: Greek Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon" by Teri Temple

"Artemis: The Goddess of the Hunt and the Protector of Animals" by Tammy Gagne

"Artemis: Warrior Goddess and Protectress" by Annie Baring

"Artemis: Goddess of the Wild" by Paul Stephenson

"The Cult of Artemis in the Classical World" by David R. Bean

"The Goddess Artemis" by Laura Perry

"Artemis: Her Story Retold in Modern Context" by Diane Wolfe

"Artemis: The Goddess in Action" by Penelope W. Hunter

"Artemis and Her Cult" by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge

"Artemis: The Huntress and the Moon Goddess" by Eileen Holland

"The Cult of Artemis at Ephesus" by Guy MacLean Rogers

"Artemis: Insights into the Wild Goddess" by Sarah Burntwood

"The Virgin Huntress: Artemis and Her Worship in Ancient Greece" by Helen Brown

"Artemis: A Guide to the Ancient Goddess of the Hunt and Moon" by Amy Tate

"The Legacy of Artemis: From Ancient Myths to Modern Feminism" by Marianne Moore

"Exploring Artemis: Mythology, Worship, and Legacy" by Christopher Blackwell

"Artemis Unveiled: The Goddess of Wilderness and Protector of Women" by Sophia Kane  ( I apologize some of these are woman focused but I have read most of these myself and currently reading number 24) and last but not least Secrets of Artemis by C.K. Brooke I absolutely love the book She Who Hunts by Carla Ionescu and absolutely loved how it covers how widespread her worship was and her origins ! I'd be happy to discuss it with you anytime on here or discord! As for your third question! The Myth of Callisto is very hard to interpret as I have read like three different versions of it and they were all vastly different. But from all I can gather it really just seems to be a big elaborate way of explaining the constellation Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. But I will be writing this down to read again and hopefully be able to write a different interpration on this blog. I will leave this explanation of it below that I just looked up while writing this post and see if maybe you got a different opinion from it too? I'm all about discussion and everyone has a different opinion! http://madelinemiller.com/myth-of-the-week-callisto/ If you have any other questions im always free to answer here or on discord! ( I apologize how long winded this is as well)

[starfall-spirit]

31) For first time readers to your blog, which three fics would you recommend they read?

Um, probably At the Mercy of the Stars (Feysand), because it’s the fic I’m proudest of at the moment.

Then I’d recommend Would You Like Me on My Knees? bc every girl needs to scratch the beast!rhys itch Scheherazade!Feysand was so fun to write, even if it’s discontinued.

Lastly, A Renaissance Romance. It isn't great quality, but it's the only multichapter I've finished for acotar.

[parissfrogg]

Hadestown essays pt 1/2: Hadestown is a Masterpiece

Character and Setting analysis

(Essay under cut because it's quite long)

What makes a story good? What makes a story stand the test of time? What makes a good character? Some classic tales are still being retold to this very day, such as the ancient Greek myths of both Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone. One such retelling is Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown. The stories told in Hadestown are thousands of years old. They tell of Hades, ruler of the underworld, who fell in love with Persephone, goddess of springtime. She descended to live in the underworld with her husband, but all the life in the world above withered and died without her. So the world could live on, Hades had to let Persephone go for half of each year, which represents the seasonal cycle. Paralleling this is Orpheus and Eurydice. A poet and musician named Orpheus falls in love with a girl named Eurydice. Eurydice dies young (how depends on the retelling, in Hadestown it’s because of a terrible storm), and Orpheus ventures into the underworld to bring her back. Hades agrees to let Orpheus take Eurydice home so long as he doesn’t look back to see if she’s really walking behind him. Orpheus, unable to hear her and thinking that Hades tricked him, looks back and loses the love of his life forever. Hadestown is one of, if not the best retelling of these myths. Despite how vague the setting and the worldbuilding are, Hadestown is a masterclass of expert writing due to its nuanced characters, all of which are amazingly well written.

