The Löwenmensch (Lion-Man) figurine is the oldest zoomorphic statue in the world. It is estimated to be anywhere from 35,000 to over 40,000 years old and was made using the ivory of a mammoth. It was found in 1939 in a cave in southern Germany. While the pieces of the statue were discovered in 1939, the pieces were not put together until around 30 years later, and in 1987 they began a comprehensive restoration using other fragments that were found in the cave. The second stage of restoring the figure was in 2012, where it was disassembled, added newer fragments that were found and put back together.

The statue is 31 cm tall, its body is a mix of cave lion and man and it has the head of a cave lion (cave lions were bigger than today's lions and didn't have manes). The face of this figure suggests that it is attentive and listening, as if the maker was having a conversation with it. The Lion-man is the oldest statue of its kind that suggests the idea of a supernatural being. The cave where the figurine was found (Stadel cave) faced North, so it did not get a lot of sun, therefore, it is thought that this cave might have only been used occasionally for people to come together around a campfire and perform rituals and discuss beliefs. There are signs of wear on the figurine that suggests that it had been held and passed around frequently as a part of some type of ritual/story that told about the Lion-Man. There is no way for us to know what that story might have been or whether this figurine was seen as an avatar from the spirit world, a deity or maybe even a part of a creation story.

When I bought "The Mythology Book" by DK and saw on the cover "As soon as he touched the earth, he was a heap of ashes" I immediately thought of Antaeus. In Greek mythology, Antaeus was a half-giant and son of Poseidon and Gaea. He got all his power by keeping his feet on the ground, while Heracles was completing his 12 labors he came across Antaeus and was advised by the goddess Athena to lift him off the ground which would take away his strength. So Heracles managed fo lift Antaeus off the ground, stripping him of his powers, and crushed him to death. Now, going back to the first story with the title "As soon as he touched the earth, he was a heap of ashes", this is a story from "The Voyage of Bran" (Irish mythology). One day an unknown woman visited Bran in his palace and told him of a place where everyone was happy and was filled with beautiful women. The next day, Bran and his men set off to sea to search for this paradise they were told of when they came across Manannan (sea god), who told them that they would reach the land of women and that Bran would eventually have a son. Eventually, they arrived at the land of women and were all given a bed with a woman to be with. Over time, one man named Nechtan, grew homesick and wanted to go home and eventually got them all to agree. Before they left however, they were warned not to land once they returned home. When the men came home, they were not recognized by anyone cause so many years had passed. Nechtan, not listening to the advice of the woman, stepped onto shore and immediately turned to ash, Bran and the rest of his men sailed away.

These stories are similar in the sense that their life force is connected to land (one being on it and one being off it) and once that connection is lost, so is their life. I had initially thought that as soon as the person touched the ground, he would lose his powers and would die, which was almost true, but still an interesting story.

In Greek mythology, Ichor is the golden blood of the gods. It is thought to be toxic to mortals and kills them instantly. The automaton Talos that was made by Hephaestus, had a single vein of ichor that was stopped by a nail. Medea removed this nail, killing him after the ichor flowed out. It is also thought that Ichor is in nectar and ambrosia, food and drink of the gods. Ichor can sometimes be in the blood of a child who is the offspring of both a mortal and a god (A.K.A. demigod). When the ichor of Ouranos fell to earth (Gaea) after he was castrated by Kronos it formed the three Erinyes and the Gigantes.

“Blood follow'd, but immortal; ichor pure,

   Such as the blest inhabitants of heav'n

   May bleed, nectareous; for the Gods eat not

   Man's food, nor slake as he with sable wine

   Their thirst, thence bloodless and from death exempt”.

Iliad V 339-342

In Greek mythology, there are 5 rivers that run through Hades (the underworld) and each one has a special purpose.

Styx is the river goddess/oceanid that connects earth and the underworld. Styx is the daughter of Tethys. Styx was used by the gods to swear upon oaths which would then become unbreakable. It is said that Achilles was dipped into the Styx by his mother which made him completely invulnerable except for his heel.

Lethe is also called Ameles potamos which means "river of unmindfulness". This river flows around Hypnos' cave. Anyone who drinks from this river will have their memories completely wiped. Lethe is also the goddess of oblivion and forgetfulness.

