The plot of my story takes place in a different dimension of our world where what we would call 'mythological creatures' exist. Specifically, the plot takes place in a version of North America. I was wondering if you knew of any prominent creatures based in North America. I know of skin-walkers and plan to use a version of them, but I'm not sure of any others. I was also curious if there is a version of fairyfolk in Native American folklore. Thanks.
I can’t actually answer your question for a couple of very important reasons. In short, Native American religions aren’t a monolith. There isn’t just one that you can pull from and represent all of North America. I’m assume you’re including the natives from Canada and Central America in your description of Native Americans since you said North America in general, which broadens the number of tribes significantly. There’s no way I can just tell you one, or even fifteen, creatures that represent all of North America. All tribes have their own beliefs and mythological creatures. Sure there is overlap, but even in that overlap the nuances and details depend on a particular tribe.
There is also the question of what you mean by “prominent”. There are some creatures that are more well known, like skin-walkers, but that doesn’t mean that those creatures are necessarily believed in by many tribes. Do you want creatures people are just likely to know of? In which case, you won’t be representing many tribes nor keeping the creatures within the proper regions. Or do you want creatures that are common amongst many tribes? In which case, you’ll have to choose one version and risk painting a large swath of tribes with the same brush and erasing the nuances and differences between tribes. Either case has major dangers to it and aren’t exactly a good idea, unless of course you want your character to perhaps know of a creature because its a major problem in a certain area but explain that there are other creatures, they just aren’t as well known because they aren’t a problem for people/don’t interact with them.
Your best bet is to narrow this down to a specific region, and it would be even better if you did it by tribe, and keeping your characters in that area and doing deep research there. Or, if your characters have to move, choosing tribes in a few locations where your characters will be and studying deeply there.
Unless you can give me some more information, I unfortunately can’t give you more help than this. Sorry.
I’d like to point out the question you received about Oshun being a healer. Perhaps the asker had meant emotional/spirtual healing, not physical healing. That would make sense.
I’m not aware of any healers being only emotional, especially Oshun. Could you perhaps send me your sources about emotionally healing Oshun or Orishas? Thank you!
hi! i’d like to know about any and all myths where the sun and moon are lovers—so far i’ve only found stories about siblings. where can i find the myths i’m looking for?
Hello!
Nanna, a Mesopotamian moon god later adopted by Sumerians as ‘Sin’, had a consort/wife Ningal. Ningal is strictly known as the goddess of reeds and associated with springtime, but she is also the mother of the sun, Utu.
Mama Quilla was the Incan moon goddess and sister-wife of Inti, the sun. She was rumoured to cry tears of silver and eclipses were attributed to her being in great pain. Inti appears in myth as both the personification of and the aspects of the sun, and in the insignia of many South American flags and coats of arms.
The Q’eqchi moon goddess, Po, is the daughter of the Earth god and she is wooed and captured by the sun. Eventually they consummate their relationship and are forced to flee from Po’s angry father. Po is associated with menstrual blood and her myth is very similar to the Greek one of Pandora unleashing ills on the Earth with her box: Po’s menstrual blood is transformed into snakes, insects, diseases and poison that assail life on earth.
The Lacandon people of Mexico and Guatemala also have married sun and moon deities, Qin and Akna, the sun-husband and moon-wife respectively. The sun is a man with “a ball of fire on his head”. They are vulnerable to Cisin, a powerful death god’s, giant jaguars who roam the edges of the world, trying to eat them. Akna has a special road in the sky that she walks up and down—when she is further up in the sky, her light is fainter, but she returns, she and the sun make love and she grows brighter. Qin walks on a road from one side of the Earth to the other, and at night Sukukyum, the god of the dead, carries him on a board to his home, where he stays until Sukukyum carries him to the other side of the world to start the next day’s trip.
According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, a Greek writing in the 4th c. CE, Selene the moon goddess bore to her brother Helios, the sun, the four Horai (“seasons”)—winter, spring, summer and autumn. The figures appear together on a mosaic from Imperial Rome although no other accounts in myth give Selene and Helios as lovers; more likely, their association with each other as well as the seasons have more to do with the symbolic link between the passage of time relating to days, months, and years.
Some inscriptions and artistic representations have been argued as proving a consort-type relationship between Catha, an Etruscan (the culture pre-dating the Romans) goddess and her cult counterpart Śuri, a solar god later associated with the sanctuary of Apollo Soranus (Apollo, commonly called Apollo Helius or Apollo Phoebus, was also strongly associated with the sun and solar worship). Catha is traditionally referred to as a sun goddess because of inscriptions that refer to her as “the daughter of the sun” or “the sun’s eye” but given her proximity to Śuri, the dual nature of sun/moon cults, and the fact that Selene, a later Greek goddess of the moon, was referred to by similar epithets, there is a strong argument that Catha may in fact be a lunar deity.
The Krachi people of West Africa believed that the sun and moon fell in love, married, and gave birth to the stars. But after a while, the moon grew bored of her husband and took a lover because she wanted the variety. The sun tried to work it out with the moon but she refused. So he gave her half of all their possessions and drove her out of the house. Half of the stars sided with him and the other half sided with the moon. The moon urges her star-children to fight their siblings who sided with the sun; this is how storms, lightning, and thunder came to be. When the moon wishes for her children to retreat, she sends her messenger, the rainbow. And whenever there’s an eclipse, the sun and moon are fighting in the sky once again. Man must beat his drum and threaten the sun as loud as he can at this time… or else the sun will kill and eat the moon.
