Mythology Explained

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Mythology Explained episodes

February 05, 2022 5 GODS so Powerful Even the Other GODS Feared Them - Norse Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss five of the most powerful gods in Norse mythology, gods so powerful that their powers often dwarfed those of the other deities in the Norse mythos.

And just a quick comment before we get started: this list isn't ranked and is by no means comprehensive, so let us know in the comments who else you think deserved to be included. Cases could certainly be made for Baldr and Vidar. Also, this video will only feature male deities. We'll make a separate video for female deities later on.

Let's get into it.

Starting off our list is Odin.

Odin was the son of Borr, who was the son of Buri, who was the first god to come into existence in Norse mythology. He was entombed in salty primordial ice and was thawed free by the constant licking of Audhumbla, the cosmic cow, who subsisted on the ice's salt. Odin had two brothers, Vili and Ve. Together they attacked and killed Ymir, the huge proto-giant that, along with Audhumbla, was first to emerge in all of creation. From the colossal corpse, Odin and his brothers fashioned the world, and later, they created the first man and the first woman from two logs washed up on a beach. Each of the three gods imbued the logs with gifts, but it was Odin that quickened them with life.

Though Odin wasn't the strongest of the Norse gods - that honour went to his son, Thor - Odin was the most powerful of the gods. His power was rooted in his deep knowledge, profound wisdom, and mastery of magic. He was taught Seid, a feminine type of magic, from the vanir goddess, Freja; he became the master of poetry by stealing the mead of poetry and bringing it back to Asgard; he learned the secrets of the runes and runic magic by impaling himself with his spear and hanging himself from Yggdrasil, the world tree, for nine days and nine nights; he sacrificed one of his eyes to Mimisbrunn, mimir's well, so that he could gain its mystic visions; and he embalmed the severed head of Mimir with herbs, resurrecting it, so that he could learn its secret knowledge. Beyond being one of the two wisest gods, amongst the strongest gods, and having an unparalleled mastery of magic, Odin also had two ravens who reported to him each day all the going-ons in the world, two huge wolves who protected him, and a magical spear that never missed its target when thrust or thrown.
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13 min
February 02, 2022 The Most POWERFUL Daughter of Zeus: Goddess of WAR and Wisdom - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Athena: daughter of Zeus, goddess of wisdom and war, and one of the most popular and powerful gods in Greek mythology.

Let's get into it.

Known as Minerva to the Romans, Athena was the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and of Metis, one of the oceanids and a second-generation titan goddess. That said, Athena's birth was singular in how unconventional it was. She emerged into the world from a cleft split in Zeus' skull, so it was also said that she was the daughter of Zeus alone, as he was both father and mother to her.

Metis was Zeus' first wife. Her wisdom was deep, and it was said it surpassed that of every mortal and all the other gods. Uranus and Gaia came to Zeus while Metis was pregnant. The words of prophecy had come to them, so they revealed that Metis was destined to bear incredibly powerful children, first a daughter, wise and strong, then a son, mighty and bold. The reason for them coming to Zeus with this information was that they didn't wish the vicious cycle of son supplanting father to perpetuate another generation. Armed with foreknowledge, Zeus took preemptive action. He swallowed Metis, thus forestalling any eventuality that entailed him having his throne wrestled away by a usurper in the future. Unexpectedly, the pregnancy was passed on to Zeus, who, after some unquantified period of time had elapsed, was struck by an agonising pain in his skull. The pain was so much that Zeus begged Hephaestus for relief. The smith god clove Zeus' head with a powerful blow from his axe, and out sprung Athena, a grown woman, clad in armour, with spear in hand.

Athena had a capacious sphere of influence that included war, wisdom, and crafts. Insofar as war was concerned, she was diametrically opposed to her brother, Ares. Athena was associated with the strategic and defensive aspects of war, particularly when war was the only option, having exhausted other, less extreme courses of action. Opportune occasions to invoke her would have been when battle plans were drawn up or when the defensive of a city was being organised. Ares, on the other hand, was associated with the wanton aspect of war, devoid of restraint, like slaughter, aggression, panic, and bloodlust.

