The Forgotten Library

So I was looking for these poems about the Four Elements. I found them on Wikipedia back in 2005 So here they are. @theforgottenlibrary 

I’m so amazingly happy that I found these poems again. I simply love them. I have no source so if anyone recognizes them please tell me what book they are from or the author. Like I said, I found these on Wikipedia back in 2005 an they aren’t there anymore. 

Water

This is the Water, my children; these are the creatures:

Whale who chants; Dolphin who speaks;

Calm content; salmon who seeks;

Pike who rages; Shark who mourns;

Walrus steadied; Wave transforms; 

Seal who gathers; Crab the lone; 

Otter wave-borne; Eel in stone. 

This is the sea I conjure, and this is the birth of the World.

Air 

This is the Air, my children; these are the creatures:

Far-flying Goose; far-seeing Hawk;

Owl who knows; Raven who talks;

Crane who dances; Thrush who sings;

Quail the humble; Wren the king;

Lark who revels; Loon who weeps;

Jay who scatters; Vulture who reaps. 

This is the Air I conjure and this is the birth of the World.

Fire

This is the Fire, my children; these are the creatures: 

Drake who hoards; Kirin who gives;

Angel who heals; Chimera who reaves;

Coal the slow; Lightning the quick;

Salamander, power’s wick;

Soul who praises; Gryphon who scorns;

Phoenix who dies and is reborn.

This is the Fire I conjure, and this is the birth of the World. 

Earth

This is the Earth, my children; these are the creatures:

Deer who worries; Fox who schemes;

Cat who conjures; Sheep who dreams;

Hare the playful; Badger the stern;

Mouse who teaches; Horse who learns;

Wolf who wanders; Boar who stays;

Stag who guards; Puma who prays.

SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY MEME: gods and goddesses | morena

MYTHOLOGY MEME - [3/?] EGYPTIAN GOD/GODDESSES: SEKHMET

“I am the dark goddess who shows the way

YORUBA GODDESSES AND GODS  //// Oya

“You hiss Lightning forks. You sneeze Thunder rolls. You break wind Forests wither. […] You whistle We dance. You sweep We fly. You yawn death rattles.”

- Oya: Goddess of the wind

More Mythology-lady valentines! Less monstrous, no less dangerous. Well, except for the Graeae, they’re just old and creepy. Like last time, HERE is a full sheet of all four, print away, freefreefree!

So this time we have an Amazon, a Maenad, half-crazed worshipper of Dionysus, the enchantress Circe, and the Graeae or Gray Sisters, who are NOT the Fates, Disney… Again, I referenced artworks for their appearances. The Graeae are not very well-represented in the greek canon, though, so I drew from that delightful genre of Hellenistic art: Statues Of Decrepit Old Ladies.

Prende is the goddess of love and beauty in the Albanian mythology. She is the wife of Perendi, and referred to in Albanian legends as Zonja e Bukuris (“Lady of Beauty”), while her sacred day was Friday.[1]

Prende is analogous to the Roman goddess, Venus, but there may be a potential connection with the Norse goddess, Freyja too, who is also a goddess of love and beauty. In “A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture”, the author Robert Elsie explains how Prende was worshipped in northern Albania, especially by the Albanian women. Prende’s festival was celebrated on July 26 every year, and her devotees would don beautiful clothing and would set out a mortar and pestle as a representation of sexual union. Elsie also explains how the rainbow is sacred to Veneranda, a Latin term for the goddess Venus, and the rainbow is referenced as “Lady Prende’s Belt”.

celtic mythology alphabet: AONGHUS

Aonghus (orÁengus) is the Celtic god of love, youth, and poetic inspiration. He is the result of an affair between the Dagda and Boann, the goddess of the River Boyne. In order to hide their affair, the Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months, so that the duration of Boann’s pregnancy lasted one day.  Being the god of love, Aonghus partook in many romances with both mortal and immortal. According to legend, he lifted a spell off his brother’s wife, Etain, which had turned her into a butterfly. He was able to turn her back into a woman for one night, in which they became lovers. Aonghus was also the foster-father of the legendary Celtic hero Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, and helped Diarmuid and his lover Grainne escape the pursuit of her warrior husband-to-be.

Ancient Greek Lady-Monster Valentines, because I love the morbid sense of humor I develop around these gals. HERE is a full-resolution printable sheet of all four, the page is 8x10.5 inches.

Featuring a Siren, Sphinx, Medusa, and also Eris. She isn’t exactly a monster but shhhh. I referenced their appearances from ancient art, though I have to admit I kind of took artistic license with Medusa’s face and hair. The original Gorgons had scary-ugly faces and normal hair with a couple snakes. A head full of snakes is just so much more fun to draw…!

