Dust Devils on the Horizon

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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tonyd
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Dust Devils on the Horizon

Post by tonyd »

In the Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell makes reference to Bronze Age goddesses in the fairy tale The King of Erin and the Queen of the Lonesome Isle An analysis of the tale reveals it to be healing response in the Irish psyche to the trauma of the Great Irish Famine. Yet a widespread phenomenon like a famine should produce several versions of the tale from the folk which then will typically be spread by travelling story tellers, or Seanachai.
Campbell with his unerring insight could comment:
The bringing together of the two great symbols of the meeting with the goddess and the fire theft reveals with simplicity and clarity the status of the anthropmorhic powers in the realm of myth. They are not ends in themselves, but guardians, embodiments, or bestowers, of the liquor, the milk, the food, the fire, the grace, of indestructible life.
We could also imagine other scholars disagreeing with this observation but I have found a sister tale to the above and it was collected by John Francis Campbell from a travelling tinker, John McDonald, from the West Highlands of Scotland. It is called The Brown Bear from the Green Glen. The preoccupation again might be said to be with primary foodstuffs and the cause may be the Highlands Potato Famine. Let me provide you with a brief excerpt which shows the motif of the fire-theft, or at least the transition from raw to cooked meats, separated out from the meeting with the goddess which occurs later in the tale.
The night was coming now, and growing pretty dark. John ties the crippled white horse that was under him to the root of a tree, and he went up in the top himself. He was but a very short time in the top, when he saw a bear coming with a fiery cinder in his mouth.
'Come down, son of the king of Erin', says he.
'Indeed, I won't come. I am thinking I am safer where I am.'
'But if thou wilt not come down, I will go up', said the bear.
'Art thou, too, taking me for a fool?' says John. 'A shaggy, shambling creature like thee, climbing a tree!'
'But if thou wilt not come down I will go up', says the bear, as he fell out of hand to climb the tree.
'Lord! thou canst do that same?' said John; 'keep back from the root of the tree, then, and I will go down to talk to thee.'
And when the son of Erin's king drew down, they came to chatting. The bear asked him if he was hungry.
'Weel! by your leave', said John, 'I am a little at this very same time.'
The bear took that wonderful watchful turn and he catches a roebuck.
'Now, son of Erin's king', says the bear, 'whether wouldst thou like thy share of the buck boiled or raw?'
'The sort of meat I used to get would be kind of plotted boiled', says John; and thus it fell out. John got his share roasted.
'Now', said the bear, 'lie down between my paws, and thou hast no cause to fear cold or hunger till morning.'
The protagonist continues onto the Green Isle gets his three bottles from its sacred well, as well as a cornupcopia of whiskey (cereals), cheese (dairy) and bread (cereals), sojourns with the goddess and so we're back in the Neolithic. The king is cured by the sacred water but the hero faces near death and permanent disfigurement at which point the goddess awakes from her slumber, finds a child, and goes on the march to find the father.

The dust devils I see on the horizon are these: a formal study of mythology, and a certain category of fairy tale, could provide insight into the treatment of collective trauma in the aftermath of such horrors as famine, natural disasters and war/genocide. Equally, and much more controversially, a similar study could provide insights into our collective pathologies (Jungian collective shadow), which are several.
Personally, I see Joseph Campbell's works providing the principal schema for such a formal study with the psychological terminology coming principally from Carl Jung and Marie-Louise Von Franz's works.
Last edited by tonyd on Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:52 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Tony D.
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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Tony!

You are a hoot and I enjoy your presence here. That is a fascinating thesis! If only circumstances allowed, I'd hop over there and give you a hand! Lol!

I hope all is well. Please post your thoughts here on this as you will. You have my interest!

Cheers,
Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

tonyd
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Terminal moriane of myth and fairy tale

Post by tonyd »

Clemsy,
The reason I used the term ' dust devils on the horizon' is that the use of myth in certain circumstances has to be approached very carefully, a certain ethical imperative imposes itself - but certainly there may be a role for mythology in treating collective trauma and helping diagnose collective pathology.

For example in the case of famine the impersonal horror of it could well drive a person, or a community, to seek refuge in madness. So the Palaeolithic motif mentioned above may well be the psyche recapitulating the transition from raw to cooked meat. According to Campbell, the bear, a long with the lion, was the principal personified power of this period and so takes pre-eminence. Similarly in the Neolithic period the goddess was the pre-eminent power, so where there is crop failure and famine it is she who becomes active. It is almost as if the psyche, alert to the possibility of relapse to a more primitive state, through repetitive narrative reaffirms the level of consciousness thus far attained.

Tony D.
Tony D.
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