As a patroness of crafts and those who plied them, Athena's purview encompassed every trade a person could learn, even more masculin crafts like carpentry and metalworking - giving her some overlap with Hephaestus - though it was feminie crafts like spinning and weaving she was most strongly connected with.
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18 min
January 30, 2022 God War - Osiris Vs Set Vs Horus - for the Crown - Egyptian Mythology Explained
Hey everyone,

Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to be discussing the resurrection of Osiris.The myth of Horus and Set vying for the Kingship is both one of the best known and most important in all of the ancient Egyptian mythos.

The impetus for this story is that age-old dynamic in which one person has power and another person, coveting that power, is driven to evil action. In this iteration, Osiris is king of all, both mortal and immortal alike. He imparts on mankind the gifts of civilization and agriculture, and no one, with the exclusion of Set, wished anything but for his reign to be long and prosperous. Admittedly, there is a range of reasons that supposedly drove Set to murder his brother. One has Osiris kick Set, and yet another has Osiris bed Nephthys, Set's wife. But in this video, we're just going to stick to the version of Set being that archetypal, power-hungry, tired-of-always-being-number-two person

Osiris inherited his lofty position from impeccable lineage. Ra, the son god, was the original king, but as he grew older, he abdicated his throne, ascended to the heavens, and began his eternal, cyclical journey across the stars and then through the underworld. His emergence from the underworld brought the dawn, and night fell when he departed the mortal plain. His first successor was his son, Shu, the personification of air, who, in turn was succeeded by his son, Geb, the personification of the earth, who was, then, succeeded by one of his sons, Osiris. Geb's other son was Set, and Geb's two daughters were Isis and Nephthys, the consorts of Osiris and Set, making two brother-sister pairs.

So Osiris was king, and Set, his younger brother, was jealous of him, coveting the kingship. Set used all his guile and cunning to supplant his brother and take the throne for himself. There are many accounts that detail how exactly Set killed Osiris. The most popular version has him lock Osiris in a chest, which is then cast into the nile. Another version has Set Transform himself into a bull and trample Osiris into the ground.
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16 min
January 28, 2022 The Elder GODS Drowned the GIANTS in Blood & Built the World - Norse Mythology Explained
Hey everyone,

Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to be taking a look at the Norse creation myth, from the primordial void, to the creation of the first gods and the first giants, to the creation of the world, to the creation of the first man and the first woman.

Let's get into it.

From Ginnungagap, the primordial void that existed before all else, spawned two worlds, the first two of the nine realms. These were Muspelheim and Niflheim. Muspelheim, the land of fire, was created to the south of Ginnungagap, and Niflheim, the realm of ice, was created to the north of Ginnungagap. The heat and fire of Muspelhiem emanated into the great void from the south, and the ice and cold of Niflheim extended their frozen tendrils into the great void from the north. Frost and fire met in the middle. The ice began to melt, and from the droplets quickened the first giant, Ymir, and the giant cow, Audhumbla.

Ymir was the asexual progenitor of the frost giant race. When he drifted off into sleep, he began to sweat, and then two giants, one male, the other female, were propagated under his left arm; and Ymir's legs joined together in a sort of union to create a third offspring, another son, Thrudgelmir, who was the father of Bergelmir, an important frost giant we'll circle back to later in the video. Ymir's three offspring were the first frost giants, so the entirety of the frost giant race is descended from them.

Audhumla, the cosmic cow, was the other being to emerge from the droplets produced where the fire of Muspelheim met the frost of Niflheim. Four rivers of milk ran from her udders, and it was these flows of milk on which Ymir subsisted. Audhumla found her own nourishment by licking salty blocks of ice. And as the cow fed, something peculiar began to happen: each time the cow licked the ice, it melted a little, and the more the ice melted, the more exposed the man frozen inside became. This man was Buri, the first god. Hi son, Bor, took the giantess Bestla as his wife, and by her he sired three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve
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11 min
January 25, 2022 5 Monsters so Powerful Even the GODS & TITANS Feared Them - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the five most powerful monsters in ALL of Greek mythology.

Let's get into it.

