After a long repose, one that was longer than my expectations had designed it to be, Share a myth series return. Again from Arthur Cotterell as General Editor, I take the subsequent myth from World Mythology, a Parragon Publishing Book, 2005 edition.

Chapter 15, “Africa” introduces an absorbing article titled “The Cosmic Egg”. I enjoyed reading this bit and I feel I should share it with my readership. What I found captivating is the fact that this particular myth affirms the existence of a single creator for the world, and the existence of a spider before man. Other aspects I found lovely are found at the end of the myth, and are related to the process of creating earth.

The Cosmic Egg

Mebege (Fang, Pahouin/ Congo Afrian Republic, Congo, Gabon) was lonely. He pulled some hair from under his right arm, took substance from his brain and lifted a pebble from the sea. He blew on these three elements and they formed an egg.

Mebege gave the egg to Dibobia, a spider who hung between the sky and the sea. When the egg became hot, Mebege descended and put his sperm on it. The egg cracked and three people emerged. Mebege took a strand of raffia and worked it into a cross, establishing the four directions.

He took hair from under his arms, and the lining of his brain, rolled these into a ball, blew on them and created termites and worms. These dispersed in all directions and with their droppings they built up the earth upon which the three humans stepped.

From �World Mythology� by Arthur Cotterel as general editor, a Parragon Publishing Book of 2005, I bring you the third piece of the �Share a Myth� series. This myth I take from chapter 4; The Celts.

Oisin in the Land of the Forever Young

Oisin, the son of Finn mac Cool, was out hunting one day with his father and their elite band of warriors, the Fianna. They were joined by a beautiful fairy-like woman on a white horse. Her name was Naim of the Golden Hair and she had come, she said, to take Oisin with her to Tir na nOg, the Land of the Forever Young.
Naim told them that she had loved Oisin since she and her father had ridden through Ireland some years before. She had watched him then, running like a young deer through the meadows, looking every inch a huntsman and a warrior. For seven years and seven days she had returned, invisible, to watch him grow up and, at last, her father had given her permission to declare her love.

She cast a spell over Oisin so that he loved her too, and they rode away on Naim�s white steed across lakes, rivers and the misty sea to Tir na nOg. There they married and lived happily for 300 years, a period which seemed like only three weeks to Oisin.

Eventually Oisin became homesick. He longed to see his father and his friends again. Naim did all she could to dissuade him from returning to Ireland. She could not change his mind, however, so she gave him her white horse to make the journey and she warned him not to dismount or he would never return.

When Oisin got back to Ireland he found that everything was different. The countryside had changed, his father and the Fianna were long dead and a new faith was being practiced. Deeply saddened, Oisin turned and began his journey back to his fair wife. He had not gone far, however, when a group of peasant struggling to lift a heavy stone into a wagon asked him for help. He agreed willingly but, as he stooped, his reins broke and Oisin fell to the ground. Immediately, the horse vanished and Oisin transformed into a very old man, blind and near to death.

He was carried to St Patrick who was walking the land and preaching of the new god. The saint received him into the new faith. He also managed to take down some of Oisin�s stories of the old days when the Fianna ruled the land. But soon, the warrior-poet, and the world he had known, passed away forever.

From �World Mythology�, a Parragon Publishing book with Arthur Cotterell as its general editor (2005 edition), I put forward this sequel of �Share a Myth�. A series of entries relating mythical stories with this particular entry acting as the second.
From Sumerian Mythology I desire to share with you one of the stories involving Gilgamesh, and bits of information regarding some of the characters portrayed in the story.

(Chapter1-P.14)
Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld

Inanna grows a Huluppu tree at the banks of the Euphrates and later has it transplanted to her shrine at Uruk, planning to fashion a bed and chair from its wood. However, she discovers that she is unable to cut it down because it is inhabited by three demonic creatures, a serpent, a raptor bird and a female demon. Gilgamesh volunteers to help her and with his mighty battle-axe fells the tree and kills the snake, whereupon the demon and bird fly away.

Apart from the furniture, Inanna makes two objects from the timber, which she presents to Gilgamesh as a reward- but for some reason they fall into the Underworld.
His servant Enkidu volunteers to retrieve them. Gilgamesh gives him careful instructions as to how to behave there, as all the normal rules of behavior are inverted. Enkidu goes down to the Underworld, but promptly forgets all his warnings and breaks every single taboo.

Through the mediation of Enki, Gilgamesh summons the spirit of Enkidu through a hole in the ground and is told of the conditions in the Land of the Dead, where one with three sons has water to drink, one with seven sons is close to the gods, but those whose bodies are never buried are destined to roam forever without rest.

Character Information:

(P.17)Enki is the son of the sky god An and his mother is Nammu, a goddess of water and creation. He lives in Apsu, the watery depths below the earth, the source of all fertility and organic life. Since water in Mesopotamia also had an important magical role, Enki was invoked in magic spells and rituals and hence was regarded as wise among the gods and the one called upon to find solutions to difficult problems. On the other hand his sexual appetite and his weakness for drink account for less than perfect conditions of life on earth. He is not a war-like god and his major adversaries are various goddesses, most notably Inanna who tricks him into giving away divine prerogatives and powers.

(P.19)Inanna is a Sumerian goddess with a complex mythological persona, perhaps the result of a theological/philosophical combination between a local Sumerian deity associated with Uruk and the west-Semitic Venus-star deity Ishtar. Introduced by the Akkadian ruling dynasty in the middle of the second millennium BCE. The former was regarded as the daughter of the supreme sky god An, the latter as the daughter of the moon god Nannar. The dual nature of the planet Venus was conceptualized as a bisexual deity, and this accounts for Inanna�s association with warfare, aggression and lust for power, as well as childbirth and erotic attraction. The myths about Inanna either stress her irascible nature and the fatal consequences of her anger, and/or her sexuality.

For the benefit of my readership’s mythological knowledge, I decided to start posting a myth every now and then. Not every myth impresses me though, so the choices will be subject to my feeling captivated by a particular myth (thus posting it), or my utter neutrality regarding another (which would result in my not posting it).

For as long as I remember stories have captured my imagination. Myths are exactly that; stories. They never cease to amaze and perplex me. I am presently reading a book titled “World Mythology”. Its general editor is Arthur Cotterell. I found the myths of the Arctic peoples especially bloody. Here’s one: