Aettskel

They come from where the sun rises, from an island they call their mother and protector and from the ocean they call their father and nurturer, guided to the vast continents by the stars they call their spirits and masters and by the wind they call their freedom and guide.

They believe in the awakening of their mother, the Great Turtle, who one day anchored herself in the depths of the sea to dream, and who, in her dreams, gave birth to them. One day, the stars have said, she will awaken with a great cry that will be heard in the sky and will push back the clouds, calling her children to her. When she rises, the earth will be drowned by the waves she will cause, and when she walks, the world will bend under her and the stars will move in the sky. And they, in her blessing, shall be spared on her shell and the next age shall be golden for them.

(Ephemeral dream)

The dead don't appear in daylight, not in the way you imagine them in the horror stories you like to tell yourself. They appear in your sleep, haunting your dreams as the last ersatz memories you have of them: they never come to you in evil, only with the noblest of intentions and accept forgiveness for the harm you may have caused them while they were alive.

Ephemeral dream

The myth of the killed god

In Norse mythology, Frigga, having nightmares about the death of her son Baldr, will ask everything in the world not to harm him. Afterwards, the Gods will have fun throwing objects at Baldr and will attract the attention of Loki who will disguise herself as a servant to question the Goddess about this. The latter will then explain what she did, but that she did not ask the mistletoe, because she thought this plant too innocent to do any harm. The cunning god, armed with this knowledge, then cut a branch of mistletoe and offered it to Hod, the blind god, and guided him in his shot to strike Baldr, killing him. The rest of the myth does not interest us, but we can link its beginning to the myth of Achilles. Thetis, his mother, also makes him immortal by plunging him into the River Styx, but also leaves him with a weakness, his heel, and dies because of it, again, by a stroke, the thrower of which is again guided by a God. The same is true of the hero Soslan, in Ossetian mythology, who is made invulnerable by his mother - or a blacksmith, depending on the version - except for his knees (his mother dips him in a tub that is too small) or his hips (the blacksmith holds him by the hips with shears), and who dies when Syrdon reveals his weak point to an enchanted wheel, allowing it to kill him. In some versions of the myth, the wheel has fun bouncing off Soslan and it is Syrdon, disguised as an old woman, who teaches it its weakness, allowing it to kill him.

This figure, of a character - often blind - deceived by a god to kill another character or exile him, recurs in several myths: the Hindu one from the Mahābhārata, the myth of Soslan in Ossetian mythology, or a parallel with Christ, while making links with supposed Indo-European mythology. But none of them make the link with Greek mythology and this link with Achilles. Of course, given the geographical extent of these myths, one can assume that they must date from the Indo-European period, or even before it. But what does this mean? For figures like Baldr, Yudhisthira or simply Jesus Christ, this murder amounts to the same message: a temporary death, or after the end of the world, they will return to a new world. But what about the other myths, where death is indeed final? If we look at Achilles, Soslan, and Baldr, the same elements come back: a mother who protects her child from death but leaves a vulnerable spot, and a god who, learning of this weakness, uses it to guide a third party to murder. Can we see this as a reminder of the order of nature? A reminder that nothing can protect a mother's beloved children, that even they will one day die despite her care?

The last song of a fallen kingdom

He has returned to her, The prodigal son of the people, The chosen one destined to save her, Does he hear her dying song?

Back in her rotten bosom, She makes him a wild beast, Sowing blood and body behind him, Her poison of madness in him.

He shall be her last ruler, Drawn with her in her fall, In ruin of her own gangrene, Him, the faded hope of her people.

Ephemeral dream

Kur-Sumak

The desert is a merciless god. Its incandescent wind burns everything in its path, and nips at the skin, turns into a howling storm of sand and rock and relentless gusts where thunder screams and lightning rips the sky to pulverize the ground. The desert is a hostile realm, where its hot, dry air burns the throat and lungs, where its sand is like embers for the feet and where its overpowering, raw sun tans the skin, where its springs are rare and elusive and where its biting, frigid nights annihilate all life, where its dunes and azure skies stretch out like an endless ocean.   The desert is a harsh lord, who bends its inhabitants under his cruelty, who keeps only those who do not break, who purifies weakness with fire and sand, who tolerates only the relentless and pugnacious desire to live, who forges them according to his will until they become like him. The desert is a generous father, its riches are buried in its sandy depths, its oases reveal themselves to those who know where to look for them, its cool caves shelter them, its mountains guard them from the rest of the world and its animosity makes their enemies flee.

(Ephemeral Dream)

Sigyn

Sigyn, wife of Loki, who holds the bowl above her head to protect it from the snake's venom and who, when the bowl is full, has to empty it and let her husband writhe in pain.

But what about Sigyn? Nothing. She appears only in this myth, as a late addition to it or as if she had no place outside this cave.

Because of the myth to which she is attached, she is supposed to be a goddess of fidelity, because after all, who would stay with a husband who has caused, indirectly, the death of their children?

But we can ask the opposite question: what mother, what wife, would stay with those who killed her children and chained her husband with their entrails, and placed a snake over a face to torture him forever with its venom ?

Historians assume that Sigyn is an ancient Germanic deity, and that she is not a recent addition to the myth of Loki, but there is no known cult, myth or deity associated with her.

It would seem that Sigyn's destiny is to be forgotten and to disappear from memory, because, even if she appears in some modern paintings or stories, she remains erased as it was the case in the past, her husband remaining in the center of attention while she remains plunged into obscurity and indifference.

Ares, the warrior god

"Bold heart, shield-bearer, savior of cities, crowned with brass,

With sturdy hands, tireless, strong by the lance, rampart of Olympus,

Father of Victory, happy conclusion of wars, auxiliary of Themis;

Absolute master of the adversary, guide of the most just men".

