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mythologymondays · 5 years ago

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It’s that time again, the time where we all gleefully sit down on the nearest mound and regale ourselves with totally normal Welsh tales of magical women and horses and enchanted bags, because that’s just how the Mabinogion is. Fun sources and FACTS beneath the cut, as always.

Press J on your keyboard if you hate stories about Medieval etiquette, liminality, and magic mounds.

The Prince and the Horse Girl: a temporally disconnected romance for the ages

So, the last we heard of Pwyll, he had successfully cockblocked himself into becoming best friends with Arawn, the Lord of the Underworld, which sounds like a pretty average Friday night in Cardiff, let me tell you. Anyway, Pwyll at this point is just kind of riding high on the fame that being best pals with Arawn brings, and he’s showing his friendship bracelet to everyone he meets and saying stuff like “yeah, it’s great to have the Lord of the Underworld Arawn-ed whenever I need him,” and everyone just sort of rolls their eyes good-naturedly and thinks about death.

One day, Pwyll is at his court at Arbeth, which is one of his most important courts. There’s a huge feast in front of him and all of his courtly pals are there, just chewing the fat. Pwyll tears off the leg of another whole roast pig, probably his eighth of the session, and he’s about to bite into it when he realises that everyone sat around the table is staring at him, so he puts down the pig leg really gingerly and says, “do I have hog spleen around my mouth or something?” and one of his courtly crew, who doesn’t get a name in the original text and so will henceforth be known as Brad, says, “no, my lord, but you do have practically an entire herd of pigs in your stomach, so maybe it’s time for a walk?”

Pwyll blinks at him and he’s like, “I don’t really see why I would want to go for a walk in the yucky outside when I could be sitting here and savouring delicious morsels of tenderly roasted flesh,” and Brad shrugs and says, “well, I read an article about nutrition in this scientific journal last week, and apparently it’s not actually that good for you to just eat constantly and never go outside ever,” and Pwyll is like, “no, but it’s super fun,” and Brad sighs and he’s like, “look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, just in case you got too excited, but there’s actually a mound outside,” and then Pwyll’s eyes go as wide as dinner plates and he cries, “a mound? Seriously? You’re not just fucking with me to get me to go outside?” and Brad is like, “no, there’s seriously a genuine, 100% organic mound outside, and it’s only a short walk away,” and so Pwyll pushes his chair out from under the table and he’s all, “lead the way, pal, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner that there was a fucking rad mound outside, you know how much I love mounds.”

So, they all traipse outside on horseback, and lo and behold, Brad wasn’t lying. There really is an absolutely incredible mound outside, all earthy and hilly, and… look. I’ll level with you. It’s hard to get excited about a mound, but Pwyll manages it. I have no idea how. God knows I’ve tried. But anyway, he leads his merry band of lads up to the top of the mound, and they’re all about to sit down when Brad puts out a hand and stops Pwyll from doing so. Pwyll is like, “dude, stop crushing my vibe, I’m about to become sedentary on this sediment,” and Brad just shakes his head and he’s like, “bro, I need to tell you something about the mound, because I may have undersold it.”

Pwyll is obviously in complete disbelief at this point, just like, “mate, there’s no way you undersold it. It can’t get any cooler than this. It just can’t. Have you seen it?” and Brad is like, “yes, it’s a really interesting geological formation, and the topography also makes it look a bit like a butt, which is obviously super rad, but I didn’t tell you that it’s also a magic mound, because if a nobleman sits on it, one of two things will happen: either he’ll see something absolutely fantastic, like the original The Mummy film starring Brendan Fraser or a cool dog, or he’ll get maimed and mortally wounded. It’s 50/50, to be honest with you.”

Pwyll just blinks at him, and he’s like, “dude, those are two very different things, but you know, I really can’t pass up the opportunity to see a cool dog,” and Brad says, “I need you to know that the dog was just a random example, I make no canine promises here, I can’t stress that enough,” and Pwyll just shrugs and scoffs, “whatever, dude. Anyway, if I do get totally maimed, I’ve got my posse here, and you’ll do first aid on me, won’t you?” and Brad just sort of nods nervously, because they haven’t even invented antiseptic in Medieval Wales and all their bandages are just, like, old socks drenched in ale, and they don’t have St John Ambulance to teach them all first aid because there isn’t even a J in the Welsh alphabet, and then Pwyll grits his teeth and sits down.

Almost immediately, this brilliant white horse just zooms past them, and Pwyll is like, “oh, that’s fucking sick, my dudes! I thought a dog would be cool, but a horse? Are you kidding me? It doesn’t get much better than this! Equestrian displays are my jam!” and then Brad rolls his eyes and he’s like, “my lord, did you not notice that there was a phenomenally sexy and almost certainly magic lady in gold riding that horse?” and Pwyll is like, “honestly, no, I was kind of distracted by the fetlocks, but now you come to mention it, she’s pretty attractive, I guess. Hey, do you think I could catch up with her and ask her where she got her cool horse?”

So he gets back on his horse and he tries to catch up with the lady, but even though Pwyll’s horse was sold to him as being the fastest ride on four legs, he can’t even come close to her. He walks back to his lads, his metaphorical tail between his actual legs, and he’s like, “dudes, we’re going to formulate a plan tonight,” and then a random guy in the posse is like, “oh cool, I brought Sharpies,” and they go back to Arbeth Court and spend literally all night just drawing diagrams and equations on a tapestry of England, because that’s probably the best use for it.

The next day, they put their plan in action. Pwyll gets his youngest, fittest lad, plops him on his biggest, muscliest horse, the one that’s like an equine version of that man in Game of Thrones who keeps breaking weightlifting records and is almost definitely earmarked to play Atlas in some big budget Greek myth film, and sends him after the lady. But still, no matter how fast they ride, she’s always one step ahead of them. At one point, they almost catch up with her, but when Pwyll reaches out to stroke her silky blonde hair in a totally normal and cool way, she pulls forward again and he just fucking eats dust. It’s humiliating.

And this goes on for three days, because princes don’t have, like, hobbies in Medieval Wales, or apparently any princely duties that would make galavanting after a magic horse woman for half a week kind of inconvenient for the general populace, and gradually, Pwyll’s men all bow out one by one, probably because they’ve all developed an absolutely stonking case of piles from being on horseback for three days solid, and then Pwyll is alone in his romantic and also literal pursuit.

Exhausted, starving and probably desperate for the loo at this point, Pwyll throws his head back and howls, “what the fuck is going on on this day? I’ve tried everything! I’m absolutely stumped. I don’t know what to do about this. I’ve considered it from every possible angle. I chased her, and that didn’t work. I got my wingman to chase her, and that didn’t work. Those are my only two options in the entire world. I just don’t know what else I can do. It’s completely fucking futile, I wish I’d just seen a dog instead,” and then a flash of inspiration comes to him, and he just calls out to the woman, “erm, could you maybe just, like, stop?” and, like a miracle, she does.

When he catches up to her, she glares at him, and says, “I’ve literally been waiting three whole days for you to just ask me to stop, why did it take you so long?” and Pwyll is like, “I sort of thought that it was implied, to be honest with you, what with all the chasing and me crying loudly about my unending solitude and the futility of love,” and she shrugs and says, “well, if we’re to be marred, we really have to work on our communication,” and Pwyll is like, “wait, what, who said anything about marriage?” and she just rolls her eyes, like, “look, I’m a sexy Medieval maiden and you’re a prince with some land and gendered expectations, so of course we’re going to get married,” and he’s like, “well, if we marry, that means I get to ride your horse whenever I want, right?” and she nods, like, “yes, that’s definitely the primary appeal of marriage.”

But just as he’s about to get down on one knee, she looks at him again, and says, “I should just tell you something super quick, in the name of true love and Medieval marriage etiquette,” and he’s like, “what, your name?” and she says, “no, not that, although it’s Rhiannon, but mostly I’m thinking of the fact that you actually have to wait a whole year to propose to me, because I’m almost engaged to someone else, who I hate, and I need to sort that all out first.”

Pwyll frowns and says, “hang on, is this going to be another one of those weird magic things where I have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location?” and she’s like, “what the fuck, no, there’s not going to be any murder at all, just a lavish engagement feast and some nuptials and probably some awkward standing around with the in-laws to-be,” and he’s like, “so why do we have to wait a year?” and she just waves her arms around and says, “temporally disconnected Otherworld shit, my love, I don’t make the rules. Just come to the court of Hyfaidd Hen in exactly a year, and we’ll do the whole ball and chain thing. It’ll be great.”

So he agrees, because of course he does, and the next thing he knows, it’s a year later, and he goes to Hyfaidd Hen and Rhiannon’s there in this beautiful McQueen wedding dress, looking all Kate Middleton but without the colonial royal associations, and there’s an absolutely exquisite feast laid out, with a whole array of delicious Medieval food, like unseasoned meat pies and room-temperature ale that looks like piss, and Pwyll just thinks to himself how cool it all is, but he also secretly harbours a lingering regret for the previous year, where he was forced after a blunder of etiquette to kill a random man in a duel, and although he feels bad about it, a part of him longs for the decadent adventures of his bachelorhood, when murder was more than just a six letter word.