Nuada was king of the Tuatha Dé Danann for seven years before they came to Ireland. They made contact with the Fir Bolg, the then-inhabitants of the island, and Nuada sought from them half of the island for the Tuatha Dé, which their king rejected. Both peoples made ready for war, and in an act of chivalry allowed their numbers and arms to be inspected by the opposing side to allow for a truly fair battle. During this first great battle at Mag Tuired, Nuada lost an arm in combat with the Fir Bolg champion Sreng. Nuada’s ally, Aengaba of Norway, then fought Sreng, sustaining a mortal wound, while the Dagda protected Nuada. Fifty of the Dagda’s soldiers carried Nuada from the field. The Tuatha Dé gained the upper hand in the battle, but Sreng later returned to challenge Nuada to single combat. Nuada accepted, on the condition that Sreng fought with one arm tied up. Sreng refused, but by this point the battle was won and the Fir Bolg all but vanquished. The Tuatha Dé then decided to offer Sreng one quarter of Ireland for his people instead of the one half offered before the battle, and he chose Connacht.

Having lost his arm, Nuada was no longer eligible for kingship due to the Tuatha Dé tradition that their king must be physically perfect, and he was replaced as king by Bres, a half-Fomorian prince renowned for his beauty and intellect. The Fomorians were mythological enemies of the people of Ireland, often equated with the mythological “opposing force” such as the Greek Titans to the Olympians, and during Bres’s reign they imposed great tribute on the Tuatha Dé, who became disgruntled with their new king’s oppressive rule and lack of hospitality. By this time Nuada had his lost arm replaced by a working silver one by the physician Dian Cecht and the wright Creidhne (and later with a new arm of flesh and blood by Dian Cecht’s son Miach). Bres was removed from the kingship, having ruled for seven years, and Nuada was restored. He ruled for twenty more years.

Bres, aided by the Fomorian Balor of the Evil Eye, attempted to retake the kingship by force, and war and continued oppression followed. When the youthful and vigorous Lugh joined Nuada’s court, the king realised the multi-talented youth could lead the Tuatha Dé against the Fomorians, and stood down in his favour. The second Battle of Mag Tuired followed. Nuada was killed and beheaded in battle by Balor, but Lugh avenged him by killing Balor and led the Tuatha Dé to victory.

Nuada’s great sword was one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, brought from one of their four great cities.

The name Nuada probably derives from a Celtic stem *noudont- or *noudent-, which J. R. R. Tolkien suggested was related to a Germanic root meaning “acquire, have the use of”, earlier “to catch, entrap (as a hunter)”. Making the connection with Nuada and Lludd’s hand, he detected “an echo of the ancient fame of the magic hand of Nodens the Catcher”. Similarly, Julius Pokorny derives the name from a Proto-Indo-European root *neu-d- meaning “acquire, utilise, go fishing”.

EAST ASIAN MYTHOLOGY MEME:

[5/7] KOREAN GODS AND GODDESSES | GAMEUNJANG-AGI

Gameunjang-agi (가믄장 아기) is the Korean goddess of fate and luck.

The legend tells of a beggar couple who birthed their first child. The farmers in the area gather gifts in a silver bowl for mother and child. Therefore, the first daughter is named the silver child. After the birth of the second daughter, the farmers bring their gifts in a brass shell and the girl is named the brass child. After the birth of the third daughter, the people bring their gifts only in a wooden bowl, so the last daughter is named the timber child. This is Gameunjang-agi.

With her birth, luck and wealth come to the house of the beggar. The parents become rich, forget that they were once beggars and ask their daughters to whom they owe their good life. The first two daughters claim that they owe their happiness to heaven, earth, and their parents. However, the youngest daughter replies against their expectation, that she owed her happiness to heaven and earth, father and mother, and her own power. The father gets so angry that he throws his youngest daughter out of the house. In retaliation, Gameunjang-agi transform her sisters into a centipede and a mushroom while the two parents are afflicted with blindness.

Gameunjang-agi wanders around the country, finding shelter in the small house of a family with three sons. The first two sons come home with roots, cooking them and giving themselves the better parts. However, the third son saves the worst part of the root for himself, giving Gameunjang-agi a better part instead. Eventually, she and the third son fall in love. One day, they find roots of gold in the forest. Becoming wealthy, they marry and live in happiness.

                                                    X o c h i q u e t z a l 

The name Xōchiquetzal is a compound of xōchitl (“flower”) and quetzalli (“precious feather; quetzal tail feather”). In Classical Nahuatl morphology, the first element in a compound modifies the second, and thus the goddess’ name can literally be taken to mean “flower precious feather”, or ”flower quetzal feather”.

The Aeneid: Book I