The Phlegethon, whose name means "fire-flaming" is a river in the underworld that flows around the earth and into Tartarus. In Dante's Inferno, it is said that the Phlegethon boils souls. 

Cocytus, whose name means "lamentation" connects to the river Acheron. It is also said to sometimes be a marsh or swamp. Some sources say that this is the river where souls have to wait to cross over instead of the river Acheron.

Acheron is known as the "river of woe". It is said the both the Phlegethon and Cocytus flow into this river. This is the river where the newly dead would cross with Charon into Hades. Acheron was originally a son of Helios and Gaea and was later turned into a river because he refreshed the Titans with drinks during the Titanomachy. 

In Greek mythology and funerary rituals, Charon’s Obol is the coin placed in a person’s mouth or on their eyes. An Obol is the name of low currency in Greece. The Obol’s were buried with the person in order to use as payment for Charon, the ferryman of the underworld. He carried souls from one side of the river Styx to the other, bringing them into the underworld. If a person is not buried with a coin then they have to wait 100 years before they are able to cross into the underworld. When graves were dug up by archaeologists, it was found that very few graves actually had coins buried with them and if they did, they weren't always placed on just the mouth but in random parts of the body.

In Norse mythology, Naglfar is the ship of the dead that's made out of the fingernails and toenails of the dead. Hrym (a Jotunn) will be at the helm of the ship when it is released from its moorings in Jotunheim. Along with Hrym. It will be filled with other Jotunns/frost giants. After it is released it will head towards Vígríđr (field that will host the battle of Ragnarök). When people buried their dead, they would clip the nails of the dead person in the hopes of slowing down the building of Naglfar, and in turn, Ragnarök.

Atheism - Complete lack of belief in any deity or afterlife.

Agnosticism - Neither belief nor disbelief, nothing can be known of the existence of any god.

Monotheism - Belief that there is only one god.

Polytheism - Belief in multiple gods.

Henotheism - Belief in one main god of a family or clan but recognizes other gods.

Monolatrism - Belief in one god but not denying existence of other gods.

Animism - Belief that everything is alive/has a soul.

Panentheism - Belief that god is beyond the universe and the universe is within god.

Solipsism - belief that nothing exists except for your mind and everything around you was created by your mind. 

The Minoan Snake goddesses are figurines that were found in Crete in 1903 by an archaeologist named Arthur Evans. they have been dated back to the Neo-palatial period circa 1700-1450 B.C. It is unknown as to whether the figures depict a deity or a priestess. These figurines were only ever found in houses and are thought to be the goddess of the household. According to Walter Burkert (Greek mythology scholar), the figurines might be related to Paleolithic traditions about women and domesticity. The Minoans and Greeks both believed that the snake was a protector of the house and the Dionysiac cults of Greece saw the snake as a symbol of wisdom and fertility. Although we do not know what the actual name of these possible goddesses or priestesses might be, it is believed to be associated with the word A-sa-sa-ra (possible translation) found in the Minoan Linear A texts. The Linear A texts still remain undeciphered so it is still up for debate.

Odin is the Ruler of the Norse gods. He is a practitioner of the Norse magic system that is called Seidr. Seidr is mostly seen as a feminine form of magic and males, such as Odin, who participate in it are seen as unmanly. The reason for Seidr being seen as feminine was because a big part of it involved weaving (Seidr actually means something like cord, string or snare). Odin and the goddess Freyja were two of the masters of this type of magic among the gods. There was a point in the Poetic Edda when Loki came into Ægir's hall and absolutely roasted everyone there that he also called out Odin for practicing Seidr (also known as a Volva) and calling him  an argr (which means unmanly or even homosexual):

"But it wasn't me who donned the dress of a woman and traveled among men as a witch,chanting, beating the drum, and casting spells. Now that, it seems to me, is wholly argr".

- The Viking Spirit by Daniel McCoy, page 253.

Now, there is only one source that I have seen that actually tries to claim that Odin consumed semen via dead hanged men. It is from a book called The Construction  of Homosexuality by David F. Greenberg which says:

 I think that this is in part because Odin was a type of Psychopomp (guide of the dead) because he and the Valkyries choose which fallen warriors get to come to Valhalla to fight alongside him against Fenrir. However, there is no source anywhere within the few sources for Norse myths that claim that Odin drank semen at all. Another thing of note that someone online pointed out is that it's (possible) that him drinking semen could be a misinterpretation of a line from the Havamal that speaks of fruit that someone thought (could have) mean semen:

"Ere long I bare fruit, 

and throve full well, 

I grew and waxed in wisdom; 

word following word, 

I found me words, 

deed following deed, 

I wrought deeds".