They’re all just kind of milling about on the dancefloor, listening to the bards spit some absolute club classics like Y Goddodin by Aneurin, which really gets the toes tapping, when this random dude with a chiseled jawline and a playful glint in his eye comes up to Pwyll and extends his hand for Pwyll to shake. Pwyll, who is completely head over heels for manners and etiquette, shakes the man’s hand, and says, “hello, new friend! What can I do for you?” and Rhiannon elbows him in the side, and hisses, “be careful, fiancé dearest, don’t let him tangle you up in a web of etiquette from which there is no escape,” and Pwyll waves her off, saying, “my sweet darling, I am a prince of Wales; manners are my middle name,” and he turns back to the man.

The man grins at him, and he says, “I’ve come to ask a favour of you, Pwyll, prince of Wales,” and Pwyll, still enamoured by this man’s manners, is struck by an overwhelming desire to just do whatever this perfectly polite man wants, so he spreads his arms wide in a benevolent gesture, conveniently using it as an excuse to set down his glass of lukewarm piss ale on a nearby shelf, and says, “literally anything you want, my friend, I’ll give you!” and then the stranger’s grin turns into a smirk and he says, “by your word?” and Pwyll is like, “fuck yeah, man, by all of my words, as God and all these noble guests are my witness!” and the stranger is like, “sick bro, I want to marry Rhiannon, and I also want your wedding feast.”

And Pwyll has no idea what to say to that, because he just promised this man anything he wanted, so he decides that maybe silence is his best bet here, and the man grins at him, and stalks off, knowing that there’s literally nothing that Pwyll can do now except reconsider all of his life choices up to this point.

When the man has left, Rhiannon groans, “you phenomenal dick, that man was Gwawl and he’s the complete bag of dicks that my parents tried to marry me off to, and you just got me affianced to him!” and Pwyll just grits his teeth and hisses, “well, dear, you might have told me that before I told him I’d do whatever he wanted,” and Rhiannon sighs and says, “you’re right, but look, we can work through this. Here’s the plan. Firstly, we’ll tell him that he can’t have the feast, because it’s not yours to give, but mine, and we’ll prepare him an equal feast instead. Then, we’ll tell him that he can marry me a year from today, but here’s the thing - on the day of the wedding, you’ll secretly turn up in disguise with a very tiny magic bag and you’ll ask him, very reasonably, for just enough food to fill the bag. He’ll obviously say yes, because even he can’t turn down something that reasonable, but the bag will be enchanted to never be filled, so you’ll just take all the food, until he asks you how he can help you fill the bag, and you tell him that a fine nobleman has to step on it to seal it, and then he’ll step on it, and then you jump on him and pull the bag over his head and tie him up in the bag and hang it from a rafter, and then you’ll blow your hunting horn to summon your posse of lads and you’ll all beat him to a bloody, pulpy death in the bag.”

Pwyll just blinks at her, and says, “sweetheart, love of my life, light of my existence, did you perchance dream up that oddly specific plan a while ago, because if not, then your imagination terrifies me,” and this small, maniacal grin plays on her lips, and she says, “darling, you know how you asked me last year if you’d have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location, and I told you no?” and he’s like, “yes, I do remember that,” and she says, “well, ask me again,” and so he says, “babe, do I have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location?” and she’s like, “yes, sweetheart, but I’ve got it in the bag,” and then they high five each other and do a vengeful murder jig for like ten minutes.

And of course, a year later, they do it all over again, this time with a tiny enchanted bag and a goddamn point to prove, but that’s a story for another time.

My other retellings can be found here, and my Mythology Mondays Facebook page is here. My book is here. Yay.

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mythologymondays · 5 years ago

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Press J on your keyboard if you hate stories about Medieval etiquette, liminality, and magic mounds.

The Prince and the Horse Girl: a temporally disconnected romance for the ages

They’re all just kind of milling about on the dancefloor, listening to the bards spit some absolute club classics like Y Gododdin by Aneurin, which really gets the toes tapping, when this random dude with a chiseled jawline and a playful glint in his eye comes up to Pwyll and extends his hand for Pwyll to shake. Pwyll, who is completely head over heels for manners and etiquette, shakes the man’s hand, and says, “hello, new friend! What can I do for you?” and Rhiannon elbows him in the side, and hisses, “be careful, fiancé dearest, don’t let him tangle you up in a web of etiquette from which there is no escape,” and Pwyll waves her off, saying, “my sweet darling, I am a prince of Wales; manners are my middle name,” and he turns back to the man.

And of course, a year later, they do it all over again, this time with a tiny enchanted bag and a goddamn point to prove, but that’s a story for another time.

My other retellings can be found here, and my Mythology Mondays Facebook page is here. My book is here. Yay.

I’m going to level with you: I typed out a whole bunch of super cool academic stuff and then my turdwallet of a laptop crashed and deleted all of it, and I honestly want to perish very slightly at the prospect of typing it all out again, but in a nutshell:

Some people think that Rhiannon was a horse goddess who was undeified by the Christian dudes who wrote down the pagan Welsh myths all those years later. While the Christian dudes did almost certainly sanitise the source material, we just don’t have any real proof of what they left out. The main argument for Rhiannon being a horse goddess is that she’s a woman and there was, erm, a horse. Not the most compelling argument. Some people also think she may be a cognate to the Gallic horse goddess, Epona, but this is basically extrapolated from the fact that they’re both female and somehow linked to horses, which I don’t think would fly in a court of law.

If you’re wondering why Pwyll didn’t just tell Gwawl to fuck off, it’s because he’s bound, as a nobleman, by a very strict code of honour and morals. By giving Gwawl his word, even before he knew what he was agreeing to, Pwyll made a binding promise. If he goes back on his word, Gwawl is well within his rights to challenge the fuck out of him.

Welsh myth and the Otherworld is super interesting. The Otherworld was generally believed to only be accessible at certain times and via certain places, called ‘liminal spaces’, such as bogs, bodies of water, and caves. Liminal spaces are essentially a sort of sacred space which exists in the in between, where the boundaries between worlds are porous and can be crossed, provided certain ritual conditions are met. The mound in this particular narrative is likely a portal to the Otherworld, which explains why Pwyll was able to access the magical realm of Rhiannon through it. The Otherworld, although not explicitly an Underworld, does have links with death and the afterlife, as do mounds, so that strengthens the connection. Bet you never knew mounds were so fucking cool.

Primary sources:

Davies, Sioned (2007) The Mabinogion, New York: Oxford University Press

Secondary sources:

Goldwasser, Michele (1994) What Drives the Mabinogi? Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 14, 49-57

Linkletter, Michael (2001) Magical Realism and the “Mabinogi”: an Exercise in Methodology, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 21, 51-63

Wachsler, Arthur (1975) The Elaborate Ruse: A Motif of Deception in Early Celtic Historical Variants of the Journey to the Other World, Journal of the Folklore Institute, 12(1) 29-46

#mythology mondays #celtic myth #welsh myth #pwyll #rhiannon #mythology #mabinogi #mabinogion

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mythologymondays · 5 years ago

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I have now tested this game with multiple pals, mostly not against their will, and raucous good fun was had by all, so I’ll keep you all updated with details of when we can do a play of it this weekend! Hurrah. I’m basically a Twitch streamer now.

omg please show us more of those cards. they are exquisite!

I don’t want to spoil them all before the weekend, but there are about 80 black cards and 160 white cards at the moment with more in the works, so I will show you possibly the best round that my human pals and I did today when we were testing it out:

(They are all separate quotes from the various retellings wot I dun and it was amazing that they lined up so beautifully... proof, perhaps, that Zeus himself condones this game)

#except i'm not #and never will be #also i super think that apollo would have been a twitch streamer #just saying

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mythologymondays · 5 years ago

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Cards Against Mythology Mondays

For my birthday 5 days ago, my glorious pal @heathtrash made me the absolute best birthday present that anyone has received in the history of Ever: Cards Against Mythology Mondays. I still can’t quite believe how cool that is, but there you go. Some people are just that rad.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because they have also made an online version, so that it can be played remotely during lockdown, and we have been having a little chat to see what is feasible and fun and funky fresh, and I must now ask a question of you:

Would anyone... like to play Cards Against Mythology Mondays with me... possibly this weekend, if I can make the stars align?

The parameters would be as follows:

I would need to limit it to about 7 players, purely because of how the online game best functions, so it would be very much on a first come first serve basis, but if you want to join in the fun but you miss out on joining the game as a player, I think about 20 more people can ‘spectate’ the game, which essentially means you can watch what’s going on and see all the cards being played, but not play any of the cards yourself.

I’m a complete technophobe, so it very possibly won’t be smooth sailing the first time, and I am letting you know this in advance so that you don’t rain down the might of a thousand angry gods when I inevitably, like, end the game by mistake or delete all the cards or blow up the server remotely or something.

there is the possibility of setting up a Discord server so that all the players can do a hello and a chat as they play, and read out the cards and do a lol; it’s not necessary to play the game, but it would probably be quite fun??? So I’ll have a look and see if that’s possible. If I do this, you’re not allowed to call each other buttheads. Not on my watch.

we currently just have the Greco-Roman myths covered but will probably be doing the Norse and Welsh ones at a later date, for MAXIMUM FUN.

the cards include such glorious delights as this:

It consists of lots of quotes from the Mythology Mondays retellings and will also include some more original ones when my brain does a think, So yes, let me know if this is a thing that people would like to do, and I will have a little cry over technology and how hard it is to make anything work when your brain is basically that of an Amish elder, and it will all be fine and groovy and a host of other positive adjectives!!

