Mythology & Folklore

So, after the feedback from Laura and others, I decided to take a closer look into the jaguars of the Olmec and the Maya. It was the wrong call. It turns out that I am not a huge fan of the jaguar stories of the Mesoamerican peoples. I think I suggested it because I like jaguars, but the stories of transformations and, even worse, copulation between the species are just not as appealing to me. As this project promises to take up a great deal of my time over the course of the semester and will be the only creative endeavor (as the rest of my classes are IT related), I would like to choose a topic that appeals to me a little more than this one. I plan to spend some time early this week exploring the ghost stories of the world. Hopefully, I will find better options. Nonetheless, please find the links to the sources that I read in order to come to this conclusion. Clay jaguar from  Monte Alban , provisionally dated from 200 BC to AD 600. Height: 56 cm (22 inches) Source:  ...

For the second part of this weeks reading, I chose to focus on the First Book of Adam and Eve from the Forgotten Book of Eden anthology. I chose poorly. While this may very much be an un-Christian thing to say, I found the text and the message to be overly repetitive and boring. One could easily believe that the repetition is designed to drive home  the overriding message of the text, it seems to me that in the last few thousands of years of translations, the message gets lost as the reader begins to distance himself from the "hero" to which he is suppose to relate. As a religious text, it's intention it to instruct, not to entertain. So it stands to reason that the message should be plain and irrefutable. The intention of these passages was to convey the message that Adam and Eve have sinned against God and must now face the consequences. That seems a simple concept. But in this text, we are left rehashing the same things over and over again. Adam wept and smote, bec...

Part A of this selection of Aesop's fables included a few tales of Lions, Foxes, Asses, Hares, Deer and others. Each story was extremely brief with very plain morals spelled out for the reader. Certain common themes jumped out at me, such as Appearances/Disguises vs. Reality (Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Ass in Lion's skin, Fox and the Mask, and Dog and Shadow), Security/Safety vs. Greed (Town Mouse & Country Mouse, Horse and Ass, Dog and Shadow), and how the weak will return to prey on the fallen (The sick Lion, The Wolf and the Kid). Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Rackham. Source: Wiki Commons I am surprised at the brevity and simplicity of these stories. I expected (and I suppose hoped for) more substance to the story with more details. These are extremely short with only the most relevant details mentioned. I am also curious about the translations and the differences between them. For example, In the Fox and the Lion, one moral is "Familiarity breeds...