Hercules (or Herakles in the Greek) needed to atone for killing his entire family so the gods did what the gods do best and gave him a quest: serve his cousin for 12 years. Shouldn't be too difficult. But his cousin was a terrible DM and created 10 impossible tasks for Hercules to complete. This first part covers the first five of the Herculian tasks (and some of the sick treasures Hercules uncovers along the way)
Hercules (or Herakles in the Greek) needs to finish the last five tasks on the list before he will have properly atoned for murdering his family, but it isn't going to be so easy. The king, seeing that Hercules has completed the tasks declares that two of them are invalid since Hercules got outside help. And I guess that's technically cheating? More sidequests abound and we meet a familiar face from an older Extra Mythology!
As the nights grow long and dark and the holidays creep ever closer in the calendar, let's take a look at some of the festive myths from around the world. This year we travel to Iceland, where the winter months offer only a few scant hours of sunlight. And in the dark, holiday monsters creep. Here… there is only the child-eating giantess ogre Gryla, her enormous cat, and her thirteen mischievous sons, the Yule Lads. Each has a very particular mischief up their sleeve from slamming doors to eating candles.
When someone who has lived a rotten life dies, their spirit is sent to the underworld to be tormented by demons. But what happens if that soul is SO bad, the demons admire and praise it instead? That, my friends, is how two fearsome monsters are born. Meet the Pricolici and the Strigoi, two creatures that look very similar to our modern conception of the werewolf and the vampire. And one might have influenced literature forever.
Another spooky story from SVP! We spoke of what happens when people are so bad, even hell spits them back out, but that isn't the case with the Rusalka. The Rusalka are women who met untimely deaths at the bottom of the river, but return to lure more victims to a watery grave. Are they spirits seeking justice? Or vengeance? We don't advise getting close enough to find out.
In Lithuania, there's a story about how the trees got their names. There's the mighty oak, the regal birch, and the small and timid Aspen. It's also a story of snakes, songs, and secrets. Let us tell you the story of how a young farm girl named Egle became the Queen of Snakes, lost her husband, and cursed her children forevermore.
On the top of a high mountain, a magic stone that had absorbed the energies of the universe split open to reveal... a stone egg! And inside that stone egg, there was a stone monkey who would one day become the Monkey King and discover the secret to immortality. This is the first part of our series on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King.
The Monkey King traveled across half the world to discover the secret to immortality and sure enough, he did! Along with several other magic powers and abilities. But while the Monkey King might have become immortal, that wasn't good enough for him. The Monkey King wouldn't be satisfied until he had ALL of the immortality. It turns out, that kind of thing stacks. And boy howdy, will it stack along with all of the trouble Monkey King was causing.
Somewhere in the depths of the underworld, there lives a giant creature called the Horerczy that belches swarms of shapeshifting butterfly demons known as alps. These little demons go out into the world seeking humans to sit on while they sleep, causing sleep paralysis, nightmares, and sometimes taking a sip or two of the humans blood. But when they are caught and vanquished, they disappear back into the mouth of the Horerczy. And sometimes, they tell stories of their adventures in our realm.
Easter is a revered holiday that has been celebrated for a millennium and is often associated with Christians. But there are other, older traditions mixed into the festivities. And one very peculiar detail: Almost all celebrations center on colorful eggs. We're here with two very different stories that both show the symbolic importance of the egg and where an egg-laying bunny even comes from.
The goddess Morrigan is a complicated figure in mythology. A goddess of both prosperity and ruin, the Morrigan is a protector first and foremost. But woe be to those who catch her eye as Cuchulainn will quickly find out when he rejects her in her human disguise.
Our last video focused on the end of Cuchulain at the hands of the Morrigan, but where did this hero come from? Was his start as heroic as his end? Well... not precisely. A strong but arrogant young boy Cuchulain was brash. But an encounter with a hound large as a horse and darker than the night sky will change all of that.
Once there was a land beset by a dragon. The dragon breathed noxious fumes that poisoned the water and the countryside. To try and appease the dragon, the city paid it tribute in the form of farm animals, but those quickly ran out. They were left with no choice but to sacrifice village members to the dragon. But along came a mythic knight named George with a crazy idea: What if we killed the dragon instead?