Starting off our list is Medusa

There are many versions of Medusa's myth and how she came to be a Gorgon. The older account, the one featured in Hesiod's Theogony, has Medusa, along with her two sisters, Euryale and Sthenno, born as gorgons - the offspring of two primeval sea gods, Phorcys and Ceto. Later versions, such as the one given in Ovid's Metamorphoses, say that Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden. Poseidon took her against her will on the floor of Athena's temple, and then a wrathful Athena, as punishment for the defiling of her temple, made Medusa hideous to behold. Of the three Gorgon sisters, only Medusa was mortal, meaning she was the only one of the three that could be killed, which is why she was singled out and made the object of Perseus' quest. In some versions, it's only Medusa whose appearance petrifies, but in others, all three sisters share this ability. Where hair should have been were tangles of writhing snakes. Tusks that could have belonged to huge boars jutted from their jaws. Their hands were of bronze, sharper and deadlier than eagle's talons. A pair of great golden wings gave each of them the power of flight. And most infamous, most perilous of all, any who beheld them were turned to stone. Rather than some epic battle, strength against strength, Perseus, bedecked in every godly gift imaginable, Slayed Medusa in a furtive fashion. Made invisible by a magic cap, he flew, using his magic winged sandals, into Medusa's cave and lopped off her head while she slept. From the gory stump spurted more than monster's blood; out sprung two offspring: Pegasus, the winged horse, and Chryasor, meaning Golden-Blade. While Medusa met an untimely end when Perseus' blade sliced cleanly through her neck and decapitated her, the ability to turn any living creature to stone is undeniably powerful. The version of her myth given in Ovid's Metamorphoses is what guaranteed her place. In it, Perseus used Medusa's severed head to turn the Titan Atlas to stone. Extrapolating from that, it can be deduced that Medusa's gaze would similarly turn other immortal beings, like gods and other titans, to stone, making it a weapon of unparalleled power in Greek mythology.

At number 4 we have the Cyclopes

Here, when we say cyclopes, we're not talking about lesser cyclopes, like the cave-dwelling man-eater Polyphemus that Odysseus and his crew encountered in the Odyssey. No, we're talking about a specific trio of cyclopes: Arges, Steropes, and Brontes. In many respects they were similar to the Titans and gods that were to come, except for the large single eye in the middle of their foreheads. They were the sons of Uranus, the personification of the sky, and Gaia, the personification of the earth. They had three older siblings, the Hecatonchires, also known as the Hundred-Handers, and 12 younger siblings, the 12 first-generation titans.
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14 min
January 22, 2022 MANWE: King of the ANGELS - Lord of the Rings' Version of ZEUS - Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Manwe, the Wind Lord, the king of the Valar, and one of the most powerful characters in the Lord of the Rings universe.

Let's get into it.

To Understand how Manwe is, effectively, the Lord of the Rings' version of Zeus, we first have to spend a little time outlining the divine hierarchy - its theogony and cosmogony, which is to say where, when, and how the gods and the universe came into being

In the Lord of the Rings, the divine structure is monotheistic, meaning there is only one true god. This god is Eru Illuvatar, known as the One. Self-created, Eru existed before all else, before mountains, forests, and rivers, before rock, branch, or rapid, and before there existed any other mind to perceive these things had they been there to be seen. Eru's first creations were the Ainur. Using the Flame Imperishable, which was itself an aspect of Eru, the Ainur were brought to life when Eru thought them into existence. They were holy and immortal beings, similar to God's angels in Christianity, and their cohort was stratified into two tiers, the Valar and the Maiar. The Valar were the greatest of the Ainur. Originally they were 15 in number - later 14 after one of them turned evil and effectively became Tolkien's version of Lucifer, the fallen angel - and were called the Powers of Arda. (Arda is the name of the world on which the events of the Lord of the Rings take place.) The Maiar were lesser spirits - minor angels, more numerous but less powerful than the Valar. At this point there existed only Eru and his created Ainur. A material world had yet to be made. They all dwelt in the timeless halls, which were similar to heaven in that it existed beyond the dimensions of time and space. Here, Eru had the Ainur sing in a divine choir. The sounds of each coalesced into a mighty work, which was a vision of Arda. Then, once again using the Flame Imperishable, Eru manifested what the Ainur sang, bringing their vision to life, creating the world. Following this, there was a split. Some of the Ainur chose to remain in the Timeless Halls while others descended to Arda to shape and rule the world. The Ainur that descended to Arda became the Valar and the Maiar. (Originally the world was called Ea, the "World that Is"; It was later named Arda, the "world", by the elves.)
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8 min
January 16, 2022 Was Chaos More Powerful than ZEUS, the GODS & the TITANS - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to explore whether Chaos was the most powerful God in Greek mythology.

Let's get into it.