Some viewers may argue that Hadestown’s lack of detail in its worldbuilding and setting make its plot harder to understand. There is little to no description of the setting other than “a railroad track” and “it was hard times” (Road to Hell). It’s unclear whether Hadestown itself is a tangible location, or if it is truly the underworld and a place of death. Hermes, the show’s omniscient narrator, states that “those that go, they don’t come back.” (Road to Hell), which implies that Hadestown is a true underworld. But Hermes also says “You either get to Hell or to Hadestown” (Way Down Hadestown) and later Hades states that he will send Orpheus from Hadestown to “the great beyond, where nobody will hear you singing.” (Chant: Reprise), both of which imply that death, the great beyond, a true afterlife, are a separate place/state of being from Hadestown. These contradictions considered, the lack of worldbuilding is written into this story; it is important to remember that this is a story that is designed to be retold. Hermes himself states that it's an old story that they’re telling again and again. The entire show opens with “Once upon a time there was a railroad line. Don’t ask where, brother, don’t ask when.” (Road to Hell). This vagueness is part of what allows the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to be retold repeatedly. No matter where or when the story takes place, it is the love and tragedy that make it translatable across generations. Either way, the setting isn’t terribly important because Hadestown is a character-driven story that relies on its cast for immersion rather than a detailed world. The nuance of the plot and characters overshadow the lack of setting.

It is the characters that make the stories told in Hadestown so impactful. Each of the four main characters -Hermes as the narrator does not develop or change and doesn’t count- are so compelling that they’re still being told of thousands of years after they were first written. According to Destiny Salter’s How to Write Compelling Characters from the Inside Out, “A compelling character is: Sympathetic (different from likable), nuanced (they have layers), flawed (they’re not perfect), [and] active (they go after what they want).” All of the primary characters, Orpheus, Hades, Eurydice, and Persephone, demonstrate all of these traits in some capacity and are therefore compelling. Orpheus, the protagonist, is sympathetic for many reasons. He’s kind and foolish, a naïve boy who “Wore his heart out on his sleeve” (Any Way the Wind Blows). It’s easy for the audience to align themselves with what he wants. His main motivation throughout the show is to “Bring the world back into tune” (Come Home With Me), a goal which he eventually does accomplish despite everything he loses along the way. He’s also very nuanced and flawed; Orpheus is a very well-written example of what happens when optimism is blinding to reality. According to Hermes, “He could make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is.” (Wedding Song: Intro). He inspires not just the characters directly around him, but every person who sees him even from a distance. He sparks the faceless workers of Hadestown to question why they’re working in the first place; he moves Persephone enough that she stands up to her husband. He’s as empathetic as he is inspiring, but he is certainly not without fault. Orpheus would not be a good character -especially not a good tragic hero- if he did not have a fatal flaw. Orpheus is oblivious, and unwilling to see the darker parts of the world. He works exclusively in extremes; all hope or all fear. He’s so focussed on his song, on breathing life back into the world and making the flowers bloom again, that he can’t look up and notice the storm coming in. The storm that kills Eurydice. Later, when he ventures to the underworld to get her back, and after he’s swayed Hades and Persephone to let Eurydice go, he’s once again blinded. This time he’s blinded by fear and doubt, having had the hope literally beaten out of him in Papers, and is unable to see the wonderful changes to the world that he made. It is this fear, this doubt, this flip from optimism into pessimism is what eventually leads Orpheus to look back and lose Eurydice for good. The combination of all these traits make Orpheus a masterfully written character.

