The Snow Queen

Hello readers! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. It amuses me that I chose this week to write about The Snow Queen; over the past week the weather in Tucson has risen to over 90°! Oh, well. Perhaps writing about the snow will make it seem cooler.

The Snow Queen is an interesting fairy tale in that it did not exist before the 1840’s. The story is an original tale written by Hans Christian Andersen. Most fairy tales have some sort of conflict between good and evil; because of his beliefs, Andersen made the conflict in his story revolve around angels and demons.

Before I begin the tale, I want to address one issue: The Snow Queen is not Frozen. Not at all, not by a long shot. If you’re familiar with the story you likely know this already; if you’ve never heard it before, you’ll see it as you read it. I’ve heard some people talking about how similar the two stories are to one another, and it really bugs me. Frozen was originally intended to follow the plot of The Snow Queen, but the writers decided to make Elsa the main heroine instead of the main villain. The movie has very little in common with the original tale.

Now that I’ve gotten my pet peeve out of the way, let’s begin!

Once upon a time the devil created a magical mirror. This mirror distorted the vision of those who looked into it, allowing the viewer to see only the bad and the ugly instead of the good and the beautiful. The devil enjoyed taking a cohort of demons with him and traveling the world, warping the views of anyone who happened to look in the mirror.

Eventually this form of entertainment was not enough for the devil. He led his demons through the sky and attempted to take the mirror into Heaven, where he would force God and the angels to gaze into it. As they rose into the sky, the mirror began to shake with laughter. The devil and his demons attempted to keep going, but the mirror shook more the higher they rose. Eventually they lost their grip on it and the mirror slipped from their grasp, falling to Earth where it shattered into millions of pieces.

These pieces were tiny - some only the size of sand grains - and they blew around the world. Some of the pieces became lodged in people’s eyes, making the people see only the bad in their fellow man. Other pieces got stuck in people’s hearts, freezing them and stopping them from experiencing emotions.

Our story begins years later, with two children who grew up next door to one another. The boy was named Kai, and the girl Gerda; they were best friends. The buildings they lived in were so close together that one of them could get to the other’s home simply by stepping across the balconies each of their dwellings had. These balconies (called window-boxes) each had a garden that the children tended to.

One night Kai’s grandmother tells the children a story about the Snow Queen, a woman who rules over the snowflakes. During that winter Kai looks out of his window one night and sees the Snow Queen beckoning to him; he pulls away from the window in fear.

When spring arrives, so too does Gerda’s realization that she is in love with Kai. The gardens on their window-boxes have grown roses, and the sight of them never fails to remind Gerda of her love for her friend.

Unfortunately, everything changes during the summer (when the Fire Nation attacks? Sorry, couldn’t help it!). Splinters of the magical mirror from the beginning of the story get blown into Kai’s eyes and heart. Unable to feel, the boy only sees the ugliness in the world around him. He destroys the garden that he and Gerda have tended to all their lives. Kai also mocks his grandmother, thinking her nothing more than a foolish old woman. Despite the mirror fragment, Kai can still see perfection in one thing - snowflakes.

That winter Kai goes out to a festival and hitches his sled to the sleigh of a woman dressed in a white fur coat.  The woman is in fact the Snow Queen!

After revealing this to Kai, she talks with him for a short time.  Seeing his love of winter, the Snow Queen whisks Kai away from the city.  (I wonder if C. S. Lewis drew any inspiration from this story? Andersen’s Snow Queen certainly seems similar to Lewis’ White Witch, Jadis.)  Once outside its bounds she kisses him; once to make him immune to the cold, and a second time to take away his memories of Gerda and his family. She explains that a third kiss would kill him. The Snow Queen then takes Kai with her back to her palace.

Back in the town, it is believed that Kai drowned in a nearby river. Gerda is heartbroken, and sets out to determine the truth. She goes to the river and offers it her red shoes if it will give her back Kai; when it does not accept, she realizes that it does not have her friend. In exchange for her shoes, the river sends her to a sorceress who might know where Kai is.

(Remember - this is in the middle of winter. Gerda wanders around barefoot for the rest of the story. I’m amazed she didn’t lose her feet...)

