tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/myths-and-legends-9674/articles
Myths and legends – The Conversation
2024-03-13T19:13:22Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222707
2024-03-13T19:13:22Z
2024-03-13T19:13:22Z
Total solar eclipses provide an opportunity to engage with science, culture and history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580943/original/file-20240311-16-li8vda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3724%2C2146&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Throughout time, eclipses have inspired societies to understand the cosmos and its events.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 8, 2024, there will be a total solar eclipse in Canada. This is an opportunity to experience, learn from and participate in the excitement and wonder. And rather than hiding inside, researchers have been communicating how people can safely enjoy this unique opportunity.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-april-8-2024-parts-of-ontario-quebec-the-maritimes-and-newfoundland-will-see-a-total-eclipse-of-the-sun-heres-how-to-get-ready-for-it-203382">On April 8, 2024, parts of Ontario, Québec, the Maritimes and Newfoundland will see a total eclipse of the sun. Here's how to get ready for it.</a>
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<p>Roughly every 18 months, the sun, moon and Earth come into perfect alignment and somewhere on Earth <a href="https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas.html">experiences a solar eclipse</a>. During this phenomenon, the moon casts a roughly 250 km wide shadow onto Earth.</p>
<p>This ephemeral daytime darkness can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The last time Toronto experienced a total solar eclipse was on <a href="http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/xSE_GoogleMap3.php?Ecl=+19250124&Acc=2&Umb=1&Lmt=1&Mag=0&Lat=43.69660&Lng=-79.41391&Elv=162.0&Zoom=8&LC=1">Jan. 24, 1925</a>; the next total solar eclipse will occur in 120 years, on <a href="http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/xSE_GoogleMap3.php?Ecl=+21441026&Acc=2&Umb=1&Lmt=1&Mag=0&Lat=43.69629&Lng=-79.29982&Elv=127.0&Zoom=8&LC=1">Oct. 26, 2144</a>.</p>
<p>Our interpretation of, and response to, total solar eclipses has advanced enormously. Eclipses were once considered cosmic omens that predicted dying kings, good harvests or the need for new territorial treaties. Today, they provide a unique opportunity to consider the physical nature of the universe, and the cosmic privilege of witnessing the alignment of the moon and sun. </p>
<h2>Eclipses and knowledge creation</h2>
<p>Due to their sudden darkness, solar eclipses have been perceived <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/us/history-solar-eclipse/index.html">through history as catastrophic events</a>. Many societies developed stories to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/list/the-sun-was-eaten-6-ways-cultures-have-explained-eclipses">explain these unusual events</a>, often filled with fear and violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an illustration of a golden brown demon eating a yellow disc against a purple background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580949/original/file-20240311-26-98odlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A mural of the Hindu demon Rahu swallowing the moon at the temple Wat Phang La in southern Thailand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/anandajoti/10684670235/">(Anandajoti Bhikkhu/flickr)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Indian myths tell of an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/eclipse-myths/">immortal demon seeking revenge on Vishnu by trying to eat the sun and moon</a>. The Pomo, Indigenous people of Northern California, describe <a href="https://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/eclipse-stories-from-around-the-world">a huge angry bear trying to eat the sun</a>. In other mythologies, eclipses were thought to be heavenly forces removing our source of warmth and life.</p>
<p>Beliefs about eclipses motivated ancient Greek astronomers to create the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103275">antikythera mechanism</a>, a complex analog computer that predicted the timing of future eclipses with a precision of 30 minutes. These predictions were critical for Greek society as a solar eclipse could mean an upcoming death of the king, requiring the appointment of a pseudo-emperor to be killed instead.</p>
<p>Our reactions to eclipses have evolved, driving us to better understand the solar system and the universe at large. </p>
<p>During the eclipse on Aug. 18, 1868, astronomers Norman Lockyer and Pierre Janssen each studied the light from the solar corona to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5363-5">discover a new chemical element</a>. This chemical element was named helium, after the Greek word for the sun. </p>
<p>On May 29, 1919, Frank Watson Dyson and Arthur Stanley Eddington studied the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.1920.0009">bent path of starlight</a> during a total solar eclipse for the first experimental “<a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/10/118180487.pdf">triumph of Einstein’s theory</a>” of general relativity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="ancient greenish square fragments" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580945/original/file-20240311-20-25sylo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Fragments of an antikythera mechanism on display at a museum in Athens, Greece.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Eclipse experiences</h2>
<p>Unlike many other cosmic events, such as meteor showers or comets, which require expensive telescopes or <a href="https://darksky.org/what-we-do/international-dark-sky-places/">dark sky places</a>, eclipses are a barrier-free celestial event. To safely enjoy the eclipse, one simply needs eclipse viewing glasses or <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/how-to-make-a-pinhole-camera/">a cardboard box</a>. </p>
<p>Many universities across Canada are using the opportunity of the total solar eclipse to engage with people to safely experience this astronomical phenomenon. For example, Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada is making <a href="https://www.queensu.ca/physics/2024-total-solar-eclipse/eclipse-glasses">120,000 eclipse glasses available</a> to make safe eclipse viewing possible for anyone.</p>
<p>In the spirit of education, hundreds of <a href="https://astrosociety.org/education-outreach/amateur-astronomers/eclipse-ambassadors/program.html">eclipse ambassadors</a> are heading to schools to engage with students about having a profound and safe experience during the eclipse. These ambassadors lead workshops on building inexpensive pinhole cameras to project the sun during the eclipse, explaining unique features that can be seen during eclipses, such as <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/resource/baileys-beads/">Bailey’s beads</a> and the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/diamond-ring-effect/">diamond ring effect</a>, and helping everyone appreciate the vastness of the solar system.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a black circle surrounded with a ring of light that is thicker in the lower righthand quadrant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580952/original/file-20240311-20-8t2snr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Baily’s Beads effect occurs when gaps in the moon’s rugged terrain allow sunlight to pass through in some places just before the total phase of the eclipse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://science.nasa.gov/resource/baileys-beads/">(Aubrey Gemignani/NASA)</a></span>
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<p>These efforts demonstrate the universal value of science, and promote science engagement beyond classrooms and institutions.</p>
<p>Not only is the upcoming eclipse being leveraged as an opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists, but it is also being used for the advancement of scientific knowledge. Unlike the experiments of Dyson, Eddington and Lockyer that were limited to the academy, today’s institutions are mobilizing the public to conduct citizen science experiments. </p>
<p>Initiated by NASA, the <a href="https://eclipsemegamovie.org/goals">Eclipse Megamovie project</a> will use photos taken during totality of the solar eclipse to study the solar corona. In 2017, photos collected during the total eclipse helped researchers identify a plasma plume in the solar corona. The 2024 eclipse will help researchers study this plume in greater detail. </p>
<p>Anyone with a DSLR camera and a tripod can submit a picture of the total solar eclipse to the Eclipse Megamovie project. The public data collected for the 2024 eclipse will far exceed what could be accomplished by any one experiment or location.</p>
<p>April’s total solar eclipse, and others to come, will remind people that science is exciting and inspiring, and that scientific expertise is of profound universal value. Such a celestial coincidence is an opportunity to engage with local communities and discuss the origin and mechanics of our solar system, all while including the public in scientific discovery through crowd-sourcing images of their experience. </p>
<p>All that’s left is to hope for clear skies and marvel once more at the cosmos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikhil Arora receives funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Richardson is based at the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute, who has received funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. </span></em></p>
Eclipses have inspired myths, predictions and scientific discoveries. The total solar eclipse occurring on April 8 provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage with science and the cosmos.
