me and the mutuals

So the whole maiden mother crone thing is genderessentialist bullshit. I know. But where did that idea even come from?

I mean, it doesn't have to be gender essentialist bullshit, it depends on how its applied... it just happens to be very popular with gender essentialists.

As for the origins -- there are a bunch of different "triple goddesses" in different mythologies -- a few who fall into the maiden/mother/crone pattern, but many who don't. The idea is largely believed to have begin with this woman Jane Ellen Harrison, who kind of "flattened" a lot of goddesses into this archetype. She bought into a lot of the same ideas that Margaret Murray would make popular.

The person who's largely responsible for spreading the Triple Goddess bullshit though is this guy Robert Graves, with his book The White Goddess. Graves is the loudest voice, and his work has been largely discredited -- but if I was going to blame one person for it becoming popular... it's his ass.

“She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep“

by Robert Graves

She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.

Some say that Darkness was first, and from Darkness sprang Chaos.

Robert Graves, from ‘The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition’

I am not a Greek scholar or an archaeologist or an anthropologist or a comparative mythologist, but I have a good nose and a sense of touch, and think I have connected a lot of mythical patterns which were not connected before, Classical faculties will hate me, and I will get a lot of sniffy reviews. —— Robert Graves

So basically

Shall a doctor be brought?

BUY THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE PERSON IN YOUR LIFE WHO IS ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT ANCIENT ROME!

If they don't get the reference then give them the second gift of bringing more of Ancient Rome into their life by introducing them to the Classic TV miniseries "I, Claudius"!

Stay safe from Livia's plots, don't eat the figs!

Map and poetry pages in Holly Black's Elfhame series The Folk of The Air ✨️

From The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing.

When the days of rejoicing are over,

When the flags are stowed safely away,

They will dream of another wild 'War to End Wars'

And another wild Armistice day.

But the boys who were killed in the trenches,

Who fought with no rage and no rant,

We left them stretched out on their pallets of mud

Low down with the worm and the ant.

Robert Graves, 'Armistice Day, 1918'

I know I've been hard on Richard III lately but that's only cause he's so loathsome in Shakespeare. I'm fully aware that Shakespeare was about as fair to Richard in his plays as Robert Graves was to Livia in I, Claudius

LOOK WHAT JUST CAME IN 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Hi sorry to bother you what’s so bad about Robert graves takes on mythology as when learning about various Greek myths he keeps coming up and Google isn’t very helpful

His great goddess hypothesis has more to do with his sadomasochistic mommy dom kink than actual history. In fact, it's got nothing to do with actual history whatsoever. Dude was just projecting his kink.

Freemason Sufi Druid | Robert Graves

Graves turned down a CBE in 1957 and was among a shortlist of authors considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, losing out to John Steinbeck. And while mostly remembered as an author and poet, his contributions to the comparative examination retracing the overlapping commonalites shared and missing links in between Western and Eastern esotericism, hermeticism, and mysticism are not as widely cited or as commonly known as those of Manly P. Hall, Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, G.I Gurdjieff, P.D Ouspensky, Robert Anton Wilson, Rudolph Steiner, and Alan Watts but nevertheless stand on their own merit.

When you've got nothing left, all you can do is get into a lightweight jacket and start reading Graves

[…] threaten the Sun, in the Moon’s name, with being engulfed by perpetual night.

Robert Graves, from ‘The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition’

The Thenns and Garth the Green could indicate that, before the Andals, the First Men were organized under God-Kings/Priest-Kings. Do you think this is a valid theory? What exactly would be the functional differences between a standard feudal rule and a rule by a God-King/Priest-King?

Yes, I think that's a valid theory.

As to the functional differences, we're talking a wildly different ideological framework (this is a major reason why I think people who claim that there's been stagnation in Weasteros are wrong): in the feudal context, the right to rule is ultimately founded on reciprocal contracts - I give you land, you give me military service. In the context of a priest-king or god-king, the right to rule ultimately flows from the Divine itself, either through communion with the gods (in the case of the priest-king) or by being a god or god's descendant (in the case of the god-king king).

This has a pretty profound significance for the functioning of the state, because it means that the state takes on critical aspects of religious responsibility as well as authority. The priest-king/god-king is responsible for carrying out the rituals and ceremonies that propitiate the gods, that foretell good or bad fortune in the coming harvest, and that unites the polity as one community of believers.

If you believe the tradition of James George Frazier and Robert Graves, there is also a strong sacrificial element to so-called "sacred kingship." While the land prospers, the harvests are plentiful, and the people are content, the sacred king rules unquestioned, but when winter comes and the land is visited by disease or famine or drought, the harvests fail, and the people are riven with discontent, then the sacred king has to die (at the hands of the new king, who is also the old king, it gets very mystical) so that the land can be renewed.

So yeah, bit of a difference between Gilgamesh of Uruk and, say, Edward IV of York. One might even say there's been cultural change and development over time...