Gerda travels to meet the sorceress, who lives in a land of eternal summer. The sorceress wants Gerda to stay with her, so she makes her forget Kai. Knowing that the sight of the rose bushes would remind her of her love for him, the sorceress also makes all of her rose bushes disappear under the earth. Fortunately for our heroine, Gerda begins to cry, and her tears raise one of the bushes from the ground. This brings back her memories of Kai. The bush tells Gerda that it was able to see the land of the dead while it was underground, and that Kai was not there.

Gerda flees the home of the sorceress, and eventually stumbles across a crow. The crow takes pity on the girl and tells her that Kai is in the palace of the princess. Gerda rushes to the palace, only to discover that Kai is not there. Instead she meets the prince, who looks remarkably like Kai. Gerda tells the prince and princess her story, and they provide her with warm clothes and a coach. (For some reason, she remains barefoot...) Gerda sets out from the palace, still determined to find Kai.

Unfortunately, her rich coach attracts robbers. Gerda is captured by them and taken back to their palace (So many palaces!!). While there, she manages to befriend a young robber girl. The girl keeps doves as pets, and they report having seen Kai being taken away by the Snow Queen towards Lapland. A reindeer that the robbers keep offers to take Gerda there, since Lapland was its home before it was captured.

Gerda’s robber friend frees both her and the reindeer. True to his word, he takes her to Lapland, and they begin the journey to the Snow Queen’s palace. Along the way they meet a Lapp woman and a Finn woman. Neither of them offer to help Gerda against the Snow Queen; as the Finn woman says, her kind heart has gotten her this far. If she cannot defeat the Snow Queen, no one can.

Gerda eventually makes it to the Snow Queen’s palace, which she finds guarded by snowflakes. Gerda recites the Lord’s Prayer, causing the fog from her breath to take the shape of angels. These angels fight the snowflakes, granting Gerda entrance to the palace. Once inside, she finds Kai sitting on a frozen lake. He has pieces of ice that he must use to spell the word “eternity”; if he can do this, the Snow Queen has promised to free him from her power and give him a pair of ice skates.

He is interrupted by Gerda running up and kissing him. As she cries, her warm tears melt the shard of mirror in his heart.

Kai also begins to weep, which dislodges the mirror shard from his eye. Overjoyed to see Gerda, Kai begins to dance with her. The children’s enthusiasm is so contagious that the pieces of ice Kai had been playing with also begin to dance; when they stop, they fall to the ground and spell out the word “eternity”, compelling the Snow Queen to free Kai.

(I have no idea what this picture is from, but it was so adorable that I had to share it.)

The reindeer helps Gerda and Kai to escape, along with some help from the Lapp and Finn women. On their way home they meet the robber girl and thank her. They continue on to their town, which they find different from when they left. The couple eventually realize that it is not their home which changed: it is them. During their adventure Gerda and Kai grew up. The story ends as they settle into their homes during summertime.

 

I love the story of The Snow Queen! I wasn’t able to find a myth that it had similarities to - if you know any, please comment below or email me to let me know! I’d love to hear about it.

I find the ending of The Snow Queen to be quite similar to Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which interests me. Having the children grow up and the world around them change because of it is an interesting literary tool that I don’t see used to often.

As to adaptations of The Snow Queen - well, hopefully you can see that Frozen isn’t one of them! Apart from the woman with snow powers, a reindeer (who is named Bae in the story instead of Sven), and shards in the heart (mirror shards, not ice, mind you), the stories are vastly different. Interestingly enough, the TV show Once Upon a Time did a story arc that took place after the events of Frozen. A Snow Queen comes to town with a plan to shatter a magical mirror that embeds itself in the eyes of everyone in town, forcing them to see only the bad in one another. I loved seeing a (mostly) accurate adaptation of The Snow Queen!

As far as books go, I’ve only read three that were based on The Snow Queen. Two are by Mercedes Lackey, and both are part of a series. The first, called The Snow Queen, is part of The Five Hundred Kingdoms series. The Snow Queen here is not really a villain, but it is a fascinating read. I recommend reading the other books in the series first, since the world the story is set in has a complicated system of magic that gets explained best in earlier books. All of the books in this series are actually based on fairy tales, each with a surprising twist!

