RULER GODS
Greek / Roman
Professional Criricism #1
Norse
Professional Criticism #2
Slavonic
Comparison of 5 myths
Contrast of 5 myths
Finnish
About the Author
Dagda is the ruler according to the Celtic myths. It is told that the Dagda had a wife with three names, Breng, Meng, and Meable, she bore him three daughters, they were all called by the name Brigit. Dagda is known as the "good god". He was both a death dealer and a healer. He carried a huge and mighty club so enormous that eight men could not carry it. With the club Dagda could kill nine men with only one blow, and using the other end, he could bring the slain men back to life.
The myth, "The Harp of the Dagda", is about the harp that belonged to the Dagda. The harper, who was the only one able to play the Dagda's harp, and the harp its self were one day stolen by the flying Fomorians. Lugh, the Dagda, and a warrior called Ogma followed them to a hall in the Formorian camp. That is where they found the harp, hanging on the wall. The Dagda called to the harp with a particular phrase, "Come, apple-sweet murmur, come four-angled frame of harmony, come, summer, come, winter, from the mouths of harps and bags and pipes." After speaking these words the harp immediately flew into his hands, killing 9 of the Formorian men.
After retrieving the harp, the Dagda played the "three noble strains" which every great master of the harp should command, the Strain of Lament, which caused the hearers to weep, the Strain of Laughter, which caused them to be merry, and the Strain of Slumber, or Lullaby, which put them all to sleep. While, the others were under the cover of sleep, the three men escaped.
The ruler god of the norse mythology is the god known as Odin. it is told that he came to be the ruler god by his father. He was supposedly melted out of the ice and was the first god then the ruler ship was passed down from his father to the oldest son, Odin.
The Norse Creation Myth talks about how the earth was created, and how Odin came into power over the gods. This particular myth tells that long ago there was no heaven above nor an earth beneath, only a bottomless pit in a vast majority of myth. There, somewhere in the middle of the atmosphere, was a fountain which twelve rivers flew out of it. As the rivers traveled they froze.
Below the mist there was a world of light. Once there was a warm breeze that flew through and began to melt the ice. The contact between the cold ice and the warm air created the clouds. These clouds joined together to form the frost giant Ymir, and his cow, Audhumbla. As the ice melted, salt was exposed and the cow began to lick the salt. As the cow licked the salt, a man was becoming exposed, who was apparently buried in the ice. This man was the first god, father of Odin, Vili, and Ve.
The three young gods slew the man and his salty blood flew out of his veins and created the seas. The bones formed mountains and his flesh formed the earth. From his hair came the plants. Of all these plants, were Aske, the ash tree, and Embla, the elm. With the ash tree Odin made a man and with the elm tree he made a woman. Odin himself gave the humans life and soul; Vili gave them reason and motion; Ve gave them speech and motion.
Odin then organized the world, separating the darkness and the light, creating night and day. He fashioned the middle earth for the people to live in. He also created a home for the gods. Even though they had slew the frost giant, Ymir, not all of his body was dead, part of it is still alive and sleeps at the foot of a giant ash tree. When the body stirs, the earth quakes.
Joseph Cambell claimed to have established that all hero myths follow the same pattern. This monomyth , the name that he gave some of the detailed features. (e.g. the hero encounters an old beggar who is really a god) This scheme however has more ways of escape than the lair of a James Bond villian. He tells us that if some elememt of the story is missing, it is significant, not a contradiction. The unalterable essentials of the monomyth seem to be this: "Stories human beings tell tend to have a beginning, a middle and an end, and a protagonist who does interesting things" He claims the people never get tired of somebody who gets into trounle and then gets out of it.
Caampbell has many claims, one of which is The Masks of God, is one that says that all myths really have the same message. He also suggests that this sort of metaphysics is correct. aAn obvious problem is that myths seem to have lots of different messages, to be incorporated into religions. This is almost proven by a sort of practice. In practice, this means that we can start with any story that we like, and by selectively changing it in our minds, we can end the story with some desired notions. Since by all of the analogous methods that we could use to alter a story, we could end up with just about anything that we please.
Having divided the world into four zones along conventional and reasonable lines, and claiming that they each have very