For the Love of Mythology Blog Hop.
Jun. 1st, 2013 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misslj_authorFor this blog hop, the For the Love of Mythology hop, I've been pondering what to write about. It's true I love history—rather a lot, to be honest! Mythology has been a close partner to that, going hand-in-hand with history as it does.
I grew up with Greek and Roman myths, but mythology didn't really take off for me until my teens, when I became fascinated by the myths and legends of King Arthur. The Matter of Britain as it's called, hooked me in and held on for good. It wasn't just the story of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Excalibur and the Round Table, but all the side stories, the romances written by Chrétien de Troyes, particularly Tristan and Isolde. All of this began when I saw the movie Excalibur, starring a very young Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson, directed by John Boorman and including lots of very shiny, very out of period armor and an awesome sword as Excalibur. It came out in 1981, but it wasn't until a few years that I saw it. I fell in love with the film and the story it told, and began to read every book I could find in the library about King Arthur and his knights.
Knights of the Round Table, 15th century.
Along the way, I also discovered Ladyhawke and The Princess Bride, which introduced more and more magic to my youthful mind. I read all the fantasy I could find that fit that mold, particularly the books by David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Diana Wynn Jones and Barbara Hambly, to name a few. I started to collect dragons and I still have some of those dragons from my teenage years. I read less about King Arthur and his knights and companions, and more general fantasy, and collected more and more dragons. I have a small collection of Pocket Dragons, which I collected for several years until my thirties.
I had always had an interest in Ancient Egypt but it wasn't until my late teens and early twenties that I really found myself connecting with the deities of the period, particularly Set, Isis, Bastet, Sekhmet and Anubis. The story of the Boat of a Million Years remains one of my favourites from Egyptian mythology.
Statues for sale at the Pyramids of Giza.
In this story, Ra charged Set to guard the Boat of a Million Years. This was the Mandjet or morning boat, and was one of two boats that took Ra on his journey through the sky and the Underworld. He asked Set to guard the Boat because Set had defeated the evil serpent Apophis and proven his strength and cunning as a warrior and a god. The other gods grumbled at the choice, but Ra remained firm, determined that Set would guard the Boat because he was the strongest and the best suited to do so.
"Creatures of Light and Dark" by Roger Zelazny is one of the best reimaginings of Egyptian mythology I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a love of ancient Egypt and science fiction-fantasy.
As part of the Hop, I will give one lucky reader a pdf of one of the three books in The Archangel Chronicles--winner chooses which one they'd like! It's full of mythological goodness--shifters, angels, demons, magic users and more!
Here are the other blog posts! And here is the great big raffle contest!
I grew up with Greek and Roman myths, but mythology didn't really take off for me until my teens, when I became fascinated by the myths and legends of King Arthur. The Matter of Britain as it's called, hooked me in and held on for good. It wasn't just the story of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Excalibur and the Round Table, but all the side stories, the romances written by Chrétien de Troyes, particularly Tristan and Isolde. All of this began when I saw the movie Excalibur, starring a very young Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson, directed by John Boorman and including lots of very shiny, very out of period armor and an awesome sword as Excalibur. It came out in 1981, but it wasn't until a few years that I saw it. I fell in love with the film and the story it told, and began to read every book I could find in the library about King Arthur and his knights.
Knights of the Round Table, 15th century.
Along the way, I also discovered Ladyhawke and The Princess Bride, which introduced more and more magic to my youthful mind. I read all the fantasy I could find that fit that mold, particularly the books by David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Diana Wynn Jones and Barbara Hambly, to name a few. I started to collect dragons and I still have some of those dragons from my teenage years. I read less about King Arthur and his knights and companions, and more general fantasy, and collected more and more dragons. I have a small collection of Pocket Dragons, which I collected for several years until my thirties.
I had always had an interest in Ancient Egypt but it wasn't until my late teens and early twenties that I really found myself connecting with the deities of the period, particularly Set, Isis, Bastet, Sekhmet and Anubis. The story of the Boat of a Million Years remains one of my favourites from Egyptian mythology.
Statues for sale at the Pyramids of Giza.
In this story, Ra charged Set to guard the Boat of a Million Years. This was the Mandjet or morning boat, and was one of two boats that took Ra on his journey through the sky and the Underworld. He asked Set to guard the Boat because Set had defeated the evil serpent Apophis and proven his strength and cunning as a warrior and a god. The other gods grumbled at the choice, but Ra remained firm, determined that Set would guard the Boat because he was the strongest and the best suited to do so.
"Creatures of Light and Dark" by Roger Zelazny is one of the best reimaginings of Egyptian mythology I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a love of ancient Egypt and science fiction-fantasy.
As part of the Hop, I will give one lucky reader a pdf of one of the three books in The Archangel Chronicles--winner chooses which one they'd like! It's full of mythological goodness--shifters, angels, demons, magic users and more!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Tue, Jun. 4th, 2013 08:25 pm (UTC)sstrode at scrtc dot com
no subject
Date: Wed, Jun. 5th, 2013 10:08 am (UTC)