Chaos, in Greek mythology, was the first primordial deity, meaning the first god, to come into existence. He was the manifestation of the great void that existed before all else.

Chaos' power is predicated on his primacy in the creation myth and on the scope of his procreation. Some accounts have all the other first-generation primordial deities (Gaia, the personification of the earth, Tartarus, the personification of the cavernous abyss beneath the earth, Eros, the personification of desire, Erebus, the personification of darkness, and Nyx, the personification of night) all emerging from him, which would make Chaos the ultimate progenitor of everything and everyone in Greek mythology, being both self-created and then having everything else come from him and from the offspring he independently produced.

However, In Hesiod's Theogony, in which exists the oldest surviving account of the Greek creation myth, Chaos isn't the father of all.

Here's the quote:

First came the Chasm; and then broad-breasted Earth, secure seat forever of all the immortals who occupy the peak of snowy Olympus; the misty Tartara in a remote recess of the broad-pathed earth; and Eros, the most handsome among the immortal gods, dissolver of flesh, who overcomes the reason and purpose in the breasts of all gods and all men. Out of the Chasm came Erebos and Dark Night."

Per Hesiod's account, neither Gaia, nor Tartarus, nor Eros emerged from Chaos; rather, they inexplicably appeared, self-created as Chaos himself was first to do. This would make Gaia, Tartarus and Eros more so akin to the siblings of Chaos, not his independently begotten children. The quote then goes on to say that Erebus and Nyx came from Chaos.
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7 min
January 08, 2022 Romulus - the HERO That Founded ROME & Became a GOD - Roman Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Romulus, the hero that founded Rome and became a god.

Let's get into it.

To set the stage for Romulus' story, we're going to wind the clocks back about 15 generations, back to the fall of Troy. Our preamble centres on Aenas, the most important Roman hero aside from Romulus. Aenas was the son of Aphrodite and of Anchises. Aphrodite, of course, was the goddess of love, sexuality, and beauty, and Anchises, as the son of Themiste, a Trojan princess, was Trojan nobility. Themiste was the sister of Laomedon, who was the father of Priam, who was the ruling king during the events of the Trojan war. And to bring this geneology full-circle, Aenas married Creusa, who was Priam's daughter. Together, they had a son, Ascanius.

Though Aenas and his compatriots fought valiantly, in the end, Troy was sacked by the Greeks. Following this, Aenas led his family - though his wife was lost - and many of his countrymen away from the burning city. They found some ships and set sail, embarking on a quest for greener pastures where they could establish a new city for their people. This story, which begins with the fall of Troy and ends with Aenas defeating an army, taking a new wife, and founding a city in Italy - called either Lavinium or Latium - is the one sentence version of the Aeneid, which was written by the poet Virgil and is basically a conflation of the Odyssey and the Iliad. We'll cover the events of the Aeneid in greater detail in another video.

Fast Forward about 12 generations and you get the birth of two brothers, Amulius and Numitor. Their father, Procas, a direct descendant of Aenas, divided the royal inheritance into two parts: one was the kingdom itself, and the other was all the treasure in the kingdom. Numitor, the first born son, chose the kingdom, leaving Amulius with all the treasure, but Amulius, who was treacherous and power-hungry, used his newly acquired wealth to overthrow and banish his brother. Then, to ensure there would be no one to challenge him in the future, Amulius dealt with Numitor's children. The son was killed, and the daughter, Rhea, was dedicated to the service of Vesta, the Roman equivalent of Hestia, the virgin goddess of the hearth. It was expected that priestesses in Vesta's service remain virgins, so by binding Rhea to Vesta in this way, it ensured she would bear no children, no sons that could create trouble later on.

Amulius' plan would have worked had he lived in a world without gods, but alas, this wasn't the case. One day, Rhea ventured into the woods to fetch water. Mars, the Roman equivalent of Ares, the god of war, came upon her and seduced her. They lay down together, and though Rhea did not yet know it, twin sons began to grow inside her. Months later, the pregnancy came to the attention of Amulius, who had his niece put in prison. When her children - twin brothers called Remus and Romulus - were born, they were taken from her and brought to the wilds, to the bank of the Tiber river.
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9 min
January 04, 2022 Hades Vs Poseidon - Which GOD Would Win? - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey Everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to dive into another versus, this time pitting Hades, the lord of the underworld, against Poseidon, the lord of the sea.

