Mythology Explained

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Mythology Explained episodes

July 15, 2022 Where Zeus Really Got His Lightning - Greek Mythology
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, We're going to discuss what is most widely regarded as the most powerful weapon in Greek mythology, Zeus' lightning bolts. More specifically, where they came from, who made them, who transported them, and if their supply was limitless.

Let's get into it.

On the whole, Zeus' lightning bolts are presented as the most powerful weapon in Greek mythology. There are arguments to be made for others, such as the head of Medusa, which, in one version, Perseus used to turn the Titan Atlas to stone, and the entrails of the Ophiotaurus - a topic we just covered - which, if burned, bestowed the power to defeat the gods. Hades' helm of darkness and Poseidon's trident also come to mind, though, for these two, I think it's safe to say they're in the tier below.

Zeus' lightning bolts allowed him to bring the universe under heel and to put down any and all threats to his rule, no matter how overwhelming or monstrous. They were instrumental in winning the Titanomachy, the war against the titans, in which Zeus supplanted his father, Cronus, to become the new ruler of the cosmos; they were indispensable in winning the Gigantomachy, the war against the giants, in which the giants were utterly destroyed; and unequivocally, without them, Zeus never would have defeated Typhon, the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology and the last major threat that Olympus had to overcome.
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10 min
July 11, 2022 The God Who Used Mothers & Wives to Tear Apart Kings - Dionysus
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Dionysus.

Let's get into it.

Known as Bacchus to the Romans, Dionysus was the god of wine. Both the Ivy, a plant symbol of eternal life, and the grapevine were sacred to him. He kept a raucous and motley entourage that included Satyrs, Silens, and Maenads. In art, he most commonly featured on alcohol paraphernalia, such as wine cups and pitchers. Dressed in fawn skin, wine cup in hand, he was depicted with long hair, a beard, and with ivy wreathed about him.

Dionysus was closely tied to Demeter, the goddess of grain, the harvest, and agriculture, and he was also viewed as a god that brought earth's bounty to bloom, providing sustenance for humanity. He was the god of wine, but originally and more fundamentally, he was the god of liquid life, especially the sort in plant life that allowed nature to flourish. Plant growth was his province, which is why he was called Anthios ("Bloom-Producing"), Karpios ("Bringer of Fruit"), and Dendrites ("Tree God"). That the liquids made from plants - such as honey and wine - became subsumed into his sphere of influence was a natural progression.

Dionysus became such a popular god, in part, because his favour was bestowed in egalitarian fashion. The classifications that culminated into the hierarchy that structured society were irrelevant to him. Free, slave, young, old, common, royal, man, woman, human, beast: all were equal in his eyes.
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15 min
July 05, 2022 God Killers: The 7 Most Devastating Weapons in Greek Mythology
TIMESTAMPS:

10:40 - end of events leading up to the Titanomachy

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video we're going to discuss the seven most devastating weapons in Greek mythology, weapons so powerful they won wars, structured the cosmos, and even dictated the destinies of Primordial Deities, Titans, and Gods.

Let's get into it.

Starting off our list is Medusa's head.

Medusa is one of three Gorgon sisters, creatures of such overwhelming hideousness that one look turned a person to stone, though, in some accounts, it is Medusa alone who has this power, or curse, depending on how you look at it. Of the three, only Medusa was mortal, meaning she was the only one who could be killed, which is why she, not either of her two sisters, was chosen as the object of Perseus' quest. Depending on the version, Medusa was either transformed from the beautiful woman that she was into a snake-haired monster, or was born a Gorgon, the daughter of Phorcys and his sister Ceto, both of them sea deities, though perhaps Ceto, whose name was a generic term for sea monster, was more monster than goddess.

Per the account of Apollodorus, the Gorgons had writhing nests of snakes for hair, golden wings, boar-like tusks that jut from their maws, and hands of bronze that could slash a person to pieces.

Perseus did succeed in his quest to slay Medusa; however, in large part, this achievement can more so be attributed to the gifts he was leant than to his prowess as a monster slayer. Outfitted in winged sandals that granted flight and a helmet that bestowed invisibility, wielding an impossibly sharp sword and a shield so burnished it could be used as a mirror, he came upon Medusa unawares and decapitated her while she slept.

