Lethe, also known as Lesmosyne, was one of the Greek underworld rivers, and particularly the river of unmindfulness (Amelēs potamos): it gained its properties because it flowed around the cave of Hypnos, the god of sleep, son of Night and brother of Death. Whoever drinks from this river experiences forgetfulness. Interestingly enough, though, the Greek […]
Eurynome was an Ancient Greek deity traditionally connected with water, whose cult has been discovered near the confluence of the Neda and the Lymax rivers, down in Peloponnesus. She’s called an Oceanid by Pausanias, and her representation resembles a mermaid. Though Robert Graves offers us a charming theory and sees Eurynome as a lunar goddess […]
Venilia was a minor deity in Roman times, associated with the winds and the sea, and mentioned by both Virgil and Ovid. Part of a two-entities group associated with Neptune, Salacia and Vénilia, she expressed one of two aspects, domains or modes of action of the god: while Salacia can represent the rushing and possibly […]
The asphodelus is a perennial plant with tall, white clusters of flowers that resemble a pinecone, and Homer’s Odyssey indicates it as a plant connected to Hades and the afterlife. When the Romans thought the Greek vision of the afterlife was a tad too bleak and came up with something to convince people to die […]
The third and last (but not least) of the three sirens who challenge Orpheus and die in the Orphic Argonautica, Leukōsía “the white” is connected to the city of Paestum and a local legend tells us how she drove a rock through her heart because of the unrequited love with a prince. She’s today’s profile […]
Last week, we took a look at the profile of Parthenŏpe, one of the three sirens in the Argonautica. Today on my Patreon, we focus on one of her sisters, Lígeia, and see which kind of fate befell her after she was defeated by Orpheus (or snubbed by Ulysses) and threw herself into the sea: […]
In Hellenistic and Roman mythology, Kyparissos was one of the many boys loved by Apollo, like Hyacinth and just as lucky. The myth of his transformation into the mourning tree is connected with either Apollo or Silvanus, with an unfortunate deer and with the endless flowing of tears. He’s today’s profile on my Patreon.
In Greek mythology, Parthenŏpe was a siren and if the name sounds familiar to you it’s because the noun is still used to indicate everything that comes from the city of Naples, which legend says she founded. Daughter of a river-god and the muse of dance, she’s mentioned in the Orphic Argonautica alongside her sisters […]
Rhadamanthus (Ancient Greek: Ῥαδάμανθυς), also transliterated Rhadamanthys because the Greek letter is pronounced in between “u” and “y”, was a mythological wise king of Crete according to the Greeks. He was considered the son of Zeus and Europa, and today we take a look at how he became one of the judges of the dead. […]
I’ve been following Ioanna Papadopoulou on Twitter for quite some time now, and I know how passionate she is about mythology, folklore and her Greek heritage. I also knew she was working on what she called “a dark retelling” of the myth of Demeter, and I knew I was going to buy the book because […]