Shea's Myth-Folk Blog

In the story "The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis," Odysseus and his men encounter sirens and two sea monsters. Odysseus has just heard from many ghosts and has gotten advice from Circe on how to get through his upcoming trials. When Odysseus and his men sail past the sirens, his men put beeswax in their ears to block out the sirens' song. Whoever hears the song is lured to their death. Odysseus wants to hear the song, so instead of putting beeswax in his ears to block it out, he has his men tie him down to the ship so he cannot be lured to the sirens when he hears their song. Although Odysseus is very tempted by the sirens' song and tells his men to let him go, but they just row harder and faster and tighten Odysseus's ropes. I found it interesting that in the sirens' song, their promise is for wisdom; perhaps this is what is so tempting to everyone who hears it, or maybe it is specific to Odysseus. The crew gets past the sirens, but immediately find themsel...

I was so excited to see watching Crash Course videos was an assignment option this week! Crash Course has always been one of my favorite ways to learn; the videos are fun to watch and easy to understand, and yet I am able to learn quite a bit from them. One of my favorite parts of these videos is reading the fun facts during the opening sequence. The  Overview of Mythology  videos gave a comprehensive look at what makes a story a myth and different ways to look at mythology. The first video ("What is Myth?) was helpful for me to get a better idea of what constitutes a myth. According to this video, only stories are considered myths, which means myths cannot be historical. The host, Mike Rugnetta, points out that myths can be difficult to strictly define, and there is sometimes crossover between different types of stories. This video looks into the story of Persephone and explains how this story was used as an explanation for the reasons. Mike then looks into some of the th...

In the story "The Cyclops Defeated," Odysseus and his crew have been captured by a Cyclops and trapped in his cave. Odysseus tries to think of an escape plan after the Cyclops begins eating some of the capture men. When the Cyclops leaves to tend to his flocks, Odysseus and his men take the Cyclops' club and fashion it into a spear. They plan on stabbing it into the Cyclops' eye when he falls asleep. When the Cyclops returns, Odysseus offers him wine under the ruse that he wants to give the Cyclops the wine as an offering so the Cyclops will not kill him. After giving him several glasses of wine, Odysseus tell the Cyclops his name is Nobody. When the Cyclops falls asleep, Odysseus and his men drive the heated olive wood stake into the Cyclops' eye, causing blood to pour out. The Cyclops runs outside to his fellow Cyclopes and they ask why he is yelling in pain, to which he replies Nobody is trying to harm it. The Cyclopes take this to mean that the harmed Cyclops...