The Dahomean people of West Africa (mainly Cameroon) believed in a supreme being named Mawu-Lisa. Mawu-Lisa were the androgynous offspring of Nana Baluku, the mother of all creation. In some versions, they’re brother and sister, in others they’re a being with one body and two faces. Mawu is the feminine face whose eyes resemble the moon. She is married to Lisa and she controls the night and all western territories. Her husband, Lisa, is the masculine face whose eyes are the sun. He controls the daylight and the east. Mawu-Lisa had many children who eventually ruled the kingdoms of the universe: the atmosphere, the earth, the sky, thunder, lightning, animals, forests, and the human lifespan.
Amaterasu is the Japanese sun goddess who features prominently in traditional Shinto creation myths. She is extremely important to the formation of the universe. She and her brother, Tsukuyomi, are born from the tragic story of the descent of their father, Izanagi, into the underworld to see his wife who had died. Upon finding her, they realize he cannot bring her back with him because she has eaten food in the underworld (sound familiar?), and he betrays his promise not to look at her (how about this?) and is chased back to the surface. When he undergoes the cleansing rite upon his return to earth. Izanagi washes out his left eye, and in doing so gives birth to Amaterasu, “shining in heaven”. He then washes out his right eye and from it springs forth Tsukuyomi, often given as meaning “moon counting”.
Amaterasu and her brother Tsukuyomi eventually become lovers, until he visited the land of Uke Mochi or Inari (“jewel of the rice storehouse”), goddess of food. Inari gave Tsukuyomi sustenance at his request…some versions give her spitting to create the food, others suggest she pulled it out of any and all available orifices. Insulted beyond reason, Tsukuyomi murdered her, creating a bounty of the variety of foods we now have on earth. Amaterasu was so angered by Tsukuyumi’s senseless violence that she banished him from the daytime sky, choosing instead to live out her days without him, and thus explaining the perpetual separation of the sun and moon.
In certain Nepalese myths that also appear in Northeast India, the sun and moon are a feuding husband and wife. The sun has numerous progeny that give off such an excess of heat that life on Earth is becoming unbearably hot. The moon tricks him into devouring his children with the promise that she, too, will devour her silvery, cold star children. The sun agrees and the moon deceives him by hiding away the stars so that they may not be seen by him; eventually, the sun discovers her ruse and they are locked in a chase that began at the dawn of time and will continue through eternity. Sometimes the sun will catch the moon and bite her, resulting in an eclipse. Every morning the sun devours the moon’s star-children or chases them away for the Moon to hide; at night, the moon will only bring the stars out on the advice of her eldest daughter, the morning and evening star, who looks out for the sun to ensure he does not pose a threat to them.
- Madame Mkunde and Renee
The Inuit have an extremely disturbing myth that includes sexual assault, incest and mutilation. Please skip over this paragraph if any of those subjects are triggering for you.
(Paragraph under the cut)
Igaluk or Aningan, in Greenland, is a male lunar deity from Inuit legend. He is the brother of Malina, with whom he grows up. Eventually Malina grows into a woman so beautiful that Igaluk decides he must rape her, because he is categorically awful*. He assaulted her over the course of several nights before Malina realized who he was. By some accounts, when she learned it was her own brother assaulting her, Malina cut off her own breasts and brought them to Igaluk, saying that if he wished to possess her he should eat them. In all versions, Malina flees into the sky and becomes the sun, and her brother chases after. He is forever pursuing her as she travels across the sky, but by Malina’s will they shall never again meet.
Are there any deities who identify as transgender, non-binary, etc? I don't mean if it's just natural occurrence for all their kind or they can shapeshift or appear as anything they want, but actual identification in a similar way a human would. To give an example with animals, clownfish aren't trangender, they just naturally change sex, not an identification. Also earthworms aren't bigender either just because all have both sets of sexual organs, it's natural not identification.
Hello!
The short answer is no.
The long answer is… maybe sort of, but not exactly.
The question is definitely very curious, but it’s missing one crucial detail: the historical and to some extent philosophical reality of the cultures.
Gender identity is a very recent concept. That doesn’t mean that genderqueer people were invented in 20th century: there are multiple examples of similar phenomena across the world. The difference is, they conceptualized it differently. I’d love to tell how, but finding research that uses the terms “sex” and “gender” consistently and systematically is godawful hard in this field, unless your particular interest revolves around feminism. A couple of books that I can recommend: “Making Sex” by T. Lacqueur and “Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse” by C.V. Stichele and T. Penner. However, I’ve struggled to find any constructive research concerned with non-Western cultures.
The long and the short of it is, gender is a social construct – and, as a social construct, it changed and transformed throughout human history. Consequently, the question of gender identity can well turn out to be a futile one: while some gods might be considered genderqueer in our modern understanding, their gender identification in ancient literature is up for interpretation. Can we call Thor trans just because he dons a dress to trick the giants in one of the sagas? Or Loki, who pretends to be an old woman in another? For starters, we’d need to define the term “gender” in the context of each and every culture we analyze, then we might be able to discuss how much of fluidity of gender can be observed and if we can call a god transgender or non-binary.
