What is it about Norse mythology?

[Cookie]

Watcher, I will definitely check that out.
Fenrick, I would check out Shinto the Kami Way, for Japanese religion and mythology.

[Margo]

That being the case, the man’s name is Kikero.

Good enough. I won't hold the Xena thing against you. That's the classical pronunciation, btw. None of that sissy medieval crap.

[Fenris]

Thanks, Watcher55 and Cookie. I'll definitely try to find those. Actually, for a history class I took once we had to read an in-book excerpt of GILGAMESH, and it was pretty good, but obviously I can't judge it based off just that.

Fenris wrote:
...(and something about oni and kami, I think, but again I'm not sure)...


Sounds like you're almost recalling Amaterasu.

Yep, I've heard of her. Also, thanks to sierra and Cookie for the other Japanese info--pretty much all I knew of their beliefs beforehand was ancestor worship; some godlike figures including Amaterasu, and tanukis (I think I spelled that right). Anyway, I'll see if I can find out more.

[polymath]

Writers look far and wide for inpsirations from exotic mythologies. Close to home exotic mythologies are often overlooked. Native American and First Nation mythologies, for example. Nanabozho is part of Anishinaabe traditions, a trickster and culture hero spirit of Native peoples. Anishinaabe peoples are known as the Anishinaabeg, peoples of the Algonquin and Nipissing nations of Canada's plains regions. Algonquin nations include the Ojibwa of the plains regions, and Lenape, Mohican, and Powhatan of the Eastern Woodlands regions.

Other great spirits; great sky spirit Mishi-Ginnebig from the Ojibwa or the great horned serpent common to many American First Nations is comparable to other cultures' dragon myths though attributed to lightning and thunder. Forked tongue is a Native idiom with deeper roots than those depicted in Westerns. Peoples who came from beneath the True Peoples' world with faces pale as death just didn't get it. Mishi-Ginnebig has a forked tail, forked body, forked horns, and a forked tongue that bites with a brilliant flash of light and a thundering rumble and the fatal sting of lightning. Speaking with a forked tongue means to the True People speaking with the coercive force of firearms.

Ahone and Okeus are common great spirits for Eastern Woodland Algonquin cultures. Like Old World cultures' mythologies, natural phenomena and ancestors are common mythological motifs. A great sky spirit seems universal to all cultures though pecking order varies. High great spirits of the Algonquin, Ahone, a great hare, and Okeus, a black complexioned ancestral spirit, compare to modern Western God and Satan, though Ahone and Okeus are considered good and evil respectively, good and evil aren't considered divisible parts of humanity's nature by Native cultures.

Michigan; great lake (mishi-gan, mishi meaning great). Chesapeake; at a big river. Illinois, Wisconsin, Miami, Mississippi, many place names across the U.S. derived from Native peoples' place names.

[Fenris]

Poly, do you know of any good sources for the Native and South American beliefs and mythologies? They along with the Japanese mythos have been the hardest to find stuff on (though I'm getting somewhere on the latter, thanks to Cookie's recommendation). Thanks for the spirits you mentioned in your last post, but I'm trying to compile a kind of informal database on as much mythology as I can find. Forgive my voracious appetite. You never know when it might come in handy, though. :)

[polymath]

North American Native mythologies are a tough nut to crack. Tribal ideologies shifted with the advent of movies. They became insular and proprietary about their cultural practices because Hollywood warped them out of proportion. Trust is not likely to be restored anytime soon. I've found library anthropology books recounting past revelations and faithfully documented events and ongoing archaeological research and to some extent online from resources like Wikipedia for finding trails to follow are good sources.

I enjoy touring Native American sites and reenactments. One of my passions is distinguishing the differences between Anglo mythologies intrepreting Native cultures and mythologies and the true Native perspectives of their cultures and mythologies. The divide is broad, flawed, and tragic. One area of particular interest is the Indian schools intended to acculturate the people to Anglo ways.

I've done some research into Caribbean, Meso, and South American Native cultures, not nearly as extensively as Algonquin cultures though. Again, library resources, anthropology, archaeology, site visits, and online trails to follow up on.