The second book by Lackey is called The Wizard of London, and it is part of the Elemental Masters series. Chronologically I believe this book comes first, but it wasn’t the first published and it’s explanations of the magical system are not as good as other books in the series. Again, each book in this series is based off of fairy tales, and they’re quite an excellent read.

If you want something a bit shorter (and not part of a series!) Winter’s Child by Cameron Dokey is an excellent novel. Technically it is part of a series, but all of the books are standalone novels with nothing really in common.

Again, I hope you liked reading about The Snow Queen! If you have questions or comments, please post below or email me. This post was done at the request of a reader, and I’d love to do one about a fairy tale of your request too! Just let me know what you’d like me to cover.

I’ll be back next Monday with a post about Beauty and the Beast! See you then!

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is one of the first non-mainstream fairy tales I remember reading and falling in love with. My family has a deep and abiding love of polar bears, and our gifts to one another tend to feature said animal. We also have a great love of books. One year for Christmas my mom found me a book called East, which had a girl and a polar bear on the front cover. The book was a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and I devoured it during Christmas day. That was my introduction to the fairy tale.

Now, some of you may be wondering what in the world polar bears have to do with East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The answer is: a lot. The fairy tale is Norwegian in origin, and one of the main characters is a polar bear for a large portion of the story. Interested? Excellent! Let me tell you the tale.

 

Once upon a time there was a poor peasant with a large family. One cold winter’s night he heard knocking on the cottage door. Opening it, he found a large polar bear looming outside. The bear was quite polite and well spoken, despite the peasant’s fear, and offered the man an interesting proposition. In exchange for the peasant’s youngest daughter, the polar bear says he'll make the peasant and his family rich. The bear’s words win the man over to the idea, and he asks the bear to come back after he’s had a chance to convince his daughter.

The girl is understandably reluctant to be given to the bear, but her kind heart takes pity at her family’s poverty. She agrees for their sake, and the bear returns to claim her. He carries her upon his back to a land that is far away, eventually stopping at a castle.

The bear leaves her there, and she finds that all of her needs are met by invisible servants within the castle.

When the girl retires to her bed that night she gets a surprise - a man enters her chambers! It is dark, so she cannot see his face, but his words win her over. He returns every night, but leaves each morning before the light of dawn appears. During the day the girl is kept company by the bear.

Eventually the girl grows homesick. The bear reluctantly agrees to take her back to visit her family, on one condition: she must never speak to her mother alone. The girl agrees, and they begin the long trek back to her family.

She is surprised to find them living in an expensive, well-furnished house instead of the poor cottage she left. The bear had kept his promise and made her family rich. They are thrilled to see her, and insist that the girl tell them everything. She talks about the bear, the castle, and the invisible servants - but she leaves out the strange man who comes to her bed each night.

Throughout her visit the girl’s mother keeps trying to get her alone. Eventually she corners the girl and persuades her to tell everything. Upon hearing about the man, and the fact that the girl has never seen his face, the mother is horrified. After all, for all the girl knows it might be a troll sharing her bed! The mother gives the girl several candles and tells her to light them at night when the man is asleep in order to get a good look at him.

The girl leaves soon after, returning to the palace with the bear. That night she waits until the man is asleep and pulls out the candles from a hiding place in her room. She lights one and walks over to the bed...only to find not a troll, but a handsome man!

The girl is so captured by his beauty that she leans over him to get a better look at his face. Unfortunately, this tilts the candle, and three drops of hot wax fall onto him. This wakes the man, who gazes at her with dismay.

He tells her that he has been cursed by his wicked stepmother to be a bear during the day, only returning to his human form at night. If the girl had lasted for a year without looking at him, the curse would have been broken - but now she has seen his face, and he must return to his stepmother to marry her daughter (who is, unlike the man, a troll.  And not just any troll...a princess troll!) The stepmother lives in a castle that is east of the sun and west of the moon - which is, of course, impossible. That’s the whole point; she doesn’t want to be easy to reach.

When the girl wakes up the next morning she finds that the castle has disappeared. (I’m wondering how she would fall asleep after the night’s revelations!) The man - and the bear - are also gone. Having fallen completely in love with him, she decides to set out and try to find him.