Nikhil Arora, Postdoctoral fellow, Physics, Engineering Physics & Astronomy, Queen's University, Ontario
Mark Richardson, Manager for Education and Public Outreach, Adjunct Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202952
2023-04-24T12:24:51Z
2023-04-24T12:24:51Z
Can rainbows form in a circle? Fun facts on the physics of rainbows
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521644/original/file-20230418-20-88ojk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C8959%2C5547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The higher your vantage point, the more likely you’ll see more of the rainbow’s circle. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/double-rainbow-hangs-in-the-sky-above-buildings-and-the-news-photo/1405823752">Chen Hui/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
<p><strong>Can rainbows form in a circle? – Henry D., age 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts</strong></p>
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<p>The legend goes that there is a pot of gold hidden at the end of every rainbow. But is there really an “end” to a rainbow, and can we ever get to it?</p>
<p>Most us go through life seeing rainbows only as arches of color in the sky, but that’s only half of what is really a circle of color.</p>
<p>Normally, when you look at a rainbow, the Earth’s horizon in front of you hides the bottom half of the circle. But if you are standing on a mountain where you can see both above and below you, and the sun is behind you and it is misty or has just rained, chances are good that you will see more of the rainbow’s circle.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A rainbow in the mist below a waterfall in Iceland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C5000%2C3270&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521643/original/file-20230418-23-n2b6wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How full this rainbow looks depends in part on how high up you’re standing while watching sunlight hit the waterfall’s mist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/iceland-south-coast-skogarfoss-waterfall-rainbow-news-photo/452271798">Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>To see the full circle, however, you will have to be in an airplane, literally above the clouds. Or you could create your own rainbow. I am <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Honors/People/chowdhury-partha.aspx">a physicist</a>, and I’ll explain how to do that in a minute.</p>
<h2>How a rainbow forms</h2>
<p><a href="https://scijinks.gov/rainbow/">Rainbows form</a> when sunlight from behind you hits millions of tiny round water droplets in front of you and bounces back to your eyes.</p>
<p>As a sunbeam hits a droplet at an angle, it bends into the water and separates out into a spectrum of colors. Scientists <a href="https://global.canon/en/technology/s_labo/light/001/02.html">call the bending of light “refracting</a>.” The colors separate because each “color” of light <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/optical-effects/rainbows/colours-of-the-rainbow">travels with a different speed</a> in water, or, for that matter, any transparent material that light can travel through, like glass in a prism.</p>
<p>When the colors hit the back wall of the water droplet, the angle is now too shallow for them to bend out into the air, so they reflect back into the water droplet and return to its entrance wall. From there, the colors can bend out again into air and reach your eye.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q73VNpFA-0Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office explains how light refracts, or bends, in a water droplet or a prism.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As you look at these droplets, the different colors happen to bunch up at a slightly different angle, and each color forms the <a href="https://atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/primcone.htm">circular rim of a cone</a> with your eye at the tip of the cone. And, voila, you have your own personal rainbow.</p>
<p>The droplets that send the colors to your eye cannot send them to anyone else, so even though everyone near you sees the same rainbow at a distance, each person really sees their own slightly different rainbow. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>For rainbows to form, the shape of the water droplets has to be very close to a sphere for all of them to bend and reflect the colors in harmony. This happens for very small droplets, such as a fine mist, or just after a rain shower when the air is just moist. As the droplets get larger, gravity distorts their shape and the rainbow vanishes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elephant in water closes its eyes while the photographer captures a rainbow across its trunk and forehead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521647/original/file-20230418-764-w4nbr5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even though it looks like this elephant is bathing in a rainbow, the elephant wouldn’t see it in the same way.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-elephant-is-pictured-under-a-rainbow-of-water-sprayed-to-news-photo/1242012110">Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>A rainbow is not physically present where it appears to be, similar to your image in a mirror. So, I’m sorry to say that you can never actually reach your rainbow. And, alas, nobody can ever find that pot of gold.</p>
<p>But you can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIdE-pqYqbs">create your own rainbow</a>. </p>
<h2>How to create and see a circular rainbow</h2>
<p>One experiment you can try in summer is to turn on a sprinkler hose using the “mist” setting. Remember to have the sun behind you. If you create a fine mist screen in front of you and look at your shadow, you might see a rainbow. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young boy plays in a fountain, with a rainbow overhead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521649/original/file-20230418-20-u1rnce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It might take some work, but you can see your own full-circle rainbows in the mist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-boy-cools-off-under-a-rainbow-in-a-fountain-on-a-warm-news-photo/1266045824">Gary Hershorn/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not difficult to see colors, but to see a full circle, you will need some patience and practice, just like scientists.</p>
<p>So next time you are on an airplane, grab the window seat. If you are flying a little above the cloud cover, keep a lookout for the small shadow of your plane on the clouds. That means the sun is behind you. </p>