So, to cut it short: deities could not identify as genderqueer because there wasn’t a developed concept for that. We, from our specific perspective, might be able to assign genderqueer identities to them if we really wanted to – although, it would be missing the identifying oneself as someone, which is a crucial part of our modern understanding of what gender identity is, and in the context of the question posed here would be quite pointless, as your question seems to revolve specifically on the act of self-identification.
Can you tell me if there are any gods/goddesses that are involved with tarot cards?
Hi there!
Thanks for being patient with us! This answer took us a bit more research than expected but we hope what we were able to find is helpful to you.
So playing cards were first developed China around the 9th century AD. They were primarily used in drinking games and games of chance and may have started out as a sort of play money instead of real stakes. Of course since gambling is a universal pastime, the cards spread along the trade routes and landed in Persia, Arabia, Egypt (11th century), the Mediterranean (mid 14th century) and finally Europe in the 15th century. As a side note, playing cards took hold Japan thanks to Portuguese traders in the mid 16th century, not the Chinese, and karuta games using a variety of decks unique to Japan are still quite popular.
Tarot cards as we might recognize them originated in mid-15th century Italy and were designed as playing cards, as they are still frequently used by many European countries today. You can read more about them here, here and here. They were manufactured with gaming in mind, not divination or mysticism, although the designs were inspired by Italian court ideals and religious allegories popular at the time. Their association with magic probably started among rural communities as divination has always been a popular form of folk magic in Europe, despite the best efforts of the church. It’s unknown if tarot was ever associated directly with any local deities but it’s unlikely. Several location-specific decks were developed over time but it was only when it caught on with the higher class that specialized decks were invented—some of which are still in use today, such as the Tarot de Marseille (1780’s), Etteilla’s (aka Jean-Baptiste Alliette) Egyptian deck (1789), the Rider-Waite deck (1910), and Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris’ Thoth deck (1969). The Egyptian deck is undoubtedly a result of the Egyptomania that gripped Europe thanks to Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and the Thoth deck is thanks to a fascination in magic and occultism that started thanks to the repeal in 1951 of the Witchcraft Act of 1735 (read more about the movement HERE).
So to answer your question, no, there are not any gods directly historically associated with Tarot although modern users may sometimes choose to do so based upon their own preferences. They’re seen as a bit like a telephone, they’re the method of connection to the occult but the carrier may be up to the user.
Now the funny thing is, thanks to the popularity of Tarot, there are a HUGE number of types of decks available, including a few East Asian themed decks that have been published within the past ten years although their actual connection to Chinese mythology and symbolism is tenuous at best.
~Tora
Further Reading:
Tarotology - Wikipedia
Cartomancy - Wikipedia
Playing Card - Wikipedia
Mamluk cards, ca. 1500 - Historical playing cards
Mamluk cards - Spiorad.net
Esoteric tarot - Wikipedia
The History of Tarot Cards - Medium.com
Antoine Court de Gébelin - Wikipedia
Tarot Mythology: The Surprising Origins of the World’s Most Misunderstood Cards - MentalFloss
I think I read somewhere that Chinese dragons are mostly deities of weather / rain / good fortune. Is this true, and are there any Chinese dragons that represent the other elements (earth, air, fire... lightning?) Actually, anything you guys know about Chinese dragons would be super duper helpful.
Hello!
As far as I can tell, you’re on the right track. Dragons in Chinese mythology are gods of the seas, rivers, lakes and storms, and water in general. I’ve found some reference to malevolent mountain dragons, adapted from Buddhist nagas, but nothing detailed. New World Encyclopedia also has a page detailing the attributes of dragons in different Asiatic folklore. We’ve answered another ask about the Dragon Kings in the past, which has a bit more info.
A big thanks for answering my question about the Baku. I'd like to ask one more thing. You said that the translations of Louis Frédéric's works were sketchy. What language was it originally? May I have the original quote please?
Hello!
The tidbit is originally from The Japan Encyclopedia it looks like the following:
“Baku: Mythical animal of Chinese origin, vaguely resembling a tapir, supposed to be able to swallow anything, even mountains. It also swallows children’s nightmares” Louis Frédéric (1923-1996).
You can find the English version on Google books, but I’m not sure where to find the French version.
So I'm adding some Chinese myths into my story but it kinda seems most of my ideas are from Journey to the West. Is this a good idea or not? But then stories that include hell are taken from Dante's Inferno, those that include orcs are taken from Tolkien's works, and while not a myth people who include pirates take it from Treasure Island, and so on. So I guess I'm good?? IDK??
Hello!
This is actually out of our area of expertise. We aren’t here to tell you how to write your story or even necessarily where you should get inspiration from. We’re just here if you want information on specific myths of mythological characters. So in regards to your question, it’s your story as long as you’re giving respect to what mythology you draw from then go for it.
If you want more info about a specific myth or even ScriptMyths discussions on why this is only one of many examples of using ancient texts in modern day media and fairly common, please send in another ask.
My minotaur is an alien shapeshifter so I'm going to explain how it got into myth. But since minotaurs are so overdone, would you know of any little known ideas about the myth that most people don't know about or any ideas that someone had about it that got rejected by others? I could possibly make those ideas important and true, perhaps purposely hidden from humans because they are true and/or dangerous and let the humans spread misleading ideas.
Hello!
