[Drake]

So basically we've look at all the major players in the myth, Baldr, Loki, Hod, and Frigg. I didn't see much reason to explore Odin based on this myth but be sure that if the mythology forum comes to life I will find the time to explore Odin.

Speaking of the mythology forum, today is the final day of the test run, be sure to look at the poll and vote. I need the feedback to make the forum happen. So go the poll and vote for it. If we get enough good feedback then we will be getting a mythology forum.

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In Norse mythology, Hel is the ruler of Helheim, the realm of the dead. She is the youngest child of the evil god Loki and the giantess Angrboda. She is usually described as a horrible hag, half alive and half dead, with a gloomy and grim expression. Her face and body are those of a living woman, but her thighs and legs are those of a corpse, mottled and moldering.

The gods had abducted Hel and her brothers from Angrboda's hall. They cast her in the underworld, into which she distributes those who are send to her; the wicked and those who died of sickness or old age. Her hall in Helheim is called Eljudnir, home of the dead. Her manservant is Ganglati and her maidservant is Ganglot (which both can be translated as "tardy").

Now here is an interesting excercise that I'm sure will present itself more than frequently. I have found some information on Hel, that was obviously written by a christian, and translated very poorly. Let's take a look at that one.

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The goddess who gave her name to the Christian place of eternal punishment was the Scandinavian ruler of the misty world under the earth. Her name means the "one who covers up" or the "one who hides," and the ones Hel hid in her nine-circled realm were those who died of disease or old age.  Those who died heroically, in battle or by other violence, were carried off by the Valkyries to the heavenly halls of Freya or Odin.

Hel was the daughter of the giant woman Angerboda and was thought to be an ugly pinto woman, half black and half white, who rode up to earth to enfold the dying in her horrible arms and to rest her drooping head against theirs. Down in her nine-ringed realm, where the inhabitants kept up a constant wail, Hel lived in a miserable palace called Sleet-Cold, where the walls were built of worms and human bones.  She ate with a knife and fork called Famine from a plate named Hunger.  Her slave, Senility, served her, as did her maidservant, Dotage.  When she slept, it was on her cot, Bedridden, covered by curtains named Woefully Pale.

The entry to her queendom was guarded by the hell-hound, Garm; before you reached the threshold you had to travel to Helvig ("Troublesome Road") to Hel, past the strange guardian maiden, Modgud.  Some scholars say the conception of Hel is more ancient than the heroic myth of Valhalla, the hall of dead heroes.

Yeah you can definatly see some bastardization of the myth, same basic premise though, just made a bit uglier and threatening. What saddens me is that it comes from a book published by Lewellyn. If your not familiar with this company it's generally a great place to get New Age books, and generally they're authors are able to show no bias. Unfortunatly though not all are like that, I've run into one that was obviously a man hater and now this one. Anyway the books name is The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines by Patricia Monaghan.



Ok so again I really couldn't find any good pictures but this one is a decent representation. Hell If I wanted to use the second bit of information I suppose I could just find a picture of the Devil as a Female but I don't particularly accept that definition.

Enjoy, and don't forget to vote for the Mythology poll.

Drake

[hooligan]

I resisted the comic pictures for awhile, but no longer...



Here is a picture which I found (and edited out nipple on). This shows the half-white half-black type Hela image which I think was made popular by TSR's Deities and Demigods.

[Drake]

well in this case I do believe that comic pictures are better than no pictures

[hooligan]

One interesting thing we could talk about is the following statement:

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It is interesting to note that, in the history of religion, the god of one people is the devil of another. ~ Isya Joseph 1919

Obviously, the names of two underworld deities, Hades and Hel, have come into Christianity to describe the netherworld. But there are other things too, like for instance the depiction of the devil as cloven hooved (derived from Pan). The name Baalzebub is another example, the name Ba'al (Canaanite Storm God, the Canaanites were neighbors of the early Jewish state) being manipulated and associated with evil.