<p>The clouds are tiny water droplets, so chances are you may see a small circle of color around the shadow of the airplane. This phenomenon is <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/pilots-glory-rainbow-airplane-shadow.htm">nicknamed “pilot’s glory</a>,” because pilots who fly all the time and have a good view from the cockpit have a better chance of seeing it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An airplane's shadow has a circular rainbow around it as it flies over mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521423/original/file-20230417-28-hkye8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The circular rainbow you see around an airplane’s shadow is called ‘pilot’s glory.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/imatty35/6708114761/">Matthew Straubmuller/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And if you really can’t wait to see what it looks like, there’s <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/rainbow/">always the internet</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Partha Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Each rainbow is personal – the rainbow you see isn’t exactly the same rainbow the next person sees. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Partha Chowdhury, Professor of Physics, UMass Lowell
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197338
2023-02-27T13:23:43Z
2023-02-27T13:23:43Z
Is the Loch Ness monster real?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505952/original/file-20230123-10548-gxlc1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C10%2C6862%2C5131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This is the famous – and fake – photograph of the Loch Ness monster, taken near Inverness, Scotland, on April 19, 1934. The photograph was later revealed to be a hoax. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-the-loch-ness-monster-near-inverness-scotland-april-news-photo/3422579?phrase=Loch%20Ness%20Monster&adppopup=true">Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Is the Loch Ness monster real? – Landon, age 10</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>An amazing and wonderful thing about people is our imagination. Indeed, it’s one of the qualities that makes us human.</p>
<p>Every invention that led to our advanced civilization – cars, planes, TV, computers and millions of other things – came from someone’s imagination.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The photograph shows a blue sky, white clouds, highlands and the murky waters of Loch Ness." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is Loch Ness, a body of fresh water in Scotland; no monster in sight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/loch-ness-with-dramatic-sky-and-secret-frog-royalty-free-image/680669548?phrase=Loch%20Ness%20Monster&adppopup=true">Ivan/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, the human mind imagines all sorts of things that are not real: gremlins, leprechauns, fairies, trolls, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-arent-real-but-theyve-fascinated-people-around-the-world-for-ages-150518">mermaids</a>, zombies and vampires. This also includes imaginary animals, like dragons, unicorns, werewolves, sea serpents and centaurs. </p>
<p>Through stories passed down from generation to generation for hundreds or even thousands of years, these <a href="https://theconversation.com/dinosaur-bones-became-griffins-volcanic-eruptions-were-gods-fighting-geomythology-looks-to-ancient-stories-for-hints-of-scientific-truth-162071">mythological creatures have become legends</a>. In modern times, movies, television and books have spread these stories to millions or even billions of people.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/anthropology/faculty/profile.html?id=mlittle">As an anthropology professor</a>, I have spent my life studying human behavior, biology and cultures. And I have studied the evolution of animals and humans. I work in reality, not fantasy. </p>
<p>Yet I understand why these creatures fascinate us; they are intriguing, magical and sometimes frightening. Yet they all have one thing in common. They appeal to the imagination. People wish for them to exist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Under a sky of blue and gold, the Loch Ness monster surfaces the dark blue water to show its small head and elongated neck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s concept of the Loch Ness monster at sunset.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/loch-ness-monster-in-the-lake-at-sunset-royalty-free-image/817420168?phrase=loch%20ness%20monster%20illustration&adppopup=true">Khadi Ganiev/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Loch Ness legend</h2>
<p>One legend is from northern Scotland in the United Kingdom, where a cold, murky and mysterious freshwater lake called Loch Ness is located. “Loch” is pronounced as “lock.” The word means “lake” in the Scottish language. </p>
<p>Loch Ness is quite large – roughly 23 miles long (37 kilometers), a mile wide (1,600 meters) and very deep (788 feet, or 240 meters, at its deepest). Legends about the lake <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lochness/legend.html">date back nearly 1,500 years</a>, when an Irish monk, St. Columba, encountered a beast in the river that flows into Loch Ness. Supposedly, he drove the creature away when he made the sign of the Christian cross.</p>
<p>In modern times, more than 1,000 people claim they’ve seen “Nessie,” the name locals gave to the creature decades ago. Descriptions vary. Some say the creature resembles a salamander; others say a whale, or a seal. </p>
<p>Typically, visibility during these sightings was not good. In most of these cases, the witnesses were familiar with the Loch Ness legend. </p>
<p>So far, no one has ever found any physical evidence of an unusual or prehistoric creature living in the loch. Good physical evidence might be capturing the creature, or a clear photograph, or an encounter where a biologist has an opportunity to examine the creature. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a long-necked marine dinosaur, chasing prey in the turquoise water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artistic illustration of a plesiosaur, an ancient marine reptile that resembled the fake 1934 photograph of the Loch Ness monster. But the plesiosaur went extinct more than 65 million years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/plesiosaur-marine-reptile-hunting-royalty-free-illustration/932732444?phrase=plesiosaur&adppopup=true">Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nessie is not a plesiosaur</h2>
<p>Over the years, some people have conjured up fake evidence – such as footprints, photographs or phony floating objects – to trick others and “prove” the existence of the monster. </p>
<p>The best known of these is a 1934 photograph of what appears to be a creature with a long neck and small head. </p>
<p>The image in the photo looks like a plesiosaur, a long-necked and long-extinct marine dinosaur that resembles descriptions of Nessie. </p>
<p>The phony photograph was really a crude molded figure of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8459353/loch-ness-monster">a plesiosaur floating on top of a toy submarine</a>. </p>
<p>Yet many people believed – and still believe – the photo is real. </p>
<h2>Why Nessie isn’t real</h2>
<p>Here are four reasons the Loch Ness monster, like a walking mummy or howling werewolf, is an imaginary creature.