Operating in opposition to Orpheus is Hades, king of the underworld. He can be considered the primary antagonist of Hadestown because he is the one who convinced Eurydice to leave the land of the living and become a faceless worker in the underworld, and is the one who takes so much convincing to let her leave again, and even then there is the catch that Orpheus cannot look back. Despite his status as the “villain”, Hades is still a very well written character. He is sympathetic in how clear it is that he is doing every awful thing he does because he loves Persephone so much. He wants to build for her a world where she can always be loved; he describes the walls of Hadestown as being made to “Hold her close, and keep her safe,” and to “Think of them as [his] embrace.” (Chant: Reprise) He loves her, and has always loved her; these efforts also contribute to making Hades an active character. And it can be inferred that Hades was not always the cruel man that builds walls and separates lovers. When Persephone makes her yearly return to the underworld, she asks Hades “Lover what have you become? … I don’t know you anymore.” (Chant: Reprise) which implies that once upon a time Hades was as kind and loving as Orpheus. Those little peeks of a kinder man that seep through in the ways that he talks to and about Persephone allow him the audience’s sympathy. Hades, like all great antagonists, is nuanced and has depth to him. He means it when he says that everything he does is for Persephone, even if it means destroying the world in the process. Hades turned bitter and mean, cynical and greedy, because he was terrified of losing his wife. As Orpheus says in his final plea to take Eurydice home: “He’s grown so afraid that he’ll lose what he owns. But what he doesn’t know is that what he’s defending is already gone.”(Epic III) He’s so blinded by his work and his need to hold onto the singular bright, lively thing in his life, that he doesn’t see that the woman that he loves doesn’t even recognize him anymore. All these facets and layers make Hades a very nuanced character. But he, like all well written characters, is flawed. He lets his greed and fear consume him until he becomes a shell of the man he once was; it is his need for control that drives Persephone away in the first place. Hades gets too caught up in his own world until he believes that nothing can exist outside it, he believes that the only reliable thing is “the simple tune, the steady beat. The music of machinery.” (Chant: Reprise). He scoffs at Orpheus’ music and says that it is unreliable and unimportant, but is blind to the fact that it is the beauty and softness that Orpheus’ music carries that brings the broken world back together. Hades is a fascinating character to dissect the motivations of, and it is that intrigue that marks him as a good character.

Eurydice is possibly the most detailed character in the show, and her transformation from her entrance in Road to Hell to her final exit in Doubt Comes In is staggering. She starts out as cold and defensive, believing that the world is nothing but pain, and ends with joy and hope that when she and Orpheus make it home they are going to be going home to a better, brighter world. She is sympathetic in that her needs and wants are so relatable to any audience; all she wants is shelter and love. Eurydice is described as a “hungry young girl” (Any Way the Wind Blows), who “fell in love in spite of herself, in love” (All I’ve Ever Known: Intro). She embodies the experience of being hurt and alone in a cruel world; in being too afraid to love for fear of getting hurt again, and pushing away those feelings when they inevitably rise up. Eurydice did not intend to fall for Orpheus, but she was too captivated by him and his chance to bring her into a warmer life. The reason that she entertains the idea of marrying Orpheus in the first place is simply because he could “Make [her] feel alive” (Come Home with Me). And when Eurydice does fall, she loves so deeply and with so much effort. She throws herself into the storm that inevitably kills her just to feed herself and her husband. In addition, she’s charming and witty. She flirts with Orpheus and teases him about his awkwardness, and that charm compels the audience to want what she wants. It would be foolish not to describe Eurydice as a nuanced character. She is “A runaway from everywhere she’d ever been” (Any Way the Wind Blows), which explains her prickly exterior. When presented with love she doesn’t know how to react. In the original broadway production during All I’ve Ever Known, where Eurydice laments about how the world has treater her and how strange it is to suddenly be loved, she is seen reaching for Orpheus about to let herself be held, only to pull away at the last second for fear of getting too close. She’s bewildered by this kindness that she’s never been shown before. There is a deep fear of abandonment under her brashness, as demonstrated when she has a quiet moment with Orpheus; she says “Say that you’ll hold me forever… say that we’ll stay with each other, and it will always be like this” (All I’ve Ever Known). To put it simply, she’s scared that she will be alone again. She doesn’t know how to exist when she’s not running away. But her love and fear are not her primary motive. She has a fatal flaw that is her need for survival above all else. It doesn’t matter how much she loves Orpheus, her nature as a survivor will always win out. When presented with the option of staying in the land of the living and risking death but being with her true love, or descending to Hadestown where she will survive but be alone, she choses Hadestown. It is not an easy choice for her to make. While considering, she states that “It’s my gut I can’t ignore. Orpheus, I’m hungry. Oh, my heart it aches to stay, but the flesh will have its way.” (Gone, I’m Gone). As much as she loves him and as much as she wants to stay and be in love, it is her need to survive that wins in the end. These ideals however, are flipped on their head before she attempts to return to the land of the living. Upon seeing the beautiful changes Orpheus made to the world, she has hope for the future for the first time in her life. That hope is, of course, futile as Orpheus does look back. Eurydice is not the most active character in the show, but she still does vie for what she wants, such as venturing out into the storm in the first place. Overall Eurydice is a fascinating, detailed character that helps make Hadestown an excellent story.

