A rather lovely solar creation myth from Japan contains a reference to a floating cloud in the midst of infinite space, before matter had taken any other form. This also nicely describes the original nebula from which scientists say the solar system was evolved. The legend says that when there was no heaven, earth, sun, or moon, there was only the Invisible Lord of the Middle Heaven existing in an infinite space. With him there were two other gods. Between them, they created a floating cloud in the midst of which was a liquid formless and lifeless mass from which the earth was evolved.
After this, seven generations of gods were born in heaven – the last and most perfect were Izanagi and Izanami who went on to become the parents of the world and all that is in it. After the creation of the world of living things, Izanagi bathed his left eye and sprang Amaterasu, the great Sun-Goddess. Izanagi rejoiced and put a necklace of jewels he around her neck. He said to her, “Rule thou over the Plain of High Heaven.” Thus Amaterasu became the source of all life and light worshipped by mankind. Then Izanagi he bathed his right eye, and there appeared Tsukuyomi,the Moon-God. Izanagi said: “Rule thou over the Dominion of Night.”
In Norse mythology, Odin arranged the periods of daylight and darkness, and the seasons. He placed the sun and moon in the heavens, and regulated their respective courses. Day and Night were considered mortal enemies as light came from above, and darkness from beneath. However, there is another version which says that the sun and moon were formed from the sparks from the fire land of Muspelheim. The father of the two luminaries was Mundilfare, and he named his beautiful boy and girl, Maane (Moon) and Sol (Sun). The gods took his children from him and placed them in the heavens, where they permitted Sol to drive the horses of the sun, and gave over the regulation of the moon’s phases to Maane.
Among the Eskimos of Behring Strait, the creation of the earth and all it contains is attributed to the Raven Father. The Raven Father came from the sky after a great deluge. He made the dry ground and created human and animal life. But mankind threatened the animal life, and this so annoyed the Raven Father that he punished man by taking the sun out of the sky, and hiding it in a bag at his home. The people were frightened at the loss of the sun, and offered rich gifts to the Raven Father to appease him. So he relented somewhat, and would hold the sun up in one hand for a day or two at a time, so that the people could have sufficient light for hunting, and then he would put it back in his bag again. This arrangement, though better than nothing, was not satisfactory to people. The Raven’s brother took pity on them, and thought of a scheme to better human conditions. He faked his death, and after he had been buried and the mourners had gone away, he came forth from the grave, and turned himself into a leaf which floated on the surface of a stream. Later, the Raven’s wife came to the stream for a drink and, dipping up the water, she swallowed with it the leaf. The Raven’s wife soon after gave birth to a boy who cried continually for the sun, and his father, to silence him, often gave him the sun to play with. One day, when no one was about, the boy flew away with the sun and placed it in its proper place in the sky. He also regulated its daily course, making day and night, so that the people always have the constant light of the sun to guide them by day.
The ancient Peruvians believed that the god Viracocha rose out of Lake Titicaca, and made the sun, moon, and stars, and regulated their courses. The Muyscas, who inhabited the high plains of Bogota, was said to have lived in a state of savagery. Then came from the east an old bearded man, Bochica (the Sun), who taught them agriculture and the worship of the gods. However, his wife Huythaca was not pleased with his attentions to mankind and caused a great deluge which drowned most of the inhabitants of the earth. This, of course, angered Bochica, and he drove his wife away from the earth by turning her into the Moon. He then dried up the earth, and once more made it habitable for mankind to live in.
According to Mexican tradition, Nexhequiriac was the creator of the world. He sent down the Sun-God and the Moon-God to illuminate the earth, so that mankind could see to perform their daily tasks. The Sun-God went on his way without delay, but the Moon-God, who was hungry, saw a rabbit and started chasing it. This, of course, took time. After he caught and ate it, he looked up and found his brother, the Sun, had outdistanced him. He was, in fact, so far ahead, so that thereafter the Moon-God was unable to overtake him. This is also the reason, says the legend, why the sun always appears to be ahead of the moon, and why the sun always looks fresh and red, and the moon sick and pale. Those who gaze intently at the moon can still see the rabbit dangling from her mouth.
According to the Tonga tribe, of the South Pacific Islands, before there was any light upon the earth, Vatea and Tonga-iti argued about which one of them was the parent of a child. Each was confident the child was his and to end the dispute they decided to share it. The infant was then cut in two. Vatea took the upper half as his share, and squeezing it into a ball tossed it up into the sky where it became the sun. Tonga-iti allowed his share, the lower part of the infant, to remain on the ground for a day or two, but seeing the brightness of Vatea’s half, he squeezed his share too, and threw it up into the dark sky when the sun was absent in the underworld, and it became the moon. Thus the sun and the moon were created, and the paleness of the moon is due to the fact that all the blood was drained out of it when it lay on the ground.