#mythology mondays #i'm quite excited to see if this WORKS #i hope it does #heathcliff is a goddamn gem ok u don't even KNOW

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mythologymondays · 5 years ago

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Hello, I’m not dead

Hello, everyone. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? That’s, like, 60% my fault. OK, 70%. Maybe more like 110%, if I’m being honest. Although in my defence... nope. I’ve got nothing.

Except what I actually have is a genuine apology for being very absent, and the reason for that is pretty embarrassing, actually: I got so overwhelmed that people actually occasionally read my dumb myth retellings that I began to get super worried that it wouldn’t last, and so I noped out, because in my feeble little bird brain, that wasn’t failure. Except it was, obviously, and a worse kind, because it was failure to really try. Every time I posted a retelling and it only got half the notes of the last one, a little siren in my brain started wailing that no-one cared any more, that it was all for nought, and also I was maybe, possibly, a complete waste of space. Which sounds extreme, but there you go. That’s imposter syndrome for you. And I’m sorry that I disappeared because of it. That was a butthead thing to do. Very Zeus of me, really.

I realise that we’re all in the middle of a hideous pandemic, and that we all need a bit of cheering up, and so I have decided to pull up my proverbial socks (fun fact: I’m actually wearing socks and sandals right now, don’t judge me) and I’m going to be making an effort to post myths again. I love writing them. I think they’re funny. I even don’t hate rereading them. I’ve got lots of them lined up, including Greek, Norse and Welsh, and I hope they bring people a small modicum of entertainment in these, the End Times.

I’m under no illusion that everyone is still going to be reading them, because a lot of time has passed and a lot of you will (understandably!) see this post and be like... oh, I forgot I was following this trash garbage blog, goodbye from my dash forever. And that’s fine. I’m going to try not to get all weirdly hooked on the numbers this time around.

And on that note, you can all expect a follow-up to the myth of Pwyll and Arawn on Monday 11th May, or may my milk be forever curdled.

#hahahahahaha what's my admin tag again #let's just go with #admin #mythology mondays

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mythologymondays · 7 years ago

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Here, the World Entire

A novella retelling the Medusa myth, Here, the World Entire takes the Medusa narrative as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and embellishes it from Medusa’s perspective, using it as a focal point to explore modern questions of trauma and identity.

Synopsis:

After being accused of desecrating Athena’s temple and subsequently cursed with monstrousness, Medusa lives alone on the outskirts of the world, secluding herself from everyone so as to keep both herself and the rest of the world safe. When Perseus comes to ask for her help, Medusa tries desperately to make him leave, but no matter what she does, Perseus stays.

As the days wear on and she reveals more about the events that led her to the cave, it becomes obvious that there is a choice to make: stay safe and alone, or re-enter the world with Perseus. One question still remains, however: what does Perseus want?

***

Excerpt:

He speaks again. “Tell me who you are!”

I hear him take another step, and I recoil. “Please don’t come any closer,” I beg. “You’ll die!”

Silence: I am the monster. He knows I am not to be saved. His steps stop. “I thought you said you didn’t want to hurt me?”

He is so brave, and I am so afraid of hurting him. Of him dying �� not at my hand, but at my entire self. Being unable to stop myself. “I don’t. Please, please, go back outside and I’ll speak to you from here. Whatever you’ve come for – it’s yours. Just leave, and you’ll have it.” I know that I sound desperate, and that any hope I had of appearing as a terrifying creature has dissipated. I don’t care. I need him to know that he is in danger. “Please.”

There’s enough blood on these hands already, I think. Blood turned from red to grey, hardened and lingering in veins long since rendered as stone. I wonder if those statues still have hearts. I think about lungs and arteries wrought in rock, pulsating dully like magma.

After a moment I hear the man withdraw, and I release a breath I hadn’t known that I was holding. “Thank you,” I say. When I can tell that he’s retreated to a safe distance, I inch forward. Not close enough to see or be seen, or to remove the shroud of total darkness that the cave has granted me, but close enough to feel as though we inhabit the same space. “You know who I am, don’t you? You must have known to come here.” He says nothing. “I’m Medusa.”

His fear must have subsided, because I can’t hear his heartbeat any more. I can only hear my own.

Call me a monster, I think. Give me a name of your own. I have been called so many things over the centuries. Sometimes I forget which names have been given and which have been taken. Goddess-monster-Photine. I am that which you call me. Let me be the monster.

He does not give me a name of my own at all. The name he gives me is not mine, but his.

“Perseus.”

***

Paperback available here

ebook not yet available, but in the works - I work 66 hours a week and am applying for a PhD (on the subject of Medusa…) so this is taking longer than planned!

Goodreads page here

#medusadeservedbetter

#i did the ebook at long last #i'm genuinely so sorry that it took so long

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mythologymondays · 8 years ago

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What's your favourite mythology to research and/or write about?

It’s definitely a boring answer (sorry!) but it has to be Greco-Roman, mostly Greek. Purely based on the number of written sources, it’s one of the mythological canons which is most ripe for picking and choosing different versions, and there’s a lot more information out there on the background of the various stories, as opposed to something like, say, Celtic, for which there are no extant written sources and a lot of speculation. That said, I’m a fan of Welsh and Norse myth as well, in terms of actual narratives and stories, and I like Egyptian myth too but am definitely not as used to researching it.

#a good question!#theoryberries

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mythologymondays · 8 years ago

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Ugh. Ageing. What a bummer, right? I mean, you spend all this time on Earth learning valuable life lessons and bettering yourself as a person, and what do you get? Older, that’s what. And hey, it wouldn’t be so bad if we could all age like Gabrielle Union and George Clooney, but most of us are mortals, so. Thankfully, we have ways around it these days, like make-up and cosmetic surgery and never showing your wrinkled, haggard, 25 year old face outside ever again, you disgusting prune. Unfortunately for the Aesir, they didn’t have botox, and so had to rely on magic fruit. Sounds like a pretty foolproof plan, until you realise that fruit are ripe for stealing (you’re welcome for the pun).

Sources and extra juicy mythological info under the Read More, as always.

You can press J on your keyboard if you don’t want to read a story about cookery, magic tailoring and the perils of ageing in a Western society which places youth and beauty on pedestals and uses them as social currency.

How do you like them apples?

Our story begins with our heroes in the midst of perhaps the greatest, most treacherous quest of all: cookery. Odin, Loki and Hoenir, who is basically the Norse god equivalent to plain toast (i.e. very boring, but a real pantheon staple, and ends up surviving the end of the world, like toast surely will) are sitting around a cooking pot, which they’ve filled with the meat of an ox that they’ve slaughtered, and they’re just sort of chewing the fat. Not literally, though, because the meat isn’t cooked yet, but they’re having a really great conversation. Odin is like “so, I’m glad we finally found that ox, because we’d been wandering around those mountains and deserts for, like, half an hour, and I was getting hungry,” and Loki nods and he’s like “tell me about it, I only had four breakfasts and I’m not sure I could have lasted much longer. Hey, Hoenir, open that cooking pot and check if the meat is done yet,” and Odin says “I cooked it on a low temperature so the meat should be tender and just about falling off the bone, it’s this new technique which really locks the flavour in and gives the meat a rich, soft mouthfeel,” and Loki nods again and he’s like “you could patent that, you know, and call it Odinner,” and they both have a little chuckle, because it was really a very funny joke.

Except then Hoenir opens the lid of the cooking pot, and they all peer in, and they see that the meat is still completely raw. They all blink, and Loki is like “I mean, I’d probably still be up for eating that, honestly, but you’ve really sold me on the sound of that slow cooked technique. Let’s give it another few hours,” and Odin agrees, and so they all sit back and have yet more great conversation, except for Hoenir, who probably just umms and ahhs and makes understanding noises at the appropriate moment and says “well, I never,” whenever Loki talks about one of his hilarious exploits, because he’s that guy.

After a couple of hours, Odin says “Hoenir, check the meat again, it should be as tender as the touch of new lovers by now,” and so Hoenir opens the pot and they all peer in, and the meat is still rawer than the news of Donald Trump’s inauguration. Loki blinks, and he’s like “I know what you guys are thinking, and can I just say that, for once, I am totally innocent in this,” and Odin holds his hands up and he’s all “never even crossed my mind to accuse you, mate, but honestly, if this isn’t your doing, then I guess we slaughtered, like, a magic ox or something,” and Loki frowns and says “no, I keep a list of all the magic ox in the world, just in case I need them to play a hilarious prank on Thor, and this wasn’t one of them. Maybe the cooking pot is just fucked?” and Odin is like “no, I bought it specially from the dwarves’ catalogue of unbreakable cooking utensils, along with a really handy set of silicon spatulas and a neat little measuring jug which doubles up as a trap for frost giants, there’s no way it’s faulty,” and they both look at Hoenir, who shrugs, and Loki’s like “who are we kidding, it’s obviously not Hoenir’s doing, that would require him to have some measure of personality,” and Hoenir just looks at them neutrally, and Odin is about to suggest something else when they hear someone nearby clear their throat.

