Myth of the Day: Python
Python was the colossal earth-born serpent of Greek mythology who guarded the oracle at Delphi until Apollo's arrows.
Mythology: Gods and Monsters
A new myth every day, from every culture that ever told one. Gods, monsters, heroes, and the weird cosmic machinery behind them.
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Myth of the Day: Sjövættir
Sjövættir are Norse sea wights, local guardian spirits of specific waters whose favor brings safe passage and full nets.
The Viking Movie That Did the Homework
The one that got it right. What Eggers pulled straight from the sagas, what he built out of a museum catalogue, and the three big things he invented anyway.
Myth of the Day: Wondjina
Wondjina are the mouthless cloud and rain creator spirits of the Kimberley in Aboriginal Australia, painted into living sandstone galleries.
Myth of the Day: Nagual
The Nagual is an Aztec sorcerer who shapeshifts at night into a jaguar, owl, dog, or other tonal animal.
Gods Are Older Than Their Stories
At Zeus's oldest oracle the priests did not wash their feet and slept on the ground. Real gods have bits stuck to them that do not fit, and those bits are the previous version.
Myth of the Day: Niobe
In Greek mythology, Niobe was a Theban queen whose pride cost her fourteen children and turned her to stone.
Myth of the Day: Num
Num is the supreme sky god of the Nenets of Siberia, creator of earth and remote father of Nga.
Myth of the Day: Fir Bolg
The Fir Bolg of Irish myth divided Ireland into five provinces before the Tuatha Dé Danann defeated them.
Sisyphus Had a Reason
Homer gives the punishment and leaves the crime off. When you put it back, the story stops being about hard work and starts being about something much more specific.
Myth of the Day: Ptahil
Ptahil, an uthra of Mandaean myth, shaped the material world and human bodies but could not give them souls.
Myth of the Day: Ittan-momen
Ittan-momen is a flying strip of white cotton from Kagoshima folklore that smothers lone travelers and stragglers at night.
Myths in the Movies: Apocalypto — the language they got right, the massacre they borrowed
Mel Gibson filmed a whole civilisation in its own tongue, then handed it the oldest lie about itself. Sorting the real Maya from the six hundred years the last shot folds flat.