If you look at the books I own or read, you'll find a horde of titles about myth, legend, folklore, history and archaeology. The past stretches out so far behind us today – here in the twenty first century – that we sometimes forget that we had to start somewhere to come at last to this point in time. The borders of the world's countries have shifted, whether due to human interaction or by the forces of nature. Rivers change their courses, climates change, and sometimes continents may even sink beneath the ocean to be lost forever…
One thing that still fascinates me about the Old Testament is the glimpses of all the peoples you get to see. The Egyptians in their grand palaces, the Philistines, of course, Assyrians… I could go on and on and on. I find Biblical archaeology especially interesting and can't resist the news of new Viking or Anglo Saxon hoards being found. At the moment I'm busy reading "Unearthing Atlantis: an Archaeological Odyssey" by Charles Pellegrino which is proving to be quite interesting, but also very explicit in the destruction caused by volcanoes. Do not read before bedtime!
http://www.literatureview.com/moxie/travel/atlantis.shtml
The city of Petra and its sister city Hegra (see the July/August 2010 issue of Archaeology Magazine at http://www.archaeology.org/curiss/ ) also holds fascination and have in part inspired some of the new fiction I am busy with concerning the Ealda people of Airthai. The kingdoms and peoples of the "old days" have always held a type of glamour (also in the magical sense of the word) for me. I remember how thrilled I was when I was about 5 years old and heard on the TV that a "lost city" had been found in South Africa – and how crushed I was when I was told that it wasn't a real lost city, but one at a big casino and hotel complex!
Of course I learned of the Aztecs, the Mayas and their frightening human sacrifices and the Amazon have always held a strange attraction for me. (Try Lost City of Z by David Grann.) But I also learned of Van Hunks that was in a smoking contest against the Devil, lost the contest, and was fated to sit on Table Mountain and smoke for all time. That is, of course, where the blanket of cloud on top of the mountain comes from… Then, of course, there's the Flying Dutchman and other (real) South African legends like Wolraad Woltemade, whom I've always pictured on a white horse… go figure.
I learned of Classical mythology along with Norse mythology, King Arthur and Robin Hood – I only later learned more about Celtic mythology, which I also fell in love with and learned about the Kalevala after reading The Lord of the Rings.
I ended up reading more and more about the different mythologies and learning about the people behind the mythologies and the legends. Could we ever truly understand how the people who believed these mythologies thought? And yet I still can only read these myths and legends with the knowledge that I already have.
But I can see worth in these tales even though I do not believe them to be true. To be sure, my heart breaks every time I read of Balder's death at the hands of his brother. (How must poor Hoder have felt when he realized he had just killed his brother?) And I can laugh heartily at Thor's doings when he meets Utgarda-Loki, but they remain for me fantastical tales. Some, of course is more believable than others, and some we wish to be real even after scholars say they can't be… Some stories tell of things that might have happened a long, long time ago in another world… And some stories may inspire us to make this world a better one…
For Wolraad's story, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolraad_Woltemade
In the next blog post I will tackle the creation story of Airthai and the question of magic and Talent in the world of Airthai.
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