Now, for the reason Medusa's head earned a spot on this list. Perseus had a run in with Atlas, the Titan holding up the sky, before he gave the head to Athena and had returned home. Atlas wouldn't grant the hero hospitality, telling him to move on, so Perseus, feeling slighted, unveiled the head and turned the Titan to stone. To be fair, this version of the myth was written by Ovid, a Roman poet notorious for thinking Greek myths nothing more than fanciful tales told in bygone time, this giving rise to much embellishment, but still, anything that can turn a Titan, which is just a name for a group of gods, to stone, indicating that it would have the same effect on other gods, is a weapon of superlative potency.
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24 min
July 02, 2022 Cain: The World's First Murderer - a Man Cursed by God
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Cain: the first person to be born, as Adam and Eve were created by God, not born in the traditional sense; the first person to murder someone, his younger brother, Abel; a man cursed by God with the mark of Cain, which would visit sevenfold the retribution upon anyone who perpetrated violence against Cain; a man some versions claim is the son of Satan or another fallen angel; and a man who, in one version, the one given in the Book of Adam and Eve, kills his brother so that he can marry the more beautiful of their two sisters.

We're going to begin by examining what is said about Cain in scripture, which, in this video, will be the King James version of the Old and New Testament. Following that, we'll get into a little discussion about God rejecting Cain's sacrifice and Cain murdering his own brother. Afterwards, we're going to dive into several apocryphal works, examining details from each, like demons and archons, that pertain to Cain. And finally, we're going to finish the video off with a more in-depth look at the Book of Adam and Eve, which goes into great detail about the lives of Cain and Abel.
Let's get into it.

After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they had two children together, two sons: Cain, their first born, and Abel. Cain worked the earth, a farmer, and Abel kept sheep, a shepherd. Both of them made offerings to God, but not both of their offerings were accepted. Cain offered up some of his harvest, and Abel offered up the first born lambs of his flock. Cain's offering was found wanting and rejected, while Abel's was graciously accepted. This put Cain, already a vessel for sin, in a dark mood, filling him with anger, to which God responded:

"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."
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20 min
June 26, 2022 The 5 Mightiest Titans Who Ruled Earth Before Zeus & the Gods
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the five most powerful male Titans in Greek mythology. We'll make a separate video for female Titans later on. Let us know in the comments if you agree with our selection.

Let's get into it.

Beginning our list is Oceanus

Oceanus was the eldest of the 12 first-generation Titans. He personified the river Oceanus, which was the great river that encircled the world. In this way, more so than his 11 siblings, he was similar to his parents, both of them primordial deities, for Uranus personified the sky and Gaia, the earth. Tethys, his sister and another of the 12 first-generation Titans, was his consort, and by her he sired the Oceanids, a group of 3,000 water nymphs. Also born to them were all the rivers of the world, which, with the exception of the river Styx, were exclusively male. As well, it was thought that Oceanus was the source from which all the rivers of the world fed and flowed. In appearance, Oceanus is depicted as bearded and mature, with more fantastical versions including horns and a fish tail. Because the earth was thought to be flat back in the time antiquity, Oceanus, by nature of him being the great river that encircled the earth, was thought of as the outer-boundary of the mortal world, thereby becoming a dividing line that separated opposites: known and unknown, what is prosaic and familiar from what is exoctic and mysterious, like civilization and chartered territory from remote tribes and monsters, even the realms of life and death. The Hesperides, the nymphs who guarded the golden apples gifted to Hera by Gaia, the Gorgons, the Hecatonchires, the hundred-armed giants who helped the gods defeat the Titans, Geryon, a triple-bodied giant killed by Hercules, and the Ethiopians, all of these nymphs, monsters, and people were thought to dwell near the waters of Oceanus - their proximity to him symbolizing the divide he embodied between the realm of mortality and the realm of magic, monsters, and divinity.
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16 min
June 24, 2022 Why Did Odin Cut Out His Own Eye?
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Odin: how he constantly endeavored to expand his knowledge, deepened his wisdom, and develop his magical mastery; how he alone of the gods bore the burden of the future, knowing that Ragnarok, the great conflict that would end the current age, was not long in coming; and how one of Odin's primary motivations that catalyzed his travels and trials, the culmination of which was to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic, was to discover a means of either forestalling Ragnarok or of mitigating the events of Ragnarok so that they played out with less loss on the part of the gods. Through this discussion, we will learn of the story in which Odin cuts out his own eye - why he did it and what he gained.