But seeing as I don't have nor ever will have Greenberg's book to figure out what source he used as proof of that I will never know where he got that information from.

Another thing worth mentioning however, is that there are old historical accounts of sacrifices being made in Uppsala, Sweden in which every nine years Vikings would make human and animal sacrifices to the gods. The sacrificed animals and humans would include 9 males of different creatures such as men, horses, dogs and other animals. However these historical events can't be taken entirely as fact because it is believed that they might have been propaganda against the Vikings (The accounts were documented by Adam of Bremen and Thietmar of Merseburg if you wish to look into it more).

The only liquids Odin consumes to gain knowledge in the myths (that I know of) are the mead of poetry and water from the Well of Mymir.

Also Neil Gaiman has an interesting few lines on the subject of the animal and human sacrifices in his book American Gods it is on page 386 of the paperback Author's Preffered Text version which I don't have room to quote here.

Throughout these posts, I will be talking about the process that the Egyptians went through to mummify the body and how that helped them in the afterlife where their souls will be judged.

The first part of the process after a person dies is to take all of their organs out and place them into Canopic jars. 4 Canopic jars are each protected by a different son of Horus and each holds different organs:

- Hapi, the baboon-headed god who represents North, contains the lungs and is protected by Nepthys.

- Duamutef, a Jackal-headed god who represents the East, contains the stomach and is protected by Neith.

- Imsety, the human-headed god who represents the South, contains the liver and is protected by Isis.

- Quebehsenuef, the falcon-headed god who represents the West, contains the intestines and is protected by Serqet.

The jars would sometimes contain descriptions on the outside of them but that wasn't a common thing to do until the Middle Kingdom. These 4 jars are then placed inside a Canopic chest and buried with the Sarcophagus. However, this practice only lasted till sometime during the Third Intermediate Period when they introduced fake Canopic jars because embalming techniques had improved that allowed the organs to stay inside the body. The name for the Canopic Jars comes from the Greek story of Canopus who was the boat captain of Menelaus on the trip to the city of Troy. Canopus had been buried in an Egyptian city of the same name where he was worshipped in the form of a jar. 

In Greek mythology, Styx is the goddess of hatred and the river that runs through the underworld. During the Titanomachy (war between the Titans and Olympians, Styx and her children sided with Zeus. As a reward for her help, he made her river the agent of oaths that binds the gods.

When a god or goddess is to make an oath, Iris, messenger of the gods, is sent to fill a golden pitcher with the water from the river and bring it back to Olympus that they will then swear their oath on. If anyone is to break their oath on the Styx they will of course be punished as is described in the Theogony by Hesiod:

"And whoever of the gods, who keep the summits of snowy Olympos, pours of this water, and swears on it, and is forsworn, is laid flat, and does not breathe, until a year is completed; nor is this god let come near ambrosia and nectar to eat, but with no voice in him, and no breath, he is laid out flat, on a made bed, and the evil coma covers him. But when, in the course of a great year, he is over his sickness, there follows on in succession another trial, yet harsher: for nine years he is cut off from all part of the everlasting gods, nor has anything to do with their counsels, their festivals for nine years entire, but in the tenth he once more mingles in the assemblies of the gods who have their homes on Olympos."

In the Norse religion, there are a few different lands of the dead that people can go to when they die depending on where and how it is they die.

Valhalla: The most well known of all the Norse afterlives is that of Valhlla or "the hall of the fallen". This hall of the dead is ruled by the God Odin, king of the gods. Warriors who go here are chosen by the Valkyries. These warriors fallen in battle will train, fight, eat and celebrate in general until Ragnarok, the end of the universe.

Folkvang: Folkvang or "the field of warriors" is where the other half of fallen warriors go after they die. However, there is very few mentioning of Folkvang so not much is known about it.

Hel: The realm of the underworld that is ruled by the goddess of the same name. It is not a place that is necessarily good or bad. It is a place where people live and eat and sleep etc. 

Ran: Ran is a giantess that is married to Aegir who rules over the sea. People who die at sea are said to sometimes be taken to her underwater abode.