First, a large air-breathing animal would have to surface frequently. That means many more people would have seen it. </p>
<p>Second, many people have searched for Nessie, with scuba divers and sonar, all without success. A 2019 study of DNA samples collected from the lake <a href="https://www.cnet.com/science/scientist-reveals-loch-ness-monster-hunt-results/">did not suggest the presence of a dinosaur or large reptile</a>. </p>
<p>Third, the Loch Ness body of water has existed for only 10,000 years, since the end of the last glacial period on Earth. But the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. So a prehistoric dinosaur could not have ever lived in the lake. </p>
<p>Finally, and perhaps most critical: For the Loch Ness monster to exist and persist through time, a population of these animals must reproduce themselves. Single animals live only for their lifetimes, and not for hundreds of years, as the legend suggests. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6MiiwSuhk8k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists investigate the Loch Ness mystery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Science finds answers</h2>
<p>Scientists can usually show that something exists, whether it be a plant or a planet. It’s often very difficult to demonstrate that something – like a monster in a lake – does not exist.</p>
<p>And it’s understandable that many people are intrigued with the Loch Ness monster. Fantastical beliefs and mythmaking seem to be a part of the way human beings like to think. </p>
<p>But by using logic, experimentation and research, scientists can explore the mysteries of the world and find answers. </p>
<p>And there’s more than enough scientific evidence to show that the Loch Ness monster lives only as a creature of our imagination.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael A. Little does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The idea of a creature like the Loch Ness monster fascinates people. But does the scientific evidence say it’s a prehistoric beast or total fake?
Michael A. Little, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162071
2021-08-06T12:40:43Z
2021-08-06T12:40:43Z
Dinosaur bones became griffins, volcanic eruptions were gods fighting – geomythology looks to ancient stories for hints of scientific truth
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414601/original/file-20210804-17-1waxsgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=350%2C161%2C5218%2C3826&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mythical creature born of a misinterpreted fossil?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/statue-of-griffin-or-griffon-a-legendary-creature-royalty-free-image/1148411968">Akkharat Jarusilawong/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everyone loves a good story, especially if it’s based on something true.</p>
<p>Consider the Greek legend of the Titanomachy, in which the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, vanquish the previous generation of immortals, the Titans. As <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm">recounted by the Greek poet Hesiod</a>, this conflict makes for a thrilling tale – and it may preserve kernels of truth.</p>
<p>The eruption <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/gr1040e.html">around 1650 B.C. of the Thera volcano</a> could have inspired Hesiod’s narrative. More powerful than Krakatoa, this ancient cataclysm in the southern Aegean Sea would have been witnessed by anyone living within hundreds of miles of the blast.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="aerial view of Santorini Caldera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The massive eruption of the Thera volcano more than 3,500 years ago left behind a hollowed out island, today known as Santorini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7449551878/">Steve Jurvetson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/natural-knowledge-preclassical-antiquity">Historian of science Mott Greene argues</a> that key moments from the Titanomachy map on to the eruption’s “signature.” For example, Hesiod notes that loud rumbles emanated from the ground as the armies clashed; seismologists now know that harmonic tremors – small earthquakes that sometimes precede eruptions – often produce similar sounds. And the impression of the sky – “wide Heaven” – shaking during the battle could have been inspired by <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/33431/volcanic-shockwave-captured-by-iss-imagery/">shock waves in the air</a> caused by the volcanic explosion. Hence, the Titanomachy may represent the creative misreading of a natural event.</p>
<p>Greene’s conjecture is an example of geomythology, a field of study that gleans scientific truths from legends and myths. Created by geologist Dorothy Vitaliano nearly 50 years ago, geomythology focuses on tales that may record, however dimly, occurrences like volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes, as well as their aftereffects, such as the exposures of strange-looking bones. These events appear to have been, in some cases, so traumatic or wonder-inducing that they may have inspired preliterate peoples to “explain” them through fables.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mqZSQ1QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">In 2021 I published</a> the first textbook in the field, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Geomythology-How-Common-Stories-Reflect-Earth-Events/Burbery/p/book/9780367711061">Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events</a>.” As the book demonstrates, researchers in both the sciences and the humanities practice geomythology. In fact, geomythology’s hybrid nature may help to bridge the gap between the two cultures. And despite its orientation toward the past, geomythology might also provide powerful resources for meeting environmental challenges in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Moken children play on the beach, with small boats tied up in the shallows" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The legend of a monster wave told by the Moken people gave them a leg up during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-september-30-2020-shows-moken-children-news-photo/1229742933">Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Passed-down tales that explain the world</h2>
<p>Some geomyths are relatively well known. One comes from the Moken people in Thailand, who survived the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, a catastrophe that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30034501">killed some 228,000 people</a>. On that terrible day, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/10/indian-ocean-tsunami-moken-sea-nomads-thailand">Moken heeded an old tale about the “laboon”</a>, or “monster wave,” a legend passed down to them over countless campfires.</p>
<p>According to the fable, from time to time a people-devouring wave would surge and move far inland. However, those who fled to high ground in time, or, counterintuitively, put out into deeper waters, would survive. Following the legend’s advice, the Moken preserved their lives. </p>
<p>Other geomyths might have started as explanations for prehistoric remains that didn’t readily map onto any known creature.</p>
<p>The Cyclopes, the tribe of one-eyed ogres that terrorized Odysseus and his crew, might have sprung from the findings of prehistoric elephant skulls in Greece and Italy. In 1914, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/animali-del-passato/oclc/878781319?referer=br&ht=edition">paleontologist Othenio Abel pointed out</a> that these fossils feature large facial cavities in front, from which the trunk would have protruded. The eye sockets, by contrast, are easily overlooked on the sides of the cranium. To the ancient Greeks who dug them up, these skulls might have seemed like the remains of monocular, humanoid giants.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythic-creatures/land/griffin-bones">seemingly fanciful griffin</a> – the eagle-headed, lion-bodied hybrid – might have a similar origin story and could be based on the creative misrecognition of <em>Protoceratops</em> dinosaur remains in the Gobi Desert.</p>
