The sixth chapter of the book of Revelations in the Bible describes the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Or, the “four living creatures” as the Bible calls them. The four living creatures are Conquest, War, Famine and Death. Contrary to popular believe, Conquest is not pestilence, but some experts say that one of the many things (many, many things) Death could be is pestilence, but I’ll get to that later.

One of the first things I’d like to rule out is that the horsemen are “evil”. True, they do cause death and pain, but they are on the Christian god’s side believe it or not. The lamb, which is Jesus, is the one releasing them after all. Plus, Revelations 19:4 is hard to argue with in terms whose side they are on. “And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, ‘Amen. Hallelujah!’” Evil? If you’re sticking to the idea that God’s good, then no, they aren’t evil.

The first horseman, who is talked about in the second verse of chapter six, is on a white horse and has a bow with no arrows. He was given a crown by Jesus and “came forth, conquering and to conquer”. A lot of people seem to think of him as the antichrist, but the antichrist doesn’t worship the Christian god. Some think that it’s Jesus, who supposedly is the one who rides out on the white horse during Armageddon. It seems a little weird that it would be Jesus since he’s the one opening the seals AND giving himself a crown. Who is Conquest? I think he’s merely a personification.

Two verses later is a verse about the second horsemen. He comes out on a red horse, holding a sword and is given the power to take away peace on earth so people can have a blast killing each other. Who is this man? No dispute that he’s war.

The next two verses are where the third horseman shows up. He’s riding a black horse and has a balance (scale). The horseman makes a little speech about how much food is going to be, but oil and alcohol will unchanging in terms of money. Why would food go up? The assumption everyone makes is because of famine. So, famine is this horseman.

The last horseman is Death. I can say that without fear because it says straight up that his name is Death. 6:8 of Revelations says, “And behold, a pale horse, and he who sat on it, his name was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to him.” Of course when they say Hades they don’t mean the Greek god of the underworld. They mean the personification of Hell. So you can say that the only people Death will be killing are the Hell bent ones.

Death, as you can see, has the power of the other horsemen and then some. Now, what’s this about the idea that one of the powers Death possesses being pestilence? Well, it’s because in the verse they refer to “with death” alone. It wouldn’t surprise me that pestilence could be this. With war, famine, etc., it wouldn’t be hard to believe that a sickness would come; especially if it’s a biological weapon.

Not surprisingly, there was a goddess of volcanoes in Hawaiian mythology. What was her name? Pele.

Despite being a fearsome volcano goddess she fell in love with a young chief called Lohiau on a nearby island she saw in a dream. Apparently, in the dream she actually visited him in spirit form, kind of like astral projection. Anyway, she sent her sister named Hi’iaka to bring him to her. As added incentive, she promised that she wouldn’t harm anything with an eruption including Hi’iaka’s friend Hopoe. There was, however, a forty-day limit to bring him back.

When Hi’iaka went to get Lohiau, he was dead. Either from grief when Pele left his dream, or suicide. Hi’iaka brought him back to life, and they ended up falling in love. Oh, the irony…

After the forty days were up, Pele knew something was wrong, and suspected that Hi’iaka and Lohiau fell in love. In a rage, she made her volcano erupt. The lava burned the trees and killed Hi’iaka’s friend Hopoe. Then she went big, aiming to destroy the whole island and effectively burned Lohiau to death.

Hi’iaka used magic to protect herself then went out trying to find Lohiau’s spirit. Eventually she found it and returned it back to his body, healing it. To avoid being killed by Pele (again), they left her island and went back to Lohiau’s.

In Aboriginal mythology there are beings called the Wondjina. They were rain spirits who were also involved with creation. They are said to come from the sky and paint pictures of themselves on cave walls.

At one point in time the Wondjina were angry at how people were behaving in the world, so they caused a worldwide flood. How did they make it flood? Well, they opened their mouths, of course! When they did this, rain would never cease. After the floods had killed all the humans, the Wondjina recreated everything.

Obviously the Wondjina had to keep their mouths shut so that the world wouldn’t flood again. After doing this so long, their mouths disappeared, which is why in the above picture they have no mouths. The Wondjina eventually they lost their form and became more like the spirits that you and I think of. They are said to still exist in waterholes, ponds, etc.
 

Hello again! It’s been… how many months? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m lazy. In my defense though, I was busy too. Anyway, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the seven deadly sins since sloth (AKA laziness) is one of them.

The seven deadly sins are greed, lust, gluttony (wanting more of something), wrath (anger), sloth (laziness), pride, and envy (kind of like jealously). However, in the beginning there weren’t seven of them, there were eight.

Back in the day, sometime in the fourth century, there was a monk called who wrote the sins, but instead of there being seven or even being called sins, they were called the “eight temptations.” In the original eight, there was no envy, but there were sadness and vainglory (think extreme vanity). There were different names for a couple other sins too; for example, greed was called avarice.

