Day Nineteen: Tolkien the Plagiarist?

J.R.R. Tolkien was once a professor of Anglo-Saxon studies at Oxford universities, so it makes sense that most of his stories have something or other to do with Anglo-Saxon (Norse) mythology. A few things that I noticed specifically:
He used many of the dwarf names from Edda in The Hobbit
Gandalf was the name of one dwarf (I guess he thought it sounded more like a wizard's name?)
He wrote several languages to use in The Lord of the Rings, but they all have a distinct Saxon sound to them

But was he a plagiarist?

I don't think so. While names of things like "Gandalf" and "Middle-Earth" were sort of taken, and of course the general ideas of a world of elves and dwarves sound remarkably like Edda, the actual plot is different. There is no Thor, no Midgard serpents. Beyond that, there are no hobbits in Edda! As well as no ents, no Mordor, no Sauron. So he had to come up with the actual story himself, and maybe just borrowed some of the setting.

Thoughts?

Day Eighteen: Mysterious Mistletoe

As was mentioned today in class, mistletoe was Bragi's weakness, the plant that was "too young" to be asked not to harm him. (Maybe mistletoe came to Norway later than most plants?) So why is mistletoe associated with Christmas and kissing?

According to the internet, there are two types of mistletoe: Viscum album from Europe, which is what would have killed Bragi, and Phoradendron flavescens, native to North America and used for Christmas traditions.

Viscus Album

Phoradendron Flavescens

In Europe, mistletoe was highly regarded for centuries for mystical powers. It was believed to bring fertility, protection against poison, and serve as an aphrodisiac. It was sometimes used in ceremonies involving the sacrifice of two white bulls to renew the king and his consort, so it was probably also considered a symbol of the goddess.

Meanwhile, in Greece, mistletoe was used in the festival Saturnalia and primitive marriage rites, and it became a symbol of peace. Because of this, people would meet under mistletoe with their enemies and shake hands or warring spouses would kiss under it to end conflict. The tradition of kissing under mistletoe at Christmas allegedly began in England in the eighteenth century, and anyone who remained under mistletoe without being kissed could not expect to marry in the next year.

Day Seventeen: Musical Bricolage

According to the great god Wiki, "bricolage" comes from the French verb "bricoler" (brick-oh-lay), which means   "to fiddle" or "to tinker." Originally, I was going to talk about someone in society who might be seen as a bricoleur, but then I found something much more interesting--musical bricolage.

Musical or instrumental bricolage means using non-musical objects to improvise music. Hermes making the tortoise into a lyre would be one example, and a few other interesting ones are:

Spoons

Wax paper comb

"Stomp," which is a performing art that involves dancing and creating music with common household things like brooms, garbage cans and pots.



Comments
Now the real question is, does this make any of them tricksters, and how are you a bricoleur?

Day Sixteen: Children of Hermes

Here we have Hermes, god of commerce and thieves, guide to the underworld and messenger of the Olympians. According to the internet, he may have fathered as many as thirty-five children! I guess the winged sandals must have been pretty sexy, no?


So here's a list of the most important kids:

Pan: son of Hermes and the nymph Dryope. He was a satyr and invented the panpipe, which you can see in this picture. He was a trickster and supposedly lured people into the woods with his pipe and then did horrible nasty things to them.

Hermaphroditus: son of Hermes and Aphrodite, goddess of love. He fell in love with the nymph Salmacis, who asked the gods to make it so they would never be apart. They embraced in a pool and were subsequently turned into a hermaphrodite. Hermaphroditus then cursed the pool so that any man who entered it would be castrated.

Priapus: son of Hermes and Aphrodite, cursed by Hera because of his mother's promiscuity. Her curse gave him an enormous permanent erection. Minor fertility god, guardian of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and protector of male genitalia.

Eros (Cupid): son of Hermes and Aphrodite, although he may have been the son of Ares, Hephaestus, or just sprung from thin air. God of love and given magical arrows to pierce lovers' hearts.

Tyche: daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite. (Man, those two got it on!) Also known as Fortuna, she was the goddess of luck and destiny. She wore a crown shaped like the walls of a city.







Autolycus: no photo available unfortunately, he was the son of Hermes and Chione. Apparently Hermes put Chione to sleep and raped her. Autolycus wasn't all that exciting, but he was the grandfather of Odysseus, which would make Odysseus one-eighth god.

Day Fifteen: Herms

For your viewing pleasure, a few herms from around the world:

<-- Herm of Demosthenes

Unknown herm

Herm of Fundilia Rufa

Another unknown herm. This one seems older than the others.

Day Fourteen: The Cult of Attis

For the great number of people who missed class today, here's a little back story on Attis: He was the child of Agdistis, who was the child of either Hera sponaneously reproducing or a man jacking off on a rock. Agdistis was a hermaphrodite and was wreaking havoc, so the gods tied its man parts to a tree while it slept. When it woke up, it jumped back and became female. Unfortunately, "she" soon died from blood loss (menstration implications?) and a tree grew from "her" blood. A while later, a princess sat under said tree and a pomegranite/almond fell onto her lap/breasts, depending on the version. She gave birth to Attis.

Attis was raised on "he-goat milk" (your guess is as good as mine . . .) and, being the son of a tree and the grandson of a rock, he was a very handsome young man. He is also rumored to have been related to King Minos (symolism of goddess?). He was so handsome that Cybele, the goddess of the earth, fell in love with him. He did not reciprocate and decided to marry a woman named Sangarius. Cybele was so angry that she showed up at his wedding in all of her goddess-y fury, which drove him mad to the extent that he castrated himself and died from the blood loss. Cybele/gods/somebody was so upset that he was resurrected into a pine tree.


Now we come to the exciting part!

The Cult of Attis supposedly began around 1200 B.C. It involved going into the forest and cutting down a pine tree. The tree was decorated with ornaments and carved figures of Attis and Cybele, and everybody danced around in a frenzy and cut themselves, believing that the spattered blood might resurrect Attis. Every year, a few men would get so impassioned during the festival that--get this--they would willingly castrate themselves. These men would then hit the figure of Cybele with their, ahem, severed limbs, then run wildly through the streets and throw their *cough* limbs into the doorway of a house. That house was responsible for giving them women's clothes.

Note: none of this is made up. Seriously.

Day Thirteen: Theophany

The word "theophany" comes from the Greek word "theophania," meaning "appearance of god." I like the Britannica definition: "manifestation of deity in sensible form."

Theophany is also one of the feasts celebrated by the Orthodox church. It occurs on January 6 and celebrates the baptism of Jesus and appearance of the Trinity. According to orthodoxwiki (yeah, that really exists! Crazy, huh?), it's sometimes also referred to as "Epiphany," although apparently that applies more to the feast celebrating the Magi coming to give gifts to baby Jesus. (Does anyone else ever feel like traditional Catholics just really, really liked feasting?)

<-- the theophany of Christ



There are tons of great Biblical examples of theophany--think Moses and the burning bush, the pillars of dust or smoke that led the Israelites across the desert, basically everything in the story of Moses. A few other stories also show that theophany can be so overwhelming that God occasionally uses it as punishment. The shock and awe of it are too much for people to handle, and they almost always die of fear.

The internet yielded no results for any other religion, but I think Zeus appearing to his lady "friends" as various things is a pretty good example.