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Norse Realms of the Dead and Ragnarök too
In Norse Mythology it was believed when you died, whether in battle, old age, or sickness, you would go to one of three realms Valhalla, Fólkvangr, or Helheim. Awaiting your time to fight in Ragnarök (The Doom of the Gods). Valhalla, Hall of the Slain, is the hall presided over by the Norse god Odin. This vast hall has five hundred and forty doors. The rafters are spears, the hall is roofed with shields and breast-plates litter the benches. A wolf guards the western door and an eagle hovers over it. It is here that the Valkyries, Odin’s messengers and spirits of war, bring half of the heroes (Einherjar) who…
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Freyja
She is considered the goddess most associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr, war, and death. She is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot pulled by two cats, keeps the boar Hildisvíni by her side. She is also considered a priestess, and taught Odin the magic arts. She has a magical cloak made of feathers which allows her to fly between different worlds. Freyja is a member of the Vanir tribe of Norse gods but became an honorary member of the Aesir gods after the Aesir-Vanir War (she was given as a hostage along with her twin brother Freyr). Her father is Njord. Her mother is…
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OEDIPUS
We have all heard of Oedipus, either as the ‘tragedy’ or the ‘complex’. Oedipus has been around in some form or another for well over 1000 years now. His beginnings are with ancient Greek poet Homer in fragments, then with Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides. It is, however, with Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King) that the name became legendary. The play begins in the court of Laius and Jocasta, the King and queen of Thebes, who are having trouble conceiving. Troubled by this Laius goes to see the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The oracle prophesises that any son born to the couple would kill his father and…
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Vampires
Vampires are the stuff of myth and legend – the undead, coming out at night from their graves to suck the blood of the living to maintain their own health and vitality. The idea of vampires goes as far back as the Ancient Greeks and Romans but the vampire as we know it stems from 18th Century Europe and the modern vampire is rooted in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, precursor the an entire genre which is still popular today. Vampires are fictional characters, with their origins in attempts to explain aspects of disease and death that couldn’t be understood at the time. Or are they? Julia Caples (born 1968) from Pennsylvania…
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The History of the Werewolf
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek lykánthropos, lykos, “wolf”, and anthrōpos, “man”), is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shape shift into a wolf or a hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). The concept of a man being changed into a wolf has been found mentioned in early Ancient Greek Literature, for example the myth of Lycaon, who was a king of Arcadia who tested Zeus by serving him the roasted flesh of a guest from Epirus in order to see whether Zeus was truly omniscient.…