One day, a mysterious visitor appeared among the Aesir, one of two races of Nordic gods. An epic and long war began, and yet despite the bloodshed, their war eventually gave poetry to the world.
Everything, from the giants' home of Jotunheim, to the primeval Vanaheim, to the mortal realm of Midgard, is connected by the tree named Yggdrasil, life to all nine worlds of Norse peoples.
Let's start at the primordial beginning. The first "peoples" on the earth were Cyclops and Titans. Prometheus was one of these titans, and in fact just one of two remaining after an unfortunate conflict with, you guessed it, Zeus...
As the age of heroes faded and monsters were cast from the world, Zeus brought a task to the wisest of titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus. They were to create the animals and form man to populate the upcoming age--which also lead to the creation of Pandora (and her box of sorrows).
Perseus was the undesirable grandchild of the king Acrisius, who wanted him dead--but accidentally just left him alive to float to a new beach. THEN he became the undesirable ADOPTED grandchild of the island's despot, Polydectes, who sent him on a quest to obtain the head of a gorgon...
Perseus is not intimidated by the grey women and their eyeball, or by Hermes's complicated directions, or by Medusa, or by a winged horse sprouting out of Medusa's blood, or by Andromeda's boyfriend, or by his own dad.
When Izanami died giving birth to Kagu-Tsuchi, the incarnation of fire, Izanagi visited the underworld to try to get her back, not realizing the dreadful terrors he would face. But from that bitter journey, sprung the life of new Japanese gods...
Krampus's name is growing popular in the United States, but most of us don't really know what he does OR that he is partners with St. Nicholas himself. He is in fact just one of many Christmas demons...
Inis Fáil is the Isle of Destiny, in Ireland. It was here that the Children of the Danu were sent on a quest to find their destiny, but they would have to encounter the Fir Bolg first...
We'll periodically, in-between series, do a Mythology Matters video, where we talk about some of the writing and research choices we made and topics we didn't really get to cover in the full illustrated episodes. We'll talk about some of the plot holes we found in our Celtic myth episodes!
Coyote is not just a wild animal in North America, but also a heroic, trickster protagonist whose mythological adventures reflect lessons learned from the natural world. Let's examine the Nlaka'pamux tribe's interpretation of Coyote.
Anwe the Killer was a man skilled in death--and he approached the People in their hour of need, to put to death the cannibals--the Wendigo--who had been torturing them.
Did you know that the Wendigo myth can be thought of as a warning against overconsumption of the natural world? We talk about this and other fun facts that we didn't really get to cover in our animated Wendigo episode!
Gilgamesh was a powerful yet cruel dictator in the Bronze Age civilization of Uruk (Babylon). In response to the people's cries, the gods created a man from nature, Enkidu, who was born in the wild but eventually learned the ways of humanity. He set out to stop the cruelty of Gilgamesh, not knowing that the power of friendship was here to save the day.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu set out to slay Humbaba. With the help of the goddess queen Ninsun in obtaining a blessing from the gods, these two men became brothers, who went on to have, like, totally epic dreams, bro, in the “House of the Dream God” which empowered them to take on the monstrous foe.
The myth of Gilgamesh is a metaphor for building a civilization--yes, really? Let's go behind-the-scenes on our Bronze Age myth!
Zahhak was not always a demon king--but, deceived by a young man named Iblis, he was motivated to slay his father to obtain world power. His pride would cause him to turn into a monstrous demon king, with serpents on his shoulders that fed on the Arabian people, for a thousand years... until Feraydun showed up...
Zal was raised not by his father, who feared his amazing white hate, but by the terrifying creature Simorgh--becoming a man of the mountains in the process. When his father decided to accept him back into society, his muscular frame caught the eye of the princess Rudabeh--but would he be able to gain favor for his wits?
In this episode, Extra Credits goes to King's Landing--er, so we can talk about the things we couldn't fit in to our Persian myths episodes, *obviously.*
The Nart people pursued the apples of a golden tree which bore a strange red and white pattern--eating from either side of it would allow the conception of a child with beautiful white hair. However, the apples kept mysteriously vanishing during the night--so two mighty brothers were set on the case of the vanishing apples.