Appetizer web sites with some worthy content, though all content should be taken with a heavy grain of salt;
A general topic survey site;
http://www.lmsd.org/staff/elemtech/nati ... tvamer.htm
Simon Pokagon's Indian Superstitions and Legends at the University of Virginia Library;
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/moden ... kSupe.html
UVA's Native American eText index
http://etext.virginia.edu/subjects/Native-American.html
John Smith's accounts, A True Relation . . . (1608);
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/moden ... J1007.html

[Fenris]

Thanks Poly, I'll go check those out now.

Something that occurred to me while reading through this thread (thanks for all the replies, everyone!) was this: What do you think people like to see more, moderns interpretations of mythologies, or tales based off mythologies set in the era said mythologies were prevalent in?

[Cookie]

Something that occurred to me while reading through this thread (thanks for all the replies, everyone!) was this: What do you think people like to see more, moderns interpretations of mythologies, or tales based off mythologies set in the era said mythologies were prevalent in?

Hmm, not sure. Maybe a little bit of both?

[Fenris]

Something that occurred to me while reading through this thread (thanks for all the replies, everyone!) was this: What do you think people like to see more, moderns interpretations of mythologies, or tales based off mythologies set in the era said mythologies were prevalent in?

Hmm, not sure. Maybe a little bit of both?

Maybe. We have Riordan's Olympians series and Neil Gaiman for modern interpretations, but a lot of people on this thread (cough, Margo :) ) seem to be lamenting the fact that mythologies can't just be taken at face value, set in their own context in their own era. I wonder if it'd be possible to do both in the same book...well, I'm going to find out the hard way.

[Margo]

...but a lot of people on this thread (cough, Margo :) ) seem to be lamenting the fact that mythologies can't just be taken at face value, set in their own context in their own era.

No, that's not at all what I think. My point was that disregarding a mythology is not the same as modernizing it. I love skillfully modernized mythologies, but the writer has to learn the original to do that.

[polymath]

Something that occurred to me while reading through this thread (thanks for all the replies, everyone!) was this: What do you think people like to see more, moderns interpretations of mythologies, or tales based off mythologies set in the era said mythologies were prevalent in?

That's a good question to ask. I've found answers in some unlikely places. Georg (György) Lukács, a Hungarian Marxist philospher and critic discusses how writers approach a variety of time senses and mythologies in The Historical Novel, 1962 English translation by Hannah and Stanley Mitchell. Patriotic mythologies are a central theme. If a reader can bypass all the burdensome Marxist rhetoric, a mythology in its own right, there's golden nuggets in there about how writers and readers translate past and future circumstances into present day relativity. Reinventing and reimagining motifs, themes, and narratives in part derives from the past through the future intepreted into present day ideologies paradigm.

[Cookie]

Yea, I don't know. When I turn to myths, I tend to go non-fiction. I personally like myths set in the era they were based off of. However, I haven't read too many set in modern times, so I can't really choose one or the other.

[Cookie]

Reinventing and reimagining motifs, themes, and narratives in part derives from the past through the future intepreted into present day ideologies paradigm.

I think you may have just given me an idea for a story. Hmm....

[Fenris]

No, that's not at all what I think. My point was that disregarding a mythology is not the same as modernizing it. I love skillfully modernized mythologies, but the writer has to learn the original to do that.

Ah, I see what you mean. You're entirely right; to simply steal characters from mythology and supply them with new attributes to fit the story is little better than fanfiction. Unfortunately, as my research deepens, I'm wondering if I'm a little guilty of that myself...and so the revisions continue.

Poly: That book sounds interesting, I might have to look that up. Hopefully sifting the gold nuggets from the sediment won't be too hard.

Cookie: Inspiration is everywhere, right? More power to you, but don't get carried away (I know I've been guilty of "cheating" on my WIP recently...but amazingly all of my ideas seem to eventually work their way into the overall storyline, or at least its universe. I guess I need to try and keep it from becoming an amorphous blob).

[J. T. SHEA]

Quite right, Margo! If it wasn't for the Norsemen we wouldn't have blondes in Ireland. I like blondes. And redheads. And...And I'll stop now.