Odin is the chief deity of the Norse pantheon. Although Odin was worshipped more generally in Germanic paganism, the information we have today about this god is derived mostly from Norse mythology...
On October 30, 1501, the most decadence of festivals occurred in the papal palace of Cardinal Cesare Borgia. A party that his own father, Pope Alexander VI, not only attended but participated in. The...
The 6th century epic poem Beowulf echoes as loud today as it did when it was written fifteen hundred years ago. Ink has been spilt, careers made, films produced, and academic wars have been waged in...
King Arthur is undoubtedly one of the most enduringly popular heroes to come out of the medieval era, and he has meant many things to many people for hundreds of years. Over time, the mythology of...
Menelaus, the mythological king of Mycenaean Sparta, is perhaps best remembered as the husband of Helen of Troy. While lost in his wife’s shadow, his story is inexorably entwined with that of the...
The Order of the Golden Fleece is an order of chivalry that was founded by Philip III, the Duke of Burgundy, on the occasion of his marriage to Isabella of Portugal in the 15 th century. Through the...
The Greek island of Kea has been a popular location since ancient times, given that it is the closest Cycladic Island to Athens . One of the most famous monuments of the island is the Lion of Kea, an...
The Iliad is one of the most famous epic poems created by the Greek poet Homer and the piece recounts the last weeks of the Trojan War. In book 18 of the series, Homer writes about Achilles’ shield...
Hera, also known by her Latin title as Juno, is best known in Western culture as the wife of Zeus, king of the gods. While technically subordinate to him, Hera is never a submissive figure, in fact...
Greek Mythology consists of numerous gods and goddesses, although the Greek pantheon itself is comprised of just twelve main gods ruling Mount Olympus. Among the twelve, there are five female rulers...
Does a Viking Age Mask Stone picture the real Hamlet? Surely not, the immediate reply might be. It is well-known that Shakespeare modeled his Hamlet story over older versions of the story about...
One of the most intriguing myths of ancient Greece is that of the Minotaur on the island of Crete, the bull-headed human-animal hybrid of Greek mythology. The story of the bestial Minotaur trapped in...
The true nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, characters in Homer’s Iliad , has long been a source of speculation. Were they friends or lovers? Brothers from other mothers or...
There is no doubt that most of us, in our childhoods and later in life, heard all about the stories and legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. For many, the stories of Arthur and...
Who were Demeter and Persephone? And why did their myth resonate so strongly with women of ancient Greece? The story of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the...
The total of the poetic, mythological and sapiential heritage of the ancient and early medieval Scandinavian tradition is contained in the texts canonically collected under the title of Edda . Within...