Stars Wheel in Their Courses: Metamorphoses

… and sat among the people
Teaching them what was worthy, and they listened
In silence, wondering at the revelations
How the great world began, the primal cause,
The nature of things, what God is, whence the snows
Come down, where lightning breaks from, whether wind
Or Jove speaks in the thunder from the clouds,
The cause of earthquakes, by what law the stars
Wheel in their courses, all the secrets hidden
From man’s imperfect knowledge.

(From “The Teachings of Pythagoras”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book XV, trans. Rolfe Humphries)

Our Moon vs. Pluto: Perspectives

Tom.Reding - This picture was composed from File:Enceladus Earth Moon Comparison.png, File:Full Moon Luc Viatour.jpg, and File:Pluto impression.png, by Tom Reding (Wikimedia)

The Moon and Pluto compared to the Earth. This picture was composed from File:Enceladus Earth Moon Comparison.png, File:Full Moon Luc Viatour.jpg, and File:Pluto impression.png, by Tom Reding (Wikimedia)

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Desperation, with raisins and pine nuts

(In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Ingredients“.)

I first made this risotto because dinner didn’t come. And my in-laws had just arrived from another continent, and needed to be fed. Let me go back and explain – I was then living in England, my mother-in-law and her husband had arrived that morning from Canada, and my husband was supposed to get pork chops at the butcher, but ended up trapped in a meeting.

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Shazam: Hear the Thunder, Ride the Lightning

My brother, who was something of a comics nut (still is, actually), had a bedspread made up of panels that were reproductions of the first issues of Action Comics, Detective, etc. We could recognize Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but one guy had us puzzled.

Who was the guy in red with the white cape? He seemed kinda like Superman, in a fancier outfit. (Unfortunately, we were not the only ones to think this. But let’s keep things in order.) Both he and Superman were doing anti-social things to cars; the man on the cover of Whiz! comics had pitched it into a far-off wall, and seemed pleased about it. Continue reading →

The Politics of Myth: Snorri Sturluson

(This post was inspired by one written by Nancy Marie Brown at God of Wednesday: A Viking Fairy Tale. She in turn was inspired by a question from a reader, and a paper by Takahiro Narikawa. And on it goes.)

Long before I began this blog, just plain long ago in fact, I did a degree in Medieval Studies, with a specialty in English. This taught me how to dig into a text for its meaning, but we rarely considered the political or historical aspects of the texts. In some cases it would have been difficult to do so.

Who wrote Beowulf? We can guess at his (probably his) politics, and what was happening around him while he was writing, but we know very little about him. Even much later texts have similar problems, such as Gawain and the Green Knight. The poet Simon Armitage hypothesized that the author was from northern England, based on some of the words used, but we don’t know for sure.

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island castle

Maiden Kings: who, me, marry?

Women in power in the Middle Ages had a problem. Women weren’t supposed to rule (remember Eve? and St. Paul?). If they did take the throne, they were expected to marry, and their husband would then exercise power. So the choice was simple: marry and lose power, or stay single and keep it, but rule alone and die childless.

The meykongr, or maiden king, romance was born out of this dilemma.

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milky way water

Free Fall or Act of Faith?

You know, my mind went completely blank when confronted with this assignment. I chewed on it and chewed, and then I thought of this poem. I like to put a poem on the blog every so often, and this one says it all:

I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant

in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,

then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river

only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh’s daughter.

(Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Ceist Na Teangan/The Language Issue, trans. Paul Muldoon)

For the image of the Milky Way, click here.

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Irish Sea-Gods

I don’t normally like “list posts”. Those neat lists of deities and powers are certainly easy to remember, and good for beginners, but I find that now I want more context and explanation. (Or it could be a warning sign of old age. Who knows.)

Just this once, however, I have broken down and made a list of Irish sea-gods. When I was writing my posts on Donn and Tethra, I took a lot of notes trying to get all these gods straight in my head. This post is for anyone who shared my confusion.

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Easy Does It: Soup and Salad

IMG_0148This post is dedicated to the frugal art of using up stuff you have left around. The salad above, as well as a bowl of corn and bacon chowder to go with it, were all inspired by things lying around the fridge.

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