Is it a way of a new religion saying, those other guys are devil worshippers, worship our god instead.

[WrittenDreams]

It is also an effective way. Christianity tends to use out and out terrorism to get its way. (No offense to any christians out there. This is something I will post historical fact on)

First and foremost people of the wrong religious association were put to death. We have the famed Inquisition, the Highland Clearance and even the pope apologized (unless I dreamed that. Had me laughing very hard) Christianity/Catholicness and other forms of believing in Jesus and God are the same in my opinion so yes blanket statements galore.

Yet even before Christianity used terror other religions tried to eradicate followers of new beliefs or even old. It is in human nature to desire conformity, which is something that is truly impossible. Conformity seems to be the true definition of perfection.

If worshiping Hel as your chosen goddess means you are evil and that you are going to Hell would you not consider your ways again if you were handed enough proof? If everyone around you was dying but those slightly more affluent priests or their followers who recieved extra assistance would that not again constitute some proof that your gods had forsaken you?

[Drake]

Quite frequently given the tendancy of that time period to explore and conquer, deities would be integrated into the conquering land's religion simply to help the people get accustomed to the new rule, and to prevent too many rebellions.

With the Christian religion that wasn't exactly possible given the belief in one god, but many former gods were demoted to Saints, and others were demonized as has already been said.

The thing is though, most of these other religions didn't have as concrete a belief in good and evil, most of them had no such thing as the Devil in the sense that we have her now.

There was also no such thing as sin, sin and the devil suggests that you do not have control of your actions, You lose those things and you have to take responsibility for your own actions, now the Gods and hero's serve the use of inspiring the people to be the best they can be, though there are some villians that serve as warnings to people.

All in all the whole face of religion was changed once the concept of Absolute good and Absolute evil came about.

Drake

[hooligan]

Drake, on Jan 14 2005, 06:44 PM, said:

There was also no such thing as sin

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't know that I agree with this, the concept of sin is not exclusively Christian. Think about Tartarus for a sort of parallel, or even Karma (essentially hell is getting reincarnated as a tick).

[Drake]

Yes but sin, and doing wrong are two different things. If I go to a store and the cashier hands me back a buck more than she should and I don't say anything, there is a chance that a small bit of bad Karma is gonna come back at me, taking the concept of sin, then I could get damned to hell for it, but then I would have the luxury of going to confession and getting absolved of it and it wouldn't matter.

Again the main point though is the idea of taking responsibility for your actions rather than blaming them on some invisible being that is totally evil making you do something, and then to think that you basically just need to say "I'm Sorry" and it's ok.

That's the price that was paid for "advancement". At least that's my opinion, I prefer thinking that I'm in total control of what I do, and that if I do wrong I'm going to pay for it, but I'm not gonna spend eternity in horrific pain. Even with getting reincarnated as a tick at least your getting another go at it and may eventually work your way up back to human, but that all depends on the culture, there are a few out that getting reincarnated as a rat is a really good thing, where as to our western minds that would be equal to hell.

Drake

[hooligan]

OK, how about this as fair punishment met out by the gods...

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Laocoon was a Trojan priest of Apollo, the sun god. During the Trojan War in 1200 BC, he went with the other Trojans to the beach outside the city after the Greek army had appeared to sail away. A huge wooden horse had been left on the beach and Laocoon told his fellow citizens that it was probably a trick and not just a gift from the gods. Poseidon, the sea god, whose emblem was a horse, grew angry at this, since he was on the side of the Greeks. So he sent an enormous sea serpent out of the water that bit and strangled Loacoon and his two young sons.

If he had time to sacrifice a hecatomb of cattle to Posidon then it probably would have been OK. Same thing sin and forgiveness but in this case he wasn't damned to hell he and his family were just hidiously slaughtered.

My point is that myth and religon are social structures to help enforce social norms. Each culture has different was of dealing with it, be it vengeful gods, punishment in the after-life, or bad karma.

