imagine being in a fight with a bunch of mad women in a strange meadow and you hear the great god Dionysus say “RIP HIM APART LADIES.”

The Fates but instead of three old ladies they’re the McElroy brothers

“This curse of the gods can never be undone!”

“…unless.”

“…….unless…”

Wait but if we go in order

Justin is the one measuring our thread (ok)

Travis is the one weaving it (comforting)

And Griffin is cutting it (terrifying)

Griffin is the most chaotic of the brothers. He’s the only one who could wield that kind of power my good dude

Griffin, about to end my time on this earth: UHHHSNYYYYYUUUP

When Adam bit the apple he did it because he trusted Eve. Because he loved her. Adam bit into the apple because the woman he loved told him to, no matter what God said. No matter the rules of heaven. What’s heaven to a woman’s love anyway? What’s God to your wife? The first sins of humanity, were trusting others. Eve trusted a snake, Adam trusted Eve, and I trust you. Maybe that’s a sin, just like the first couple. Maybe everyone’s right about us and we’re sinners and we offend God. But like I said, what’s God to a woman’s love anyway? What has heaven got that I can’t find sitting next to you on a cool autumn morning?

I just found out that, as of this week, people have paid actual money for just over 250 copies of my tiny book! I know it’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but for a tiny self pub with no marketing, I am v delight. I’m genuinely somewhat astonished that people have both bought and liked it, and I don’t foresee that novelty wearing off any time soon. This is not a brag, just me seeing that PEOPLE ARE SO NICE AND GOOD and if you have a book that you want to put out into the world, you should do it. It might work out better than you ever thought.

(Adding links per request!)

Link to buy: http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/anwen-kya-hayward/here-the-world-entire/paperback/product-22988922.html (I don’t control shipping costs, I’m sorry)

Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33553649-here-the-world-entire

Also it is now an ebook, if paper copies aren’t an option for you: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BHNRSQV/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1521205930&sr=1-1

are you a space bi or a mythology bi

#why do y'all keeping wanting me to pick a side #this is why im bi in the first place (x)

Okay I used to HATE roses as a symbol of romance and shit or whatever until I learned why they’re signs of love bc it’s the most metal creation myth of all time

Well ok have y’all ever heard of the goddess of love Aphrodite?

So in greek mythology, all of the roses were white. all of em with no exception. white. remember this detail, it’s important to the story

so basically one day, our local love bitch Aphrodite was bragging to the other gods about how she could make anyone fall in love with anyone, because she was the goddess of love, and everyone got kind of irked with her bragging bc it was annoying, and Zeus (in his Zeus way) decided to pull a BIG PRANK on Aphrodite by making her fall in love w this mortal named Adonis. Adonis was a hunter, and this made Aphrodite CRAZY because hunting is super dangerous, and she was thirsty for Adonis right & she didn’t want him to die. EXCEPT therein lies the prank, bc Zeus MADE Adonis get gored by a wild boar (rip) and he died.

and here’s where the thing with the red roses come in. Bc all the roses are white, right? And right as Adonis was about to die, Aphrodite SWOOPED DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS in a golden chariot pulled by swans on a slide made of clouds (a cloud slide). as she rushed to his side, Aphrodite pricked her foot on a rose thorn and her blood landed on the petals of the rose, and all of the roses around her became red with her blood as she mourned for her dead lover who was killed in the hunt by a violent wild boar, all bc Zeus wanted Aphrodite to stop boasting.

tl;dr: red roses are a sign of romance bc they were originally white, but the red ones are red because they’re dipped in the blood of the goddess Aphrodite as she mourned the death of her lover

Painting the Roses Red

Aphrodite is so fucking extra and so are you @constellations-and-energy

Oh my god I love my local love bitch and I love you

Explaining the myths like:

men in greek mythology? scoundrels. just terrible. woeful social skills. murderers. kidnappers. violent misogynists. most of them… never described as handsome so we have to assume they were ugly. 

narcissus? unproblematic. beacon of transformative self love. king of the swerve. gay icon. couldn’t recognize his reflection but neither can my dog, we aren’t holding that against him.