They all look up to the source of the throat clearing, which comes from a tree just above them, and Loki’s like “shitting hell, that eagle just coughed,” and the eagle, which is absolutely massive, like ten times the size of a normal eagle, says “yeah, sorry about that, I’ve been breathing in the acrid smoke from that pot for, like, four hours,” and Odin is like “does the fact that our meat is still raw have anything to do with you?” and the eagle does a weird up-and-down motion with its wings, which is presumably meant to be a shrug, and says “maybe,” and Loki sighs and says “look, take it from me, you should always own up to your hilarious pranks, even if they end up causing the end of the world, because credit is everything in the Trickster game,” and the eagle cackles, which is actually surprisingly effective, and says “then yes, ‘twas I who kept your meat raw,” and Odin is like “it really comes to something when a man-sized, magic, talking eagle can tell me that he’s the reason my dinner is delayed, and I’m not even surprised,” and Loki’s like “yeah, honestly this just seems like a normal Friday to me,” and the eagle huffs and he’s like “look, do you want your meat to cook or not?” and Loki says “I mean, clearly we do want that, but we’re just saying that we’re not, like, going to be telling this story to our grandkids or anything,” and Odin says “what Loki means to say is that we’re really fucking hungry, so if you could cook our meat pretty promptly, that would be great,” and Hoenir says “well I never,” because he has a thing about swearing.

The eagle drops down from the tree and says “I’ll make you a deal. If you let me eat my fill of that ox before you guys have your share, I guarantee that it’ll be cooked to perfection,” and Odin says “what, with a red wine sauce and an ample seasoning of rosemary and garlic salt?” and the eagle is like “sure, why not, although I’m more of a salt and pepper man myself, good seasoning should amplify rather than overpower the flavour of the meat’s natural juices,” and Loki looks at Odin, and Odin looks at Loki, and neither of them even bother looking at Hoenir, who just has no opinion on any situation ever, and Loki says “sure, it’s a deal,” and the eagle says “great! The meat’s cooked now,” and he starts to eat the meat from the pot. First, he eats both the ox’s shoulders and its thighs, the most tender cuts of the meat, and then he eats its belly and its rump, and he’s about to eat the rest of its leg meat when Loki decides that enough is enough, and he shouts “this is just taking the piss, mate, that ox ass was mine! We didn’t say that you could eat all the choice cuts and leave us with the offal, that’s what we were going to do to Hoenir,” and then he picks up a big stick that’s just conveniently lying around on the ground nearby and he strikes the eagle with it.

He hits the eagle so hard that the eagle becomes airborne and begins to fly away, which would be absolutely ideal were it not for the fact that the stick has somehow become stuck to the eagle, and Loki is still holding onto the stick, and apparently it’s just, like, the stickiest stick in the world, because Loki can’t let go. He’s stuck to the sticky stick, and as the eagle flies away he makes sure to fly super low, so that Loki’s feet are getting dragged across the ground, and bits of gravel and rock and grit start to wear away at Loki’s shoes until his feet are bare, and then it’s basically just agonising pain and blood and bits of foot and no-one’s having a good time, honestly. Loki is just howling “I’m sorry! The ox butt is yours! Just let me go!” and the eagle pretends not to hear him, even though there’s no other sound for literally miles around except for the noise of Loki’s feet being turned into pulp, and Loki cries “I’ll do anything you want if you let me go!” and the eagle is like “anything?” and Loki says “literally anything, which is definitely something which won’t come back to bite me in the arse later!” and the eagle says “fine, deal. Find Idunn, the goddess who guards the weirdly non-specific fruit of youth, and bring her out of Asgard. If you promise to do that, I’ll let you go,” and Loki says “I promise, I’ll do it!” and so the eagle lets him go and brings him back to Odin and Hoenir. Odin blinks – well, winks – and says “nice time?” and Loki is like “let’s forget that any of this happened and go home, and also can one of you please carry me because my feet aren’t really currently feet,” and they do.

When they get back to Asgard, Loki goes to find Idunn. He smiles at her in a way that he has been told is thoroughly disarming, and he says “Idunn, my old pal, light of my life, woman who guards the fruit that literally keeps us from ageing so much that we turn into raisins, how do you feel about accompanying me, Loki, the trickster god, into the heart of an uncharted forest outside of Asgard?” and Idunn furrows her brow and she’s like “I feel lukewarm about it, if I’m honest. Why? What’s in the forest?” and Loki says “I’ve heard that there are apples there which make your apples look like absolute shit,” and Idunn scoffs and says “no way, my apples are the greatest, have you seen the shine on these things? Plus they’re magic and literally keep us all young, which is a real boon as youth is, sadly, currency, so,” and Loki just shakes his head and says “I’ve heard that the apples in the forest are genetically modified so that the skin doesn’t get stuck between your teeth and they don’t have that gross hard bit around the core,” and Idunn narrows her eyes and says “take me there right now,” and so Loki leads her out of Asgard and its fortified walls, and into the unprotected forest.

As soon as they’re outside the safety of Asgard, they hear someone clear their throat, and they look up to see a giant eagle swooping down. The eagle grabs hold of Idunn and begins to fly off with her, and then Loki is like “oh, shit, eagle? You didn’t actually say that you were going to abduct the poor woman, I just thought that maybe you wanted to take her out on a date or something,” and Idunn says “I can’t believe you’re standing up for me, this is so unlike you,” and Loki is like “honestly, I’m standing up for your fruit, we’re all going to age like prunes if you get taken away,” and the eagle cackles and says “I’m glad you kept your promise, Trickster god,” and Idunn is like “wait, what promise?” and the eagle sighs and says “the promise he made to me, the giant Thjazi in the guise of an eagle, keep up,” and then he flies away with Idunn and her basket of fruit, leaving Loki to stare wide-eyed into an empty sky, and Loki says “well, that went smoothly, I guess we’re all absolutely fucking fucked now,” and he goes home and doesn’t tell anybody what happened, because he’s pretty sure that no-one knows he’s the one to blame, and the world looks great from his high horse, and he has no intention of getting down now.

Pretty soon, the gods begin to realise that something’s amiss when they all start to age really rapidly. Odin can’t stop listening to public radio. Freyja gets mistaken for Kellyanne Conway twice. Even Baldr starts to rant about entitled millennials to anyone who’ll listen. They all get old as balls, is what I’m saying. Really old ones. Eventually, Odin calls an assembly, inviting all the gods, and he says “when did everyone last see Idunn?” and Frigg is like “pardon?” and Odin says, a little louder, “when did everyone last see Idunn?” and Frigg says “there’s no need to shout, dear,” and Loki coughs and says “well, I last saw her a few weeks ago, just categorising her fruit collection, nothing out of the ordinary, certainly no eagles,” and Thor frowns and says “hang on, I last saw her leaving Asgard with you,” and Freyja nods and then winces at a crick in her neck and says “me too, she looked really wary and you were talking to her about ethically dubious apples,” and Freyr says “and me, she was carrying her fruit basket and you were leading her into the forest,” and Odin narrows his eye and says “Loki, you little shit, what did you do?”

And Loki is like “oh my god, I’m so sick of being accused of literally everything around here. It’s like, someone steps in a massive pile of dog shit and everyone is like ‘Loki, what did you do?’ just because I’m the guy whose son is a wolf and I trained him to shit in Thor’s doorway. Like there aren’t any other gigantic dogs in Asgard who might be shitting in strategically inconvenient places and the doorways of the people I have personal beef with. Everything has to be my fault. Anyway, what was the question?” and Thor sort of roars then, except it’s more of a cough because he’s very tired, and he says “where did you take Idunn, Loki?” and Loki says “oh, sure, let’s blame Loki. Did you all forget that I also do good stuff, like helping you to get an impregnable wall around this entire place?” and Odin says “Loki, if you don’t tell us where Idunn is right now, I’ll allow Thor to beat you up,” and Loki pales at that, and then Thor says “you’ll have to give me a few hours, but when I’ve had my afternoon nap, I’ll get Mjolnir and I’ll intimately acquaint it with various parts of your body,” and Loki holds his hands up and says “look, lads, I’ll level with you, I sort of made a deal with that eagle who stole our meat and I told him that I’d take Idunn out of Asgard, but in my defence, I thought I’d just promised her to a giant eagle, not the frost giant Thjazi, which is who the eagle unfortunately turned out to be, but there’s literally no way I could have known that – ” and then Freyja just shrieks “you let a giant kidnap the goddess who looks after our supple skin? What is wrong with you?” and Loki says “in my defence, my son is a giant wolf,” and Freyja says “that’s not a defence at all,” and Loki says “I know, but I just wanted to remind you before you threatened me with grievous bodily harm again,” and Odin says “we can have storytime later, but right now, you need to get Idunn back.” Loki grins at that and he’s like “luckily, I have a cunning plan. Loki saves the day again,” and Thor says “you literally ruined the day, you bellend,” and Loki’s like “shh, let me have this.”

