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By Martini Fisher Posted on

Sibyls – The Women Behind Power

Virgil, in his Aeneid, describes Deiphobe, better known as the Sibyl of Cumae, as coming from “a hundred perforations in the rock, a hundred mouths from which the many utterances rush”. But she was not the only Sibyl. There were others. Many of these women rubbed shoulders with the greatest warriors and leaders of their ages, shaping the future instead of merely foretelling it.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

Ancient Mothers of the Olympics

The Olympics took place every four years for more than a millennium. However, as important as this was to the Greeks, participation in the Olympics was open primarily to men and boys. Women were of course discouraged to participate. But this did not stop the ladies from having their own athletic competitions, even competing against the men and winning.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Giants

Most European giants are represented as being evil and cruel. The term “giant” and the reputation for cruelty derives  from the Gigantes of Greek mythology, who were savage creatures with men’s bodies and serpentine legs.
According to Hesiod, they were children of Gaia and Uranus, born from the blood of Uranus after he had been castrated by his son Cronus. In a war between the Gigantes and the gods of Olympus, called the Gigantomachy, the gods prevailed and the giants were slain or restrained.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Djinns

In English djinns are called genies, a name that came indirectly from the same ancient Semitic root “GNN” (meaning concealment or invisibility) as the Arabic word “djinn”. From this root the Romans got “genius”, referring to a guardian spirit of a person or place. In PreIslamic Arabia the djinns were often worshipped much as the Romans worshipped their “household” gods – they were considered to be the protective and helpful gods of a person, family, household or location – the “genius” of a person or place.

By Martini Fisher Posted on

BOOK TALK: Dragons

Dragons or large serpent-like creatures are so common in mythology and folklore that we should suspect that there are some grains of truth behind them that we have lost sight of – something more than just imagination and fairy stories. Modern dragon lore is mainly fantasy – few of the people who write about them have ever encountered even one little dragon. Apart from occasional tales of sea serpents no reliable reports of dragon sightings have reached Euroamerica in the past eight hundred years, but early in the seventeenth century some European naturalists were still writing about them as if they were common knowledge.

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