I am very happy to be able to contribute a chapter for 
For a while the gods stood speechless, then they wept bitterly. They took Balder’s body and brought it to the sea-shore. There stood Balder’s ship, Ringhorn. Balder’s body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship. When his wife Nanna saw it, her heart burst in sorrow and she died. So she was laid on the funeral pyre with her husband. Balder’s horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned, so the couple could journey on it to the underworld.
Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder where Balder and Hother were rival suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two rivals battle each other. Although Odin, Thor and the rest of the gods fought on Balder’s side, Balder was defeated and flew away. So Hother married the princess. But Balder didn’t give up and again met Hother in a field. But he fared even worse than before because Hother gave him a deadly wound with a magic sword which he had received from Miming, the Satyr of the woods; and after three days in pain, Balder died of his pain and was buried with royal honours in a barrow.
We like to think that the figure of Balder was nothing more than a myth, but it is also possible that the myth was founded on the tradition of a hero, popular and beloved in his lifetime, who long survived in the memory of the people, gathering more and more of the marvelous stories about him as he passed from generation to generation of story-tellers. So it is worth while to observe that a somewhat similar story is told of another national hero, who may well have been a real man. In his poem, The Epic of Kings, founded on Persian traditions, the poet Firdusi tells us that in the combat between Rostam and Esfandiyar, Rostam’s arrows did no harm to his adversary, “because Zerdusht had charmed his body against all dangers, so that it was like unto brass.” But Simurgh, the bird of God, showed Rostam the way to vanquish his foe.
Romantics beware: I’m going to ruin your Valentine’s Day. Nah, I’m just kidding. We know Valentine’s Day as a time to celebrate love, romance and cupcakes, but the origins of this day is definitely ancient, likely involved nude people and quite political, because, well, it was ancient Rome.
This festival was Lupercalia, said to be connected to the ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia and the worship of Lycaean Pan, the Greek equivalent to the Roman god Faunus. The Greek word λύκος (lukos) means “wolf”, so does the Latin word lupus. In Roman mythology, Lupercus was a hunter of wolves associated with the Roman god Faunus, the god of agriculture and fertility. Lupercalia was a festival held in his honor to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of his temple.
The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the animals, which were called februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth.
The cavorting Sodales Luperci performed an annual purification of the city in the month for purification – February. Since early in Roman history March was the start of the New Year, the period of February was a time to get rid of the old and prepare for the new.
I love ancient religions. They are strange, sexy and chaotic – gods competed with gods, priests with priests, and prophets with prophets. Because there were so many of them, each gods, priests and prophets had to have something special to attract their followers and earn their worships. The battle of worshipers, in turn, was fierce. Each gods and goddesses had many cults of followers – each believing that their way of worship was better than the others, and they were the only ones going to heaven. Rome imported promising religions from all over the world. Persian deities were worshiped as far as Britain. In Egypt, there was a ritual which transformed pharaohs into gods. The ancient world was practically a melting pot of different religions and beliefs.
Imagine this: beneath the great Temple of Apollo – on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, a priestess sat above a chasm in the earth. Vapor rose up and the priestess, called the Pythia, breathed deeply and fell into a trance. Then she spoke the words of the god. The Pythia’s prophecies were often ambiguous and probably confused people more often than it actually helped. According to Herodotus, Croesus – the rich king of Lydia, asked the Pythia whether he should make war on Persia. Pythia replied that if he did, he would destroy a mighty empire. Croesus went away confident that he would win this war – but the mighty empire he destroyed turned out to be his own. But that apparently didn’t faze the followers of Pythia, because for over twelve centuries, people still traveled far and wide to Delphi in search of counsel.
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi had “nothing in excess” carved into it. This was an idea which underpinned much of ancient Greek thought. The ancient Greeks were very image conscious. They believed themselves to be the noblest civilization, a nation of gods and heroes. So, the ideal Greek would have carried himself with dignity, filled to the brims with heroic thoughts that would never allow him to take his kits off willy-nilly and shake his money-maker.
The Mysteries of Mithras were celebrated in windowless temples, underground, far from the sight of the world. In ancient Rome, they were whispered about in the same way that the Freemasons are today: secret handshakes, strict initiation rites, and seven levels which worshipers could rise to. Each grade, from Raven (Corax) up to Father (Pater) had its own costume – and ceremonial mask. This cult was adopted by the Roman army.