As time went on, the world came into the 6th century, and Pope Gregory the Great went through the list and made a few changes. This gave us the seven deadly sins that we now know. The thought is that the Pope wanted there to be seven sins, since seven is one of the more “godly” numbers.

Hospitality was important in a lot of cultures, and it would reflect in their mythologies. There’s even a bible verse on hospitality. Hospitality, as you all probably know, was taken highly with the Greeks and Romans too. In fact, you couldn’t kill your guests in the cultures (which should be expected, anyway). So, in myths the hosts would actually put them in “situations” so they would be killed, rather than murdering them. In this way, using a hospitality loophole so the gods wouldn’t kick their butts.

The Roman god Jupiter on one occasion decided to check up on the people who were from Phrygia. He did this sometimes to see who and who wasn’t hospitable. He went with his son Mercury, the god of travelers. They disguised themselves as poor and tired travelers, and knocked on the Phrygians doors. Everyone slammed the door in their faces.

At this point Jupiter and Mercury were at the last house, which was undoubtedly the poorest they’ve see in Phrygia. Once they knocked on the door, a kindly old woman named Baucis and her equally aged husband named Philemon greeted them and invited them it. The two mortals apparently were married at a young age and lived there in their lowly house ever since. They weren’t ashamed of their poverty, and were actually quite happy. Their love was more than enough and possessions couldn’t match it.

Baucis and Philemon set the two gods down and started a small fire in the hearth. They got out some food for them, such as olives and eggs. They even got out wine. When either Jupiter or Mercury asked for another glass of it, one of the mortals would happily poor it for them. It wasn’t long that the two got suspicious about who there guests were, however. No matter know many times they would pour another glass for them, the pitcher of wine would never go down. It would always stay full.

Nervous as to whom they may be serving; Baucis and Philemon wanted to serve their guests a better meal. Logically, their minds came to the only goose they owned. The couple tried to catch this goose, but it was a lot faster than them. Eventually, the mortals stopped the chase from exhaustion.

Probably greatly amused with this sight, Jupiter and Mercury decided to drop their disguises and tell the two mortals who they really were. Jupiter took them outside and told Baucis and Philemon about how the other people in Phrygia behaved wickedly and how they were going to be punished. This punishment would obviously exclude the two morals that treated them so kindly.

When Jupiter sent a huge water gush that took out everyone except Baucis and Philemon. However, the two mortals still cried for their neighbors who died. Their tears soon disappeared when Jupiter showed them where their hut-like home used to be. Instead of their old home, they saw a beautiful temple. Jupiter told them that this is where they would live now, and that he’d be more than happen to give them a wish.

The couple asked Jupiter if they could be priests at the temple and died together. Their wish was granted and years later when it was their time, instead of dieing, they became trees the intertwined with each other. 

flapjacksblog2 asked: Do you consider yourself a pirate adventurer?

Oh yes, definitely. In fact, I was the one who kidnapped St. Patrick. Morgan Le Fay brided me to do it. She belived that Patrick was helping out her half brother King Arthur with something or another. She wanted Patty out of the picture.

On St. Patrick’s Day quite a few people suddenly, as if by magic become Irish. The day after the holiday, there aren’t nearly as many Irish descendants as the day before. It’s like St. Patrick’s Day somehow MAKES people Irish just for the day. Weird, huh? For some reason, I’m unaffected by this holiday. I guess I’m Patty immune.

But on a less sarcastic note, since it WAS St. Patrick’s Day yesterday, I have an obligation to tell you his story. After all, most of you were probably Irish yesterday. ;)

Patrick was born in either Scotland or England in roughly the year 385 CE. His parents were Christian, his dad a man named Calpurnius. He was pretty wealthy, so Patrick had it good. However, one day those darn Irish pirates come over and kidnapped Patrick. They brought him to Ireland, which was pagan at the time, and sold him as a slave. Patrick was given the duty of taking care of the sheep and piggies.

This didn’t put Patrick down though, and he continued to believe in his god and pray to him. After six years in captivity, Patrick had a strange dream telling him that a ship was ready from him. So, Patrick went out on this long trip into territory he didn’t know. Eventually he came to the ship. At first the captain wouldn’t let him on, but Patrick prayed to his god and the captain changed his mind.

The ship took him to Britain, but Patrick later went to France. Patrick became a priest and sometime later when he was about sixty years old, had a vision that he needed to go back to Ireland. So, he went to Ireland where he baptized and converted many people into Christianity for years. The exact number of years depends on which version you read. General consensus is twenty years or more.

Patrick of course taught them the idea of the holy trinity using the shamrock. The shamrock has three leafs, each leaf representing the father, the son, or the Holy Spirit.

St. Patrick died on March seventeenth—the day St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated. Surprisingly, his death was brought on by natural causes.

One upon a time, in a land called the Philippines there were three gods. The land god Bathala, the sea god Dagatkalulua (if the name scares you, call him Daga-Lu), and the sea god Galangkalulua (Gala). Somehow, none of the gods knew the others existed and each thought he the only one that existed.