So, he gets Freyja to lend him her magic cloak made of falcon feathers and plot devices, which lets the holder transform into a falcon at will and is barely ever mentioned again, and he flies over to Thjazi’s place in Jotunheim. Either this house is incredibly well sign-posted or the cloak comes with GPS, because he finds it almost immediately. When he gets there, he peers through the open bay window on the ground floor, and he sees that Idunn is sitting inside at the kitchen table, taking all the fruit out of her basket and putting it into piles based on weight, size and juiciness. He flies through the open window and takes off the falcon feather cloak, making him look like himself again, and he’s like “psst! Idunn! It’s Loki, come to rescue you!” and Idunn looks up at him blithely and says “no way, I’m not going with you, I’m not falling for that again,” and Loki rolls his eyes and he’s like “please, it would be way too predictable for me to repeat that trick. Give me some credit. Variety is the spice of life, you know,” and Idunn mulls it over for a few seconds and then she says “how do I know you’re not tricking me again?” and Loki sighs and points to some of the wrinkles around his eyes, newly appeared, and says “you think I want to live like this much longer? It goes against everything that society’s frankly unattainable standards of beauty dictate that I should aspire to, and frankly it’s a nightmare,” and then Idunn’s eyes widen and she says “is Freyja ageing, too?” and Loki nods solemnly, and Idunn says “shit, I’d better get back before she sets Ragnarok in motion just to avoid hitting 30,” and she stands up and says “let’s go!”

Loki blinks and he’s like “won’t Thjazi hear us leave? Don’t we need a sneaky plan? I’m kind of great at those, I had this really great idea where maybe I fuck the eagle – ” and Idunn shakes her head and says “oh, no, he’s gone out hunting for the day and left me all on my own. It’s been really boring, honestly. I thought that being kidnapped by a giant would be exciting, but it’s mostly just sitting around and watching old reruns of Jeopardy by myself,” and Loki is like “you mean you’ve been here by yourself, by an open window, for all this time?” and Idunn nods, and Loki says “you do realise that we’ve all aged horribly while you’ve been twiddling your thumbs and taking ‘reasons why Thor is the absolute worst for 10, please’,” and Idunn says “well, you’ve learnt your lesson, then,” and then she claps her hands and says “let’s get the Hel out of here before he comes back and ruins this incredibly convenient plot device,” and Loki says “I know right, first the cloak and now this, everything is running suspiciously smoothly,” and then he turns her into a nut. Not just for the Vine, though – he then puts Freyja’s falcon cloak back on, picks up the Idunn-nut in his falcon talons, and flies out of the window and back to Asgard.

They’re nearly back when Loki hears the swoop of displaced air behind him and the sound of a familiar throat being cleared, and Thjazi is behind them, and he crows “surprise, bitch, bet you thought you’d seen the last of me,” and Loki sighs and he’s like “my guy, that meme is deader than Donald Trump’s ill-advised range of premium steaks, and also I’ve been wondering, how do you do the whole ‘transforming into an eagle’ thing? Do you have a magic feather cloak, too? Do you and Freyja have the same tailor? Because I’m thinking that maybe I need to get me a cloak like that, except does your tailor do other animals too, or is it just ornithology? I’d be super interested in, say, a horse cloak, if you could give me the number of your guy,” and Thjazi chuckles menacingly and he says “distraction won’t work on me, Trickster god, I’m far too clever for that,” and Loki says “cool, it’s a good thing then that you’ve definitely noticed that you’re about to fly right into a burning fire,” and as he says it, he swoops up and over the fire that the Aesir have started on a huge pile of wood shavings placed at the periphery of Asgard as a trap for Thjazi, who doesn’t have time to react before he flies right into it.

His wings ablaze, Thjazi can’t fly any more and he falls down into Asgard, where he’s immediately beaten to death by a bunch of old men and women, presumably with a couple of nap breaks. Thjazi dispatched, the gods chow down on some of Idunn’s tasty fruit of youth, except for Freyja, who gets it made into a summer berry mojito, because she deserves it after the week she’s had, and they immediately become young and hot again, like the cast of Teen Wolf instead of Last of the Summer Wine, and they all live happily ever after.

Until Thjazi’s daughter literally skis down from the nearest mountainside, hell-bent on avenging her father, but that’s a story for next week.

My other retellings can be found here; my dedicated mythology blog is here; and my Mythology Mondays Facebook page is here. My tiny, tiny book is here.

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mythologymondays · 8 years ago

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honestly I think you make pwyll out to be a better dude than he is like... the text indicates that he doesn't sleep with annwfn's wife out of respect for him and not due to any respect for her or consent or whatever, like it's more "oh hey I can't dishonour this awesome dude" which is why when this is revealed he's like "wow pwyll must be super loyal to me" instead of "wow pwyll is an excellent respecter of women". if that makes sense? like I'm not objecting I just don't think he deserves it

(cont’d) shit in my last ask I got arawn’s name wrong ughhhhhhh I always get themmuddled / back to front. ANYWAY basically I think your interpretation givespwyll too much credit and he doesn’t entirely merit it

Hello!! You make two very good points here. The first point is that ‘Arawn’and ‘Annwfn’ are ridiculously easy to mix up - I had to do a Ctrl+F and fix allthe times I did that myself in the retelling, so you’re not alone on thatfront. The second point is that yes, in the Mabinogion text, Pwyll’sreasoning for ‘sleeping chastely next to’ Arawn’s wife instead of using hisdisguise to get some matrimonial action (remember, Pwyll himself isn’t married,so it would be his first opportunity as a ‘married man’) isn’t out of a senseof respect for her consent, or any desire not to trick her into sleeping withhim - it’s literally entirely because he wants to respect Arawn, who hastreated him fairly and properly. You’re right!

However, I think I would probably have to disagree with you that I ‘madePwyll out to be a better dude than he is’, and this is because I didn’tactually change Pwyll’s character at all, even though I did amend hisreasoning. One very important part of Pwyll’s character in the Mabinogion,and something I tried to allude to multiple times (hence the running joke abouthis love of formal greetings), is his insistence on morality and etiquette.Pwyll’s character throughout the Mabinogion is honestly completelyobsessed with etiquette and justice. It’ll come up in the next part of theretelling (spoiler alert!) but Pwyll is very often obsessively polite, often tohis own detriment, but also to his credit.

Two good examples of this come from the Rhiannon episode of his narrative;in one instance, Pwyll is so keen to please a guest at his wedding to Rhiannon,in line with the Celtic / Medieval moral code of respecting guests as a host(it could represent the moral code of when the Mabinogion was set orwritten, or both) that he ends up accidentally promising his fiancee to anotherman. This is a pretty good example of how Pwyll’s insistence on doingthe Right Thing, such as it was codified in the morality of his time, isintegral to his character, even when it’s not necessarily the most convenientthing for him to do.

This does have its upsides; when Rhiannon is later accused of infanticide,Pwyll again falls back on the fact that, as prince of Dyfed, he is expected tohave a legitimate heir, and he knows that Rhiannon is both noble and fertile(and also the love of his life), and so he doesn’t have her executed - a goodthing, as it turns out, because Rhiannon was falsely accused. Again, Pwyllwould be totally within his legal rights here, as the wronged husband and theprince, to have her put to death, but he doesn’t, because his own moral codewon’t allow it. He chooses a punishment instead which will make Rhiannonrepeatedly admit her crimes and suffer until she has atoned for them; hedoesn’t let her off the hook, but he doesn’t kill her, either. Instead, alittle like Arawn, he gives her a chance to redeem herself.

A lot of Pwyll’s actions, to us, might seem strange and amoral, i.e. notconcerned with morality, but rather just the idiosyncracies of an obsessiveman. This is because Pwyll isn’t adhering to a moral code that we nowrecognise. The episode at the wedding is probably the best example of this.Nowadays, if it’s our wedding, it’s generally expected that our wedding guestswill want to make us happy on our big day; we want our guests to have a goodtime, but ultimately the day is about us, and we’re not going to go out of ourway to make sure that, I don’t know, the brother of the bride’s best friend’suncle has everything he wants. In Medieval Wales - and possibly also CelticWales - this wasn’t the case. Your responsibilities as a host extended farbeyond what they do today, and as the host of an event - even your own wedding- you were morally responsible for welcoming your guests, keeping themcomfortable, and respecting what they wanted. In turn, your guests wouldrespect your authority in your space and behave according to proper moralcodes, even if they hated your guts and you’d killed their cousin in a duel;the guest/host relationship was one where hostilities were supposed to beforgotten.

A very famous example of just how important this guest/host relationship wasis the behaviour of the De Braose family in 1175. William de Braose, the Lordof Abergavenny (truly an illustrious title), had something of a grudge againstseveral other Welsh princes and leaders. Subsequently, he invited them all overto his castle at Abergavenny, telling them that he wanted to gloss things overand start afresh, without any malice between them, at the end of the year,which, in Welsh tradition, was a recognised practice. The guests all dutifullyturned up without their weapons, as was part of the unspoken guest/host contract,and De Braose promptly had them massacred. His reputation never recovered fromthis, not just because of the brutal nature of his act, but also because of howhe had abused cultural codes of morality.