Let's get into it.

Odin was the most important Norse god. In the primordial past, he tore apart the proto-giant, Ymir, and, with the corpse, fashioned the world from blood, flesh, and bone. In the mythic present, he's the head of the pantheon, the king of the gods. And in the apocalyptic future, during the time in which the events of Ragnarok, the ever-looming cataclysmic conflict, will transpire, he will lead the gods and the heroic dead claimed by the Valkyrie against the hosts and monsters that rise up to assail Asgard, the divine dwelling of the gods.

His sphere of influence is extensive and eclectic, including: poetry, wisdom, war, ecstasy, knowledge, mystic arts and trances, hosts, magic, runes, and the dead.

His names were more numerous than the voices of the wind, and he was an unpredictable force, fickle and capricious. Even those most favored by him, kings, nobels, outlaws, warriors, and poets, could see their fortunes change in the blink of an eye, their chances for success, victory, or survival suddenly snatched away, abruptly crumbling underneath them like the undermined edge of a ravine.

Of all his his deeds, past, present, and future, of his power and purview, one of the characteristics that defines Odin's personality and pursuits is his insatiable need to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic; indeed, this need is catalyst for many of the best known stories comprised by the constellation of myths that is Norse mythology.
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11 min
June 21, 2022 Son of Satan - Evil Twin of Jesus - Man Who Brings Hell to Earth
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the Antichrist.

First we're going to dive into a treatise written in the 10th century that details the Antichrist's entire life; it was a seminal work, and though short, it's packed with information, taking from scripture, of course, but also from many other works written by philosophers and theologians in previous centuries. Second, we're going to spend a little time on eschatology, specifically, at the various lenses of interpretation comprised by it, and how one of them, futurism, is in large part the reason the Antichrist remained so relevant for so long, as people would attempt to prognosticate when he would return or would weaponize the name, labeling people they disliked or disagreed with it, much as women were called witches. Third, we're going to look at a second century work that features the Antichrist throughout, our purpose here being to show one of the first steps in the progression that would culminate in more elaborate writings of the middle ages that centered on the Antichrist. And finally, we're going to the source itself, scripture, namely, the Epistles of John, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and, of course, the Book of Revelation, which details the apocalypse of the Christian Bible.

Let's get into it.

The Antichrist, as conceptualized as the son of the Devil and the archenemy of Jesus, has remained such a prominent figure today in large part because of the the many texts that discuss him, that supplement what's written in the bible with additional insight and explanation, written by philosophers and theologians over the last 2,000 years.

In the 10th century, Adso of Montier-en-Der, a monk and abbot, wrote a treatise about the Antichrist in a letter he sent to Queen Gerberga of France. It became the standard medieval reference work on the Antichrist, and it's the perfect work to explore in this video because it covers the Antichrist's entire life, drawing on a number of other works: scripture, of course, but also other exegesis still extant from centuries past. For the next while, we're going to focus on what this treatise has to say.
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34 min
June 17, 2022 Chiron: the Immortal Centaur Who Begged for Death but Couldn't Die
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Chiron.

Let's get into it.

Centaurs are mythical half-man, half-horse amalgamations. From the waist down their bodies are that of a horse, and their torso, arms, and head are that of a man; and in some less conventional portrayals, so too were the fronts of their legs. They live in mountains and forests, preferring by far the wild and rugged terrain of unfettered nature over so called civilized places where masonry and carpentry replace tree and crag. They subsist exclusively on raw food, especially raw meat, and they become entirely unmanageable when they indulge in alcohol, as well see.

