In the second branch of the Mabinogion, King Bendigeidfran and his men travel from Britain ("the Island of the Mighty", or Ynys Y Kedeirn), intent on avenging the punishment of his sister, Branwen, at the hands of the Irish (which takes place against the will of the Irish king Matholwch).
It is ...
Who were the Anunnaki according to Sumerians' tales? has been closed, re-opened, edited a lot over its life, and now has two close votes on it. It has been criticized as unclear, focusing on pseudoscience, and too broad. I suggest that, rather than have another mini debate over it, we discuss it ...
@durron597 I'm interested in why cows were sacred to Hera (I'm guessing it has something to do with Io, but I want to more about the symbolism behind cows and Hera)
usually, when gods are connected to animals, there's a deeper meaning/symbolism involved, but I could as always be wrong.
Of course physics as we know it cannot allow for stopping the earth in its tracks in any way except in falling into the sun:losing radial velocity drastically. If this happened, from asteroid impact for example, there would be a lot more dire upheavals than the sun standing still , to remain as a mythic description.. — anna v9 mins ago
@annav: Of course this event is not possible according to the laws of physics as we know it. This is Mythology.SE after all... — El'endia Starman24 secs ago
I considered saying further that for the Joshua version, stopping the Earth's rotation for a full day with no ill effects is peanuts for a God who created the universe.
@HDE226868 Space aliens. That said, the current version isn't off topic. But, my downvote stands. All it takes for an answer is a quick look at Wikipedia. And if the OP wants a more thorough answer, then he should ask a better question.
I just watched the movie Noah tonight. I loved the first half. It was so rich with mythology and wonder. The last half was a disappointment. The plot spent most of the time wandering around a kind of mild Saw-like scenario, where .... SPOILER .... Noah believes he must kill his grandchildren because they are not meant to replenish the Earth.
@Yannis Not too good though, cuz then you don't get an answer at all.
@El'endiaStarman Should I flag those comments as not constructive?
They are effectively arguing whether a myth is possible or actually happened. Since that is off-topic the comments belong in chat, if anywhere.
Which leads to another question: Who's handling flags while we are without moderators?
I've been flagging comments and things, but I haven't noticed any of them get deleted.
@Christofian Bulls are a power symbol in nearly every culture that has bulls. The cow, on the other hand is not usually stressed to heavily.
I'm unaware of Greeks symbolizing cows at all. Did they drink cow's milk? There's certainly a lot of symbolism around milk.
@fredsbend SE's community managers. Likely, Robert Cartaino and shog9 (haven't spotted anyone else around).
@fredsbend Eh, the comments there read more like an interesting side discussion than an argument. Wouldn't bother flagging (although, technically chat would certainly be the more appropriate place for such discussions)
Eh, I don't think I want to point you at it, because it's a bit obvious who the downvoter is. Also, the comment discussion there isn't particularly productive, and I decided to let it die. More eyes on it wouldn't help.
If n natural (n≥1) number and a1, a2,….an number have given, to write a program to find the amount of given order queue.
How to divide 12 for 2 with its multiply to be maximum?
Find the complete number till natural n has given.
Find which one has more numbers has given 2 natural numbers.
help ...
I hope my example with the flood would clarify this for you. Myths often have a sperm of reality. even current urban myths. — anna v36 mins ago
Well, being the particular sort of Christian I am, I do believe that the sun did actually stand still as said in Joshua 10. So this myth doesn't just have "a sperm of reality"...it DID happen! But that would be taking the comment thread even further away...
kinda weird because the question says we should rename it to aboriginals, which i agreed with, then somehow the end result has apparently became retagging everything to indigenous australians
It's us that should be thanking you @YoungGuilo. This place is turning to be a lot of fun, and it wouldn't be here if you hadn't proposed it and cared for it during the (long and cumbersome) Area51 process.
On a more personal note, thanks for that downvote. I should know better than to post lazy answers, I needed that kick in the butt.
The Aboriginal Australian people are most commonly referred to as Aboriginal Australians. We should make tags based on the more populist terminology. The term Indigenous Australian is technically correct as well, but normally includes both the Aboriginal people and the Torres Strait Islanders. Th...
@durron597 The thing is that sometimes chat linking kinda breaks and associates everyone with their area51 account (or it did before anyway), if that happens mods lose their powers until the issue is fixed, being a room owner can be convenient at these times. Once we have Mythology mods we might want to add these to the list of room owners (assuming they aren't on it anyway)
@durron597 Oh. shoot. I had been looking through the odyssey tag just before (and the iliad tag), thinking about some edits, and I misread that. I had a second tab open, and I didn't realize. That's a huge mistake. My bad.
@Daft No, it means any children she would have had with Vulcan wouldn't be human (or half-human), as neither she nor Vulcan were human. — Yannis18 hours ago
@durron597 In the first version of that comment, I had written Poseidon instead of Vulcan.
With 8 days and almost 200 questions, with 6 users over 1000 rep and a few more that are close, what more do we need to do to go public?
I noticed that we are starting to drop off in questions asked. We only have 7 open questions in the last 24 hours; voting appears to be dropping off too.
I wa...
With 8 days and almost 200 questions, with 6 users over 1000 rep and a few more that are close, what more do we need to do to go public?
I noticed that we are starting to drop off in questions asked. We only have 7 open questions in the last 24 hours; voting appears to be dropping off too.
I wa...
@HDE226868 furies can be synonymized to enriyes. On C.SE, we have a few tags for the proper term (e.g. eucharist) that are the synonym target of the more well-known term(s) (e.g. communion).
If you had commented instead of editing, I would have probably taken the easy way out and quoted wikipedia on Tartaros/Erebos. Locating the Oresteia quote was cool.
I would say they should be separate tags.
Greek and Roman mythology have a great deal of similarity, but they are not identical. For example, I doubt anyone thinks a question on Romulus and Remus can be legitimately tagged greek. Therefore, greek and roman are obviously not synonyms.
Questions ...
I think we should be using [ancient-greek] for anything up (and including) Hellenistic Greece, and [greek] for anything afterwards. I could live with a [greek-folklore] tag however.
@durron597 This will probably be the case, and it's why I'm hesitant in posting an answer. I guess a [greek-folklore] tag will be good enough when I decide to stop being lazy and actually post some questions about Greek folklore.
Well can y'all vote on those meta answers to swing it the other way then? Because right now the community seems to be saying we should have a greco-roman tag
It maybe a bit early, but it is something definite to start thinking about.
From the Moderator Pro Tempore blog:
About a week into the public beta, we will seek out members who are
deeply engaged in the community’s development; members who:
Have a reasonably high reputation score t...
I would say they should be separate tags.
Greek and Roman mythology have a great deal of similarity, but they are not identical. For example, I doubt anyone thinks a question on Romulus and Remus can be legitimately tagged greek. Therefore, greek and roman are obviously not synonyms.
(edited)
N...
honestly that part was more like an afterthought to objecting to making these synonyms
I struggle to really name an example, but I suppose something like the worship of heracles in Roman Germania might be considered graeco-roman without really being either greek or roman
In a sense, many cryptozoology stories seem to be close to mythology - some have supernatural angle (yet, admittedly, not all or even not most). And the "real, ontopic" myths themselves are full of cryptids (Nemeian Lion? Ruuh bird? Phoenix?)
Should cryptozoology stories (e.g. Nessie? Yeti? Chup...
@HDE226868 "For questions about the Táin Bó Cúailnge, an Irish epic story making of part of the Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology." I think you can skip repeating the name
I'm really surprised that no one commented on my answer: I did something very out-of-character in it (see if you can guess what it is): mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/545/…