The legend of the Minotaur, a monstrous creature with the head of the bull and the body of man, comes to us from the Greek myths about the Minoan culture of Crete, a vaguely rectangle-shaped island in the Mediterranean with cultural links to Greece as well as Turkey.
There are two main narratives featuring the Minotaur: the story of its conception (aka that time Queen Pasiphae tricked a giant white bull—sent to the king of Crete by Poseidon—into getting her pregnant) and the story of its imprisonment within the labyrinth. The second is the tale of Theseus rescuing the youth of Athens from the labyrinth, only to leave his lady-love Ariadne stranded on an island, where she is later impregnated by Dionysus. Mythology! Where men wander around doing things, and women mostly just end up pregnant.
When you talk about the myth of the Minotaur being overdone, I’m assuming you mean the bits about how he’s scary, he’s in a labyrinth, and he’s a cannibal (hence Theseus and other youth of Athens being imprisoned in the Labyrinth—they were meant to be his snacks). Those are the well-known broad strokes of the myth. For a more complete picture, you might try looking into Europa—she was abducted by Zeus in the form of a—wait for it—giant bull and their union gave rise to the royal dynasty of Crete, culminating in the first king of Crete, Minos, and his queen Pasiphae, aka, the woman who banged another giant bull. Minos and Pasiphae also had children, one of whom was the same Ariadne whom Theseus rescued, only to later abandon her on Naxos. Which was ultimately fine for Ariadne because she was later deified as a result of her union to Dionysus—a god who was strongly linked to—WAIT FOR IT—bulls and was often said to visit mortals in the form of a bull. Symbolic motifs! Love ‘em.
Unfortunately there’s no Buzzfeed article “Top 10 Little-Known Aspects of the Minotaur Myth That Will Blow Your Mind in This Quiz That Will Also Tell You Which Powerpuff Girl You Are” (or maybe they’re working on it right now, who can say). My advice to you in the meantime is to go to the primary sources. Theoi.com’s page on Minotauros is a great place to start. It lists all the texts and hymns we have in the historical record that refer to the Minotaur.
Rereading the myths might help get the juices flowing and help you hit on which aspect of the myth it is that you really want to delve into to make it your own. The podcast Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! has an excellent episode on Queen Pasiphae and Cretan culture (Episode IV “Queen Pasiphae did WHAT with a Bull?”). The myth of the Minotaur is also inextricably linked in popular consciousness to the Labyrinth that housed it. You can listen to Myths and Legends podcast episode “Icarus and Daedalus: A Portrait of the Artificer as a Young Man” for more on the man of legend, Daedalus, who built the labyrinth.
Once you’ve exhausted the primary sources, go for the secondary interpretations. Two major themes of the myth concerning the Minotaur’s conception are human hubris and the retribution of the gods, as detailed in “The Myth of the Minotaur: from genesis to the contemporary interpretation” by Maria Grazia Griffo. Her presentation is an excellent launch point for historical, artistic renderings of the Minotaur myth and what commentary it makes on its society of origin as well as modern society (e.g., Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “The House of Asterion”). Taking a more scientific approach, Matt Kaplan, in an episode of Ted Ed on the “Scientific Origins of the Minotaur”, suggested that the Cretans created the myth in order to explain the occurrence of earthquakes on their island, given the myth’s linkage to Poseidon, one of whose epithets was “Earthshaker”.
You may want to tackle some research about how and whether the labyrinth is connected to the child sacrifice supposedly practiced by the Cretans as their way of appeasing the minotaur that lived inside it. Or you could go another route and explore the symbolism of labyrinths in ancient and modern culture. It depends on what aspects you want to use to link your alien shapeshifter to its supposedly mythical origins, and how that resonates with the themes of your story. As with any device that’s “overdone”, it’s up to the author using it to peel back the layers of popular interpretation and present it to readers in a new light, enabling readers to see it in a form that’s new to them.
Hi, do you know any ancient Ethiopian myths or at least some in northern Africa
Yes, I know some Ethiopian and North African mythology but you’ll need to be more specific with your ask for me to help you further. For now, all I can say is that North Africa and The Horn Of Africa/ East Africa are quite different and their mythologies are quite different. Ethiopian mythology is a bit tricky too because they’ve been Christian (and Muslim) since Ancient Times. This means that most of their mythology comes from individual tribes, folk tales and Aesops, or are Biblical or Islamic stories.
Do you know of any reliable refs in English on Oshun Of the Sweet Water? I was looking for benevolent "ancient deities" from the African continent to use as a patron for a healer; she SOUNDS perfect but I'm real skeptical of some of my sources + wary of relying on Western or outside sources since she seems to be worshiped still in the modern Yoruba faith as an Orisha and (unsurprisingly) as a Saint in some syncretic Catholic variants? bc I don't want to be disrespectful of any extant faiths.
Hello!
Firstly, Oshun isn’t a healing deity. She is the patron goddess, or an orisha (a deity of the Yoruba people of West Africa— mainly Nigeria and Benin) of rivers and is more tied to divination than healing. If you want a healing deity, then go with Babalu-Aye, Erinle, Aja, or perhaps even a Jengu or a Mami Wata.