The girl travels for a time before coming to a tall mountain. An old woman lives there, and is sitting outside playing with a golden apple. (As in solid gold.  Not just gold in color.)  The girl asks her if she knows where the castle that is east of the sun and west of the moon is. The woman does not, but she offers to lend the girl a horse to travel to a neighbor’s house, in the hopes that the neighbor might know. She gives the girl the golden apple before she goes.

The neighbor lives on a nearby mountain, and is also an old woman. This one has a golden carding comb instead of an apple. She also doesn’t know the way to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon, but she has a neighbor who might...The process then repeats itself, with the girl being lent a horse and given the carding comb. She travels to yet another mountain, where there lives an old woman with a golden spinning wheel. She doesn’t know the way, but gives the girl the wheel and offers to lend her a horse to take her to the East wind - who might know.

The East wind doesn’t know where the castle is, but he blows her to the West wind, who might. The West wind doesn’t, but he takes her to the South wind. The South wind also does not know, but he transports her to the North wind. There, to the girl’s relief, she is told that the North wind once blew a leaf to the land east of the sun and west of the moon. If the girl would like, he is willing to take her there.

True to his word, the North wind deposits the girl outside the castle east of the sun and west of the moon.

She is unable to infiltrate the castle, so she sits outside and starts playing with the golden apple. The troll princess (the one the man/bear is set to marry) sees this from her window in the castle and desires it. She offers to buy it from the girl, who agrees to trade her golden apple in exchange for one night with the man. The troll agrees.

The troll, however, is not stupid. She gives the man a sleeping potion before bed. When the girl is allowed in to see him, she is unable to wake him up.

The next day goes much the same, with the girl trading the troll princess her golden carding comb in exchange for another night with the prince. The troll once again drugs him, and the girl is once more unable to wake him up. This time something is different, though - there are some townspeople imprisoned in the castle, and they hear the girl crying over the man. The next day they tell him about it. Realizing what’s happening, he only pretends to drink the sleeping draught that night.

During the day the girl trades the golden spinning wheel for one last night with the man. To her joy, she finds him awake. He tells her that he has a plan - he will tell his stepmother that he will only marry the woman who can wash the tallow (the candle wax she had previously dropped on his shirt, now dry and hard) off of his shirt.

The next day is to be the day of the wedding. The man tells his stepmother that he will only marry the woman who can clean the tallow off of his shirt. The troll princess attempts it, but is unable to get it off. So too is the stepmother; they’re royalty, after all, and don’t know how to clean.

The girl then steps up. Having been raised a peasant, she is well aware of how to get tallow out of a shirt, and swiftly does so.

The troll princess - and the man’s stepmother - are so enraged by this that they quite literally explode. (I’m picturing that scene from Big Trouble in Little China...) The townspeople within the castle are freed, and the man marries the girl after they leave the castle.

So ends the story of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I forgot how long that one is! My plan had been to tell the story, and then to tell the Greek and Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche. I don’t want this post to be too huge, so I’ll have to postpone it for now and do a full post about Cupid and Psyche another time. However, I will say here that it is a myth that is highly similar to East of the Sun, West of the Moon, despite hailing from another part of the world. It deals with the god of love, Cupid, who takes a bride to a castle in the sky. She never sees his face, as he only comes to her at night. Psyche’s sisters are the ones who convince her to look upon him, and she does so with a lamp instead of a candle. As such, it is oil instead of wax that spills onto Cupid. He disappears, and she sets out on a quest to find him...all while being hindered by the goddess Aphrodite, Cupid’s mother. Can you say in-law problems? When I do a post series on Roman myths, I promise I’ll cover this one!

(Update: I've now done the post on Cupid and Psyche!  You can find it here if you're interested.)

I’ll wrap this post up with a few adaptations of East of the Sun, West of the Moon that I really love. I already mentioned East in this post, and I highly recommend that novel if you’re interested. It is a gorgeous retelling of the story, and I love the way the author (Edith Pattou) writes. If you’re looking for a shorter book, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George is also a lovely retelling. Lastly, if you want a huge version of the story that’s also the first book in a series (and that manages to combine the story with Norse mythology, ‘cause it’s just awesome like that.  Seriously.  This is where I fell in love with the Norns!) check out Once Upon a Winter’s Night by Dennis L. McKiernan.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I’ll be back next week with one about The Snow Queen (which is definitely not Frozen!)  Until then, as always, feel free to comment below or email me.  I'm looking for people to tell me what fairy tales they're interested in seeing covered - The Snow Queen was a request, so I'm doing it, and I'd love to do posts on your suggestions!  I'll see you in a week!