When a soldier returns home from the battlefield, he finds the townspeople in fear of a warlock--but the solider wants to learn more about this fellow. And (un?)fortunately, the warlock is all too happy to tell...
In this episode, we talk about the distinction between Nart and Russian myths, and how mythology is used to create the idea of shared culture between people in a large, spread-out nation.
A small white hare stood alone on the Isle of Oki, yearning to cross the deep waters to Japan. He was a clever hare--crafty, if not always wise--and he had a plan.
Last we saw Ōkuninushi, he showed kindness to a hare in distress, and the hare of Inaba had foretold that he would be the one that the princess of Yakami would desire. And this was true, because when his 80 brothers showed up at court and declared their intentions, the princess insisted she would only marry him--so thus, his brothers began trying to kill him off...
We learn about how some classic Japanese myths were created thanks to the combined influence of Shinto and Buddhism. Also, a lot of horror myths actually come from Noh theater! Is a myth still mythology if it was very deliberately invented by an author?
During a terrible drought, the people wondered why Wirreenun, the Rainmaker, was doing nothing, if he was the one who could bring the rains back. It turned out that he really needed to do an extremely complex elaborate ritual to make the people learn how to take care of themselves.
Once, the Tongala River, which most maps now call the Murray, was a place of peace where the Water-Rat Tribe could live with ease. But then one day appeared the Whowie: a great frog-headed lizard, long and fat and slow, prowling the banks.
Today we talk about how we sort through and decipher the sources used for our Australian Aboriginal myths. For example, we found one very interesting book that turned out to be plagiarized from an Indigenous Australian man, David Unaipon.
Just as the gods Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, and Nanahautzin sacrificed themselves so the sun could move across the sky, so too did the Aztecs believe people must follow their example, and spill blood to thank the gods for their life, their maize, and the sun.
Huitzilopochtli, god of bloody victory, had promised the Mexica people a city. Before they would eventually settle down at Tenochtitlan, they wandered from place to place, inadvertently causing destruction on the orders of the violent god.
Mythology sources continue to be very complicated, especially when invading colonizers are involved. We discuss our writing process for our recent Aztec myth episodes!
It was a time of trial for the tribes of Israel. They were no nation, but a loose confederation bound together by their divine covenants--which they had just broken. Amid this political and social chaos, a child was born, instructed by God to keep the Nazirite oath--stay away from alcohol, don't eat unclean food, and don't shave--and he would become a man of incredible strength.
After killing 1000 men, Samson runs into more trouble with the Philistines. Samson is a Judge, but he may not be the best judge of romantic partners... When Delilah betrays Samson for silver, all hope seems lost. But Samson has one last favor to ask.
Sit down and let us weave you a tale of the Amazing Anansi. We tell the story of how Anansi purchased all of the stories of the world by catching three of the most dangerous creatures in the world; how his son convinced Anansi to share his wisdom with the world; and how his friendship with Nothing ends very poorly.
There can be a tension between hearing old stories in the modern age, dealing with simplified retellings and understanding older cultural values through a modern lens. We discuss writing Samson and Delilah and where we think the story is coming from. What are your thoughts?
Long ago, Jealousy kept himself hidden away from the world to guard his bride. But when Anansi stole Jealousy's wife through trickery, Jealousy no longer had any reason to stay in his empty village and entered every person's heart including Anansi. This is how Anansi became jealous of his neighbor Dew and how his own tricks came back to haunt him.
Anansi is a great example of the trickster god, so of course, there are some aspects of his stories that are tricky to tell. James talks about the difficulties of making shorter stories into a full episode narrative and what to consider "canon" for myths that have changed so much over time.
Dragons are one of the most popular creatures of myth and legend and for good reason! These guys are everywhere! Almost every culture has some form of dragon tale. From the wicked wyrms of western Europe, the benevolent Lung dragons of China, the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, to the Rainbow Serpent of Aboriginal myth, dragon like figures take on many different forms and roles. But how and why do these serpentine beasts and gods appear in so many different legends? Gather round the campfire and let's chat!