Babalu-Aye is the Orisha of infectious diseases (most commonly associated with HIV, smallpox, ebola, and leprosy) and healing. He’s called the “wrath of the Supreme God.” Babalú-Ayé is associated with Earth and strange dichotomies of nature (darkness and light, exile and movement, etc) and he’s much more changeable and aggressive than the others. There’s also Erinlė; he and Babalu-Aye both heal with medical gourds but he’s the saner one of the two. Erinlė is the benevolent physician to the other orisha. But he’s associated with masculinity, hunting, and the forces of the universe. He was married to Oshun. Aja is the orisha of the forest and she has a lot to do with herbal healing. She’s also more earth- and animal-connected and is the patroness of potions.
But if you want water and healing and Africa you’d want to use Jengu/ Mami Wata. They’re like beautiful, gap-toothed African mermaids who protect rivers and oceans. It seems like all of Africa (except the North) has these in some form or another. The Cameroonians call them Jengu. The Nigerians call them Mami Wata. They’re also seen in Haitian Voodoo and Louisiana Voodoo as Mami Wata, and they’re associated with snakes, pearls, and wealth. These minor deities heal people and act as intercessors between people and the spirits and are all around benevolent (as long as they’re being worshiped).
Hey, I was wondering what you know about djinns? I grew up being taught that they were demons (but you could have good or bad ones) and never actually knew they were considered genies. Thank you and have a nice day!
Hello!
We already have a post up about djinn here. If that doesn’t answer your questions or brings up more specific ones please send in another ask and we’ll do our best to give you an answer!
You know that idea where "the fae/fair folk" are very rigid about rules and etiquette and agreements/contracts, and will not lie but may be very literal in their interpretations of words, which we see often in fantasy and is usually thought of/referenced as "Irish" based lore? I'd like to use that for a story, but I don't want to make assumptions that could be incorrect about other cultures' lore. Could you help with good sources? Especially on stories where they interact w/ humans in some way?
Hello!
This question really delves into the nitty gritty of folklore and I like it!
First off, you specifically refer to not wanting to make assumptions about other cultures’ lore, but that’s something we’re going to do right off the bat. In fact, that’s partly what makes a good storyteller—the ability to read about something, or take some piece of information, and embellish it or come at it from a different perspective to give a fresh, exciting take.
Fae and Fair folk are epithets given to otherworldly creatures prominently featured in Irish mythology and folklore. There is some overlap with other places in the United Kingdom, most notably Scotland and England, but when you start to venture out of Ireland, you might hear variations on the names like pixies, spriggans, elves and leprechauns. The name with which you’re referring to the fae is important is it relates to certain behaviours ascribed to them. The fairies of the English/Irish/Scottish Seelie Court are literally “happy”, whereas the Unseelie Court fairies are “misfortunate”. The fairies of the first court are likely to bestow gifts upon humans; the fairies of the latter, more likely to assault and abduct without provocation. The Welsh Tylwyth Teg and the Irish Aos Sì, also categorized as the ageless and powerful Fair Folk, are considered to be more neutrally aligned, and inhabit a world parallel to humans that only intersects when they want it to.
Irish and Scottish folktales were deeply shaped by their exposure to Christianity, beginning as early as the 5th century CE. There are multiple theories as to the origins of the Fair Folk, which might be worth examining if you’re looking to delve into the motivation behind these rules and behaviours—some scholars have the fae as an archaic form of ancestor worship; some as fairies being the souls of the dead, disfigured and trapped on earth; one school of thought suggests they are fallen angels who were cast out of Heaven by god and denied entry to Hell by the devil himself (you see the Christian influence coming in here).
You’re on the right track asking for sources that depict the fairy-human relationship. The rules, etiquette, agreements, contracts and equivocating language that fairies use are all things cobbled together from the myriad depictions of humans interacting with fairies. The most notable compilers and collectors of those stories was W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet, in his book Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, a member of the Irish landed gentry who was greatly interested in preserving Irish culture, fostered each others’ interest in folk tales. Lady Gregory published two collected volumes of Irish folk tales. Those two sources would be great places to start. Professor D. L. Ashliman, formerly of University of Pittsburgh, has also transcribed several hundred excerpts from various works of collected fairy stories from different cultures, including Irish, Scottish, and English.
Based on those sources, some patterns of behaviour come to light, which I’ve listed below:
Some common “rules” for interacting with fairies:
1- always be polite and never insulting
2- never make a promise to them you don’t intend to keep
3- do not litter or despoil a fairy dwelling (obvious or suspected)
4- don’t expect something for nothing—all interactions with fairy must be mutually profitable
Etiquette
1- never accept a fairy gift
2- do not eat fairy food or drink fairy wine
3- don’t step into a fairy ring/follow fairy music or a fairy procession/dance with the fairies/get romantic with a fairy
4- don’t reveal your “true” name to a fairy
5- don’t say thank you—it implies you owe them
6- don’t mention any newborn children you or someone else has got lying around
The problem, as I’ve already said, is that there’s nothing to tell us exactly why fairies were thought to behave a certain way, or interact with humans as they did. Stories about the Fair Folk have been recounted orally among people living in the United Kingdom for time immemorial, and they’ve always been regarded with a mixture of respect, delight, and fear. Even their epithets—”the Fair Folk”, “the Good People”—are supposedly deliberate attempts to soften their ire against humans by giving them a beneficent title they don’t necessarily deserve.