Chiron is a centaur, but as reckoned compared to his own species, he's quite the aberration. Generally speaking, centaurs, in Greek mythology, are raucous, rowdy, and prone to revelry. Yes, they have a passion for alcohol and boisterous feasting, but more disruptive is the tendency for those activities to devolve into raiding, marauding, and the abducting of comely women. There are several stories in which drunk and disorderly centaurs must be fought off by heroes, like at Pirithous wedding, where a group of centaurs were in attendance. At first, everything went as planned. Food and wine flowed, and there was much carousing and merriment; but when the centaurs became intoxicated, the celebration took an unhappy turn. They began seizing women. One galloped away with the bride in hand, and Theseus later killed him. A fierce battle ensued in which the centaurs were beaten, and this, in turn, fomented a larger-scale conflict whereby all of the centaurs were forced out of Thessaly.
Juxtaposed with that image is Chiron: healer, sage, man of compassion and culture, and trainer of heroes. He was a prodigious healer, by some accounts the first to incorporate the use of herbs in medicine. Additionally, he was a singular talent in a broad array of other disciplines, like martial arts, ethics, hunting, acrobatics, music, and prophecy
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11 min
June 12, 2022 The Demon Goat-God Worshipped by Christian Knights - Baphomet
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Baphomet, an entity worshipped as an idol, demon, and deity, depending on the group, particularly by pagans and gnostics, and depending on the time, as documentation of him goes back almost 1,000 years. Some modern conceptualizations present him as a nexus of opposites, comprising a network of dichotomies and thereby personifying balance. Also called the Goat of Mendes, the Judas Goat, and the Black Goat, Baphomet is, today, either portrayed as a half-human, half-goat figure, or as a goat head. These depictions largely stem from a French occult book written in the 19th century, as we'll see. In the middle ages, idols of Baphomet included: human heads carved of wood or wrought of metal, decorated with curly black hair, stuffed human heads, and human skulls. He became inextricably linked with the Knights Templar when several heinous accusations, such as the worship of Baphomet, were levelled against this order of monastic knights.

Let's get into it.

The first record of Baphomet comes from a letter written by Anselm of Ribemont in 1098 that describes the Siege of Antioch, which took place during the First Crusade. One line says the Turks "called loudly upon Baphomet". It has been suggested that the name could be a corruption of Muhammad or Mahomet. Another theory, this one from Montague Summers, an English occult historian, postulates that it could be the combination of two Greek words, baphe and metis, which, put together, would mean something like 'absorption of knowledge.
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10 min
June 09, 2022 How HADES Will Destroy ZEUS & Become King of the GODS
What if Atlas Dropped the Sky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBx2CrbnWI

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss how Hades could usurp Zeus and rise to become the new king of Olympus.

I'd like to preface this video by saying that Hades wasn't an Evil God. In fact, using a contemporary lens, Hades was downright chivalrous and honorable when you compare his romantic pursuits to those of his two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, both of them prolific philanderers, cajoling, coaxing, and coercing men, women, magical creatures, and goddesses; both of them powerful and predatory gods who only take their own pleasures into account, disregarding notions like consent and virtues like restraint.

As far as I can tell, the dichotomy of good and evil as represented by two diametrically opposed nexus points seems to have been retroactively applied to the Greek pantheon, shaping the portrayal of Greek mythology in popular culture; movies like Disney's 'Hercules' and 'Clash of the Titans' portray Zeus as a force for order and good, while Hades is portrayed as evil and covetous. This seems like a direct extension of how good and evil are portrayed in the Judeo-Christian tradition, whereby good and evil are largely conveyed through God and Satan.

Anyway, completely disregarding how the ancient Greeks perceived the lord of the underworld, we're going to harness today's disparaging conceptualization of Hades and run through an elaborate scenario in which Hades overthrows Zeus and becomes the new Lord of the Cosmos.

Let's get into it.

There are three chief factors on which success is predicated: Zeus needs to be overcome, incapacitated, and deposed, the crux of the matter; Poseidon needs to be temporarily contained to preempt him from vying against Hades for the crown in Zeus' absence; and Hades needs to operate in complete secrecy to insulate himself from any culpability, which will keep the other gods from turning on him after he takes action.
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18 min

About Mythology Explained

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On Mythology Explained we will be diving deep in to all kinds of Mythology: Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, Egyptian - you name it. If you've always been curious about the beginnings of Hercules or how…