Ares, unloved by the gods and men. In the contemporary media, and even in ancient times, he was little appreciated, portrayed as a cruel being who indulged in the violence of wars and the slaughter of mortals.

This is why only the Thracians and Scythians, as well as some other warrior tribes worshipped him. The Romans and the Greeks preferred Athena who was the goddess of war, wisdom and craftsmanship, because she was considered to be the goddess of the so-called "civilized" war, far superior to the brutal war of Ares.

So, here I am, delivering you this post hoping to raise your esteem towards this warrior god and to restore his reputation.

 Let's start by distinguishing him from Athena : Ares is mainly the god of war, and has two minor and often misunderstood functions, those of courage and revenge. If most of the gods see themselves sharing their domain with minor deities, and, most of the time, forgotten, or from another generation: rare are the gods who see themselves sharing their domain with another important god. We can therefore assume that they must have many more differences than a simple aspect, which, let's admit it, does not exist: whether the war is "civilized" with strategies or "barbaric": it remains war, with its share of carnage, of cities plundered and reduced to ashes, of raped women and orphaned children.

We can therefore suppose that this difference is much more marked, which we can become aware of if we pay attention to the myths:

In the Iliad, Ares and Athena are on two different sides. Ares helps the Trojans while Athena supports the Greeks. Obviously, through these gods are two civilizations that are opposed: Ares was mainly venerated by the Thracians, a warlike civilization considered as "barbaric" in the eyes of the Greeks because they had different morals from theirs. Athena, on the contrary, was the goddess of Athens, a city known for its philosophers, its democracy and to be described as the cradle of an evolved civilization compared to the others. We can continue this opposition by the weakness of Ares, who, each time he faces Athena, is defeated.

Beyond this conflict between two civilizations, we can also see, through the behavior of the gods, the representation of two different groups: The soldiers and the generals.

Athena would represent the generals, the General Staff. In these war stories, we see her advising the Greek chiefs during their decisions and sometimes helping these favorite generals during the fights by guiding their gestures: never we see her taking part in the fight or coming to the help of soldiers. Conversely, Ares does not advise the Trojan generals nor does he guide them: he fights among the soldiers, he goes to the front of the troops and encourages them during the fights, does not make any preference.  We can also add that Ares fights alongside his sisters (or wives), Eris and Enyo, as well as his sons, Phobos and Deimos, which may remind one of a combat battalion.

  As for the rest of the myths, we can notice that Ares always plays a defensive role: he fights for Ilion which is besieged, he intervenes to protect his son, Cycnos, when the latter attacks Hercules. In another, it is his daughter, Alcippe, that he protects from Halirrhotios, the son of Poseidon, when he tries to rape her. The only myth where Ares attacks someone for a purpose other than protection is when he kills Adonis, jealous of the affections he received from Aphrodite.

Moreover, it should be noted that among his animals (the woodpecker, the vulture, the dog and the boar), we can wonder about the presence of some. For if the vulture is indeed an animal associated with war, coming to devour the corpses of those fallen in battle, we can wonder about the presence of the other three animals. The boar, the most obvious, can be associated with it because it is an animal that often represents strength and represented in Greek myths as a fierce animal and is often considered a guardian of the forests. The dog is a psychopomp animal, which leads the souls of the dead to the Underworld, which can also be linked to the warrior role of Ares. Only the presence of the woodpecker remains mysterious because it has no symbolism in Greek mythology and does not appear. The woodpecker appears only in Roman mythology, when Remus and Romulus are taken in by the she-wolf, and is sent by Mars to watch over the children. Thus, the woodpecker is perhaps a later addition to the animals of Ares, but it reinforces the role of protector that it already indirectly assumed in Greek mythology.

 Finally, I can also add that Ares is far from being the misogynistic character that some Western media draw him to be, which might make sense to us: how could he not be when the army has always been assimilated to a world exclusive to men and when military men call each other "women" as an insult?

However, again, the myths tend to prove the contrary. Already, Ares is the father of the Amazons: he is venerated by them and is considered their protector. How could a misogynistic god be the leader of an army of women?

Moreover, he is probably the only god in mythology whose relationships are always consensual: No myth puts him forward as the kidnapper of a young girl or as a rapist. On the contrary, he is even the only god to defend a young woman, here his daughter Alcippo, from such a crime, which will make him the protector of victims of sexual abuse.

The only crimes which accuse him are the murder of Adonis and, according to the versions, the transformation of Cadmus into a snake. And can we really blame him for sleeping with Aphrodite when we know that she was just given in marriage to Hephaestus to appease the god?

Finally, I'll add that the only hymn we have of Ares, which is at the top of this post, describes him in a rather positive way, and the Greeks saw him as the ideal that a hero should reach. Can he then be so bad? Don't we see it that way because it has a function in a field we dislike?

So, I hope you will rethink the way you see Ares: remember that he is the one who galvanizes the troops and gives them the courage to face the ruthless enemy. Remember that he is the protector of hostages and sexually abused people. Remember that, even if his children were known to be criminals or madmen, he is undoubtedly the most present father in mythology, and remember that he is probably the most respectful god towards women, and the one most able to recognize them as equal to men.

Ephemeral dream

They come from an arid land

Crossed by the winds and the sand

Where the storms are the rage of a god

And the starry night is odd

  Beneath the golden sand

A giant sleepy snake stands

Guarding the spirits

Between the red rocks

A dark spider locks

Trapping lost spirits

  They prey a sun king

And breath an air burning

They admire a quiet silence

And a fighter’s vehemence

  Their white moon brings

A cold dead wing

For the leaders an honour

For all a frozen hour