Intro to Fairy Tales

I think all of us have heard (or seen, or read) at least one fairy tale in our lives. Some of them are familiar to us: Beauty and the Beast, or Snow White. Others may be more obscure (depending on where you live, of course). Examples of these include the Story of Sigurd, or The White Cat - these are two of my favorites, but are not often told in the US.

So what is a fairy tale? There’s a pretty broad range of stories that are counted as fairy tales. At their most basic definition, fairy tales are fantastical stories that are told by a culture - told, but not believed in. This is their primary distinction from mythology. Although many fairy tales feature royalty (normally princes or princesses) as their main characters, this is not always the case. Both Hansel and Gretel and Jack and the Beanstalk feature poor, lower class characters instead of royals.

A common misconception about fairy tales is that they all begin with the phrase “Once upon a time...” and end with “...and they lived happily ever after.” The first part is at least generally true. Setting a fairy tale in “once upon a time” instead of a specific timeframe is part of what gives fairy tales a timeless quality. Most fairy tales can be imagined happening now just as easily as a few hundred (or even thousand) years ago. By opening with “once upon a time”, the storyteller lets the listeners decide when the story is happening.

So while many fairy tales do begin with “once upon a time”, the “and they lived happily ever after” part is rarely heard. Oh, some fairy tales end with the line, to be sure. However, the vast majority of happy fairy tales end without it. Then you have those fairy tales that are not happy - and these unhappy fairy tales most certainly do not end with “and they lived happily ever after.”

Unhappy fairy tales can be as tragic as some of Shakespeare’s works. They rival both Doctor Who and Supernatural in terms of sheer depressing-ness. Want some examples? The Story of Sigurd, which I mentioned above, ends with the main character and his beloved dead. I personally hate the tale of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, despite how beautifully it is told. The story ends with the Tin Soldier melting, and the toy he loves being burned to a crisp. There are many more unhappy tales out there than those two examples, but I’ll leave it up to you to find them. In general they tend to not be as prominent as the happy fairy tales (in part because Disney tends to only give happy endings.)

One of the most interesting things about fairy tales (at least to me) is the fact that similar tales are told all over the world. I once checked out a book that was a series of essays on Cinderella stories from cultures all over Earth - over 50 versions of the story! A local kid’s shop in my town sells picture books like The Chinese Cinderella or The African Cinderella. Some of the versions of the story are almost identical to the Cinderella tale that we are familiar with. Others are highly different, but with the core elements of the story remaining the same.

The same is true of several other fairy tales. Cultures around the world tend to have tales that are remarkably similar to the stories told by cultures somewhere else in the world. Some of this can be chalked up to the story having migrated from its original home. However, one wonders how cultures that have been largely secluded from other people in the world have the same story as a culture that embraces immigrants. Is it possible that the stories sprang up independently from one another?

I personally would love to find that there are aliens in the universe, just so that I could ask people from another planet about the fairy tales they tell. Would they be similar to ours, I wonder?

Another interesting aspect of fairy tales is the similarity some of them bear to mythological stories. I’ll go into this in more detail in later posts, but several common fairy tales seem to have drawn inspiration from myths. The story East of the Sun, West of the Moon is remarkably similar to the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. Beauty and the Beast shares some concepts with the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone, or the Mesopotamian one of Ereshkigal and Nergal. I am hardly the first person to remark on this, but I do find it fascinating. There’s a quote from a man named Max Muller that sums it up nicely:

“The gods of ancient mythology were changed into the demi-gods and heroes of ancient poetry, and these demi-gods again became, at a later age, the principal characters of our nursery tales.”

And with that, I’ll wrap up this post. My plan for the foreseeable future is to do posts about individual fairy tales. In that post, I’ll give a rundown of the story, talk about any mythological ties that I can find for it, and end with a recommendation of an adaptation (book or movie) of the story that I particularly enjoyed.