<p>Still other geomyths may point to natural events. Indigenous tales tell of “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32701311">fire devils</a>” that flew down from the Sun and plunged to Earth, killing everything in the vicinity when they landed. These “devils” were probably meteors witnessed by Aboriginal Australians. In some cases, the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.6368">tales anticipate findings of Western science</a> by decades, even centuries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people on small boat and raft setting up scientific equipment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers set up monitoring equipment at Africa’s Lake Nyos that will sound an alarm if carbon dioxide levels become dangerous again.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/multinational-group-of-researchers-set-up-carbon-dioxide-news-photo/585863268">Louise Gubb/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Numerous African folktales ascribe mischief to certain lakes, including the lakes’ apparent ability to change color, shift locations and even turn deadly. <a href="https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/273/1/NP">Such legends have been corroborated by actual events</a>. The most notorious example is the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.236.4798.169">explosion” of Cameroon’s Lake Nyos in 1986</a> when carbon dioxide, long trapped on the bottom, abruptly surfaced. Within a day, 1,746 people, along with thousands of birds, insects and livestock, were <a href="https://youtu.be/o8AonDeS8HY">suffocated by the CO2 cloud the lake burped up</a>. Lakes are sometimes associated with death and the underworld in Mediterranean stories as well: Lake Avernus, near Naples, is mythologized <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html">as such in Virgil’s “Aeneid</a>.”</p>
<p>Animal encounters may inform other geomyths. <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-histories-by-herodotus-53748">Herodotus’ “Histories”</a>, written about 430 B.C., claims that dog-sized ants guard certain gold deposits in regions of East Asia. In his 1984 book “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/ants-gold/oclc/251832995&referer=brief_results">The Ants’s Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas</a>,” ethnologist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/europe/michel-peissel-tibet-scholar-and-adventurer-dies-at-74.html">Michel Peissel</a> uncovered Herodotus’ possible inspiration: mountain-dwelling marmots, who to this day “mine” gold by layering their nests with gold dust.</p>
<h2>Fanciful stories that feed into science</h2>
<p>Geomythology is not a science. The old stories are often garbled or contradictory, and it’s always possible that they preceded the real events that today’s researchers link them with. Imaginative pre-scientific peoples might well have dreamed up various tales out of whole cloth and only later found “confirmation” in Earth events or discoveries. </p>
<p>Yet as noted, geomyths like the griffin and Cyclopes arose from specific geographical regions that feature remains not found elsewhere. The likelihood of preliterate peoples first inventing tales that then somehow corresponded closely to later fossil finds seems like a stunning coincidence. More likely, at least with some geotales, the discoveries preceded the narratives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Etruscan pottery with black figures blinding the cyclops with a spear" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pottery from the fifth century B.C. depicting the blinding of a Cyclops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/etruscan-civilization-5th-century-b-c-black-figure-pottery-news-photo/122214433">DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini Editorial via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Either way, geomythology can serve as a valuable ally to science. Most often, it can help to corroborate scientific findings.</p>
<p>Yet geomyths can sometimes go further and correct scientific results or raise alternative hypotheses. For example, geologist <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/awards/16speeches/mgpv.htm">Donald Swanson</a> argues that the Pele legends of Hawaii suggest that the Kilauea volcanic caldera was formed considerably earlier than previous studies had indicated. He alleges that “volcanologists were led astray” in their research on the caldera’s age “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2008.01.033">by not paying close attention to the Hawaiian oral traditions</a>.”</p>
<p>Though focused on the past, geomythology may also help to set future scientific agendas. Today’s researchers might become familiar with myths that feature weird creatures or extreme weather, and then examine the stories’ places of origins for geological and paleontological clues. Such tales might provide invaluable links with real occurrences that took place long before there was a scientist around to record them. Indeed, such stories could have endured precisely because they memorialized a traumatic or wrenching incident and were thus passed down from one generation to the next as a literal cautionary tale. </p>
<h2>Creating geomyths today for future generations</h2>
<p>Another exciting area for geomythical study is not just the researching of old myths but the creation of new ones that could alert future generations of potential dangers, whether these peoples might live in tsunami-prone regions, near nuclear waste sites like Yucca Mountain, or in some equally risky area. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="warning sign for radioactive waste" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What if, millennia from now, no one can read or understand a sign like this?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WIPP_-_Small_Subsurface_Markers.svg">Department of Energy – Carlsbad Field Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nuclear waste can remain radioactive for mind-boggling amounts of time, in some cases <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html#waste">up to many tens of thousands of years</a>. While placing warning labels on deposits of radioactive materials seems sensible, languages morph constantly and there’s no guarantee that present-day ones will even be spoken, let alone be understandable, in the distant future. Indeed, even stranger to contemplate is the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-of-human-extinction/253821/">extinction of the human race</a>, an event that some philosophers see as potentially closer than we might think. How, if at all, might we warn our distant progeny or, beyond them, our eventual post-human successors? </p>
<p>[<em>Get fascinating science, health and technology news.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-fascinating">Sign up for The Conversation’s weekly science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Creating notification systems that persist throughout time is an area in which myths could be useful. Famous tales often last for many generations, sometimes proving more durable than the languages in which they were first told or spoken. Indeed, C.S. Lewis wrote that one hallmark of myth is that it “would <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/george-macdonald-c-s-lewis?variant=32117835202594">equally delight and nourish</a> if it had reached [us] by some medium which involved no words at all – say by a mime, or a film.”</p>
<p>Because they are less tied to language than literature is, myths may be easier to transmit across cultures and time. The oldest one currently on record is an <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told">Aboriginal tale concerning a volcano</a>; it may be 35,000 years old.</p>
<p>Geomythology could thus contribute to a linguistic field known as nuclear semiotics, which <a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/how-do-you-leave-warning-lasts-long-nuclear-waste/">grapples with the problem of</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time">warning distant generations about hazardous waste</a>. An intentionally created geomyth might preserve and transmit crucial information from the nuclear age to our descendants, with considerable effectiveness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy John Burbery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
People tell tales to explain what they see – centuries later, scientists try to map handed-down myths onto real geological events.
