Mythology and Folklore 2020

Article: "How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body," Seth Maxon - The Atlantic I think something most college students can agree on is that sleep is great. Especially in times like these, which are stressful in a way pretty much none of us have had to deal with before, getting enough sleep is important for our health in a variety of ways. What this article showed me, though, is how much sleep can impact our health in tangible ways.  The author, who imposed sleep deprivation on himself as an experience, ended up experiencing psychological hallucinations after staying awake for several days on end. That is obviously an extreme case, but the truth is that sleep deprivation, even minor, can still take a toll on our bodies and our minds. What's crazy is that science still doesn't fully understand why we need to sleep. Biological processes like eating and breathing have obvious explanations, but scientists still haven't arrived at a consensus on the issue of wh

Paolo and Francesca The story of Paolo and Francesca, two spirits that Dante meets in his travels through Hell, is an interesting one for many reasons. Dante and Virgil are in the second circle of Hell, which is where the punishments of Hell begin. It seems to be the circle devoted to the sin of lust, as everyone in it is being punished for some crime of love and passion. Virgil points out several notable figures, including Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and her lover, Paris, and Achilles. After Virgil has named the spirit, Dante points out two in particular, a couple that travels together, and says he wants to talk to them. They are the ghosts of Francesca da Rimini and the younger brother of her husband. She had had an affair with her husband's brother, and her husband killed them viciously. It is here that we see the order in the gravity of the various cardinal sins. Francesca and Paolo, who committed the sin of lust, are in the second circle. Those who commit the sin of lust are c

Hygd's Sacrifice I knew the minute that the Wanderer stepped into our halls that things were about to change. My husband, Hygelac, didn't seem to sense it like I did. He only knew of the Wanderer's pretty harp and interesting stories, and so he asked him to sing for us. At first, the minstrel's songs were harmless, tales of the North that many of us already knew. But then, the tone of his voice changed, dropped to a lower, more ominous pitch and he began singing about Hrothgar, King of the Danes. Hrothgar's land was plagued by a fearsome monster called Grendel, and it seemed no one had been able to slay him. I turned to look at my nephew, and saw that he was transfixed by the Wanderer's story. I felt a chill run down my spine; I knew that in Beowulf's heart, he had already decided to leave us. Beowulf came to us as a young boy, the son of my husband's sister. Hygelac took him in after he saw that he had the strength of several grown men, and wou

A New Misfortune This is a sad point in Beowulf's story. He has slain Grendel, and is so proud of it, and the Danes are so relieved to be rid of him. But then, the next day, the king's advisor Aescher is found murdered, and Grendel's body is removed from where Beowulf and his men had hung it on top of the roof in Heorot. It seems that the king and queen have forgotten to mention Grendel's mother, who is also a fearsome monster. She's angry now, and will torment Hrothgar and his men until she is killed. This part is important, because it shows that Beowulf's story does not end with Grendel's death, but that isn't what stuck out to me about this part of the story.  For one, it's weird that they forgot to mention Grendel's mother, because later on when Beowulf fights her, she seems pretty strong, and even harder to kill than Grendel was. But that could be because Grendel was the one actively terrorizing the people, and so was the more imminen

Beowulf's Resolve I enjoyed reading the first half of this epic so much. I've heard about Beowulf  all my life, but I never knew what it was about; when people talked about it, it was mostly about the 2007 movie (which I'm told is a nightmare) and not the actual epic poem it was based on. There were so many stories from this first half I would have liked to write about, but I chose this one, the moment where Beowulf decides to go defeat Grendel, because in a hero story, this is his turning point. This is the moment when Beowulf decides to take control of his destiny. As he is listening to the Wanderer, he decides that he is no longer content to be known as "the Sluggard," gifted with "the strength of thirty men" but unable to use it for anything he sees worthwhile. Everyone has their doubts when he makes his announcement, but Queen Hygd silently accepts him. She brings him a jeweled cup to drink from, her signal that she approves of his quest. It

Week 12 Mythology Reading: This week, I read Celtic fairy tales. I chose this unit because my family has some Celtic ancestry, and I thought it would be interesting to read some of the fairy tales from that culture. The readings were a bit difficult, mostly just because of the jargon, but they each came with a Librivox recording of the story, which was read by a man with an extremely Irish accent. Those recordings made it a bit easier to follow along with the stories. My Best Writing This Week: To be honest, I thought my best writing this week was an assignment I did for my Policy Analysis and Writing class, but the grade I got on that assignment definitely was not reflective of that sentiment. It just goes to show that writing, even in academia, is subjective. While I felt I wrote something good, and was passionate about the subject, that doesn't mean that it is what everyone (in this case, my professors) is looking for. Other People's Writing: Something I've notice

