Creatures of the Deep

          SUMMARY:To continue on with a theme of worldwide myth, I must look at the world itself. Earth's surface is more than 70% covered in water. All major civilizations had some form of contact with a large body of water. It was seen as the key to life. It's sheer size, and mysterious properties, contributed to the fact that water was regarded as an extremely magical substance, and home to many magical creatures. Mermaids and sea serpents dominated many a sailors tales. Even today, sightings of "Nessie" in Loch Ness , "Tessie" in Lake Tahoe and "Champy" in Lake Champlain are regular occurances. But where did these myths come from?

                                                                             

     "Imagine that you're an uneducated sailor aboard a creaking wooden sailing ship in mid-ocean. You're on watch when, suddenly--what's that!? Off the starboard bow, you see a huge thing leap into the air and crash back into the water. You've never seen a whale breach before. You're startled and scared. How do you describe what you saw? It's easy to understand how such a sight could grow into a tale about a monster. Scientists think that the bowhead whale was behind a lot of 'sea monster' sightings. The whale grows to be 60 feet long. Its strangely shaped mouth has hundreds of long, thin plates called baleen. (It uses the baleen to strain tiny animals out of the seawater for food.) As European sailors searched for a sea route across northern Canada, they encountered the Arctic-dwelling bowhead and mistook it for a monster." (Lanier '98)
     The mermaid myth has been around since Greek times. Many sailors even EXPECTED to see the creatures. So when they saw the dugong, relatives of manatees, in the distance, they did not question the stories. Dugong are slow- moving and gentle, with rounded bodies and notched tails that resemble "mermaid" tails.
        But that still leaves us with modern-day legends like Nessie. Many people think Nessie is a pleiosaur, a long-extinct sea-dwelling reptile. Could a dinosaur survive in the 23-mile- long, 700-foot-deep Loch Ness? This can only be determined by future investigation.

          ANALYSIS: There are many fantastical and extraordinary creatures residing within our waters. Whether they are magical, we may never know. But we can't give up hope. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the globe. Of that, only about 5 percent has been explored. Who knows legendary beings reside in its depths?

          REFLECTION QUESTION: Dr. Stuart Vyse, professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London, says "Humans are good at making things up. People like telling stories!" He uses this to explain how these myths originate. Do you think that humans are prone to convincing themselves false truths for the sake of imagination?

          CITATION: Lanier, Kristina. "Legends of the Sea." Christian Science Monitor. Sept. 8 1998: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 26 Feb 2012.

In The Beginning, there was Lilith

         If I truly am to look at relations between myths, what is a better place to start than the beginning? After all, myths have been around for thousands of years. And there is one myth, 4,000 years old, that many people still believe today. The myth of the demon seductress, Lilith.



Lilith - John Collier, 1887 

                                                                            

         One could wonder why I am starting with this myth. There are two answers. One, most people reading this are familiar with the tale of Adam and Eve, in which Lilith makes an appearance. Having prior knowledge of a subject will increase your interest. And two, every culture has had a version of this evil witch.
          The poem "Lilith" by Dante Rossetti,1868, refers to her as the beautiful, yet evil, witch Adam was married to before Eve. This is how many people remember her today.But we must look to her origns. The earliest surviving mention of Lilith's name appears in Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, a Sumerian epic poem found on a tablet at Ur and dating from approximately 2000 B.C.E. In one episode, "after heaven and earth had separated and man had been created," Gilgamesh rushes to assist Inanna, goddess of love and war. In her garden near the Euphrates River, Inanna lovingly tends a willow tree. However, Inanna's plans are nearly thwarted, however, when three demons possess the tree. One of them is Lilith: "Inanna, to her chagrin, found herself unable to realize her hopes. For in the meantime a dragon had set up its nest at the base of the tree, the Zu-bird had placed his young in its crown, and in its midst the demoness Lilith had built her house." Amulets and incantations were used to counter the dark powers of this spirit who preyed on pregnant women and infants.
          Lilith next migrated to the world of the ancient Hittites, Egyptians, Israelites and Greeks. She makes a solitary appearance in the Bible, as a wilderness demon shunned by the prophet Isaiah. In the Renaissance, Michelangelo portrayed Lilith as a half-woman, half-serpent, coiled around the Tree of Knowledge. Today, feminists celebrate her bold struggle for independence from Adam. This overview of literary and religious interpretations of the Lilith figure traces "her journey from Babylonian mythology, through the Bible, to medieval lore and modern literature.", and makes her an ideal figure to start the journey of mythological connections.

          ANALYSIS: Lilith was a figure created to represent chaos, seduction and ungodliness. Her feud with Adam shows the neverending battle of the sexes. These immortal values caried her form through millenia, whether it was winged or scaled.

          REFLECTION QUESTION: Why was the message of chaos and seduction so important to have the exact same entity, down to the name Lilith itself, last for over 4,000 years?

For more information you can read http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SFL2086-0-4692&artno=0000144364&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Mythology&title=Lilith%3A%20Seductress%2C%20Heroine%20or%20Murderer%3F&res=N&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=Y&ic=N#citation.

CITATION: Gaines, Janet Howe. "Lilith: Seductress, Heroine or Murderer?." Bible Review. Oct. 2001: 12+. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 18 Feb 2012.

The Ancient Tales...

• I chose the topic of mythology because it truly is the foundation of all worldly beliefs, and the heart of all good stories. Who knows? Perhaps there's some truth to them after all! 

• The essential question that I will try to answer through this blog is: "Why do some myths relate to myths from completely different time periods and/or regions?"