So, that tangent aside, it’s pretty clear that Pwyll’s morality is one ofthe key tenets of his character. All things considered, he’s a pretty good dude;he’s just good in a way that we don’t instantly recognise as good. When I wasdoing that retelling of his narrative, I decided that, for the reasons I’veoutlined above, it was important to get across his strict adherence to moralcodes, and that the best way to do this would be to make his moral coderecognisably, well, moral. Subsequently, I turned his refusal to sleep withArawn’s wife into an issue of respect for her consent, as issues of consent arenow deeply (and rightfully) embedded into our cultural idea of what is moral. Idid something similar with Arawn’s wife, who, in the original text, accepts ‘Arawn’s’wishes purely because she is his wife and doesn’t have the right to demand anythingelse; in my version, I made her respect Arawn’s decision out of a wish tomaintain mutual consent. I also named her, albeit a bit jokily, because ourmodern idea of morality tends to say that ‘Arawn’s wife’ isn’t really asuitable name for a character who has such a big role to play in the narrative,just because she’s a woman.

This has been a very long-winded way of saying that I don’t think I did makePwyll into a better dude than he actually is, or give him too much credit; Ithink I just transferred his credit into a form that we would now recognise,because one of the key reasons I like doing these retellings is to make themaccessible to a modern audience, and I think that sometimes means bringing someof the character motivations up to date so that they’re more in keeping withwhat a modern reader would understand. Myth is constantly being reworked andchanged to keep it relevant, and changing Pwyll’s reasoning for cockblockinghimself is just my small contribution to that long held tradition.

Sources:

Boisvert, Raymond (2006) Personalism, Pluralism, and Guest-Host Ambiguity, The Pluralist, 1(1) 31-39

Chandler, Kirtsie (2002) Patriarchy and Power in Medieval Welsh Literature, Proceedingsof the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 22, 80-95

Holden, Brock (2001) King John, the Braoses, and the Celtic Fringe,1207-1216, Albion: A QuarterlyJournal Concerned with British Studies, 33(1) 1-23

Mandel,Jerome (1975) Proper Behavior in Chrétien’s Charrette: The Host-GuestRelationship, The French Review, 48(4) 683-689

Stacey,Robin (2002) Divorce, Medieval Welsh Style, Speculum, 77(4) 1107-1127

#myth analysis #mabinogi #welsh mythology #mabinogion #pwyll #arawn #i wish i could tag paula #but no

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mythologymondays · 8 years ago

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Sorry for bothering you, I just wanted to ask if you've seen that post about the 'original version of Persephone's kidnapping' myth going around, where she doesn't actually get kidnapped but just sort of... wanders into the underworld? Is that even a little accurate as far as you know or another made-up tumblr retelling?

It’s a load of WANK

I have actually added this to the original post, but obviously there are about 780 versions of that post floating around at this point and nearly all of them are like ‘omg i’m so glad that this 100% unverified post about persephone proves that everyone has been wrong about the myth for the past hundreds of years… thank god for no sources <3′

But anyway, here are my thoughts on the matter. It would probably help to have the original post open at the same time, as this response does make some close references to it:

A disclaimer, first of all: any post that says THIS IS THE ORIGINAL MYTH is going to be wank, because we don’t know what the original myth was - we only have the first written sources, but without a time machine there’s just no way of finding out how the myth developed in an oral tradition. So already, we can debunk about 80% of that post. Groovy.

The first source we have for Persephone being carried away is in Hesiod’s Theogony, written in the 8th or 7th century BC. We also have the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, written in the 7th or 6th century BC, which is explicitly about her being taken away by Hades.

Hesiod is one of the oldest Greek sources that we have, roughly contemporaneous with Homer. We don’t have any earlier sources than this which say ‘hey, Persephone went to Hades because she thought it would be cool’. A lot of people have theorised that this could have been an original, or at least an earlier tradition, but it’s about 60% wishful thinking, 20% misinterpreting evidence (i.e. assuming that Persephone and Demeter used to be aspects of a great mother goddess, which they weren’t) and about 20% conjecture based on actual rational thought (i.e. the fact that the oldest written source we have is about an abduction doesn’t mean that it is the original source; there could be older non-extant written sources or just oral tales which pre-dated writing). It’s not fact.

It’s true that Homer himself never explicitly says that Persephone was abducted - he just describes her as Hades’ wife - but he also doesn’t say that she wasn’t abducted; it could well be that the myth of her abduction was so well known that he had no need to recount it.

It is true that Persephone’s name was Kore, which means ‘maiden’; however, this could be an epithet because she was unmarried. It’s also theorised that it was a euphemism of sorts for when people didn’t want to name Persephone outright; again, this is a theory. Lots of gods had epithets - basically cooler names which underlined some of their core attributes, e.g. Apollo = Loxias, which highlights Apollo’s powers of prophecy. Unlike the post claims, the name ‘Persephone’ does not definitively mean death / destroyer; the etymology is unknown. The ‘death / destroyer’ theory is just one of many, and others are based around ideas of harvest and grain.

The reason Zeus got involved wasn’t just because he was tasked with sorting out justice - it was because he had told Hades ‘hey, you want a wife? Cool! Abduct my daughter, Persephone. Her mum totally won’t mind,’ and then when Persephone’s mother did mind, Zeus was like ‘I fucked up real bad, I should sort this shit out.’ In Ancient Greece, women didn’t have to consent in the same way as we do now. Abduction marriages were actually illegal (or at least very very naughty) but the bride’s consent basically took the form of her father saying ‘you’ll marry this dude, right? Yeah, cool. She’ll marry you, dude.’ Here, Zeus gives Persephone’s consent to Hades by telling Hades that he can marry her - this is why technically she wasn’t exactly abducted, because the necessary consent - her father’s - was given. HOWEVER, let’s not get into Greek law here. She was abducted by our standards.

It is also true that Persephone became a very feared goddess and basically had a great time in the Underworld. She wasn’t exactly more terrible than Hades, though; there are certain myths (e.g. Sisyphus and Orpheus) where she’s the one who says ‘Hades, babe, shall we give this guy a chance to make his way out of the Underworld alive?’ HOWEVER, she did usually do this with the implementation of specific terms, meaning that she had a level of control in proceedings which a lot of other wife goddesses didn’t have over their respective spouses’ spheres. Most mythological canons also give her and Hades a very healthy and monogamous relationship (with the exception of Orphism, which is a bit more iffy on that front) so, disregarding the abduction part of her myth, their marriage was really relatively healthy, even by modern standards. Also, Persephone did not ‘lay the smack down on sinners’, as quoted in the original post - the whole idea of sinners is basically a Christian concept. The Underworld was not Hell. It wasn’t a place for bad people. It was just where the dead went. Tartarus was the place where the really bad guys went to be tortured and shit, and is more indicative of Christian notions of Hell. People weren’t punished in the Underworld. They just went there.

I love the idea of Persephone as a consenting wife of Hades. I am a fan of modern reinterpretations in which she chooses to eat the pomegranate seeds willingly, or where she falls in love with Hades and goes to the Underworld of her own accord. However, these are modern interpretations, based on modern gender politics and ideas of reclamation and representation. I will forever fight for people’s right to reinterpret myths however they like, but this whole idea of the ‘original myth’ of Persephone being devoid of any misogynistic undertones really needs to die.

I think it also speaks to a worrying argument that in order to empower Persephone, some people need to remove her trauma. Why can’t Persephone be a terrible dread queen of the Underworld and a survivor? Why should her experiences need to be erased in order to make her into a strong woman? If you ask me, she’s already stronger than Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. I don’t think that the modern need to reframe Persephone as architect of her own descent into the Underworld is necessarily as progressive as others think it is. I think it sends the message that a strong woman always has agency, and I actually think that a better message to send would be that it’s totally possible to lose your agency and still retain your strength, because you define yourself through your own actions, not what is done to you.

tl;dr any post that makes a broad sweeping claim like ‘hey this greek myth was originally like this and u r all wrong’ without any sources is what my tutor would call ‘specious’ and what I call ‘bollocks’.

#a few people asked me to clarify my tags on that previous post #about why i personally am of the 'persephone was abducted' camp #and this is why

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mythologymondays · 8 years ago

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Everybody grab a pumpkin, it’s time for a spooky Halloween tale. This time, it’s the story of Pwyll from Welsh mythology, who embarks on a treacherous journey into the bowels of the Underworld to do penance for a terrible, terrible wrong. Read on, if you dare. Sources and some extra spooky info under the cut. Pretend that I’m cackling evilly.

Press J on your keyboard if you don’t want to read a terrifying yarn about the interior decorating trends of the Underworld and, like, the power of friendship.

Cockblocking yourself because of dogs: pre-Medieval etiquette 101

So our story starts with Pwyll, the prince of Dyfed, which sounds kind of underwhelming until you remember that Welsh princes are basically kings, which sounds really impressive until you remember that Dyfed is approximately the size of a root vegetable and about as sparsely populated. Anyway, Pwyll is sort of swanning around one day, on one of his royal visits to his favourite court at Arberth (no relation to the hot bearded guy in The Mummy with the face tats) when he decides to partake in a spot of hunting, because he’s a pre-medieval prince and therefore he only has two hobbies, one of which is hunting and the other is converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.