Nastrond: Also known as "Shore of Corpses", Nastrond is a place of punishment. Poison drips from the ceiling and snakes coil on the floor. 

The Ainu people are a tribe located in Japan. Their beliefs and daily life were very closely associated with the Kamui (gods) and they always payed respect to their gods if they have a successful hunt with sake, which is a type of rice wine and offer other things. The Ainu believe that all animals have a Kamui inside them.

This is a small list of Kamui that the Ainu believe in:

Chikap Kamui - The God of owls and the land, he watches over and protects humans. He also makes sure that humans pay proper respect to other Kamui.

Apehuchi Kamui - The Goddess of fire and the hearth. As the dead are associated with the hearth, Apehuchi is also the one who controls the gateway between life and death.

Repun Kamui - The God of the sea that is depicted usually as an orca. In one story he gives a group of people 2 whales who had been going through a famine.

Yushkep Kamui - The Goddess of spiders and is called upon to aid in childbirth because her long fingers allow her to easily extract the baby.

Kadankaro Kamui - The God of the sky. He is responsible for the creation of most or all things but is not considered to be the supreme Kamui.

Tokapcup Kamui - The Goddess of the sun who is married to Kunnecup Kamui (the moon god).

Atkor Kamui - An Octpus God whose tentacles can stretch over a hectare in area and is large enough to consume whales and ships alike in a single gulp. It's body is entirely red.

In Shanidar Cave, located in Iraq, there are skeletons of Neanderthals dating back around 70,000 years old. Based on how the skeletons were laid out in the cave, it is believed that they were deliberately put there that way rather than just thrown into the cave to get rid of them. Around some of the bodies, archaeologists found pollen grains. However, it is more of a theory than actual fact as to whether or not the pollen was placed there on purpose or was simply placed there by animals that visited the caves. If this is found to be true and they did place the pollen there on the bodies, then it would suggest a higher level of knowledge/complexity in Neanderthals than previously thought. One of the bodies, called "Shanidar Z" was found in the bottom of a small trench in the cave. It was laying in it's back with one arm resting under the head as shown below.

Vampires are arguably one of the most well known mythical creatures and are very popular within modern fiction in television and literature. Listed below are some ways that you can kill Vampires and prevent them from killing/turning others.

Stake - Driving a wooden stake through a Vampire's heart is the most well known way of killing one. The wood used from the stake varies from cultures, Russians and Baltics would use Ash, Serbians use Hawthorn, Oak is used in Silesia (Europe).

While the heart is the target for some Slavic cultures, Germany had a tendency to target the mouth to prevent Vampires from biting people. Serbia however, would stake Vampires in the stomach.

Decapitation - Suprisingly enough, taking something's head off of its body will stop it from living. In Germany, some people were buried with their head inbetween their feet (sometimes) along with their clothes or body being pinned down to prevent them from leaving the grave.

Water - Pouring boiling water over the grave or incinerating it is a good prevention tactic. Also by pouring holy water over the body.

Putting Objects in Mouth - Romanians would put Garlic in the mouth of vampires, and as mentioned above, Germans would put stones or rods in the mouths of Vampires. Also in Germany, in the Saxon regions, they would sometimes put a lemon in the Vampire's mouth. 

A Sin-Eater, is someone who spiritually consumes the sins of the recently dead by eating a ritual meal. By doing this, they are believed to cleanse the soul of that person. But they would then have to live with those sins they consumed. The book "1911 Encyclopedia Britannica" they wrote about recent events of sin eating at funerals:

A symbolic survival of it (sin eating) was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a 'funeral biscuit.' In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family.

The practice of sin eating is most often performed in Welsh and Wales culture.

There is, interesting enough, a goddess in Aztec mythology named Tlazolteol. She is the goddess of the earth, fertility and motherhood. When a person is at the end of their life, they would confess their sins to her and she would, in turn, cleanse the person's soul by "eating their filth" which I assume would mean their sins.

Instead of starting with "Once Upon a Time" when telling folk/fairy tales like in Germany, Koreans will start out theirs with "back when tigers used to smoke". That same sort of saying is also used in normal conversation sometimes, it is used to refer to things that happened a long time ago. It is interesting to note however, that tobacco was not introduced to Korea until sometime during the 16th Century from South America. Unfortunately, within Korea and maybe other areas, tigers (specifically Siberian Tigers) have been hunted to near extinction and haven't been seen in that area in the wild since around the 1920's.

A Brief Summary of the Story: A kid named Jack goes to town to sell his cow because it can no longer produce milk. He meets a man who sells him beans that he claims has magical abilities. Jack returns home to show his mother and she becomes angry at him and throws the beans out the window. The next morning, where the beans once were stood a giant beanstalk. He ends up climbing the beanstalk to a castle in the sky which is the home of a giant. He climbs it 3 seperate times and each time he comes back with something new. The first time he brings home a bag of gold coins. The second time he brings home a goose that lays golden eggs. Then the third time he brings back a harp that can play by itself. The Giant tries to follow Jack back down the beanstalk in order to kill him; but before he can get close to the ground Jack takes an axe and cuts down the beanstalk killing the Giant.

A History: The story known as Jack and the Beanstalk is the most modern name for it; originally, it was called The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Beans as far back as 1734 and was first published in a book called Round About our Coal-Fire. Then, in 1807, Benjamin Tabart published a different version of it called The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk. However, the most popular version of the tale was published in 1890 by Joseph Jacobs in his book English Fairy Tales.

Recently, there has been a study conducted using the ATU catalogue. The ATU catalogue (A.K.A. Aarne-Thompson-Uther) is a way of assigning numbers to common plots/themes in different fairy tales. The story of Jack and the beanstalk is ATU 328. Scholars have used this catalogue as a way to sort of trace back the lineage/origin of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk by using the plot, characters etc. and comparing them to older and older stories from the past. This study was conducted by Sara Graca Da Silva of the New University of Lisbon and Jamshid J. Tehrani of Durham University and published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal. They followed the story all the way back to Europe during the Bronze age of the Indo-European people around 5000 years ago. Even Wilhelm Grimm of the Grimm Brothers believed that these fairy tales where very ancient, saying that "Some of these stories go back much further than the earliest literary record and indeed further back than Classical mythology - some versions of these stories appear in Latin and Greek texts - but our findings suggest they are much older than that." Another tool that the researchers used to help find the origin of the story was something called Phylogenetic comparative methods which is used to reconstruct the past without physical evidence. They take the fairy tales from different cultures along with their historical relationships and from that they can get an idea of what the story would have been like when it was told by their ancestors. However, Jack and the Beanstalk isn't the only fairy tale that is thousands of years old; some other ones include The Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin which are both around 4,000 years old and The Smith and the Devil which is believed to be around 6,000 years old. 

There are a lot of Gods, spirits, and even kings that make up the process of death in Greek mythology. 

It starts with the Moirai or Fates, there is Clotho the spinner, who spins the thread of life. Then there is Lachesis, the Apportioner of Lots, who measures it out, and then Aisa, she who cannot be turned, who cuts it. These three Goddesses weave the thread of life and chose when and how people will die. Although Zeus, being the supreme God has power over them, sometimes called Zeus Moiragetes (leader of the fates) and can bring people back or prevent them from dying (like he did with Pelops, who died and was fed to the Gods and brought back by Clotho).

Next, we have Moros, the personified spirit (or God) of doom. This spirit is what drives man towards his fated death. 

Then we move onto Thanatos and the Keres. Thanatos is the God of death, he carries out the Fates decrees and takes the soul, only the peaceful deaths though. His touch is said to be gentle like that of his brother Hypnos (sleep). The Keres however are responsible for violent deaths such as murder and ravaging diseases. After they rip the soul free of the body they are said to ravenously feed on the blood.

Then along comes Hermes, the messenger of the Gods. He is the one who carries the souls to the underworld.

Once the souls get to the underworld they are taken across the river Acheron (not the Styx as some people often say) by Charon to Hades where they will then be judged and their fate decided.

There are three judges, all sons of Zeus, who decide the soul's fate. There are Rhadamanthys, Minos, and Aiakos. Rhadamanthys judges the men of Asia and is the lord of Elysium. Aiakos judges the men of Europe and guards the keys to Hades. Lastly, Minos acts as the third and final vote. There is sometimes said to be a fourth judge, Triptolemus, who judged the souls of initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In Northeast Italian mythology, the Benandanti or "Good Walkers" are a type of witch that fights evil. They will leave their bodies at night and take on the form of various animals, they would then either play games with other Benandanti and help defend their crops against evil witches (Malandanti) who used sticks of Sorghum. It is said that the only way to become a Benandanti is to be born with a caul on their head which allows them to participate in these visionary journeys (which mostly happen on specific Thursday nights). Benandanti are also said to have magical powers that are used for healing. One of those special Thursday nights in which the Benandanti would leave their bodies was between the Ember days which is a period of fasting.