Narcissus wrote this

I refuse to believe Narcissus could read.

i’ve been thinking about this response for the better part of 2 hours and it hasn’t gotten less hysterically funny to me

quick reminders about Greek mythology:

A few more:

Persephone was so widely feared that people wouldn’t write her name. They referred to her as Kore (shitty English typing sorry) which translates to queen. She struck more fear into people’s hearts than any other goddess. And she is the reason we have mint. She discovered that Hades had a lover before her and turned her into a leafy plant.

ah yes, the solar eclipse, that glorious event every few years when apollo does something so incredibly stupid that artemis has to yell at him in broad daylight in front of half of the world

Sleipnir doesn’t make sense

One thing I never really understood was Sleipnir (meaning “slippery one” fyi) in depictions of Norse mythology. Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse, the steed of Odin and the son of Loki, and he is commonly depicted like this:

(image not mine)

But why would you depict an eight-legged horse like this? Horses gallop the same way most other mammals run, with all feet leaving the ground at one point, so having extra feet here doesn’t seem like it could make the horse any faster. I’m also not sure it would give it any more stable footing, since it doesn’t have a wider base.

If you want a stable eight-legged form that can reach great speeds for its size, wouldn’t you want to start with what nature has already provided? Wouldn’t you want something more like… this?

(my drawing)

“But wait!” you might say, “Sleipnir was conceived when Loki, in horse-form, seduced another horse! That’s why it looks all horsey, just with extra bits!”

Well, that’s a good point, but consider that Loki as a deity was originally based off the spider, and his name even derives from the old Swedish word for spider (source). Therefore, it’s not too hard to believe Sleipnir inherited his horse half from his mother and the more spidery half from his father. In conclusion:

Spider-Horse, Spider-Horse, He does spider-things of course! Weaves a web, Makes you gawk, Riding round ‘til Ragnarok! Look out! Here comes the Spider-Horse.

I am all for creative interpretations of Sleipnir. And spiders, obviously. This is epic.

But just so you know, that journal is from the 60′s, and the current scholarly consensus no longer considers the spider etymology to be likely. We still aren’t sure where the name comes from, and probably won’t ever be, but I’ve seen quite a few more recent academics lean toward Old Norse luka, meaning “close”, “shut”, or “end.” (See Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology.)

^^^^ my research found much the same. (which is sad, i like spiders)

As far as Sleipnir having eight legs, it’s probably a reference to Icelandic horses. Icelandic horses are one of the few horse breeds with five gaits. They can do a walk, trot and canter/gallop, like most horses. But they have also evolved to have a tolt,

[ gif of a man riding a brown Icelandic horse doing a tolt. The back legs of the horse move rather stiffly back and forth, while the front legs are lifted up almost to the horse’s chest. While the horse bounces slightly, the man riding the horse could probably hold a glass of water without spilling. ] 

which is fast, smooth and noted for its explosive speed and ability to cover long distances.

The second unique gait is called flugskeið, or flying pace.

[ a light brown Icelandic horse demonstrating the flugskeið. With the exception of the wind in the horses’ mane, the upper part of the horse and the rider seem to almost be still, with the background simply zipping by them. The horse’s legs, however, move fast enough to blur. Unlike with a full gallop, the horse does not fully extend its legs away from its body. This is particularly obvious in the front legs of the horse, which lift up to the chest of the horse and land under its chin the same way as in the tolt]

It is both smooth and fast, some horses being able to reach speeds of 30 mph. Not all Icelandic horses can do a flugskeið, but you’ll notice that when done properly the legs move in unison and so fast they can blur, giving the illusion of the horse having eight legs.

Anyways, here is a video to further emphasize how cool the flugskeið is;

I’d never heard this theory! That’s so neat.

The one I’ve read attributed the eight legs thing to a metaphor of a coffin + 4 pallbearers.

This is FASCINATING, and I adore Sleipnir! 😍 @tinaferraldo

You’ve brought my horse geek out now. You have been warned!

The thing is, until the late 1800s we didn’t know how horses moved. 

In old paintings you typically see horses with their legs stretched wide as they thought that gave the appearance of great speed. 

But it really just looks like Timmy’s big brother was being an evil bastard and bent the legs of his tin horses out . 

It’s completely unnatural looking, but horses moved too fast for us to be able to see how they moved, until Edward MAuybridge captured their motion in a series of consecutive photographs in 1878.

And for the first time we could see that all four legs did leave the ground. (and are never stretched uncomfortably wide!). 

He also created the first motion picture as the individual photographs could be put together as a series of film frames (below).  

So, all this is to say that back when Sleipnir was being dreamed up, they didn’t understand how animals moved and probably thought more legs = faster, and to a degree they were right, things on four legs run faster than bipeds so they continued that principle to its logical, if incorrect, conclusion. 

