Vikings: Pre-Christianity, heathens, pagans

Ginnungagap: dark void

Nifleheim: Land of fog, ice

Muspellheim: land of fire

Yggdrasil: It's an Ash tree that is the world

Asgard: Home of the Gods

Midgard: Land of Man

Hel: Daughter of Loki and ruler of Hell

Bifrost Bridge: Divine bridge linking all three worlds, usually a rainbow.

Ymir: An evil, fierce, wild giant

Odin: Father of the Gods and God of humans

Frigg: Odin's wive and goddess of love, destiny, and marriage

The Valkyries: The chose who went to Valhalla after they were killed.

The Norns: Fated Maidens

Thor: God of thunder, battle, and fertility, son of Odin

Balder: Son of Odin, god of radiance, rebirth, justice, and light

Njord: God of sea and Wind

Frey: God of fertility, prosperity, sun and rain

Freya: Goddess of love, fertility, beauty, magic, war, and death

Idunn: Goddess of the Golden Apples, tricked by Loki

Loki: Son of Giants, half blooded god, trickster, cunning, good and bad

Fenrir: Son of Loki turned into a wolf

Jormungandr: World Serpent

Ragnarok: Doomsday, the end of the humans and gods

Runes: Either rock, metal, or wood used to tell past, present and future

The Origins of the Buffalo Dance by the Blackfeet

Long ago when the first buffalo came upon the land they were not friendly to the people. The people tried to coax the buffalo over a hill and to their deaths but always the buffalo would turn away at the last second avoiding certain death. There was this hunter although who had a daughter who was proud of her father’s grand hunting skills. She would always make the best garments for her father and herself. However even he couldn’t kill the buffalo. As soon as the hint of snow on the wind came to her she realized that the buffalo families had become a real problem. She immediately decided to do something about it. She went to the base of a cliff and started to sing a song calling the buffalo.
“Oh, buffalo family, come down and visit me. If you come down and feed my relatives in a wedding feast, I will join your family as the bride of your strongest warrior.” She sang. The buffalo came jumping over the cliff the largest, strongest buffalo took her away. Her father, the hunter, came looking for her the next day. He was a good tracker as well. He followed his daughter’s tracks until he was exhausted. He called down a Magpie and asked him to find the buffalo and his daughter. The Magpie came back almost immediately. He told the hunter that his daughter was right over the hill. Meanwhile the daughter was making garments for herself as her husband buffalo slept. Just then he awoken and told her to fetch some water with his horn that he removed. She ran into her father over the hill and he wanted to take her back but she knew that would only upset the buffalo and said that she would try to appease them. But when she got back her husband buffalo had his buffalo family stamped around. Her father ended up getting torn to pieces. And she ended up crying. Her husband asked why she was crying and she told him that they had killed her father. The buffalo told her that if she could bring her father back from dead he would let her go. So she asked the Magpie to help her collect the pieces of her father and danced a dance that her grandmother taught her to bring back the dead. The buffalo was surprised and told her that if she danced this dance for them to bring them back from death he would teach her the buffalo dance so she could call them. And that is how the Blackfeet got the buffalo dance.

“The Origins of the Buffalo Dance.” StoneEproducktions, 1996. 7 November 2008. http://www.ilhawaii.net/wstang/lore02.html.

Picture: Thiessen, Mark. “Buffalo Dance”. National Geographic, 1996. http://images.google.com. 11 November 2008.

Persephone

The night is as black and as thick
as the charcoal swimming inside
the place I was so quick
to place the pills,
bitter capsules of death.
The taste made me sick,
but not too ill to forget.
The taste of death lasts for days,
but the stale flavor doesn’t taste
quite the same.
I think in that hospital bed I grew
tired of this nursery game,
tired of the madness I made
inside my head where it grew
into a Cerberus, and I paid
the price to pass the river Styx.
The cost was life; I had to be dead.
I paid in pain instead
Am I no longer Persephone,
who bit into the pomegranate,
red running down my arms like a symphony?
I was half alive and half dead.
The decree from Zeus so clearly read
that I was damned to the underworld
for half a year- half my life.
Never to fully see the sun.
I was Hades’ reluctant wife,
stolen from the field of youth’s flowers,
starved and beaten for hours
until hunger set in.
The forbidden fruit
tasted like sin.
A diet of death-
a diet of life.
Ragged breath
as I held the knife.
But I’ve been damned too long.
The Underworld is enticing,
but I don’t truly belong
in a land of death.
I’m alive.
The pain can’t last.
So I’ve removed the cast,
tossed out the sling
and my engagement ring.
I want to move on
past the blood and chrome.
Demeter, it’s spring.
I’m coming home.