Timothy John Burbery, Professor of English, Marshall University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120760
2019-08-15T03:46:28Z
2019-08-15T03:46:28Z
Explainer: from bloodthirsty beast to saccharine symbol - the history and origins of the unicorn
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287784/original/file-20190813-71936-1z4oj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Domenichino's A Virgin with a Unicorn. Artists of the Middle Ages believed the unicorn could only be captured by a virgin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The unicorn is an enduring image in contemporary society: a symbol of cuteness, magic, and children’s birthday parties. </p>
<p>But while you might dismiss this one-horned creature as just a product for Instagram celebrities and five-year-old girls, we can trace the lineage of the unicorn from the 4th century BCE. It evolved from a bloodthirsty monster, to a tranquil animal bringing peace and serenity (which can only be captured by virgins), to a symbol of God and Christ. </p>
<p>These days the term unicorn can refer to <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unicorn.asp">a privately held start-up company valued at over US$1 billion</a>,
<a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Unicorn">a single female interested in meeting other couples</a>, or the characters in <a href="https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Unicorns">My Little Pony</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwl9OQ6l0OP","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Over the centuries, the meaning and imagery of the unicorn has shifted and persisted. But how did we get here? </p>
<h2>Ferocious beasts and where to create them</h2>
<p>The earliest written account of the unicorn comes from the text Indica (398 BCE), by Greek physician Ctesias, where he described beasts in India as large as horses with one horn on the forehead. </p>
<p>Ctesias was most likely describing the Indian Rhinoceros. The unicorn horn, he wrote, was a panacea for those who drink from it regularly.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288086/original/file-20190814-136195-h5dv7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A contemporary interpretation of the once ferocious beast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hachette.com.au/suzanne-barton-shannon-horsfall/my-unicorn-farts-glitter">Hachette</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the first-century CE, claiming to quote Ctesias, the Roman naturalist Pliny (Natural History, 77 CE), wrote that the unicorn was the fiercest animal in India, with the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single horn projecting from the forehead. </p>
<p>Pliny also embellished the animal’s description by adding a trait that became extremely significant to society in the Middle Ages: it was impossible to capture the animal alive.</p>
<p>Just over a century later, the second-century CE Roman scholar <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aelian">Aelian</a> compiled a book about animals based on Pliny. In his On the Nature of Animals, Aelian wrote that the unicorn grows gentle towards the chosen female during mating season. </p>
<p>The unicorn’s tender disposition when near the female became a highly symbolic trait for authors and artists of the Middle Ages, who believed it could only be captured by a virgin.</p>
<p>Despite the authoritative texts of the Greeks and Romans, the unicorn remained mostly unknown in the centuries leading up to the Middle Ages. For the public to become familiar with it, the creature had to come out of the library and develop a role in everyday events and popular culture: ie a role in Christianity. </p>
<h2>Lost in translation</h2>
<p>It was in the third-century BCE that the unicorn entered religious texts – although only by accident.</p>
<p>Between 300 and 200 BCE, a group of 70 scholars gathered together to create the first translation of the Hebrew Old Testament in Koine Greek. Although the Hebrew term for unicorn is <em>Had-Keren</em> (one horn), in the text commonly known as <em>Septuagint</em> (seventy) the scholars made an error when translating the Hebrew term <em>Re’_em</em> (ox), from Psalms as <em>monokeros</em>. In effect, they changed the word “ox” to “unicorn.” </p>
<p>The unicorn’s inclusion in a text of such magnitude laid the foundation for an obsession with the creature that thrived in both literary and visual arts from the earliest dates of the Middle Ages and continues to the modern day.</p>
<p>By the 12th century, the one-horned animal came to be associated with the allegory provided in the Physiologus, a collection of moralised beast tales on which <a href="https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc61573x">many medieval bestiaries</a> are based. One of the most widely read books in the Middle Ages, the Physiologus often identifies Christ with the unicorn.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287787/original/file-20190813-9955-1n0ejoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rochester Bestiary (c late 1200s) draws on Physiologus to represent the unicorn as the spirit of Jesus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The illustrations that accompany textual references to the unicorn in the Bible and medieval bestiaries often showed the allegorical representation rather than the literal. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287947/original/file-20190814-136195-13klrsn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The modern unicorn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mlp.wikia.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So instead of images depicting Christ as a man, the artists drew horses and goats with one large horn protruding from its head. In this medieval legend, the fanciful myth of the one-horned animal became the foundation of the unicorn image that circulated throughout Europe. </p>
<p>Contemporary images of the unicorn have changed very little since the medieval era. The creature in The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in the Cluny museum in Paris, symbolising various overlapping meanings including chastity and heraldic animals, looks a lot like the My Little Pony characters <a href="https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Rarity">Rarity</a> and <a href="https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Princess_Celestia">Princess Celestia</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-symbolism-of-the-lady-and-the-unicorn-tapestry-cycle-91325">Explainer: the symbolism of The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry cycle</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Imagery of the unicorn persisted sporadically in literature, film and television through the 20th century, but the 2010s saw interest boom. </p>
<h2>The modern Instagram star</h2>
<p>Social media helped lure the magical creature into quotidian life – the one-horned horse looks great as a <a href="https://emojipedia.org/facebook/2.0/unicorn-face/">Facebook emoji</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BhhO-zKhdE_/">surrounded by rainbows on Instagram</a>. National Unicorn Day (April 9) was first observed in 2015. </p>
<p>Searches for “unicorns” reached an <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=unicorn">all-time high</a> in April 2017, the same month Starbucks introduced the colour and taste-changing <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/frappuccino-blended-beverages/unicorn-frappuccino-blended-cr%C3%A8me">Unicorn Frappuccino,</a> sparking a trend in adding glitter and rainbow colours to any food or beverage.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BSodlrrjG1y","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Now, the unicorn is marketed to children and adults alike on coffee mugs, keychains, stuffed animals, t-shirts. In secular contemporary culture it has become an <a href="https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/evidence-unicorns-are-queer-icons/#gs.ug1hu6">LGBTI+ icon</a>: a symbol of hope, something “uncatchable.”</p>
<p>The contemporary unicorn is a far cry from Ctesias’ beasts. Social media platforms like Instagram encourage us to project an idealised version of our life: the unicorn is a perfect symbol for this ideal. </p>
<p>If the last decade is anything to go by, its intrigue will only continue to grow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Davis Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Unicorns are a staple of social media. Today we might think of them as all magic and rainbows, but their past is one of ferocious beasts, religion, and mistranslation.
