#greek mythology

manticoreimaginary:

favourite faces for favourite mythic ladies:Penelopewith Kelly MacDonald

None of them speak of Penelope’s cleverness. That is a term reserved for her husband, her Odysseus: so wily, so slippery, so deft with words that he’d spun her into loving him before she’d even realised it. But the two of them are more alike than others see.

Suitors fill her castle day and night, eating her food and harassing her servant girls, waiting and watching the unguarded queen with hunger. And each night she picks apart the work on her loom and imagines different ways to remove each and every disgusting one of them from her home. Twenty years is a long time and she worries that she’s forgotten Odysseus’ face.

But when he returns, Penelope knows him even through his disguise. The two of them have always worn masks and costumes in company, taking them off only in the privacy of their bedchamber. No one knows Odysseus like she does. No one can read such things as Penelope can. She sees through his mask and she holds out the bow.

It is not a test for me, my love, but a test for you.

hermes-psychopomp:

― “Your soul is safe in my hands” / Greek Mythology

God Hermes

noctivague:

Hermes Moodboard~ 

Hermes of the Ways

“I, Hermes, stand here at the cross-roads by the wind-beaten orchard, near the hoary-grey coast;

And I keep a resting-place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.”

Anyte of Tegea,  3rd Century BC

Probably the most famous monster from Greek Mythology is Medusa. Her name has overshadowed that of all other gorgons, to the point where species meant to represent gorgons are just called “medusas”. Across the years, gorgons have changed considerably. While, to my knowledge, there is no exact origin for the monsters, I would hazard a guess that the gorgoneion predates them. The gorgoneion is an apotropaic symbol of a wide, ugly head, sometimes with a beard or tusks, but always with a lolling tongue, curly hair, and wide eyes. Like the evil eye in the modern Mediterranean, the gorgoneion was used as a ward for evil. It was supposed to be so hideous that demons and men alike would cringe in fear when they saw it. 

The symbol then evolved into a monster (and in Arkadia was given to Demeter in her wrathful form). Its ability to inspire paralysis with fear was exaggerated into a petrifying gaze. The rest of the gorgon’s body was a bit harder to piece together. For most of history it was just a head. A humanoid head, so obviously it was humanoid, right? Well, one archaic image of Medusa (which we can surmise is Medusa because Perseus is right next to her) shows her with a centaur-like body. After that though, the general consensus became that gorgons had human bodies, with or without wings. Wings were given to a large number of minor gods and goddesses to represent connections to air and traveling fast over large distances, such as the harpies or the messenger Iris. Snakes also got added on. Nearly all gorgons had curly heads of hair. It’s not too much of a stretch to turn that into a viper’s nest of roiling reptiles, further enhancing the scariness of the monster. Partially. Most gorgons have both hair and serpents. As time went on more and more changes and adaptations of Medusa turned her into a metamorphic character. Once that happened, it became popular to depict her as a woman without the monstrous aspects. Whether out of empathy for her or artists wanting to break out of the stylistic gorgoneion in favor of more naturalistic anatomy, who’s to say. This continues to the modern day. Then a snake body below the belt got added for some reason. 

Almost all of the focus on gorgons has been, both in this blurb and historically, on Medusa. What about the other gorgons though? Aside from Medusa’s sisters, they don’t count. There is an enigmatic gorgon named Aix in mythology. This gorgon, whether male or female, was on the side of the titans during the Titanomachy, but was killed by Zeus and converted into the aegis. They supposedly had, in addition to the classical gorgon face, hairy skin. Which would explain why their name, Aix, translates to goat. Euripedes introduced a similar Gorgon in the gigantomachy, slain by Athena (who just seems to hate gorgons I guess). Whether it was a giant named Gorgon or a gorgon helping the giants is unclear. Others use gorgons as a sort of stock monster. Virgil mentions multiple generic gorgons alongside other monsters while certain authors claimed gorgons lived on islands off of Ethiopia. And, to bring it back around, Medusa and her sisters were said to be the daughters of the nymph Keto and either the god Phorcys, or some unnamed male gorgon. Wherever we go, we just can’t shake her off! 

This gorgon is primarily inspired by one depiction of Medusa. She had wings, snake hair, curly hair, and a stylish outfit, all while she’s running off somewhere. I wanted to keep her hair a bit ambiguous, so you can’t really tell which lock is a snake and which one is regular hair. Her wings are primarily vulturine. She’s also got bronze claws mixed in with scales and a loud outfit. Meeting her in a seaside cave would be a shock to the eyes, for multiple reasons.

Welp. Remember when I said I’d post the rest of the Greek creatures as a pack you could buy? Maybe not, because I scrubbed that from the post that had it. It turns out I probably don’t have what it takes to make money off art, because I suck at getting anything done unless I have a deadline. And setting ones that only exist in my brain clearly doesn’t work, as the TDG shows… But it also means I’ll be showing off what I did so far without charging. I’ll find money some other way, probably with writing or something.

Sirens, am I right? In myths, the sirens were a variety of nymphs. Like all nymphs they were excellent singers able to lure people away into the wilds. The sirens were especially good singers, but of course they could not compare with the deathless muses. What set them apart from their sisters were their bird bodies and fatal edge to their music. Cursed by Demeter for failing to find her daughter, they were given an island in the Mediterranean as their haunt. They sung to sailors in a bid to make them jump into the tumultuous waters and drown. For seemingly no reason other than their own malice. In pottery their shape is ambiguous. Sometimes it is merely the head of a woman on a bird, other times it’s a sort of bird-centaur shape. When given hands they also may play instruments to enhance their own voices. 

As time went on, the sirens began changing into more sea beings than aerial ones. Where once they were merely confined to an island, it was their maritime association that saw them become the mermaids of the Middle Ages. The shape of the mermaid isn’t original to them: Mesopotamian spirits had it long before the sweet-singers, and some Celtic figures may predate the fishy sirens. However, most mermaids have some roots with them. Singing to sailors is especially the key mark, although they do so with a twist of lust in the mix. Siren is even the word for mermaid in many romance languages. When depicted in their original bird forms, they tend to lose the grace and talent they used to possess. Sirens in modern stories are often murderous, eating those they drown. Authors like Rick Riordan reduce them even further to a sort of vulture with only the face of a human.

My siren is the armed sort. I just thought it would look different. Her bird half is inspired by birds of prey more than seabirds, seeing as how they can’t move away from that island of theirs. Her upper half has the porcelain whiteness associated with goddesses and nymphs in ancient Greek poetry. The dryads and naiads don’t have this because they’re less airy and more earthy, but I think the nereids will. Unlike her sisters, she’s enamored with her island home and has taken to using washed up shells as jewelry. Also, her downy feathers extend up her chest because no booba for u.