I hope that this was interesting for you guys! I really love fairy tales, especially the more timeless ones, and I’m looking forward to talking about them with you. If you have a fairy tale that you’d like me to cover, please comment below or email me! I’ll be back next week with a post about East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

What is a Myth/Fairy Tale/Legend/Folktale?

Hey guys!

Since I’m switching over for now from mythology to fairy tales, I thought it might be helpful to give an explanation of what falls into which categories. This was actually really interesting for me to take a closer look at; I hadn’t known all of the distinctions between the various terms.

Lets go ahead and start with mythology. Mythology is defined as a collection of stories explaining a culture, their history, and how they thought nature worked. To this end, you have stories about Zeus or Thor explaining the existence of lightning, and other gods that explain other aspects of nature. The story of Gilgamesh was how the later Mesopotamians explained the history of one of their kings. Most of what we know about the Mesopotamians actually comes from their mythology.

Fairy tales are vastly different from mythology, though they can seem just as fantastical at times. For starters, mythology is something that someone once believed in. Fairy tales (as much as we love to believe in them when we are young) are only stories. They generally feature some sort of magic or inhuman creature.  I'll talk a lot more about them in my next post!

Legends are interesting in that they generally have some sort of historical grounding. While they can be just as wild and imaginative as fairy tales, they have ties to history that make them seem somewhat plausible. The story of King Arthur is both a myth and a legend, given that it has some grounding in history. Another example of a legend would be the more modern story of the survival of Anastasia. Though there is precious little hope that such a thing is possible, the story has historical ties and is thus a legend.

Folktales are interesting in that they can include things from any of the other categories. At its most basic definition, folktales are stories that the people of a culture tell. There may be small amounts of truth to the story, or none at all. The culture may believe in the stories that they tell, or simply tell tall tales for the fun of it. Fairy tales and legends both fall into the category of folktales, amongst other things.  Folktales also have high similarities to mythology. Folktales are also sometimes called folklore.

I’m not sure if this has been any help, but I thought it was interesting to look at the distinctions (and crossovers!) between the different terms. There’s a lot more to each category, and if you’re interested I’d recommend looking it up! It’s a fascinating topic.

As a reminder, I am now on a once-a-week update schedule. I know this post was shorter than most of mine have been, but I’ll make it up to you next week. In that post, we’ll take a closer look at fairy tales - including some of the different stories, the types of characters, and the ties fairy tales have with mythology. I’ll see you then!

Star Wars Mythology: The Force

(I feel forced to make at least one Force joke this post...so there! We’ve got it out of the way.)

“May the Force be with you” - I think most of us are familiar with that phrase. But do we know what it actually means? What is the mysterious Force?

To answer these questions, I’m going to draw on information contained within the Star Wars movies and the books. For those of you who don’t know, the Star Wars story continued off of the screen in the form of a multitude of novels - somewhere around 150, at my last count (not including the comics). Within these books the concept of the Force is expanded upon, giving us a better understanding of what it actually is.

To begin with, the Force is a...well...force. There really isn’t a better word for it. It isn’t an entity, per say, but rather a mysterious power that flows through all things.

Which begs the question - if the Force is in all things, why does the expression “May the Force be with you” even exist? Isn’t the Force already with the person being addressed? Why is such a redundant expression so frequently used?

The phrase is really more of a wish for fortune. It is the equivalent of someone saying “Good luck,” or “God go with you”. That last expression raises an interesting point, and one that I intend to explore further. In many ways the Force is like a god - one that has priests, believers, and disbelievers.

The “priests” of the Force are probably pretty familiar to us. They wield lightsabers and are able to accomplish impossible feats. This is because they can draw upon the Force and use a portion of its power. The way in which these Force users utilize the power gives them a title. The Jedi are those who use the Force in benevolence and for good - this is called the Light side of the Force. Those who use the Force for personal gain or for evil purposes are generally called Sith; this is the Dark side of the Force.

Now, it has always been my belief that the Force itself has neither a Light side nor a Dark side; it simply is. This notion of mine is supported in some of the Star Wars books by a concept (or, if we’re looking at the Force as a religion, a theology) called “The Unifying Force”. The Unifying Force states that the Force is neither Dark nor Light. Instead, it is impartial, neutral (Switzerland!). It is those who use the Force who twist it to either Light or Dark through their own actions and intentions.

Now that you have a better understanding of the Force and its users, lets look at another group - the believers. The Jedi/Sith are the “priests” of the Force, those who can actually see it and interact with it. The “believers” are those who cannot see the Force, but still accept its existence. Take Princess Leia from the original Star Wars trilogy - she believed in Luke, and in what he could do with the Force. She also believed in the evil Darth Vader could accomplish with the Dark side. (Perhaps Leia is not the best example, since she becomes a Jedi herself in the books, but she is probably one of the best known characters who believe in the Force.) The Rebel leaders believed in the Force, and in Luke’s ability to use it to defeat the Empire. I’m sure any Imperial troopers who ever saw Darth Vader use the Force to choke someone to death also believed in the Force, though they were probably afraid of it.

Finally, we have our last group of the day: the skeptics, the doubters...those who do not believe in the Force. Han Solo was a member of this category at the beginning of the movies; he openly scoffed at the idea of the Force. Events in the movies eventually opened his eyes, and he later comes to believe in the Force. In the later Star Wars books Han, who once doubted, is literally surrounded by a family of Force users. (Seriously. Both his brother-and-sister-in-law, his wife, his three children, and his grandchild are all Force users. Even Chewbacca’s nephew is a Jedi!)

Not all skeptics come to believe in the Force as Han did. Some doubt its existence for their whole lives. Others see what the Jedi and Sith are able to accomplish and still don’t believe! Oh, they might think that Force users have special abilities, but they don’t believe that the Force is a thing which exists outside of its users.

With these three categories of people, the Force has what any other ancient religion had. The Force itself is a deity; those who have special access to its powers - the Force users - are its priests; those who accept the existence of the Force, either through faith or by witnessing the actions of a Force user, are its believers; and those who question the existence of the Force are its disbelievers. Since all ancient religions had these groups of people, I view the Force as a mythology like any other.

I hope this has been an interesting look into the Star Wars universe! I am a huge fan of Star Wars (as you might have guessed), and I very much enjoyed taking a closer look at the Force. If you guys have questions or comments, or if you’re interested in getting into the Star Wars novels but don’t know where to start, please comment below or email me! I’d love to hear what you have to say, and maybe to help you out.

(Seriously. Star Wars is my fandom!  Let me introduce you to it!)

As I said in my last post, this is going to be the last time I update on a Friday for the foreseeable future. Because of my school schedule I’m going to be switching to a once-a-week update schedule, with new posts going up on Mondays. I’ll do my best to keep my posts long and interesting.

This coming Monday we’re going to take a look at the differences between mythology, fairy tales, folktales, and legends. After that, we’ll delve into the wonderful world of fairy tales! Stay tuned, and I’ll see you then!

Gilgamesh and the Quest for Eternal Life

The end of my last post about the Epic of Gilgamesh saw the death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s best friend. His death hit Gilgamesh hard; when next we see the mighty king it is after the funeral service, and he is roaming the wilds in his grief, clothed only in the skins of animals.

This might seem like a little bit of an overreaction to you. Many of us have best friends; if something were to happen to them, we’d probably retreat into ourselves to mourn. Maybe we’d even travel and get away for a little while...but would we drop everything to go and wander the wilderness?

In truth, Gilgamesh is wandering as much out of fear as of grief. He has tasted death through the passing of his friend, and he fears it. I would imagine that his own mortality never occurred to Gilgamesh before Enkidu’s death, for several reasons.

Firstly, his quasi-divinity. Gilgamesh is said to be two-thirds god, one-third man (I’m still not entirely sure how that works.) One doesn’t normally think of a god dying (even though they do), so why should someone who is two-thirds god die?

Next, his power. Gilgamesh is a mighty king, and with great power comes the idea that the normal rules do not apply to you. (Just look at Tony Stark!) The Epic of Gilgamesh tells us that he slew beasts of the gods - something that no ordinary man would ever dare to attempt. Gilgamesh was also a womanizer before he met Enkidu; he even planned to sleep with a bride on her wedding night! (Gilgamesh was not the groom, by the way.) Gilgamesh acted as though he was above the laws of men - so might he not have also thought that he was beyond the reach of the universal law of death?