A traditional belief was that fairies were to blame for the disappearance or spoiling of common elements crucial to survival in rural Ireland. If a crop of wheat was harvested, but a child in the home died from malnourishment, the fairies had interfered with the essence of the wheat, taking it for themselves and leaving an empty simulacrum for the humans—something that might look healthy and nutritious, but is really devoid of value.
Two versions of the same story—one from Ireland, one from Scotland—tell of a deformed man, a hunchback, who unwittingly stumbles upon a fairy and is invited to take part in a dance. The fairies see his intention is pure and by this alone he warrants the removal of his hunch by the fairies (who do not ask him, but simply do it). A second man then wanders into the fairy gathering and his uncouth behaviour is rewarded with the deformity of the first man. In the Scottish version of the telling, the second man goes out of his way to find the fairies after the first man tells him of the miracle that befell him. It is the avaricious intent in the second man’s heart that ultimately dooms him to be punished by the fairies.
We can infer a couple of things from the morality in just these two stories (there are so many more): the first might be an example of the natural forces at work that Irish farmers may not have completely understood; the second, a fable meant to drive home the point that a pure heart will get more reward in life for being content with his lot and asking for nothing, than someone who goes out seeking to get whatever he can from whoever will give it to him.
My best advice to you, if you’re repurposing these myths to tell your own story, is to really spend some time getting inside them to understand what they’re about, and what it is that gives them their meaning. What makes the myth meaningful to the story you’re writing? And remember, if you meet a fair-haired stranger who asks you what you’re writing, don’t tell them your real name, or follow them down any garden paths, just to be safe.
I had an idea for a horror story about a monster attacking people in public restrooms as a metaphor for bathroom rights where some people are afraid to use restrooms. I was wondering if you could come up with some malicious supernatural characters associated with defecation or the like. I'd prefer a European/U.S.-centric character. The only things coming to my mind are hungry ghosts, which aren't really malicious, and a yokai associated with bathhouses but not bathrooms as Americans mean it.
Hello!
So, as far as any of us know, there really isn’t anything that fits what you’re after. Lots of cultures have gods/spirits associated with toilets and defecation, but they’re not really malicious. Mostly, they’re fertility gods, reflecting the ancient practice of using the contents of toilets (nightsoil) as fertiliser. I suppose you could pick one and have it attack because somebody has offended it; this is fairly normal for gods and spirits the world over.
I’d suggest maybe an enraged genius loci, a Roman god of a place (I see no reason why a public loo couldn’t have one, and it fits your criteria re: Western) or Cloacina, the Roman goddess of sewers. But, keep in mind that gods do not tend to die easily, being immortal, so it’s going to seem weird if you have your protagonist kill it. Try giving it something it wants instead, like vengeance or justice.
Hi, I’m looking for info on aboriginal Australian mythology, specially Maori. I’m not sure if you can answer my question though because it also involves aboriginal Taiwanese. You see, they actually share the same roots, supported by DNA, and also I’ve noticed some similarities in culture and language. However, it seems that the mythology is vastly different. I mean, the only similarities could be snake being creators. But there’s not a bit similarity in the myths or anything else. Especially Dreamtime. There’s not a thing in any way similar in Taiwan. My real question though, is where these myths actually come from, where are the origins, how they got spread around, perhaps who and when they got interpreted, and obviously how could it be so vastly different. I’m not sure what I’m looking for but it’s certainly confusing.
Hello!
So you sparked quite the debate among us all and we ended up with two distinct opinions based on two modes of research. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are both opinions and all of the facts those opinions are based on:
Not quite. Aboriginal Australian cultures and Polynesian cultures had no confirmed direct contact prior to British colonisation, so you’re not going to find a link to the Dreamtime stories (and I’d advise you be careful with them anyway, see our post here). I think your confusion might have come from the name of the Austronesian language family, which includes Taiwanese Aboriginal languages and Polynesian languages like Māori. While Australian and New Guinean languages aren’t included, the languages of most of Indonesia and Malaysia are, as are Cham and Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar.
You may also be confused by the Austroasiatic family, which is also unrelated to Austronesian, though it does share areal features with West-Malayo-Polynesian languages like Bahasa Malayu and Javanese, and with Cham (Chamic subfamily) due to long contact.
Add to that, the Austronesian cultures in Indonesia/Malaysia/Vietnam have been heavily influenced by Hindu mythology, which makes it harder to see the links between the beliefs of Taiwanese Aborigines (and Filipinos) and the peoples of Polynesia.
Utuabzu
Hello! My apologies for the delay and thank you for your patience; I hope that the following answers at least some of your questions.
Your mention of a genetic relationship between the Māori, Australian Aborigines, and the Taiwanese Aborigines was so interesting that I immediately had to go see for myself where these relationships might lay.
For those that might be new to the topic, Taiwan is an island state in East Asia, neighboring Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and the Philippines (Wikipedia, Taiwan, 2018). There’s a theory of human migration called the “Out of Taiwan Model” (Wikipedia, Austronesian peoples, 2018), which posits that the Austronesian homeland was Taiwan, joined by similarities in culture and language, as well as a shared ancestry in the native people of Taiwan.
