From: scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles)
Newsgroups: alt.mythology,sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: The creation of Eve
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:31:51 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <1992Aug11.200435.21094@lunatix.uucp> lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura
Mollett) writes: 
>In article <92220.163812IDJDE@ASUACAD.BITNET> <IDJDE@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:
>> [92220.163812idjde's previous comments deleted for brevity]

>	I wonder if you can give me an English book source for this myth?  It
>sounds wonderfully like an example of what might be an Indo-European proto-myth
>to coin a phrase <grin>, and while I've seen bits and pieces of it in what I
>have of the Indian/Hindu myths (English translations), I've not seen anything
>this clear (thanks :), nor did I realise it was a creation myth.  I'm 
>interested in comparing it with the remainder of what might be a similar myth
>in Norse and Celtic societies, i.e. the song "Two Magicians," the story of the
>two swineherds who fought their final battle as the white and black (dun) bulls
>in the Cuchulain myths, and even possibly the Norse cow who gave birth to 
>(licked into being? I've forgotten exactly) Odin.  I think there are some
>similar concepts in Greco/Roman, but I'm not as familiar with those.  Anyway,
>if this is a part of a "cow-goddess" concept, and part of an original creation
>myth, could lead new insight to compare, yes?
>	Thanks very much,
>			Laura Mollett
>>--John david ebert
>>mesa, arizona

It wasn't Odin in the Norse -- I _think_ it was Ymir, his father.  (Don't
have the books right here, but I could look it up at my _other_ place.) Lots
of spontaneous generation through the mingling of cold & hot was going on,
too, and I'm sure there's plenty that could be made sexually of that.  But I
digress. 

The Norse has plenty of other interesting things.  The palace at Asgard was
built by giants, who did their work in the form of stallions.  The
"Asgardians" had hired them on the understanding that Loki, descrbied I
think by Snorri as "blood-brother" or "half-brother" (can't remember exactly
which) to Odin, would somehow swidle them into breach of contract (the Norse
were obsessed with the notion of the binding contract -- Iceland was
governed by lawsuit for hundreds of years).  Loki, in his last-ditch gambit,
turned himself into a mare and lured the giants away into the woods, so they
didn't finish the job on time.  There was a product of that union, but I
don't remember what it was.

On the subject of Loki's famous children:  I read _one_ account in a book I
cannot remember the name or author of, that suggested a circuitously
parthenogenetic origin for the Children of Loki (Hel, Fenris, and
Jormungandr).  Snorri establishes a mother for the kids -- can't remember
her name, but she is of the race of Giants.  Apparently, though, some
scholars (my memory again may be faulty, but I seem to remember one of them
being Dumezil) thought that she was an alter-ego of Loki himself -- ergo
parthenogenesis.  But the really interesting theory was the one I started to
tell, which is based on a small fragment from a source I can't reemmber
except that it _wasn't_ Saxo Grammaticus or the Elder Edda, which describes
a certain giantess (none other than the one named as Loki's wife) bursting
into the great hall at Asgard, and being killed and burned for her rudeness. 
All was destroyed except her heart, which Loki found among the ashes and
ate -- thus becoming pregnant with hsi children, the monsters of Ragnorak.

There's lots of shape and gender changing in the Norse.  I can't clearly
recall any other good ones, but they are there.  Fun stuff.
-- 
Eric Scoles			: <<insert witty, pithy comment 
scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu  :    here >>
University of Rochester --------:
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