Jenny Davis Barnett, Academic in French, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/116202
2019-05-06T17:38:43Z
2019-05-06T17:38:43Z
Game of Thrones: teasing hints from Welsh language and legends have been hiding in plain sight
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272538/original/file-20190503-103057-4qvo3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brandon Stark's story extends far beyond the world of Westeros.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO/Helen Sloan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The events of medieval Britain were a major <a href="https://winteriscoming.net/2016/01/30/winter-is-coming-the-medieval-world-of-game-of-thrones-walks-fans-through-westeros-and-beyond/">source of inspiration</a> for the world of Westeros in Game of Thrones. The Wall in the North, for example, was <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/george-r-r-martin-the-rolling-stone-interview-242487/">inspired by Hadrian’s Wall</a> – and massacres like the Red Wedding have clear parallels with <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/real-red-wedding-four-other-13380841">similar slaughters in Wales</a>. </p>
<p>But historical events weren’t the only thing that author George R.R. Martin took inspiration from when writing the original series of books. He relied on the legends and languages of centuries past for his writing too. Looking to the unique names of his characters, while some are inventions (Hodor being the prime example), others like Ilyn Payne, Daenerys Targaryen and Tormund Giantsbane come from a mixture of different languages, including Old Norse. These names are often used to show characters’ loyalty, but they have meaning too. Indeed, Tormund volunteered an explanation of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfp-_0pfR5c">how he was named “Giantsbane”</a> in a recent episode of the television series. He claims that, aged 10, he killed a giant and was then suckled by its wife (though his character gave <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/22/18510440/game-of-thrones-got-season-8-hbo-final-tormund-giantsbane-origin-story-tall-tale-book-vs-show">a different origin story</a> in the books). </p>
<p>Look closely at the original origins of some key characters’ names – particularly in Welsh – and you can find hints about the series that have been hiding in plain sight all along.</p>
<h2>Ravens and giants</h2>
<p>Take Brandon Stark, for example, otherwise now known as the Three-Eyed Raven. In fairness we did get a few clues as to the young Stark’s future early on, when ravens appeared in his dreams. Yet Welsh speakers had a spoiler from the very start. Brandon’s name is conveniently (and deliberately) shortened to Bran. Bran (pronounced brahn) is Welsh for raven. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272542/original/file-20190503-103063-kssix8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bran’s status as the three-eyed raven sees him watching over all of Westeros.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2017 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The name Bran also has resonance in Welsh and Irish literature. The second branch of the Mabinogi – a collection of Welsh medieval legends and some of Britain’s earliest prose stories – features the giant Bendigeidfran in a story <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/myths_mabinogion_02.shtml">almost as bloody</a> as Game of Thrones. </p>
<p>Bendigeidfran (which means Bran the Blessed) is the king of Britain who sails to Ireland to rescue his sister Branwen (again, note the name). There follows a huge slaughter, with the Irish using a magic cauldron of resurrection to create their own army of the dead. All but seven of the soldiers from Britain die, and while the survivors do return from Ireland, Branwen dies of heartbreak. </p>
<p>Bendigeidfran himself dies after being poisoned, but the surviving Britons carry his head and bury it on a hill (y Gwynfryn) in London, with his face looking out towards France. Even in death Bendigeidfran still plays an important role in watching over and protecting Britain, which, according to Welsh tradition, will remain safe from invasion for as long as his head remains in London. </p>
<p>This image of Bendigeidfran watching over Britain resonates with the all-seeing Three-Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones, and there is another parallel, with Bran the Builder, the mythical ancestor of the Starks. This Bran allegedly built the Wall to protect the North with the help, according to some stories, of giants. It is only after the collapse of the Wall that the white walkers are able to invade Westeros. </p>
<h2>Mild and mercantile</h2>
<p>Moving on to everyone’s favourite, Tyrion Lannister. Tirion (also pronounced ti-ree-on) means “gentle” or “kind” in Welsh. Tyrion’s mocking and contemptuous manner at first makes him rather unsympathetic. Yet this soon gives way to the characteristic he was named after. Indeed, Tyrion’s kindness is mentioned by Sansa at several points in the books and television series. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272507/original/file-20190503-103049-39yl93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tyrion Lannister has (mostly) played a fair hand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2017 Macall B. Polay/HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Martin famously avoids categorising his characters as simply good or evil. It is consequently unsurprising that Tyrion doesn’t always live up to his name – as in his killing of former lover Shae – but such instances are more shocking for readers and viewers who understand the name’s Welsh meaning. </p>
<p>In a recently aired episode of the television series, Daenerys commented that she didn’t ask Tyrion to become her Hand (chief adviser) simply because he was good but because he was “ruthless when he had to be”. Will we see this “gentle” character turn into the Hand that Daenerys thinks she requires? The opposite might be true. Tyrion has consistently wished to prove himself as being greater than society’s perception of him (in his season four trial, he declares himself guilty of being a dwarf). When the game is won, Tyrion’s tale may well end with a final recognition that he is the man his name suggests <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a26923761/will-tyrion-lannister-win-game-of-thrones-season-8/">him to be</a>.</p>
<p>Some characters’ names may contain hints at events yet to come. Euron Greyjoy’s fate has not yet been revealed but Euron (pronounced ay-ron in Welsh) contains the element “aur” (gold) and means laburnum tree, sometimes known as golden rain. This could allude to Euron’s reputation for pillage and plunder, or might point to his deepening connection with the debt-paying Lannisters and the Golden Company.</p>
<p>Given the twists and turns of Game of Thrones, the ultimate outcome is still unknown. But so far the influence of lesser-known languages has given unique foreshadowing of future events. It just might be that they shape the series’ final ending too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Callander has previously been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Thomas has previously been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
The original origins of some key characters names might give hints to their fates in Game of Thrones.
