Solimara was a sun-goddess, probably a tutelary goddess, from Bourges in central France. The Roman-era town of Solicia or Solimariaca, modern Soulosse-sous-Saint-Élophe, was named after her.
Rattawy: Female Sun of Two Lands
Rattawy, or Raet, is the feminine form of the name Ra, the Egyptian sun-god. Strangely, she has nothing to do with the sun-god’s cult, but seems to have led an independent existence from the 19th Dynasty onward. While some see her as simply “Mrs. Ra”, the only records we have of her tell a very different story.
2. Ship Burials, Stone Ships and the Afterlife.
The Scandinavians believed that their gods came from two tribes: the Aesir and the Vanir. The latter, with their strong connection to water and ships, as well as the afterworld,
1. Rock Art, Myths, and Ships.
Geography made the Scandinavians a marine people, and not surprisingly ships of various kinds played an important part in their lives. It’s not surprising that they turn up in myth and art as well.
Ships and the Vanir: a two-part series (intro)
Ships played an important part in Scandinavian life, so it’s not surprising that they are also prominent in mythology and art. In these next two posts I will be discussing the cult of the Vanir and the role that ships play their myths, and then how those myths and associations also link up to death and the afterworld. The ship, like the Vanir, were associated both with wealth and prosperity, and also death and what lay after. Once again this a rather long piece, so I have split it into two posts:
Image at top: Solberg – Rock Art in Norway. Photo by greywether.
I’ve been reading up on WW and Captain Marvel. Couldn’t resist this.
I’ve been enjoying Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy’s new Captain Marvel series so much that I recently picked up Essential Ms. Marvel Volume 1 at my local comic shop. It collects the Ms. Marvel run from the late 1970s, when Carol Danvers was the editor of Woman magazine and turned into Ms. Marvel to bust up bad guys. So really, she was Gloria Steinem with superpowers. That’s right up my alley.
The stories are a good time, in that Bronze Age kind of way, but one panel in particular really amused me. It’s from the first issue, just after Ms. Marvel took down a bad guy:
That dude rocking the sunglasses is saying:
That little lady makes Lynda Carter look like Olive Oyl!
Ms. Marvel #1 came out in 1977, so the Wonder Woman TV show would have been on the air at the time. So:
a) Burn!! They’re…
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Castor and Pollux
These two stars are a case of the myths fitting the reality, since Pollux is the brighter (17th brightest) while Castor languishes at 23rd. Since many versions of the Classical story of the Heavenly Twins made Castor the mortal one, it seems fitting that his star is slightly dimmer.
Fireweed: Survivor. Mutant. Tea.
This may seem like a strange topic for a post, but oddly enough I was inspired by yesterday’s post about the northern lights. If you didn’t read it, I’m from Labrador, in northern Canada, and while the aurora is always a little chancy, you can count on fireweed every summer.
Aurora Borealis
(Note: this is a slightly rewritten excerpt from my second book Sun, Moon and Stars. I hope that isn’t out of line, but I still like the piece as it is.)
In the same year so bright a light illumined a wide spread of lands in the middle of the night that you would have thought that it was high noon. On a number of occasions fiery globes were also seen traversing the sky at night-time, so that they seemed to light up the whole earth. (The History of the Franks IX.4)
The Northern Lights are a more personal topic than many in this blog. I grew up in Labrador, which is in the sub-Arctic of Canada, and we did get some good displays. (For the best, you go further north, above the tree line.) Apart from the great colour show you can get, the thing I most remember about them is the hush – people would stop and look, and no one made any noise, just watched the pink and green bands undulate across the sky. It wasn’t hard to see why the Innu and Inuit were in awe of them. Continue reading
So, who is Ullr?
The god Ullr is another of Norse myth’s enigmatic gods, along with Heimdall. Both seem to have faded in importance by the time that the myths were being written down, although people in Sweden and Norway worshipped Ullr, and we know that invoked him when they swore oaths. He is clearly a god of winter and winter pursuits, which has led to a rebirth of sorts in the Ullr Fest held in Colorado each winter.
We Are Star Stuff 