The last reason ties in to the second. Gilgamesh is young, or at least acts as a young man, one without the wisdom of years. When we are young, we think ourselves invincible. We have no true concept of mortality. As a young man Gilgamesh might not have thought about the consequences of his actions...but the death of Enkidu brought those consequences into the light.

As I mentioned in my first post about the Epic, the gods created Enkidu to be the equal of Gilgamesh. This is why his death was so startling to the king. Enkidu was young, powerful, and created by the gods. Despite this, he still died.

And if Enkidu could die...why not Gilgamesh?

This is why we find Gilgamesh roaming in the wilderness - partly out of grief, but mostly because of the irrefutable knowledge that he will one day die.

Most of us would probably accept that fact after a while and move on with our lives - after all, it isn’t as though there’s much we can do about it! But Gilgamesh realizes something as he mopes in the wild lands. He has heard tales of a mortal man upon whom the gods bestowed immortality. Determined to discover the secret behind this man’s eternal life, Gilgamesh sets out to find him.

The journey is long, but Gilgamesh eventually finds himself in the garden of the gods - a place he is only allowed to enter when its guardians recognize his semi-divine nature. Within the garden Gilgamesh finds a ferryman, who agrees to take Gilgamesh across the Waters of Death to the island where the immortal man lives.

The man’s name is Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh begs him for the secret to his eternal life. To the king’s surprise, Utnapishtim rebukes Gilgamesh for searching for immortality. He says that the quest is futile, and that looking for eternal life takes away the joy of mortal life itself.

Despite this warning, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of how he was granted immortality. This story involves a great flood sent by the gods to destroy mankind, an ark built by Utnapishtim to escape it, and the survival of the human race through one man and his immediate family.

Sound familiar? I’d imagine it does. The story of a great flood can be found in many religions and mythologies from around the world - from Noah in the book of Genesis to Deucalion in Greek mythology, and many more.

In this particular flood story, the gods (particularly Enlil) have grown tired of the noise of the humans. Enlil sends a flood to destroy them, but Ea takes pity on mankind and orders Utnapishtim to construct an ark. Utnapishtim escapes the flood on this ark, along with his family, the craftsmen who helped him build it, and all of the beasts of the field.

A great storm brings the flood; when it finally calms down, Utnapishtim releases a bird, which soon returns to him. The same thing happens the next day. On the third day, the bird fails to return - so Utnapishtim knows it has found land. He and his family disembark and offer a sacrifice to the gods. Ea apologizes for the destruction of the rest of mankind (I wonder if Hallmark has a card for that...), and makes Utnapishtim and his wife immortal.

Gilgamesh is amazed by this story - but Utnapishtim tells him that Gilgamesh will never overcome death. Gilgamesh is offended by this, but is mollified when Utnapishtim gives him a parting gift: a plant that can restore a man’s youth. Gilgamesh is thrilled with the gift and plans to test it out as soon as he gets home.

Unfortunately, this never happens. After being ferried back across the Waters, Gilgamesh stops to bathe. While he is so occupied, a serpent comes out of the water and seizes the plant, immediately shedding its skin and becoming young again. Left with nothing, Gilgamesh resigns himself to his mortality and despairs.

The story says that Gilgamesh then returned to his city, where he sat down and wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh...

And that, my friends, is the conclusion of the Epic, and of this series of posts on Mesopotamian mythology! I hope you enjoyed this look into a fascinating ancient culture.

There will be a post this Friday, but starting next week I’ll be switching to a once-a-week schedule, with new posts going up on Monday. I apologize for the switch, but my school schedule has necessitated it. I’ll do my best to keep my posts long and interesting!

Please feel free to email me or post below with any questions or comments you have about the Epic of Gilgamesh, or about Mesopotamian mythology in general! In the next few weeks I hope to take a look at several different fairy tales, as well as stories from mythology that may have inspired them. However, this Friday I plan to talk about the mythology of...

...Star Wars!

I’ll see you then!