Mythology Workshop

Mythologies Workshop - Session 1

What Countries have mythology that you can think of?

Rome, Greece, Russia, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, China, Japan, Phillipines (all countries have mythologies)

The Maori myth of how fire came to be vs the Greek myth -

Prometheus the Titan started a fight among the other gods over a golden pear/apple. When all the gods were distracted, Prometheus stole the fire from Hephaestus in either a hollowed pumpkin or a hollowed reed. There are a couple of slight variations of this story.

Maui extinguished everyone’s fire, and when everyone asked where the fire had gone he went to beg to Mahuika to give him more. She gave him one of his fingernails and he dropped it in a river. He continued to go back, receive her nails and then “lose” them, before deciding he would teach them how to make fire instead.

Norse myth of how fire was created/discovered.

Surtr was a fire giant with a flaming sword, and ruler of Muspellheim - “The land of fire”. Surtr killed the god of fire Freyr during Ragnarok, and set the world on fire.

Mythologies Workshop - Session 2

Folklore

Russia - The Russian Sleep Experiment - according to this story, in the 1940s took five prisoners and performed an experiment, locking them up in an airtight chamber with a special gas which would keep them awake in order to see the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation. On the 5th day, paranoia set in and they stopped talking to each other. On day 9, a couple of the prisoners began endlessly screaming, tearing apart the books they were given and attempting to smash the one-way mirrors so they could no longer be watched. On the fiteenth day, they opened up the chamber and found one prisoner torn to shreds with chunks of him stuffed in the floor drains. The other four had mutilated themselves almost beyond repair and were afraid to go to sleep, begging to stay in the chamber. They were removed and when the surgeons tried to sedate them they fought back so strongly they couldn’t. All four prisoners were completely conscious and laughing maniacally as they were sewn back together. When they tried to put them back in, one resisted and shot the head researcher and one of the remaining subjects. Another researcher shot him soon afterwards. 

Creating folklore

Jerusalem - The temple mount - 

The Temple Mount is considered a holy site in Jerusalem in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike. It is considered so holy and sacred that many who are a part of these religions refrain from walking directly on the mount itself. One day a man was walking through the city and came across the Temple Mount. He looked at it for a moment, but his thoughts were interrupted by a small boy. The boy warned him not to step on the mount, telling stories of how all who had done so before hadn't lived to tell the sotry. The man ignored him, and continued walking, stepping on the Temple Mount mockingly. The next day the man woke up with an excruciating pain in his stomach. The day after this, his eyes had gone bloodshot, his skin pale and cold to the touch, and the pain in his stomach now felt through his entire body. He was found lifeless in his bed by his wife and children the following day.