Persephone is the final four of the main characters, queen of the underworld and goddess of spring. She embodies the seasonal cycle as her coming and going to Hadestown. She is a fun, lively, and likable character that is easy for the audience to sympathize with. Persephone wants what everyone else does: a better world. But trapped within a once loving marriage with a man she can hardly recognize, there is little that she can do but drown her worries in substances. Her substance abuse is part of what also makes her character nuanced as well. She is bright and warm but it’s because she’s “blinded by a river of wine” (Chant). There is a heartbroken, lonely woman beneath the “outdoor girl” (Livin’ it Up on Top) persona that she portrays, one who has seen the love of her life grow cold and the world turn desolate. She wants that life back, she wants the beautiful world she once shared with her husband. The only way for her to cope with descending into Hadestown is through alcohol and drug use; before returning in Way Down Hadestown, she states “give me morphine in a tin, give me a crate of the fruit of the vine. Takes a lot of medicine to make it through the wintertime.”. There is so much life and love within Persephone, but it all is buried and blinded by her inability to cope with the world as is. Her flaw is that she refuses to stand up to her husband until it’s almost too late, because she too is terrified of losing what she has. Persephone is a self-contradictory character; she is fiery but complacent, she hates it in Hadestown and dreads returning, but knows that her life there is safe. It isn’t until Orpheus moves her and reminds her of the love she once shared with Hades that she finally stands up to him, and tries to make a change in the world. Persephone is a very interesting character, even if most of her characterization comes from her reactions to other characters.

Another described quality of a good character is that they each have a fundamental lie that they fully believe. From the same Destiny Salter article as before, it can be said that “The narrative your character is telling themselves must be false.” Each of the primary characters of Hadestown are lying to themselves in some way or another. Orpheus believes that fixing the world will be simple without consequence, and that if he ignores the problems of the world he will be better at fixing it. Hades believes that there is no love left in the world, and that if he just holds on tighter he can keep everything he’s amassed over the years. Eurydice thinks that everyone leaves eventually and love is ultimately futile. Persephone believes that she can ignore the failing world by drawing her worries in wine. All of these characters’ lies give them depth and narrative weight, which is part of what makes Hadestown such masterful storytelling.

There are many more parts of Hadestown that make it such an amazing story, such as its expert use of metaphor and symbolism, and the beautiful paralleling of the plot, but it is truly the characters that make it so iconic. It is the depth and detail to these characters that allowed this story to be told again and again. No matter the retelling, the loves between Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone will always stand the test of time.

[burningvelvet]

Powerful women from the classical world + excerpt of a letter from Lord Byron to Thomas Moore describing his lover Margarita Cogni (Venice, September 19th, 1818):

“I wish you a good night, with a Venetian benediction, ‘Benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara!’ — ‘May you be blessed, and the earth which you will make!’ — is it not pretty? You would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from the lips of a Venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like Faustina’s, and the figure of a Juno — tall and energetic as a Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the moonlight — one of those women who may be made any thing. I am sure if I put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it where I told her, — and into me, if I offended her. I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to any woman that ever breathed.”

The mythical and historical allusions:

In Roman myth, Juno was Queen of the Gods as well as a military figure often depicted armed. In Greek myth, Medea was a sorceress who gets revenge against her unfaithful husband through murdering their children and his lover. Although “Pythoness” could refer to demonic witches in other uses, Byron is using it here as another name for Pythia or the Oracle of Delphi, a divine priestess and the most powerful female office in the ancient world.

Faustina is either a reference to the Younger or the Elder. Faustina the Younger was the wife of Marcus Aurelius; he revered her so much that he gave her enormous power, although later historians (probably falsely) accused her of being a murderer and adulteress. Faustina the Elder was the adoptive mother of Marcus Aurelius and was one of the most beloved Roman women in history, whose coinage often features Juno.

Byron's life and writing in context:

When he was living abroad in self-exile, Byron often sought to entertain his friends back home by sharing his adventures in lurid detail. His vivid letters became well-read throughout the 1800s, and are considered some of his best writing. Travel writing and adventure stories were extremely popular in the 19th century, and even most of Byron’s fiction champions these themes. Living abroad and traveling became marketable parts of Byron's celebrity. He blended his own experiences into his work, and chief among these were his romantic experiences.