Myth Defitions

Myth is Something that can't be proven but is based on religion, culture, and nature. It symbolizes human experiences and values. Stories about gods and goddesses. An example of a myth is the story of Aphrodite.

Hero Journey is the obstacles, battles, and trails the hero has to go through. The experience of something new, a challenge. An example of a hero journey is Aeneas.

Universal is something that everyone knows, something big. It could be a myth or theory. It is something everyone knows and if you went somewhere and spoke of it people would know what you are talking about. Something that you can relate to, can recognize similar characteristics in of it in yourself. An example of universal is the Holy Bible.

Archetype is the foundation for myths, the original model of it. An example of archetype is how the world came into being from an Egg.

Cyclical is the cycle, turn, rotation, and ect. of a story or event. It repeats events. An example of a cyclical myth is Hercules.

Duality is the existence of one thing into two opposites. An example of this is the myth of Pan Gu.

Creation is the making, beginning of something new. An example of this myth is of Nu the Egyptian god.

Life from Death is when death gives life. Like a sacrfice of ones own life to insure the life of something else. An example of this is Pan Gu.

Matriarchal is the foundation of female power; Mother rules, Mother earth. An example of this is the myth of the Amazons.

Patriarchel is the foundation of male power; Father Sky. An example of this is the Romain emperor Julius Caesar.

Sacrifice is the taking of a life for other's benefits; giving up something important for greater good. An example of sacrifice is the myth of Aun sacrifices nine sons to Odin.

Interpretation Essay

There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved. According to George Sand. This quote goes well with this story because two young people fell in love with each other and died in the end because of it. This myth is going to be looked at in three different ways, natural, social and psychological.

Pyramus and Thisbe were two young people who loved each other dearly. They grew up next to each other with only a wall separating them. That single wall had a hole in it that they could whisper sweet nothings through to each other all night long. Their parents did not agree to their relationship and would not allow them to be together so they had to keep their relationship a secret. Every night since they discovered that they loved each other they would talk through the wall until morning. One night they decided that just talking was not enough. They wanted to see, feel, and touch each other. So one night they decided to go to the Tomb of Ninus. Thisbe went and waited for her young lover to come but after a long time he had not shown up. She soon saw a lioness. She ran before the lioness got to her and lost her cloak in doing so. The lioness, mouth bloody from a recent kill, came upon the cloak and tore it to shreds. This is what Pryamus found and hunted down the lioness thinking the big cat killed his love. Thisbe realizing that she left and Pryamus did not know of the lioness went back and found him dead. She took his sword and stabbed herself through the heart not wanting to live now that her love was dead.

To look at the myth in the natural is a way to look at who and what they were or are. To look at the basics of them, at the physical part of them. They were young people who would have become lovers if given the chance. They were human and on were male and the other female. They represented love and youth. It is important to look at it this way to understand the basics of them and what they represented.

The next way to look at this myth is socially. To look at it in a social way is to understand these two lovers in their environment to see how society would look at these to being lovers and to wonder if it was wrong or right. On a social level they were seen as youthful and full of energy. And since they were young it would be easy to say that they wanted to rebellion against their parents. Or they could probably be looked at as young romantics who were full of passionate youth and that they were letting their emotions get the better of them. Or that they were just innocent youths caught up in what they thought was something grand.

To look at it in a psychological way is to go even further into their being. To look at their emotions and how they might even represent something in us or what we want and are afraid to voice. To look at it in a psychological way is to delve into the mind and maybe even the soul. To look at it this way, the myth can be interpreted in many different complex ways. It could be seen as a passionate forbidden love that we all wish for or want. That passionate rush of knowing you are defying your parents, that it feels good, and that it is for a good reason, love. Or it could be seen as a rebellion against the parents for no reasons but to rebel. It could the frustration of wanting something, finally getting close to it and losing it right at the end.

There is only one happiness in life-- to love and to be loved. This myth proves that, instead of living the rest of her life out Thisbe decided to die along with her love because she loved him so much and did not even want death to separate them. To look a myth in three different ways, naturally, socially, and psychologically, is to understand a myth in a totally different way then to just read it. It is a way to know what a myth represents and to explain why we are the way we are. That is why they are still told even today