[Drake]

Yeah but there comes a threshold, I mean the greek gods were pretty damn vengeful most of the time, so the greeks got accustomed to that and watched they're step, ergo successful enforcing of social norms.

Now take the threat of Hell, there are a few things to take into consideration, especially in modern times.

1. People are generally not nearly as spiritual as they used to be.

2. People are generally not willing to accept something unless they can see it, so the threat of being sent to a place such as hell is not a good threat at all because we can't see hell. Now if there was some truth to the old myth's and Poseidon actually did send the serpent, and Loacoon actually was killed that would really foster belief.

3. Hell is actually a hodgepodge of many other underworlds, people aren't stupid even back then they could see the similarities.

Basically my opinion is that we need to find a way to update myth's and legends and religions to once again make them viable, and useful ways to enforce social norms, social norms could also use a bit of updating but that's a topic for another day and another forum.

Drake

[hooligan]

Drake, on Jan 14 2005, 07:43 PM, said:

Basically my opinion is that we need to find a way to update myth's and legends and religions to once again make them viable, and useful ways to enforce social norms, social norms could also use a bit of updating but that's a topic for another day and another forum.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Too true. We come back to comics here. Wait, bare with me... think about it, it's not so crazy. Comics as modern myths, they teach moral lessons, have clearly defined heroes and villians. They only lack religous weight, which everything lacks in this science driven world.

[Drake]

See I kind of grew out of comics after superman died. I mean I know they tried to make new Superman's but it just wasn't the same. I mean it's like saying Jesus is dead so here is this new guy that's partly metal and his name is George.

I don't know it just bothered me and I couldn't read them anymore.

As far as making it a basis for social norms I still gotta kinda say no thank you, I mean I don't have enough money to go get spiritual guidance every time a new issue comes out. And then of course you have to buy all the back issues, some of which aren't around anymore or cost thousands of dollars.

We need something more accessable. Maybe dealing with the internet.

Drake

[hooligan]

We'll be worshipping teletubbies soon enough. Better than the Almighty Dollar, I guess. Joseph Campbell suggested that right now culture is changing too fast for religion to keep up. I’m suggesting that media (I mentioned comics) is performing the social function of mythology. Instead of hearing myths around the fire, we watched King Friday on Mr. Rogers. Either way we learned about what is socially acceptable in our society.

What was interesting about the Matrix (I will only speak of the first movie, as I am trying to forget the horror of the others), was that the did just what you are suggesting -- they created a mythology around the internet.

[Drake]

Joseph Campbell, the inspiration behind my inspiration for this forum. I recently purchased "Hero with a thousand masks" and ahve been slowly reading it.

It kind of made me remember that there are so many myth's out there that most people have never even heard, and while the old myth's don't serve the purpose of teaching social norms anymore, they are still interesting and still have lessons to teach if people are willing to accept them.

Drake

[hooligan]

I am a big fan of Campbell. I highly recommend "The Power of Myth", it is a transcript of him talking to Bill Moyer, there is a video version as well. Other then that the only books I have by him are studies of primative culter and religion (stone age stuff). I really should read the book you mentioned.

[Drake]

I actually got to watch "The Power of Myth" back in November during my Cultural Anthropology class. It was pretty damned interesting. He seems like he was a pretty interesting man.

Drake

[WrittenDreams]

My library lacks these books. This so sucks. I want to read this Campbell's work. Sounds very interesting.

[Demosthenes]

Yeah, i read the Power of Myth, very very good book.

At any rate, going back tot he Sin thing, Sin actually is misinterpreted to some degree i think. Like, going from the Aramaic (sp?), the closer definition for "sin" isn't "doing bad", but "missing the mark", as in you're just a little off. If you go by that definition, then it has a different connotation. not the "do this you're going to hell" but more of a "you're a little off, steady your aim and try to do better." type of thing...you know?

[hooligan]

Interesting. Wouldn't be the first poor interpretation from the Bible.