Bathala is the main focus of this story. The god was so tall that one would consider him a giant. Bathala was walking around lonely one day, considering making mortals for some company, but realized that the land was to harsh for food to grow to feed them. This is when Dagatkalulua happened to swim by. He was a scaly snake thing.

Dagatkalulua saw Bathala and asked him who he was. Bathala replied that he was the ruler of the universe. Dagatkalulua yelled at him, calling him a liar and said that HE was the ruler of the universe. After yelling at each other for a while, Bathala went into the water to “prove” that he was the ruler of the universe. How would he prove that? Well, beat the crap out of Dagatkalulua of course.

The two gods fought for three days, and on the fourth day Bathala realized that he was losing his energy and Dagatkalulua’s was increasing. He thought if he could get away from the water, Dagatkalulua’s natural element, and onto the shore, he could beat him.

So Bathala began swimming to shore and the sea god followed him. Once he was able to stand on the land, Bathala felt an energy rush and swung Dagatkalulua’s body on land so hard that cracks came onto the earth and volcanoes appeared. Using his final energy, Dagatkalulua swung his tale at Bathala, but must have missed. This created hurricanes.

Bathala immediately began to feel bad. He killed the only thing he thought to have existed besides himself. Bathala realized that he must not rule the universe, only the land, and that Dagatkalulua must have ruled the ocean. Anyway, Bathala buried the sea god.

After some time past, something flew by Bathala’s domain. It was a weird looking man with two wings on the side of his head. Curious, Bathala asked who he was. The thing told him that his name was Galangkalulua and that he was the ruler of the skies. Bathala remembered what happened with him and Dagatkalulua and didn’t want to make the same mistake. So, he introduced himself and acted friendly.

The two became friends until one day Galangkalulua became sick. When it became obvious that he was going to die, Galangkalulua told Bathala to bury him in the same spot he buried Dagatkalulua. He said that doing so would fix the problem of the land being too brutal for the humans to make food with.

After Galangkalulua died, it took Bathala awhile for him to bury his friend as he asked. Once he was finished, the tree popped up in that spot. The tree produce food, and Bathala was convinced that this was the answer to his problem. So, he called it the tree of life.

Ra was the Egyptian sun god. Everyday he would go out on his usual trail and give light to the earth. However, the heat he was giving off was harsh and it will killing crops and even people. The goddess Isis wasn’t too thrilled about this.

One night when Ra was asleep Isis crept into his room. Ra was a drooler when sleeping, so Isis collected some of this drool and used it to make a snake, which she set on the path he took during his sun duties.

As Ra was going down the path the next day he was bitten by the snake. Ra was in a lot of pain and no mater what the other gods did the pain would not lessen. Eventually he called in Isis for help, because she was known for being a very good healer.

Isis told Ra that she wouldn’t be able to heal him without his secret name. In Egyptian mythology everyone had a secret name, and if anyone knew what yours was, it gave them power over you. For example, they believed that if the wrote someones name on something and broke it, it could have a bad effect on that person.

Ra tried giving Isis some of his common names, but Isis wasn’t fooled. After awhile Ra finally gave in and gave Isis his secret name. Isis healed him and from then on she was just as powerful as Ra since she knew his name.

Sure, the reason why Isis claimed to do this in the first place was that she was looking out for the humans. This may be true, but it’s very likely that she also wanted the power.

maricocopictures-deactivated201 asked: love mythology and this blog. Thank you for great job. :)

You’re welcome and thank you! :)

 

Amalthea was a nymph, or possibly a goat in Greek mythology. When Zeus was born his mother Rhea gave him to her.

 

In case you don’t know the story, Zeus’ father Cronus was afraid that one of his children was going to overthrow. So, as any intelligent mythological father would do (notice my sarcasm) he swallowed them all whole. Even back then cannibalism was frowned at.

 

Rhea tricked him into swallowing a rock instead of Zeus and gave Zeus to Amalthea. Amalthea kept him with her on a cave in Crete and nursed him. It would be quite a brave thing to do nymph or not considering Cronus was the most powerful god at the time. If he knew what she was doing, she’d be in a lot of trouble.

 

Fittingly, Amalthea is a name of one of the planet Jupiter’s moons.

In Chinese mythology it was believed that there were once ten suns. Each day one of the suns would come out and shine on the world. One day however, the ten suns grew tired of the same old routine and came out together. As one would imagine, this made life on earth unbearable. Crops failed, people suffered heat stroke, there were fires, etc.

Feeling pity for the human, the father of the suns, Di Jun tried talking, them into coming out one at a time again. No matter what he said, they wouldn’t listen. So, Di Jun sent an archer name Yi to scare the suns into obeying him. When the threat of being shot down didn’t seem to frighten them, Yi actually did shoot them down. Well, nine of the to be exact. The only sun he didn’t shot down is the one you see in the sky today.