The (actually kind of) thrilling story of a weaving contest between a goddess and a woman challenging the cruelty and tyranny of the Olympians leads us into three stories: Pandora's box; the great flood of the Grecian world; and the love story of Idas and Marpessa, two people who saw the gods taking whatever and whoever they wanted, and said "no."
The creature this week is the rolling calf. It's neither rolling nor a calf. Discuss.
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Music:
“Dense” by Podington Bear
“At Our Best Alone” by Blue Dot Sessions
“Constellation” by Podington Bear
“Matamoscas” by Blue Dot Sessions
“Little Black Cloud” by Podington Bear
“Four and Fourteen” by Blue Dot Sessions
“Broken Branch” by Podington Bear
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Disclaimer
Mention of the Greek pantheon's many, many sexual assaults. Nothing graphic, though. There is mention and description of a character slowly hanging themselves. Unfortunately it was necessary...
Oh, and there are several heads nailed to walls. Fortunately (?) they aren't attached to anybody.
YOU WANT A POTATO
Hi, could someone please help me solve the mystery of Arachne? I listened to a retelling of the competition between Arachne and Athena by Myths & Legends a looong time ago, but I am 100% sure that it ended like this: Arachne wove an amazing tapestry of gold and silver etc, and everyone was awestruck. But then Athena spun an even more splendid one from threads of sky and sun etc, and everyone promptly forgot about Arachne’s. Arachne was so devestated that she could never weave again (that was the bet) that Athena showed her mercy by turning her into a spider so she could weave again. Now my boyfriend listened, and when we talked about it we got super confused because he heard it like this: Both Athena and Arachne wove stories, Athena about order, Arachne about chaos. He interpreted that Arachne won, and Athena got mad and hit her. Arachne didn’t want to obey the gods, so she hanged herself. Athena then turned her into a spider.
I have no recollection what so ever of these things, I’m so very confused!
When I listened to the start of the ending again, it seems it’s like it’s as he says, and I’m completely lost. I can’t find another version by Myths & Legends when I search, so I’m reaching out here to see if someone else knows what is going on here? Maybe I’ve jumbled up different parts of the story? But I don’t remember the other stories in the episode, my podcast app says I haven’t listened to it, and my boyfriend assures me Athena didn’t weave with threads of sky and sun and stuff like that.
Thanks so much to anyone who could shed some light on this for me!
Often times stories from long ago are retold in different ways, and this could explain the two different versions that you and your boyfriend heard. Also, stories that have fallen out of taste are often rewritten in a more acceptable fashion, or watered down, especially because in this society it is generally frowned upon to portray gods from any culture as being evil. Also, people often consider mythology as a children’s tale, thinking it is like a fairy tale. This podcast has proved many times over that even a majority of fairy tales have some very terrible stuff in them- for example, in the Grimm’s Fairy Tales book, the original evil stepmother in Snow White was forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance until she died. Pretty violent.