Shelley once compared Byron to the Greek myth of Circe when writing in a letter about Byron's excessive amount of pets. Circe was known for seducing men and turning them into animals who roamed around her palace. Like a witch or an alchemist, Byron frequently transformed his lovers into characters through his writing. Like countless others, Margarita Cogni was mythically immortalized through the writer's description of her. She and Byron's other Venetian lovers have become part of the wider Romantic era mythology tradition, like the constantly retold tales of Mary Shelley's invention of Frankenstein, Percy Shelley's drowning, and John Keats' love for Fanny Brawne.

By using references to classical women in this letter Byron is not only paying tribute to mythology, history, and the Italian landscape in a way that his foreign audience would find tantalizing, but he is also exploring romanticized notions of classical female beauty which are at turns conventional and unconventional. He channels the gothic sublime through the otherworldly power and danger these women all represent, as well as channeling more traditional concepts of feminine strength rooted in modesty, beauty, and passivity. Byron creates poetic contradictions.

Just as he famously describes himself as “changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long,” he utilizes paradox and inconstance in his writing, such as in this satirical formulation of Margarita Cogni as the ideal lover who is both Goddess and woman, mistress and slave, contemporary and classical, masculine and feminine, wife and adulteress, murderess and murdered.

One can clearly see how this is the same chameolonic, binary-blurring poet who would go on to write the gender-bending themes of Don Juan — “If people contradict themselves, can I / Help contradicting them, and every body, / Even my veracious self?” — and who years beforehand had written She Walks in Beauty — where “all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

[maiapoetica]

The ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice (Greek: Ὀρφεύς, Εὐρυδίκη, Orpheus, Eurydikē) concerns the fateful love of Orpheus of Thrace for the beautiful Eurydice. Orpheus was the son of Oeagrus and the muse Calliope. It may be a late addition to the Orpheus myths, as the latter cult-title suggests those attached to Persephone. The subject is among the most frequently retold of all Greek myths, being featured in numerous works of literature, operas, ballets, paintings, plays, musicals, and more recently, films and video games.

[mask131]

I finally found a post that allows me to express something I meant to say for a long time... About myths and legends and fairytales in general, and the whole business around the word... "original" (cue to Hammer horror dramatic thunder)

The massive wave across the Internet recently is to denounce the use of the word "original" as meaning absolutely nothing when it comes to myths and folklore. For example, people love, when talking about fairy tales to say "Actually, in the ORIGINAL fairytale this happened like this". And a lot of people criticize it, for good reasons. Take Sleeping Beauty. Many people will speak of the "original" Sleeping Beauty, by referring to the Brothers Grimm version of the tale, "Briar Rose", as opposed to a more recent version such as Disney's. But in truth there was a version older than that and more famous - the French version by Charles Perrault. So this is the original, right? No because many people will point out: there was a version older than this one, Basile's "Thalia, the Sun and the Moon". And this one a lot of people like to describe as the "original" Sleeping Beauty. And yet, there is still another, older version - French again, the medieval romance known as "Perceforest". And this one yet again takes inspiration from older myths and legends - including Germanic ones apparently...

So the use of the word "original" here means, indeed, nothing or is useless because fairy tales, and world-famous/ancient folktales rarely have an "original" version. They have been retold, rewritten and re-transcribed and adapted for centuries and centuries across various cultures and continents, and even the most ancient versions are just reflections of deeper oral versions.

This is what everybody has been defending, this is what everybody has been pointing out: there is a need to fight against the term "original" which can be too easily mis-used or over-used, since the actual "start" of a folktale or legend is lost, given its roots are in oral culture. The same thing is true with myths, especially things such as Greek myths. A lot of things people think they know about Greek myths start with Ovid, a Roman. Then you have to differentiate late records of Greek men, closer to the CE than BCE, and the oldest versions and records we had, Homer and Hesiod. And even then Homer reflected in his writings an even older tradition of a previous civilization lost to us since no written record exists. Take Medusa, and the post I made about her. Everybody uses today the story of her being a priestess of Athena being raped by Poseidon. This is a modern extrapolation of Ovid's tale about Medusa being a woman raped by Poseidon within Athena's temple (no priesthood involved). This in turn was Ovid's rewriting of a widespread tradition from Classical Greece about Medusa being a woman cursed by Athena for being so vain she deemed herself more beautiful than Athena (no rape involved). And this in turn was an evolution of the older Hesiodic/Homeric versions of Medusa, the Gorgon, being born a monster from monster-gods parents, and being part of the monstrous primordial forces of the sea/the underworld.