Meanwhile, the female Benandanti would travel to a great feast in which they ate and drank with spirits fairies, and animals; they would also learn which villagers would die within the next year. The feast was looked over by a female figure called "the abbess" who sat at the edge of a well. The idea that these women worshipped a "devil figure" was a later addition to try and put them in a bad light.

The Wendigo is a very popular mythical creature in modern media and pop culture. It originated in multiple Native American tribes as a monster that is created as a result of cannibalism. Among the main myths about the monster, it is usually just described as a giant monster with a frozen heart. It goes around eating humans and has an insatiable hunger. Sometimes you can save the human inside but most often the only solution is to kill the Wendigo. The Native Americans use this story of the Wendigo to showcase the human greed and harshness that winters can bring when being unprepared for them. 

In modern media and pop culture, however, the Wendigo looks very different from its Native American counterpart. Usually depicted as a frail or thin human with rotting flesh, and the skull and antlers of a deer. This is what most of us would think of when imaging a Wendigo, but where did this depiction come from?

The main origin in which this became popular was a director named Larry Fessenden who made two movies including the monster. One in 2001 named Wendigo, in which it is depicted with the skull and antlers of a deer. Another movie, named, The Last Winter in which the Wendigo is featured with the same characteristics. He also helped write the game Until Dawn which features a more Native American idea of the Wendigo. 

Pathfinder, a type of RPG, characterizes the Wendigo with features created by Larry Fessenden, however, they also say that it has flesh hanging off of its stomach that allows you to see its entrails. It is also featured in many different books and movies such as Stephen King's Pet Sematary and the 2021 release Antlers directed by Guillermo Del Toro, among many others. 

These things along with artists that took these as inspiration over the years have almost completely changed what the Wendigo looks like to the modern, non-Native American eyes. If you want to know what they are believed to be among the different tribes that believe in them check out the website called Native-languages.org or a book called Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo In Myth And History by Shawn Smallman.

The Greek Gold Tablets (sometimes called Totenpass or Totenpässe (plural)) are thin metal leaves inscribed with instructions for navigating the afterlife. These tablets in Greece are mostly associated with the Orphic and Dionysiac mystery religions. After the information is written on the gold lead it is sometimes rolled up and placed inside a capsule on the person's necklace like an amulet. Think of this as a similar process as the Egyptian book of the dead, it is a guide to tell you what to do when you reach the underworld and what dangers you must avoid on the way. Although the Greek tablets are much smaller, usually 2x2 inches or less. One example comes from the grave of a woman from Hipponion dated to around 400 B.C. which says:

1 This is the work of Memory, when you are about to die 

2 down to the well-built house of Hades. There is a spring at the right side,

3 and standing by it a white cypress.

4 Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves. 

5 Do not even go near this spring!

6 Ahead you will find from the Lake of Memory.

7 cold water pouring forth; there are guards before it.

8 They will ask you, with astute wisdom,

9 what you are seeking in the darkness of

murky Hades.

10 Say, “I am a son of Earth and starry Sky,

11 I (masculine) am parched with thirst and am dying; but quickly grant me

12 cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink”.

13 And they will announce you to the Chthonian King,

14 and they will grant you to drink from the Lake of Memory.

15 And you too, having drunk, will go along the sacred road on which other

16 glorious initiates and bacchoi travel.

Translation quoted from Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnson

Ship burial and cremation were standard practices of the Nordic people; they would, in most cases, have rocks in the shape of a ship with the grave in the middle. In situations where a person was of great importance, they would build an actual boat, as with the Oseberg Ship found in Vestfold, Norway. Which is “Seventy feet long and nearly 17 feet wide, the ship had 15 oars on each side, a pine mast more than 30 feet high, and was spacious enough to fit 30 people.” 

You can find this ritual in the myth of Balder's funeral - attested in the Poetic Edda - in which he was put on a boat named Hringhorni and sent out to sea, pushed by a giantess named Hyrrokkin down the rollers; she shoved it so violently that the ship burst into flames.

