Epic poetry can be traced right back to its roots in the oral tradition. The epic of Gilgamesh is considered to be the oldest known epic poem to date, and over the centuries more and more have been discovered. Homer’s Odyssey and The Iliad are probably the most famous examples, as not many people have heard of the Hávamál or Völuspá, two epic poems from the Ásatrú sacred text, The Poetic Edda. Within these epic poems can be found monsters of mythical proportions: Cyclopes, Hydras, werewolves...
In
his documentary, Dinosaurs, Myths and
Monsters, Tom Holland takes us on a journey where we learn the influence prehistoric
fossils had on local storytelling. It is easy to forget that dinosaurs once
roamed the Earth because we cannot go to the local pet shop and buy a miniaturised
tyrannosaurus rex, nor can we see them in our parks or zoos. The origins of land,
air and water-dragons, like the Lerneaen Hydra who was offered Andromeda as a
sacrifice, can be credited to the plesiosaur. The structure of the plesiosaur
offers its flippers, explaining why modern writers and artists illustrate their
dragons with glorious wings, basing their art on the Chinese literature without
acknowledging it. Giant elephant skulls found in the Mediterranean by the
ancient Greeks helped to spur the myth of the Cyclops, a man-eating giant. The
anatomy of the elephant skull is simple: the huge nasal cavity where the trunk
used to be was mistaken for an over-sized eye-socket, and the immense size of
the skull itself would have had a devastating impact on the puny Greeks who
discovered it. As a result, stories were told of epic heroes who would later be
recorded by various poets.
My
personal favourite wolf lore lies in Scandinavia. The two sky-wolves who both pull
and chase the Sun and Moon – Hati and Skoll – are trapped in a perpetual state
of catch-22: either they destroy their own cargo and lose all meaning, or they
continue on a permanent wild goose chase. However, these wolves originate from
a beautiful story, and their role is pretty damn apocalyptic: when they catch
the Sun and Moon, Ragnarök will begin. Wolves had long been in mythology and
epics before the Norse began to sing and write them. In fact, many of what we
now refer to as myths remain the basis of several Odinic belief systems. The origins
of these wolves can be found in the need to explain the natural world: by
creating reason for the wolves to be in their respective pictures, the epics
became a tool for education and worship.
great post! i wish the font were bigger though. my eyes are not as good as it used to be -getting younger and all lol!
ReplyDeleteI've edited it so it should be a larger font now :)
ReplyDeletevery very great post love it so much <3<3<3
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