Now... here we reach my actual point. When I made my post about Medusa some people said "Its a good post but you shouldn't use the word "original" because we do not have the actual origins of Medusa". I agree that technically it is true. By all I said above - all myths and legends take roots within a lost oral culture, there is always a previous version before the one we have, etc... Yet, while I fully know this, I will keep using the word "original". To refer to the oldest record we have of Medusa as a character and myth: Homer and Hesiod (the two actually have a different take on Medusa, but they remain the oldest written records about her).

Why? Because while I agree that in itself the term "original" has been over-used and mis-used and that in the world of myths and legends and folktales it ultimately means nothing... I also strongly believe that refuse to see an origin, that refusing to see a beginning, that refusing to see a given starting point somewhere, opens the gate for all sorts of other misinformation or bad things.

The post in question was about a specific Greek myth (hence my switch to Greek mythology as an example). I won't say which but let's just say in this myth something bad happens. And it isn't an Ovid case where the thing originally was neutral or good and then was made bad later: we are talking about this bad thing happening by the oldest records we have of the story. Right. And this post reacted about an adaptation that changed this bad things to happen in a different angle and be less bad. And this person thanked deeply this adaptation because, by changing the story, it helped them "reconcile" with the myth. Because in their own words: "There were oral versions of it before it was recorded. The myth existed long before it was written. So who is to say this isn't how it happened? Who can say the version of the adaptation isn't more truthful to what the myth was originally about? It perfectly could have happened that way in the oldest versions of the myth, and I chose to believe it did!"

And that's where we fall into the pit. Yes, it is bad to over-use "original" as a word because the true origins of all myths are lost to time... But it is just as bad to not have any beginning point or refuse the idea that a myth was "created" at some point because we have this above. "What ifs", and "It could have happened" and "Why shouldn't it be like that" and "I chose to believe this because we might never know". People will start using the whole "no origins", "oral culture before written culture", "there must have been a previous version" as an excuse to invent versions of a folktale that never existed, or share versions of a myth that never was told, or defend versions of legends that are nowhere to be found.

Because that's the old logic fallacy: "If you can't prove it did not exist, then it means it could have existed". And this opens the gate for all sorts of inventions. Yes, you can invent a version of Medusa's story where she is the child of Zeus and Athena, and then claim it is a possible and likely story because "We don't know what was being told in pre-Homer times, maybe it was part of oral culture". Yes, maybe. But you will also agree with me, dear audience, that such a version is very unlikely to have existed, and that if one starts spreading this version around as a real myth they should be "booed" just as much as someone claiming Ovid's version of Medusa is the "original".

If you ask me, the oldest version of a tale, the oldest record of a myth, should be considered the starting point of the legend, the... I will dare say "original" version of story. With the caveat that, indeed, there might have been older versions, non-recorded, oral, lost to time - but given we do not know what came before this oldest record, given we will likely never know what stood before this most ancient transcription, do we really need to keep beating us over the head and conjecturing about what came beforehand, especially since we are talking about just friggin' Tumblr posts and Youtube videos and the like? For a very advanced and thorough academical research, it is understood... But when it comes to just talking simply and plainly about things, maybe we should have some common sense and have a starting point of the chronology, and focus more on "That's the oldest version we have, and here is how it evolved and moved through from there" instead of "Let's go back into a past so obscure and so distant we actually won't see anything and won't have anything to say".

I will defend the use of the word "original" when it comes to myths and folktales, as long as it is an "original" that is actually the oldest version of a legend we have, and as long as the person that use it knows very well and agrees that there might have been previous versions and evolutions before it, but that were lost to time and thus that we will never know.

... And please, stop using the "there's no original" excuse to make up myths. Because listen: if you have a problem with a legend or myth, and then love a fictional adaptation's change to it, and you claim this new version "reconciled you" with the original... No. No you don't like what the myth or legend is actually about, no you don't like the folktale. You just like and enjoy a fictional retelling, a modern rewrite of the folktale. Not the actual story or the original myth.