One of the groups that is included in the Austronesian people is the Māori, and the Out of Taiwan Model supports the relationship between the Māori and the Taiwanese Aborigines. There is some doubt about the evidence presented by the relevant linguistic and archaeological fields, with one paper saying that genetic evidence speaks neither for nor against a genetic relationship for the Out of Taiwan Model due to issues in handling and interpretation of data, especially in light of the apparent over-reliance of the linguistics and archaeology fields to confirm each other’s hypotheses with their own issues in data collection and assimilation (Lee, 2012).
However, there have been multiple instances of further investigation into genetic testing done to try and form a more unified theory of how the Austronesian people might be related. One study found that the Y-chromosome haplotype DNA (paternal line) has Melanesian origins and that the mtDNA (AKA mitochondrial DNA, maternal line) has influence from Taiwanese genetic strains (Pagulayan, n.d.).
A Māori-Malay connection was further strengthened during an analysis of genetic data by Geoffrey K. Chambers and Hisham A. Edinur during their own study of genetic relations of the Austronesian peoples (Chambers & Edinur, 2013). The asymmetry between the paternal and maternal lines exhibit a gender biased geneflow, as well as the settling of the Polynesian islands likely being planned (Chambers & Edinur, 2013). The Out of Taiwan theory settles into the more likely idea that it was part of one of a few waves of migration that impacted the spread of the Austronesian peoples, where for the Māori the mtDNA can be traced back in a somewhat circuitous route via the Melanesians to the Taiwanese Aborigines, and the Y-chromosomes indicate a paternal ancestry to Papua New Guinea (Chambers & Edinur, 2013).
What is more difficult to discern is the possible relationship between the Taiwanese Aborigines and the Australian Aborigines. There has been little genetic testing done on the Australian Aborigines, for a variety of reasons, but a genome-wide association study done on the Aborigine population of Riverine area of western New South Wales reveals a common ancestor with the Papuan New Guineans and the Melanesians (McEvoy & al., 2010). The Australian Aborigines may fit into the migrational picture by being one of the first waves of migration (Rasmussen & Willerslev, 2012), and given their subsequent isolation on the Australian continent, it would make sense that their relation to the Austronesians is at first glance very distant.
So – yes, the Taiwanese Aborigines and the Māori are definitely related by virtue of both being closely-related Austronesians, and yes, the Australian Aborigines are related to the Austronesians but it’s difficult to acquire consent for genetic testing. Which means technically the Māori and the Australian Aborigines are related, but just distantly enough to cause doubt in the uninformed.
Mythology is, unfortunately, not always a very good indicator of blood relation between groups of people. As a part of culture, it is often changed to accommodate the demands of changing times and geographic areas – what is important to learn in one environment might be unnecessary to know in another. With Dreamtime, however, you’re in luck! I just recently bought a book on the history of shamanism (The Shamanism Bible: The definitive guide to Shamanic thought and practice by John Matthews), and many concepts and practices about Dreamtime are similar enough that it’s been included in the book.
Aboriginal Taiwanese culture was difficult to find information on, especially in a mythological or even shamanistic context, so I’ll start with Dreamtime and its similarities to other Austronesian practices first.
“The central aspect that informs every aspect of life among the Outback Peoples is the Dreamtime. This is both a period of time conceived of as existing before the creation of human beings, and a kind of parallel world that still exists and is inhabited by spirits and ancestors. It is to this world that all shamans journey in search of knowledge and power.
According to the teachings of the Aborigines, the Dreamtime began when infinite space was penetrated by great powers, who literally dreamt the universe into being. These beings, whose powers are limitless, are the great ancestors of humanity, and their dreams formed the world as we know it.”
- Pages 138-139 (Matthews, 2017)
Being able to communicate with spirits, ancestors, and other deceased individuals is known as mediumship (Wikipedia, Mediumship, 2018), and the practice of it can manifest in a variety of different ways depending on the culture.
The Australian Aborigine shamans carry the Atnongara Stones, which represent non-physical stones that a shaman can insert and remove from a person’s body at will, and can also be used to heal a patient from diseases or sorcery – this practice is similar to the Māori tohunga. The tohunga have a stone, called the whatu, which was considered the source of their power, ostensibly inherited from a line of their predecessors so long and consistently it was rumored in some myths that the whatu were from the gods themselves in the beginning of time.
The whatu could be used to heal illnesses, but when there were no obvious physical causes, it was called mate atua, or Disease of the Gods. The tohunga had a variety of means to heal mate atua, ranging from using the whatu to reading dreams of the patient and their family, even performing incantations (karakia) or working with the head of the patient’s family to address the spirit making the patient sick.
From Papua New Guinea, the Glass Men (or Secret-Sacred Men) did much of their work at night, flying into their dreams to find healing or information. They, like the tohunga, could use incantations to compel spirits to flee their patients. In a similar vein to the Australian Aborigines, the Glass Men could communicate with the spirits in stones – as well as other objects, and believed that part of the soul could venture out of the body through dream states.
Unidentifiable pains in the body were imagined to be stones or spearheads, and that they could remove these non-physical objects at will by communication with a sprite, who then becomes a friend of the sprites. This shares a resemblance with how the shamans of Australia could use the Atnongara Stones to heal.
While many societies may have a term for the time-before-people, the idea that there is a parallel world in which spirits of any sort live and can be visited by a properly trained and skilled individual (usually a shaman) unites the Australian Aborigines, the Māori, and the Papua New Guineans.