In this head-to-head we're going to determine who would win based on several points of consideration - specifically, weapons, sphere of influence, raw power, and combat ability - to see which one would ultimately emerge victorious.

To set the stage for this, we're going to do a quick overview of part of the Greek creation myth, as much of the information we'll need is incorporated in it.

Here we go.

Following the rule of the Primordials, Cronus, the youngest and boldest of the 12 first-generation titans, rose to power by castrating his father, Uranus, taking his place. After establishing himself as the king of the cosmos, Cronus learned from his parents that he was fated to be overthrown by one of his sons as he himself had overthrown his father, perpetuating the vicious cycle of son supplanting father. In an effort to forestall this eventuality, he swallowed his children as soon as they were born, imprisoning them inside himself. But his attempt to preempt his fate was thwarted when his consort, the titan goddess Rhea, proffered a stone swaddled in baby's wrappings in the place of her youngest son, Zeus, who was whisked away and raised in secret. When Zeus was grown, he made a triumphant return, freed his siblings from Cronus' belly, freed the cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, and then successfully led this motley alliance of gods and monsters in a 10 year war against the titans called the Titanomachy, which ended with the defeat of the titans and their subsequent imprisonment in Tartarus.

Now, you might be wondering: why is this portion of the creation myth integral to a versus video that pits Hades against Poseidon to see which god would emerge victorious after an all out one-on-one battle. Well, it's crucial because this portion of the creation myth sets the stage for three of the most important factors in this comparison, namely, weapons, relative power level, and sphere of influence.

The Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes - there were three of each - allied themselves with the gods after the gods traveled to the underworld, slayed the dragon Campe, and freed each trio. The Hecatonchires were indomitable behemoths. 50 arms hung from each shoulder, and 50 heads surmounted each of their bodies. They joined the gods on the battlefield, unleashing an onslaught of boulders that rained down on the Titans. The main contribution of the Cyclopes wasn't as warriors, but rather, as forge masters. They crafted three weapons, one for each of the brothers. They made Zeus' lightning bolts, Hades' cap of darkness, and Poseidon's trident. We're going to revisit these later in the video, looking at how they bolster each god's strength.

After the war was over, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon each drew lots to see which domain would be distributed to which brother. To Zeus went the skies, to Hades, the underworld, and to Poseidon, the sea. The fact that each of their domains were distributed by chance tells us that each of the brothers were all about on the same power level, at least that Hades and Poseidon were, as they all possessed the capacity to rule any of the three realms. Either Hades or Poseidon could just as easily have been appointed to the skies. However, despite this argument, we're going to exclude Zeus from it because he's consistently portrayed throughout Greek mythology as being more powerful than either of his brothers.

Because Hades and Poseidon each had the same level of raw power - this fact extrapolated from them having the capacity to rule each other's domains - a battle between them, then, would be determined by the factors that differentiate them. These factors are domains, combat abilities, and weapons, and we're going to address each one, in that order.
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15 min
December 17, 2021 ARES: the Greek GOD of War - ZEUS' Most Hated Son - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Ares, the god of War, Zeus' least favourite child, and perhaps the least respected god in the Greek pantheon.

Let's get into it.

Most of Zeus' children were bastards, meaning they were conceived out of wedlock, which is to say that Zeus had a penchant for philandery, gallivanting around and employing all the tricks and tools at his disposal - from cajoling to coaxing to coercing - siring a plethora of illegitimate children, thereby defiling the sanctity of his marriage at every possible opportunity. But it has to be conceded that, despite his many, many offences, he did have some legitimate children that came from his marriage to Hera. Together they had Ares, the god of war, Hebe, a personification of vigor and youthful beauty, described as being a sort of handmaiden to the other Olympians, and Hephaestus, the god of the forge and volcanic fire, though in some versions he was independently produced by Hera, who made him in response to Zeus birthing Athena out the side of his skull.

Almost always portrayed clad in armour, battle ready, sword, spear, and shield equipped, Ares, known as Mars to the Romans, was one of the 12 Olympians and the Greek god of war, but perhaps saying that he was a Greek god of war would be more accurate, for certain aspects of warfare - its defensive and strategic aspects, for example - more so fell beneath Athena's purview, subsumed into her own sphere of influence, though Ares is likely the first name that comes to mind when the phrase Greek god of war is said.
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7 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…