Chthonia

In honor of Lughnasadh (August 1), this week's podcast is about the Irish god Lugh. Lugh very likely originates from the Celtic deity Lugus, who Julius Caesar equated with the Roman Mercury. He is noted for his many talents, and his ability to play many roles won him entrance to the court of the Tuatha De Danann. He led the group in battle against the oppressive Fomorians at the second battle of Maige Tuired (Moytura), after slaying his grandfather Balor. We talk about Lugh's story as a heroic succession myth, his connection to the Morrigan and sovereignty, and how Lugh differs from the traditional idea of the god-king.

Join us at the Institute for the Study of Feminine Myth--$10 "Thinker's Tavern" sessions on Thursdays in July!https://instituteforfemininemyth.org/thinkers-tavern This week's podcast is about Libitina, Roman goddess of funerals, corpses, and burials. We discuss the debated etymology of her name--is she connected to Venus and to voluptuous pleasure, or is that an error? Varro connects Libitina to "libido", and we also need to consider the ancient Etruscan goddess Alpanu, who is said to be Libitina's forerunner. What we may find is a different attitude toward the connection between life and death.

This is a re-edit and re-upload of the Chthonia episode on Circe, or Kirke, from 2019. Circe is best known for her encounter with Odysseus and his men in the Odyssey, where she turns the men into pigs, and Odysseus defeats her magic with the moly plant. While Circe is a central Anima figure in this story, she also appears in others as Medea's aunt and the daughter of the sun god Helios.

* Check out the new Thinker's Tavern discussion series athttps://www.instituteforfemininemyth.org/thinkers-tavern *This week's podcast looks at the figure of Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes (Mercury) and Aphrodite (Venus), and his encounter with the aggressive nymph Salmacis, her prayer turning them into a single being that is both male and female and neither at the same time. While Salmacis is often viewed as an aggressive woman attacking an innocent boy, an inscription at Salmacis' pool in Halicarnassus suggests a very different view of the myth. We explore the idea of the Hermaphrodite as representing the bonds of marriage and ideas about marriage, as well as its connection to Plato's myth of the proto-human in the Symposium. The articles referenced in the podcast were:Kelly, Peter. "Intersex and Intertext: Ovid's Hermaphroditus and the Early Universe," Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World, Allison Surtees and Jennifer Dyer, eds. Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Romano, Allen T. "The Invention of Marriage: Hermaphroditus and Salmacis at Halicarnassus and in Ovid," The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Dec. 2009), pp. 543-561.

This week we look at the Greek daimon Atë, the personification of deception and ruin. Atë is a prominent figure in Homer’s Iliad, and often appears in Greek tragedy as a figure associated with justice, along with Nemesis and the Erinyes. We look at Atë as an irrational force, and how the understanding of her as a daughter of Zeus in the Iliad tells us something about the pitfalls of the rational mind.

Website: https://chthonia.netPatreon: https://patreon/com/chthoniaThis week we look at Eris, goddess of strife and discord. Hesiod declares that there are 2 Erises, one that is beneficial to humans and one that isn't. There is also the 3rd Eris of the modern "religion" of Discordianism, which highlights to problem of excluding discord from our lives.

Website: https://chthonia.netPatreon: https://patreon.com/c/chthoniaMerch: https://chthoniapodcast.creator-spring.com/School: https://instituteforfemininemyth.org This week's podcast looks at Enodia, a Thessalian goddess who has attributes of Hecate, Persephone, and Artemis, whose name means "of the street" or "in the road". Part of the dodekatheon (Cult of the 12 Olympians) local to Thessaly, she seems to clearly have a function related to protecting the household, and her own epithets suggest that she is a deity connected to cities rather than rural dwellings. We look at her relationship to the other goddesses she is connected with and visit the question of why protective deities like Enodia seemed to suddenly gain popularity in the late 6th to 5th century BCE.