King Gylfi of Sweden compassionately awarded an old woman with as much land as four oxen could plow. She was secretly the Norse goddess Gefjon, and her four oxen dragged away enough land to create the island of Zealand. The hole left behind was Sweden's Lake Mälar. #WyrdWednesday#folklore#mythology#NorseMythology#Norse#Viking
Though Apollo was the noble Greek god of music, light, and healing, he also was the feared god of diseases. People would pray to Apollo to protect them and their livestock. If Apollo was angry, he'd use his arrows to destroy them with horrible illnesses.
🎨 Pierre-Charles Jombert #LegendaryWednesday#folklore#mythology#Greece
It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏
"They say he [#Hermes] was responsible for profit and an overseer of the businesses: consequently they set up the statue of him weighing a purse."
Suidas s.v. Hermes
This coin was minted circa 206 CE, during the reign of Caracalla. The obverse depicts the laureate head of Caracalla facing right. The reverse type features #Mars, naked save for cloak hanging from his shoulder, holding a branch and spear.
The Egyptian god Set being called the "red-headed god" marked him as an outsider. It linked him to the red desert sands rather than the fertile black soil where most Egyptians lived. It also gave him the hair colour of a foreigner; Set was the god of foreigners. #mythologymonday#folklore#mythology#Egypt
Greetings, myth lovers! Join @AimeeMaroux for today's theme: redheads. Which #myths feature redheads, gingers, or otherwise red-haired characters? Tell us a the myth & tag #MythologyMonday with your #redhead lore. See you #Monday! 👩🦰
Greetings, myth lovers! Join @AimeeMaroux for today's theme: redheads. Which #myths feature redheads, gingers, or otherwise red-haired characters? Tell us a the myth & tag #MythologyMonday with your #redhead lore. See you #Monday! 👩🦰
"Grant, oh, grant that I ride through the air in my father's car; give me the reins, O sire, give me the right to guide your fire-bearing steeds with the flaming reins; then let Corinth [...] be consumed by flames and bring the two seas together."
Seneca, Medea 28
🏛 Helios-Sol, Roman marble decoration, 3rd century CE, Terme di Diocleziano, #Rome
I wrote a short piece on safe #menstruation tracking apps, expanding on a few tweets I posted at the time #RoevWade was overturned. Incidents of testing women for abortion drugs in the UK prompted me to turn it into an article:
This coin was minted circa 206 CE, during the reign of Caracalla. The obverse depicts the laureate head of Caracalla facing right. The reverse type features #Mars, naked save for cloak hanging from his shoulder, holding a branch and spear.
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
A long, elegant gold hairpin adorned with #Aphrodite and her son #Eros. Eros offers support to his mum who appears to adorn herself, adjusting one of her anklets to complement the snake-shaped arm bracelets she already wears.
🏛️ Gold Aphrodite Hairpin, 1st century BCE, Greece
It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏
For #AllHallows, have a relief of #Hermes in his role as #psychopomp. Hermes guides the souls of the dead to the underworld. Here, he takes the hand of a dead woman named Myrrhine on the way down to Hades.
🏛 Relief on Myrrhine's lekythos, ca 420-410 BCE, National Archaeological Museum, #Athens
#HappyHalloween, Fediverse 🎃 #Ares represents many nasty things as the God of War and he begets Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos).
"Warlike #Mars [Ares] invented new modes of strife and a thousand forms of death. From this source streams of blood stained all lands and the sea grew red."
Seneca, Phaedra 540
King Minos of #Crete was married to Pasiphaë, daughter of #Helios, the Sun. After he had been unfaithful several times, she cursed #Minos so he couldn't have sex with mortal women because he would ejaculate snakes, scorpions, and millipedes. As a goddess, #Pasiphaë herself remained unbothered when she slept with her husband. The Athenian girl Prokris overcame the spell by essentially inventing the #condom in the form of a goat's bladder.
Meet this Roman gold and silver finger ring depicting the sun god Sol-Helios!
The relief shows the face of Helios in silver on a golden background. His seven-spiked sun-ray crown is also golden.
This is one of my favourite depictions of #Dionysos in ancient art. My written version of him is largely based on this gold relief of drunken Dionysos and a panther, supported by a #satyr friend.
🏛️ Naiskos ("little temple") relief framed by the columns and pediment of a temple, 2nd century BCE, National Archaeological Museum #Athens
Hello, Myth Lovers! Join us for the last theme of October: Creepy Crawlies. Which stories feature these tiny creatures? Tag us if you're joining for the first time and use #MythologyMonday for boosts. See you Monday! 🕷️🐛🦗🐜
The theme is dreams. I have written a story in which #Persephone approaches #Lethe, the #nymph of the #underworld river that makes shades forget their former life, and asks her to help her forget about her life on the surface.
The theme is dreams. I have written a story in which Persephone approaches Lethe, the nymph of the underworld river that makes shades forget their former life, and asks her to help her forget about her life on the surface.
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
#Aphrodite-Venus with her iconic top-bow hairstyle as she puts on an anklet or a sandal. The gold of the jewellery and red of her lips really stands out against her dark skin.
🏛️ #Venus statuette with gold jewellery from #Pompeii. Today in the National Archaeological Museum, #Naples