So, he gathers up his hunting dogs and his multipurpose horse, and he sets out into the forest to murder some woodland creatures in the name of sport. After a few hours, Pwyll starts to get bored, because it’s not going so well. He hasn’t caught so much as an earthworm, and he really can’t face the thought of going back to Arberth without at least a baby rabbit or two, because all the other lords will laugh at him and tell him to ‘Pwyll off’ again, which secretly really upsets him and also gives you, the reader, a decent idea of how to pronounce his fucking abomination of a name. He’s considering his options, wondering whether or not he could stick some rabbit ears onto one of his dogs and call it a catch, when he hears the baying sound of a pack of hunting dogs in the near distance.

At first, he’s like “I can’t believe that someone else is hunting in my forests, who would do this? Who would trespass on my royal land? They could at least have invited me to go with them so that I didn’t have to spend, like, 80% of my time brooding about my solitude as an unmarried Welsh prince whose nearest friends live a six hour ride away,” but then he realises something and his mouth sort of quirks upwards in a fiendish grin, and he heads towards the sound of the dogs. When he gets there, he sees that a pack of dogs have just brought down and killed a stag, and not just any stag, but a bloody big one. There’s enough meat on it to feed his dogs and still have enough meat to take back to his court and return a hero of the hunt, and so Pwyll chases off the dogs, who all look really weird, because they’re all bright, glowing white with bright, glowing red ears, and he lets his dogs eat the stag.

He’s on his way back home when suddenly this dude appears on horseback, and his face is hidden by a grey hood which casts dark shadows over his visage that shouldn’t be possible, but if his face were visible, it’s pretty evident that he’d look pretty pissed off. The rider comes up to Pwyll, dismounts from his horse, which is the exact same shade of grey as the rider’s cloak, and he surveys the scene, looking at all the various viscera and bits of stag, and then he turns to Pwyll and he says “look, mate, I know exactly who you are, but if you think you’re getting some kind of formal greeting from me, you can just jog right on.”

Pwyll would take a step back, except he’s on horseback, so he sort of squeezes his heels into his horse’s sides and makes his horse take a step back on his behalf, and he glares at this weird grey dude, because he has no idea where this dude was dragged up, but Pwyll is fully aware that formal greetings are, like, a huge deal. Pwyll is the kind of guy who formally greets everyone, because he’s not an ingrate, and if he sometimes gets some weird looks when he names himself and wishes a good day to each of his bed bugs in turn, then it’s all fine because at least he is polite.

Because Pwyll is polite, he resists the urge to just yank down this guy’s hood and lecture him on pre-medieval etiquette until he’s blue in the face, and instead he just furrows his brow benevolently and says “my dude, you don’t need to formally greet me if your status is higher than mine, don’t sweat it,” because he thinks that giving this guy some kind of out is probably the right thing to do, but the guy just shrugs and says “it’s got fuck all to do with status, mate, it’s your goddamn atrocious manners.”

And Pwyll won’t stand for that, because he knows he’s a righteous and courteous dude, and he has like 500 bed bugs who will attest to that in a court of law, and so he dismounts from his horse and takes two steps closer to the grey hooded dude and says, in a low and foreboding voice, “can you extrapolate exactly what I’ve done wrong? Can you explain to me what the fu- what exactly you mean, so that I can do my utmost best to rectify it?”

At that, the guy turns around and points at Pwyll’s dogs, who have just about finished chowing down on fresh venison and are all smeared with, like, blood and guts, like that popular gif of a rabbit eating a raspberry, except it’s stag innards and not a popular summer fruit, and the guy says “you fed your dogs on my dogs’ kill. Not cool, man. Not cool at all,” and then Pwyll’s stomach plummets because he suddenly remembers page 7291 of his portable pre-medieval etiquette guidebook, and this guy is totally right, and Pwyll has totally fucked up, and he feels awful.

He claps a hand to the grey guy’s shoulder and starts wittering, like “I’m sorry, buddy, that’s totally on me, I’ve never done anything like this before, this is so out of character for me, ask literally anybody, normally I make my dogs slaughter their own food, I don’t even feed them Pedigree Chum because it goes against my pre-medieval etiquette and morals,” and then he has an idea, and he says “look, I’ll make it up to you in a way that’s becoming of your rank, OK?” And he’s pretty sure that he’s just resolved everything, because this guy basically admitted earlier that Pwyll outranks him, so nothing can really go wrong, and maybe he’ll have to, like, pay a fine, or mop a floor, or marry an ugly third cousin or something. Except then the guy says “sweet, sounds good to me. I’m Arawn, king of Annwfn. How do you feel about killing my sworn nemesis in the Underworld?” and Pwyll just thinks ‘oh, shit.’

So Pwyll grits his teeth and puts on this really calm smile, even though he feels sicker than Kylie Jenner at a copyright infringement hearing, and he says “that sounds fucking fantastic, mate, honestly, but I have loads of stuff to be getting on with here, what with me being the prince of Dyfed and all, so I’m not sure I’ll have time to kill your sworn nemesis, my six or seven subjects need me,” and Arawn claps a hand onto Pwyll’s shoulder, who still has his hand clasped to Arawn’s shoulder, and he’s like “don’t worry, bro, I’ve got a plan. This is what we’ll do. I’ll do some of my trademark magic stuff and I’ll switch our appearances, and I’ll go and live as you for a year, and you go and live as me, and on the final day of that year, you’ll find that prick Hafgan and bash his head in, and then we’ll switch back. Does that sound good to you?”

And Pwyll just thinks ‘no, that sounds literally the opposite to good, honestly,’ but he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on here, so he just nods, tight-lipped, and then he asks “but how will I find this Hafgan chap? If I have to, erm, vanquish him on the final day, where will he be?” And Arawn just airily waves a grey-gloved hand and he’s all “don’t worry, pal, I’ve sorted it. By some astonishing coincidence and definitely not my trademark magic stuff, I’ve arranged a meeting with Hafgan for a year today at this very spot,” and Pwyll bites his tongue and says dully “wow, what are the chances?” and Arawn probably beams under his stupid hood and he’s like “I know, crazy,” and then the deal is done.

So, Pwyll follows Arawn to the entrance of Annwfn, because of course the Underworld is located in Dyfed, and then he suddenly realises that he’s not looking at Arawn any more, but at himself, and he’s like “wow, I had no idea that my parting looked like that from the side,” and Arawn-as-Pwyll nods sagely and says “it’s really just the worst, I might change up your hairdo while I’m living as you, because honestly I can’t live like this,” and Pwyll doesn’t even disagree, and then Arawn adds “oh, and before I go and live as you for a year, there’s some stuff you should probably know,” and Pwyll sighs and says “go on, then,” and Arawn says “right, well, first of all you should know that killing Hafgan is going to be an absolute fucking walk in the park, because all you have to do is smack him once and that’s it,” and Pwyll is like “right in the kisser?” and Arawn says “I don’t think it matters where, honestly, but you have to only hit him once and no more, that’s the important thing,” and Pwyll is all “OK, sock him once and only once in the kisser, I get it, but why do I need to kill him, exactly?” and Arawn says “because he’s the other king of Annwfn, and also he’s a knob,” and Pwyll is like “how come there are two kings?” and Arawn scowls and says “because Welsh inheritance law is simultaneously surprisingly progressive and a pain in the dick, but honestly the whole split kingdom thing is only 30% of it. The main reason I need him dead is the fact that he’s honestly just the absolute worst,” and Pwyll is like “how is he the worst?” and Arawn says “look, I don’t have time to go into it right now, but he once sent a love letter to a woman which consisted entirely of small images of an aubergine,” and Pwyll is like “how did he even dictate that to a scribe?” and Arawn is like “I don’t know, but you see my reasoning, don’t you?”

And then Pwyll asks “What else do I need to know?” and Arawn sort of waggles his eyebrows, which is weird because he’s wearing Pwyll’s skin but Pwyll has never been able to do that and he’s insanely jealous, and Arawn says “the other thing that you need to know is that my wife is smoking hot,” and Pwyll narrows his eyes and he’s like “OK, and what?” and Arawn says “it’s entirely up to you what you do with that information, I just thought you should know,” and then he disappears and Pwyll is alone at the entrance to Annwfn, wearing the appearance of the king of the Underworld, and it’s only a Thursday.

When he gets inside the court at Annwfn, Pwyll is shocked to see that this place is, like, decked the fuck out. It’s insane how beautiful everything is. The staircases are made of solid gold, the ceilings are made of rich, crimson velvet, and the walls are lined with intricate tapestries which depict Arawn doing a whole range of heroic things, like slaying his enemies in fields of blood and attending charity galas and speaking at climate change summits. Pwyll keeps walking through the court until he gets to what he assumes is his chamber, where he’s greeted by an attendant. His first thought is to panic, because he’s pretty sure that they’re going to immediately work out that he isn’t Arawn at all, but then he steels himself and arranges his facial features into what he imagines Arawn’s might look like under that dumb grey hood, and he says, “formal greetings to you, attendant. I am Arawn, king of Annwfn,” and his attendant frowns and says “I know, sir, I’ve been working for you for eleven years,” and Pwyll says “I’m just being polite, I noticed that there’s been a real dearth of manners in these parts lately and I want to remedy it,” and his attendant looks at him a little strangely and then hands him a wonderfully brocaded jacket, all gold and emerald, and says “the queen has already gone to the main hall for dinner, sir,” and Pwyll nods in what he hopes is a sage and noble manner and says “I always feed my dogs on their own meat, you know, and no-one else’s,” and the attendant sighs and says “I know, sir, you’re very proud of that.”