THIS IS THE BEST HORSE MOVEMENT DISCOURSE EVER

or we can consider that norse epics were, above all else, poetry, and consider that the image of an eight-legged horse brings to mind a horse that moves like a spider – with that fast darting scuttle that so many people find terrifying. an alien horse. a divine horse. a monster.

(personally i find the spider run adorable, like when a cat gets startled and does the skitter. but i recognize this is an unusual reaction.)

So, inspired by the whole concept of a spider-horse I very loosely sketched this:

…To which my brother @foxofwar simply pointed out, that being a spider-horse, it’s a sporse.

Slightly off topic, but it isn’t unique to Norse mythology to give a magical horse unusual number of legs tho. In Hungarian folklore special horses (usually fond of eating cinders, capable of flying or running faster than the win or even faster than thoughts, usually liked to sass the hero of the tale) had 5, 6 or 7 legs.

Obviously those numbers were chosen because they held cultural significance (our dragons/giants had odd number of heads too), but it probably sounded like common sense that more legs=faster horse.

I have nothing to add but damn is this thread epic.

There’s a Peruvian horse breed called the Paso that has a fifth gait as well – kind of a smooth, toe-skimming shuffle between the trot and the canter. It’s smooth as butter.

Epic horse thread is epic. And fascinating :)

@andkeepthethingsyouforgot

domestic fantasy

Meet a beautiful woman.

Find out she’s actually a selkie who has left her seal skin hidden so that she may return to the sea.

Put the seal skin into a secure trunk.

Give the selkie the keys.

Move to the seaside, learn to cook seafood, marry the selkie, raise a family on the shoreline, devote life to ocean conservation, work in tandem with seal wife to monitor marine health.

saw a comment on the thor ragnarok trailer saying “i hope people realize that this is not an accurate representation of norse mythology” and i’m like oh shit did thor actually not fight the hulk while jeff goldblum watch in his pajamas in norse mythology??? damn i got it all wrong im such a dumb idiot

@andkeepthethingsyouforgot

shout out to my fave under-appreciated unbreakable transgender hero

The thing that gets me is he didn’t ASK for the impenetrable skin. Poseidon was just like “cool cool but you know what you need? skin of IRON. don’t worry bud it’s on the house”

so… Poseidon made his trans boyfriend bulletproof.  alright.

Poseidon had a trans boyfriend In other news I’m having an attack of cuteness

It’s a popular Jewish folktale, especially in North Africa: Howard Schwartz published it as a beautiful children’s book which I loved growing up. You can see a description and short folkloric analysis of it here and here.

Guys this is Really Really Important….

Keep your Stick in your Pants….

Not all that Glitters is Gold….

They exist in Haiti. Thats how my great great great grandfather died.

Wait hold on someone explain this to me I’m so lost lol

The belief is Haiti is that certain women can live under water and will lived there for years… These women are extremely beautiful and men being men can’t stay away from a good looking women are seduce and then dragged under water and are never to be seen again… My great grandmother was one of these women… One day her mother sent her to go get water from the river and she never came back 10 years later they see her come up the road in all white with beautiful jewelry all around her body sing up a storm.. When her family asked her where she was she told them she was under water… thats the story my grandma always use to tell me growing up

11-11-1992

Wow

Sounds like daughters of Yoruba goddess

I love African and African Diasporan mythology.

we call them “river mumma” in Jamaica

I NEED MORE MYTHOLOGY INVOLVING BLACK CULTURES IN THE DIASPORA.

Im glad this finally made it to tumblr

Life advice from the goddesses

Athena says:

“My darlings, fear not the fire of change. Let it burn away the old to bring growth. It hurts, but it is necessary for new life.”

Aphrodite says:

“Dear ones, dance when you realize your self worth is in your own hands and rooted in your feet.”

Hecate says:

“Witches, do not fear the unknown. For today was the future only a moment ago.”

Artemis says:

“Hunt for who you are, in the deepest parts of your ribs. This is holy.”

Hera says:

“Children, make mistakes and come to terms with them. Learning comes with sacrifice.”

Persephone says:

“choice is a fickle thing and many will attempt to rewrite your story. Be who you are, choose yourself. Change only when the growth is good for you.”

Hestia says:

“Babies, may you light your hearth where your chosen family lies, and do not believe the falsehood that you are trapped by blood.”