This is also true for the Taiwanese, and is a core concept of their own practice of shamanism, many aspects of which are shared with not only China but the rest of Eastern Asia.
Most of the information I have found on Taiwanese shamanism comes from the Chinese wu (Wikipedia, Wu (shaman) - Modern Wu, 2018). The wu – a term used both generally and to apply strictly to women (the men being called xi) were to keep the balance between the realm of earth, with its laws of man and nature, and the realm of heaven, with its laws of spirits, by being the appointed people to carry out spiritual tasks on behalf of the community and communing with the spirits (Matthews, 2017).
In Taiwan, there are Ji Tong (乩童), and in contrast to wu allow themselves to be controlled by a god or other spirit, instead of a wu’s control of the situation (Wikipedia, Tongji (spirit medium), 2018). Ji Tong are now apparently rare enough that one photographer that had been living in Taiwan had only seen their first Ji Tong event after living there for eight years (Wade, 2013). Usually the Ji Tong have specific gods that speak through them, and self-flagellate as a way to prove that a god is inhabiting their body; their chosen god is the primary entity for whom they act as a medium for helping to answer people’s questions, though often they can also communicate with different gods or ghosts of the deceased to help aid others in their troubles (Wade, 2013).
None of this above, really, is about the mythology of any of these peoples, but they illustrate a crucial detail – their mythologies are different because the cultures are different, and there are many influences on how a culture is shaped and maintained. Terence C. Russell describes it best when going over the mythology and literature of the Taiwanese Aborigines (Russell, 2009):
“Myths and legends are the reflection of a people’s historical experience. They seldom constitute organized historical narratives in the manner of many literate cultures, but they are history nonetheless, in function if not form.”
The people of Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia do not share the same history despite sharing a genetic relationship – thus, they do not share the same mythology. This was all the information I could find for you, but if there is something in particular you would like to know about the mythologies of any of these cultures, please feel free to come back and ask.
Cheers,
Tex
Further Reading:
Myths and Legends of Indigenous People in Taiwan – The Ministry of Culture
Folk Stories of Taiwan – taiwandc.org
Works Cited (Under Keep Reading Line)
Chambers, G. K., & Edinur, H. A. (2013). Genetic relationships between Malays and Maori. In P. D. Rahman, W. R. Rahman, & T. R. Higgins (Eds.), The changing values of Malays, Māori and Pacific Islanders (pp. 6-37). Kelburn, Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington. Retrieved 2018, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Geoff_Chambers/publication/284678546_Genetic_relationships_between_Malays_and_Maori/links/59fcfdcfa6fdcca1f2976420/Genetic-relationships-between-Malays-and-Maori.pdf#page=20
Lee, N. H. (2012). Working Papers in Linguistics: University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Vol. 43(4). Retrieved 2018, from Department of Linguistics Faculty, Univeristy of Hawaii: http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/research/WorkingPapers/wp-NalaLee.pdf
Matthews, J. (2017). The Shamanism Bible: The definitive guide to Shamanic thought and practice (2nd ed.). (L. Dean, Ed.) Malaysia: Firefly Books Ltd.
McEvoy, B. P., & al., e. (2010). Whole-genome genetic diversity in a sample of Australians with deep Aboriginal ancestry. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 87(2), 297-305. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.07.008
Pagulayan, R. D. (n.d.). The Role of Migration, Trade, and Genetic Exchange in the Neolithic Austronesian Expansion, Long Essays, Volume III. (G. Garvey, Editor, & University of Notre Dame) Retrieved 2018, from Anthrocentric Undergraduate Journal: https://anthropology.nd.edu/assets/224797/pagulayanr.docx.pdf
Rasmussen, M., & Willerslev, E. (2012, April). Sequencing Uncovers a 9,000 Mile Walkabout. Retrieved 2018, from Illumina: https://www.illumina.com/documents/icommunity/article_2012_04_Aboriginal_Genome.pdf
Russell, T. C. (2009). The Mythology and Oral Literature of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples. Taiwan Literature English Translation Series(24), 4. Retrieved 2018, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dd3b/dd82bfeefedfa35d4afdc02c5495ce4bd7ba.pdf
Wade, N. (2013, October 15). Ji Tong – Taiwanese Spirit Mediums. Retrieved 2018, from Neil Wade’s Photography Blog: https://taiwan-photography-blog.com/2013/10/15/ji-tong-taiwanese-spirit-mediums/
Wikipedia. (2018, July 28). Austronesian peoples. Retrieved 2018, from Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Austronesian_peoples&oldid=852353785
Wikipedia. (2018, July 23). Mediumship, 851602575. Retrieved 2018, from Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediumship&oldid=851602575
Wikipedia. (2018, July 31). Taiwan. Retrieved 2018, from Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taiwan&oldid=852743987
Not exactly a myth question, but I wasn't sure who else to ask. do you think it's more appropriate/better to refer to different kinds of beings (i.e. elves, dragonborns, fay, human, etc.) as different species or different races? I see in a lot of RPG and DnD stuff that it's usually "define your race" or something, but idk, I was curious! I'm writing a thing with a modern fantasy setting so there's a lot of human and non-human folks living in the city.
Hello!
So this isn’t really a question that falls within our realm because it depends more on terminology than it does in actual mythology. It largely depends on definition and preference, however, the main difference between race and species is that species is scientific while race is distinctly not.