In Odysseus' journey back home from Troy, he was drifted off course with his crew for nine days by terrible winds. These winds finally landed him on an island populated by people who ate from a Lotus tree. He sent three of his men to go meet with these people, who then gave them lotus to eat. After consuming it, the sailors were overcome by forgetfulness and had no desire to leave. They had to be dragged back to the ship and tied down to the rowing benches so they would leave. The exact plant that is being referred to is not certain as the word lotus or lōtos in the Greek language was used for many different plants, one likely candidate however is the Ziziphus lotus, a small shrub or tree of the Rhamnaceae family. As for the location of the Lotus Eaters, Herodotus believed that they were located in Libya, while the historian Polybius said they were on the island of Djerba (a Tunisian island).

In the folklore of the Middle Ages, the Tempestarii or Weather Witch were women that could control storms like hail, lightning, and tempests. They would use these storms to strike homes and crops and even sink ships. A famous example of the Tempestarii causing harm was the 1591 North Berwick Witch Trials where John Fian and his alleged cult of witches were blamed for the sea storm that drowned King James VI and Queen Anne on their way back from Denmark.

Some Cornish Witches would "sell wind" to sailors in the form of knotted rope, untying these knots would change the strength of the wind.

GHOST RANT inspired by JRE #1922. (It's just a bunch of rambling on my end). 

There's this phenomenon mentioned in this podcast that they bring up in which they theorize that some people who died were too scared of death that instead of passing on to heaven or hell they remain to haunt the place they died. This could also kind of tie into the belief of vengeful spirits which are spirits that stay to right the wrongs that were done to them before moving on. There's another thing called stone tape theory in which a ghost will go through the same motions over and over in a loop forever. They also bring up the concept of Tulpism which is where a being or thing becomes real when a bunch of people start believing in it 

(i.e. Slenderman). So these places are haunted cause so many people died there and would think that it's haunted so eventually, it became haunted(??). Though I am doubtful of that method of ghosts inhabiting areas. Sam mentioned that when he was visiting the Zak Bagans museum he was hit with a huge wave of sickness and started dry-heaving and stuff. In that area of the museum he was in it was revealed that people had died there of Yellow fever. As you die of yellow fever you will normally puke up blood. So he had that experience pushed onto him from all the trauma that those people went through in that spot, Rogan also mentioned that his stepdad went through something similar at Gettysburg (idk where he talks about that but would like to hear it).

The whole phenomenon involving interactions with these ghosts/spirits/demons whatever you want to call them is fascinating in how many different forms it can take. There are countless ghost stories in folklore and online of people's encounters and it's so vast. A feature from a couple of days ago talked about how after the Tsunami in Japan taxi drivers would keep accidentally picking up ghosts. I've heard other stories like that where ghosts or demons will appear in someones car and start harrassing them like in the first or second episode of Supernatural where they encounter a Woman In White that tries to lure them away and murder them. 

The Sampul Tapestry is a Greek-style fragment that depicts a Greek warrior and a centaur but was discovered in the Sampul cemetery in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China in 1983. The partial tapestry is 48cm wide and 230cm long. It is believed to have originated in the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Central Asia. 

The origin of The Golden Fleece comes from Colchis (modern-day Georgia), where the area is abundant with gold. It flows down the river from the mountain and the flakes are collected using sheep's wool. This practice is mentioned by the Greek geographer Strabo who writes: 

“It is said that in their country gold is carried down by the mountain-torrents, and that the barbarians obtain it by means of perforated troughs and fleecy skins.”

The people of Colchis (AKA Svanetians) also practiced Ram worship, which could help explain how the origin of the Golden Fleece became a myth. (the website I got this information from states that there is a myth of a golden ram tied in a cave guarding treasure but I can't find that elsewhere as of yet).

This theme is not something I have seen pop up often but if anyone is aware of any other examples like this where a spirit is created after dying before their time please let me know.

In Greek mythology there are a type of ghost called aōroi which were those who died an untimely or early death (for example a woman dying before she could marry and have kids or the deaths of children and infants).

In Scottish folklore the Bean-nighe is a spirit that foretells somebody's death by washing their clothes in a stream. They are said to be created when a woman dies during childbirth and has to continue fulfilling her tasks until her life was supposed to have ended.