So, this is my first biographical post, so everyone please bear with me here. The prompt I've chosen for this one is about my first pet. This is actually hard, because by the time I was born, my family already had two pets: a cat named Abu (yes, like Aladdin - I have two older sisters and they were both obsessed with Disney by the time I came along) and a dog named Sadie. Abu was this little black shorthair, and he was honestly the most easygoing, laid-back creature I have ever met. I distinctly remember my dad letting me help him give Abu a bath, and while most cats are not huge fans of water, Abu would just sit there calmly and let you bathe him. He clearly didn't enjoy  it, but he was so sweet that he wouldn't have dared to fight us over it. He didn't even mind when toddler me tugged on his tail or tried to play with him as if he were a dog, he just went along with it. We got another cat later on, a tabby named Tigger, and he was the polar opposite of Abu. Having met

The videos that interested me most in this playlist were the ones about the development of languages, especially the development of the English language. The English we speak today sounds so different from that of the old Anglo-Saxons (i.e. Old English), but it actually forms the basis of the language we speak today. I had known about the influence of Germanic and Latinate languages on English, but I hadn't known about the words we use that have Nordic roots (like leg, freckle, skin, want, and root), thanks to the Brittons mixing with their Danish neighbors. I also hadn't known that after the Norman conquest of the British Isles, the royalty spoke French for three centuries afterwards. The words we have that come from different roots have different images in our minds (the example the video used was "hearty" and "cordial", which have different roots and invoke different images in our minds). The role language plays in our lives, in how we think and perceive

Brewery of Eggshells Unlike the last story I took notes on for this unit, this story does not really remind me of any of the classic fairy-tales-turned-Disney-movies that we all know and love. In this story, a woman leaves her newborn twins alone in her house while being called away to a neighbor's house, and when she comes back, all appears normal, but the truth is that everything has changed. She noticed some elves crossing her path as she came back, even though it was midday (I guess elves don't come out at night), and as time went on everybody around noticed that the woman's twins had not grown at all. She was upset by this, so she went to see a wise man to get some advice. He told her to prepare some pottage  in eggshells, as if to prepare a meal for the threshers working in the fields, and to wait and see if her children said something that kids shouldn't have the awareness to say. If they did, she was to throw them in the lake, and if not, they were truly her

Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree This story is a Celtic version of the classic tale of Snow White, with a twist. In Snow White, the evil queen that tries to kill her in order to be the most beautiful is her stepmother, but in this story, Silver-Tree is Gold-Tree's biological mother. It is not a magic mirror that tells Silver-Tree that she is not the most beautiful woman in the land, but a trout in a well. The way that Gold-Tree escapes her mother's jealous wrath is also different from Snow White. In Snow White, she is saved by the seven dwarves, and eventually the prince who brings her back to life with true love's kiss. In this story, everyone but the prince seems to have a hand in saing Gold-Tree.  The first time Silver-Tree makes an attempt on her daughter's life, she tells her husband, the king, to have Gold-Tree killed and to bring her her heart. There was a prince living in a foreign land that had been asking to marry Gold-Tree, so her father sends her out of the

Aklaq's Journey Aklaq did not know what awaited him on the Moon. All he knew was that he felt this pulling force deep within his soul telling him to go there, so one night he snuffed out all the lamps in his house, sat facing away from the freshly-extinguished lights, and waited.  His guardian spirit, a great black bear, appeared and took Aklaq onto its back, carrying him up through the sky and away towards the Moon. There was only one house on the entire surface of the moon, which glowed a pale gray in the darkness of the universe around it. It was small and white, covered in white deerskins that glowed in the light that reflected off the Moon's pale, rocky surface. As Aklaq approached the house, he saw two stone walrus statues facing each other across the doorway, so intricately carved that they looked almost as if they were living, breathing creatures. As he drew closer to the door, the walrus statues snapped their long teeth menacingly, startling Aklaq so that he stumbl

The Making of Lakes and Mountains This story is focused on one woman's escape from a family of bears, and she uses various objects to help in her escape. For these notes, I thought I would list those objects, and their purpose, because they have a lot to do with the goal of the story, which is to explain how lakes and mountains were made. Items: Hair oil A whetstone (a "grinder's stone" meant for sharpening metal tools) Hair combings  Red ochre Uses: Hair oil - The hair oil, when poured out, turns into a lake. Though the bears can swim, by putting a lake between herself and her pursuers, the woman hopes to slow them down. Whetstone - When the woman breaks off a part of the whetstone and throws it on the ground, it becomes a mountain, offering another obstacle to slow down the bears' pursuit. Hair combings - The woman throws down the hair combings, and they become a mass of fallen trees. Again, bears can climb, but it does manage to slow them d