He follows his attendant down to the great hall, which is decorated, if it’s possible, even more sumptuously than the rest of the court. The long table in the centre of the room is made of varnished oak, with little carvings along the edge of animals and gods and emojis, and all along one side of the table are sat the knights of Annwfn, whose armour is made of pure silver and gold, and who each have dozens of finely polished, beautifully wrought weapons. Along the other side are sat the courtiers, who all wear fashionable and finely made gowns, even the men, because gendered notions of fashion are not universal. And at the head of the table, in the seat next to the one which Pwyll’s attendant is guiding him to, is sat the most beautiful woman that Pwyll has ever seen. Like, it’s indescribable how beautiful this woman is. Pwyll feels his mouth run dryer than Donald Trump’s income tax account, and, legs shaking, he lowers himself into the seat next to her. She turns to him and smiles at him, and Pwyll’s stomach flips over like one of the cats in those videos with the cucumbers, and he manages to say “formal greetings, wife, I am Arawn, lord of Annwfn,” and she just keeps smiling at him and says “I’ve always admired your excellent manners, dear. You know that I don’t merit a name for the purpose of this narrative in its original form, but you may call me Paula, husband of mine, as you have done for the past dozen or so years of our marriage,” and Pwyll just blushes furiously.

Over the course of the meal – which is, Pwyll is unsurprised to discover, Michelin star quality – Paula is a total babe, laughing at all of Pwyll’s jokes, even the rubbish one about the mailman and the medieval etiquette tutor, and when they finally retire to bed, Pwyll is also unsurprised to discover that he is experiencing some difficulty in the trouser department. Paula notices this and she does that thing with her eyebrows that Arawn did, and Pwyll starts to wonder if it’s just an Underworld thing, and she says “is that a hunting knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” and Pwyll says carefully “it’s a hunting knife, dear, for when I go hunting and feed my dogs on nothing but the animals they kill,” and Paula frowns and says “I was doing an innuendo thing, you normally love the innuendo thing,” and Pwyll doesn’t say anything, because he has no idea what to do. He’s pretty sure that it’s bad form on about eighty levels to sleep with Paula, because firstly she’s not his wife, and secondly it’s impossible to obtain informed consent from her when he’s wearing the guise of her husband.

So, Pwyll does the decent thing, and says “look, dear, I’m desperately attracted to you, as always, but I am experiencing some personal difficulties which pertain to events outside of our relationship, and which are, I assure you, thoroughly platonic and non-sexual in context, and accordingly, I think we should forego the hanky panky for the time being,” and Paula says “you could just say that you’re not in the mood, you know, I get ‘headaches’ too sometimes,” and Pwyll says “yes, but I think this might last a year,” and Paula shrugs and says “our marriage has always been based on more than just our devastatingly ferocious chemistry between the sheets, and I am here to support you through your journey of personal growth and discovery as best I can,” and so they have a slightly awkward hug goodnight and then go to bed.

And that’s how it is between them for an entire year. Pwyll and Paula become the best of friends, and she never even suspects that he’s anyone but Arawn, because he’s very careful to mention every other sentence or so that he always feeds his dogs on their own meat, which is something that he knows Arawn feels strongly about, and then, before he even knows it, the whole year has passed, and it’s time to fuck up Hafgan.

He goes to the meeting place, where Hafgan is already waiting for him, and immediately he just dislikes this dude. Hafgan has one of those faces where you think you’ve seen him before, but it’s actually just because he’s super bland and good-looking in the kind of way that men who star in advertisements for carpet cleaning products sometimes are, and Pwyll honestly wants to kill him. He’s brought his attendant with him, and Hafgan has brought his, and a whole load of courtiers from both Arawn’s and Hafgan’s court have come to watch the duel, and some of them are chanting ‘fight, fight, fight’ and some of them are eating popcorn out of beautifully crafted silver dishes, and Pwyll feels his adrenaline rush like shoppers to a Black Friday deal, and he pulls up his sleeves to his elbows and says “formal greetings, I – ” and Hafgan just waves a hand and says “yeah, yeah, you’re Arawn. I know. Christ, what is it with you and manners?” and Pwyll says “I’m going to challenge the fuck out of you right now,” and Hafgan says “bring it on, Manners,” and wordplay has never been Pwyll’s forte, so he just lunges forward with his sword and stabs Hafgan right through his chest.

Hafgan stares down at his wound, and he’s like “dude, seriously? That’s just super painful. I mean, I’m in complete agony right now. The least you could do would be to kill me like a king. Put the ‘man’ into ‘Manners’, mate, and finish me off.” But Pwyll remembers what Arawn told him, so he just shrugs and says “not my problem any more, pal. Put the ‘have gone’ into ‘Hafgan’ and get out of here, would you? Find someone else to finish you off,” and then Hafgan just groans and says “lads, I’ll be honest with you, he’s properly dicked me over this time, so you should probably go and swear fealty to him while I go and slowly bleed out in this corner over here,” and his attendant carries him off to die slowly and painfully, and Pwyll realises that he’s just won the entirety of Annwfn on behalf of Arawn, and honestly he feels kind of great about it.

So, Pwyll goes to the meeting place he and Arawn had arranged the year before, where Arawn is waiting for him. As soon as Arawn sees him, he breaks into a smile and he’s like “Pwyll, my guy! We can finally change back! I’m so excited to be myself again, you never told me that your knee was so dodgy, mate,” and Pwyll is about to say something when he realises that his knee is twinging, and he’s back as himself again. Arawn says “wait ‘til you get back to your court, pal, you’re going to be thrilled with what you find,” and Pwyll is like “same to you,” and they exchange an awkward silence and then Arawn sniffs and says “come here, bro, let’s hug it out,” and Pwyll feels tears welling up behind his eyes and he says “it’s been so emotional,” and Arawn says “I know, pal, you just did me a massive solid back there, and I owe you one,” and Pwyll says “if you owe me one, then I guess that means we’ll have to meet up again so that I can call in the favour,” and Arawn says “mate, you’re welcome at my court any time, I have this totally rad new bard who recites poetry like you wouldn’t believe, hit me up sometime,” and Pwyll says through his tears “that sounds good to me,” and they let go of each other and just sort of look at each other for a few moments, then Arawn awkwardly punches Pwyll on the arm and says “go on, get out of here, Pwyll off,” and Pwyll sniffs and laughs and says “it’s OK when you say it,” and they part ways.

When Arawn gets back to Annwfn, he goes to find Paula and he says “is that an embroidery bag in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” and Paula says “have you worked through your personal problems in a safe and supportive environment?” and Arawn frowns and says “you what?” and Paula says “well, it’s just that you haven’t really touched me for a year, and I want to make sure that this is coming from a healthy place in you, you know,” and Arawn’s mouth falls open and he says “you didn’t sleep with me all year?” and Paula is like “I mean, I feel like you should also be aware of that,” and Arawn just shakes his head and he’s like “oh, Paula, I have something to tell you, and it starts with the day I met my new best friend, who is a man of great integrity, honour and fealty, after he let his dogs eat the flesh of an animal they hadn’t killed,” and Paula puts her hand on Arawn’s knee and says “I’m definitely listening to you, but also you should put your face in the vicinity of my face,” and Arawn says “I can do one better than that,” and then the whole scene fades to black and slow ‘80s synth music starts to play.

And when Pwyll gets back to his court, he finds his advisor and he asks him “so, indulge me, one man to another, how do you think I did as a prince this year?” and his advisor looks at him suspiciously, like he’s afraid to answer honestly, and Pwyll’s heart sinks, because he can’t believe that he spent the entire year cockblocking himself and improving the bureaucratic infrastructure of Annwfn, only for Arawn to make a total hash of his time in Dyfed, and he says “you can be honest,” and his advisor sighs and says “my lord, you were a better prince this year than you’ve ever been before. You totally revolutionised the tax system, made peace with Gwynedd, and planted a truly delightful herb garden on the front lawn, and you stopped formally greeting every single sentient entity you came across. The year was a delight, my lord,” and Pwyll just blinks and says “can you get a fruit basket made up? I’d like to send it to the one true king of the Underworld.”

And from that day onwards, Dyfed and Annwfn are united under the banner of an immortal friendship, and Pwyll becomes known as Pwyll Pen Annwfn, and no-one ever dares tell him to Pwyll off ever again, because Arawn has a tendency to glare threateningly in the direction of anyone who does, but it’s still OK when Arawn says it, and they live happily ever after.

Until Pwyll falls in love with a magic woman on a horse, but that’s a story for another day.

My other retellings can be found here; my dedicated mythology blog is here; and my Mythology Mondays Facebook page is here. My spooky, spooky book is here.