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Everything on Mythology and related to the Maier files series. Posts, Articles referring to myths, mythology, ancestral tales, folklore, gods and goddesses

Everything on Mythology and related to the Maier files series. Posts, Articles referring to myths, mythology, ancestral tales, folklore, gods and goddesses

Odin

Will the Real Odin Stand Up, Please?

Who’s Odin? To find Odin’s origins, how far back must we go? Although the most likely explanation for Snorri’s attempts to connect the Æsir with Troy is medieval literary fashion, it is tempting to see a possible source in folk memories of the migration of the Yamnaya culture from the steppes of the Caucasus and Urals into northern Europe four or five thousand years ago. Shaman Is Odin a shaman? Grundy and other critics of...

What were these labyrinths for?

Since the dawn of civilization, labyrinths have fascinated humankind. Knossos in Crete, has a distinctive circular maze design with seven rings. Exactly the same design appears mysteriously at different periods in history on stones and artifacts as far apart as India, Norway, Germany, Ireland, England, Arizona, … In English, the term labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze. As a result of the long history of unicursal representation of the mythological Labyrinth, however, many contemporary scholars...

The Enigma of Three Drops of Blood: From Myth to Mystery

In the depth of winter, as snowflakes drifted down like feathers from the heavens, a queen sat by her ebony-framed window, sewing. A sudden prick of her needle drew blood—three drops, crimson against the white snow. The sight inspired her wish for a child “white as snow, red as blood, and black as ebony.” Thus begins the Brothers Grimm’s tale of Snow White. These three drops of blood, seemingly a fleeting detail, set the stage...

From Ancient Rites to Modern Revelations

Initiation—an evocative term that conjures images of secret rites and profound transformations—has intrigued anthropologists and scholars of religion for generations. As Joseph Henderson wisely noted in his seminal work, Thresholds of Initiation, “Initiation more than any other body of knowledge has suffered throughout history from the fate of continually being forgotten and having to be rediscovered” (Henderson 2005: 1). In 1909, a remarkable resurgence of interest in initiation rites occurred, thanks to Arnold Van Gennep...
Sheela na Gig carving

The power of the Vulva

From the earliest historic age, there are references to goddesses who are whimsical, erotic, and ferocious. The first texts of this sort have their provenance in the Near East; the female figures described in these texts are erotic, but they do not appear in the “magical” crouching or dancing positions evinced by their Neolithic predecessors. Anasyrma is literally “the exposing of the genitals.” This is a form of exhibitionism found in religion or artwork, rather than a display for arousal, […]...

The importance of mythology

Why should we bother to work with gods and goddesses in the first place? Almost every religion includes some form of mythology, from the earliest and most primitive practices to the more modern and “scientific” variants, which tend to disguise their myths as symbology or history. It is obvious that these god figures and their stories, whatever one chooses to call them, are important and meaningful to humanity, a vital and intrinsic part of our...
Mother goddesses Mary

Mother Goddesses and The Rose Ladies

There are circa 21,000 visions of Mary in the last 1,000 years, of which 210 were reported between 1928 and 1971. Remarkable fact is that even before Christianity visions and apparitions of Rose Ladies were seen. The most famous of last century (1917) was Fatima. According to Sister Lúcia (she was one of the children who saw the Virgin Mary), Mary requested the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart on several occasions. Mother Goddesses...
funeral

The greatest secret of the North that only two know.

The crime that finally turned the gods against Loki was his role in the death of Balder, however this event is also one of the great puzzles of northern mythology. Why were Odin and Frigg, with all their knowledge, not able to prevent the disaster? What did Odin say -before he climbed on bale-fire- into the ear of his son? This is maybe the greatest secret of the North that only two know. Snorri lets us know that Balder is […]...

Eleusis and the Mystery Religions

Eleusis or the sacred Eleusinian mysteries of the Greeks date back to the fifth century BC and were the most popular and influential of the cults, and it has been said that nowhere did the ancient mysteries appear in such human, vital, and colorful form. The cult of Eleusis centered around the myth of Demeter (Ceres), the great mother of agriculture and vegetation, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the Greek underworld, the original name...
Lemminki

Lemminkainen a hero of the Kalevala

llmarinen the Smith, was a young companion of the wizard and demi-god Väinämöinen. Väinämöinen was the god of chants, songs and poetry; in many stories Väinämöinen was the central figure at the birth of the world. llmarinen But llmarinen was a wizard in his own right. He loved the daughter of Louhi, Sorceress of the North. The maiden loved him, too, but Louhi made the wooing a rough one: She charged the young man to...

Apollo from Hyperborea

Apollo, the Bearer of Light, patron of poets and travellers, would never abandon his own in distress. He himself had become an outlaw, even seen as the Devil. But as he was not the Devil, he watched over, in accordance with the celestial laws, the forests and the routes. On the bridle of his charger, he left his carbuncle shining like the sun. When one of his minstrels died, he carried him above the clouds towards the “Mountain of Assembly […]...
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