David Callander, Junior Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
Rebecca Thomas, PhD Researcher, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105238
2018-10-25T15:55:30Z
2018-10-25T15:55:30Z
Older than Dracula: in search of the English vampire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242277/original/file-20181025-71032-1t7uont.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Premature Burial.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antoine Wiertz (1854)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of Count Dracula as many of us know it was created by Bram Stoker, an Irishman, in 1897. But most of the action takes place in England, from the moment the Transylvanian vampire arrives on a shipwrecked vessel in Whitby, North Yorkshire, with plans to make his lair in the spookily named Carfax estate, west of the river in London. </p>
<p>But Dracula wasn’t the first vampire in English literature, let alone the first to stalk England. The vampire first made its way into English literature in John Polidori’s 1819 short story “<a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-vampyre-by-john-polidor">The Vampyre</a>”. Polidori’s vampire, Lord Ruthven, is inspired by a thinly disguised portrait of the predatory English poet, Lord Byron, in <a href="https://thegothicwanderer.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/lady-caroline-lambs-glenarvon-and-the-byronic-vampire/">Lady Caroline Lamb’s novel Glenarvon</a> (1816). So the first fictional vampire was actually a satanic English Lord.</p>
<p>It is nearly 200 years since this Romantic/Byronic archetype for a vampire emerged – but what do we know about English belief in vampires outside of fiction? <a href="http://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/projects/open-graves-open-minds-vampires-and-the-undead-in-modern-culture(f33cf31d-ae78-44e5-b8a7-88dc6a1a7a0f).html">New research</a> at the University of Hertfordshire has uncovered and reappraised a number of vampire myths – and they are not all confined to the realms of fiction. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.historicmysteries.com/croglin-grange-vampire/">Croglin Vampire</a> reputedly first appeared in Cumberland to a Miss Fisher in the 1750s. Its story is retold by <a href="https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2013/12/augustus-hare-vampire-of-croglin-grange.html">Dr Augustus Hare</a>, a clergyman, in his Memorials of a Quiet Life in 1871. According to this legend, the vampire scratches at the window before disappearing into an ancient vault. The vault is later discovered to be full of coffins that have been broken open and their contents, horribly mangled and distorted, are scattered over the floor. One coffin only remains intact, but the lid has been loosened. There, shrivelled and mummified – but quite intact – lies the Croglin Vampire.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Cumbria, the natives of Renwick, were <a href="http://www.strangehistory.net/2016/06/18/the-renwick-cockatrice/">once known as “bats”</a> due to the monstrous creature that is said to have flown out of the foundations of a rebuilt church there in 1733. The existence of vampire bats, which sucked blood wouldn’t be <a href="http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/about/Outreach/Exhibits/Vampire%20Bat%20exhibit.pdf">confirmed until 1832</a>, when Charles Darwin sketched one feeding off a horse on his voyage to South America in The Beagle. The creature in Renwick has been referred to as a “cockatrice” – a mythical creature with a serpent’s head and tail and the feet and wings of a cockerel – by <a href="https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/renwick-cockatrice">Cumbrian County History</a>. But it’s the myth of the vampire bat that has prevailed in the surrounding villages and is recorded in conversations in local archives and <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/21st-november-1952/19/crack-a-christ-luck.">journals</a> </p>
<p>What picture emerges then in this history of the English vampire? The Croglin Vampire has never been verified – but it has an afterlife in the 20th century, appearing as The British Vampire in 1977 in an <a href="http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/814/daniel-farson-hamlyn-book-horror">anthology of horror</a> by Daniel Farson, who turns out to be Stoker’s great-grandnephew. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242308/original/file-20181025-71032-1swjmhe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Nightmare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Henry Fuseli (1781)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nightmare in Buckinghamshire</h2>
<p>But there is one case that has no connection to fiction, the little-known Buckinghamshire Vampire, recorded by William of Newburgh in the 12th century. Historical records show that St Hugh, the Bishop of Lincoln, was called upon to deal with the terrifying revenant and learned to his astonishment, after contacting other theologians, that similar attacks had happened elsewhere in England.</p>
<p>St Hugh was told that no peace would be had until the corpse was dug up and burned, but it was decided that an absolution – a declaration of forgiveness, by the church, absolving one from sin – would be a more seemly way to disable the vampire. When the tomb was opened the body was found to have not decomposed. The absolution was laid inside on the corpse’s chest by the Archdeacon and the vampire was never again seen wandering from his grave.</p>
<p>The Buckinghamshire revenant did not have a “vampire” burial – but such practices are evidence of a longstanding belief in vampires in Britain. Astonishingly, the medieval remains of the what are thought to be the first English vampires have been found in the Yorkshire village of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/archaeology-scientists-find-medieval-remains-english-vampires-yorkshire-wharram-percy-a7663121.html">Wharram Percy</a>. The bones of over 100 “vampire” corpses have now been uncovered buried deep in village pits. The bones were excavated more than half a century ago and date back to before the 14th century. They were at first thought to be the result of cannibalism during a famine or a massacre in the village but on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/03/medieval-villagers-mutilated-the-dead-to-stop-them-rising-study-finds">further inspection in 2017</a> the burned and broken skeletons were linked instead to deliberate mutilations perpetrated to prevent the dead returning to harm the living – beliefs common in folklore at the time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242281/original/file-20181025-71042-1u7icnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Vampire graves’ have been found at the abandoned village of Wharram Percy in Yorkshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Allison via Alchemipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Vile bodies</h2>
<p>The inhabitants of Wharram Percy showed widespread belief in the undead returning as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/03/medieval-villagers-mutilated-the-dead-to-stop-them-rising-study-finds">revenants or reanimated corpses</a> and so fought back against the risk of vampire attacks by deliberately mutilating their own dead, burning bones and dismembering corpses, including those of women, children and teenagers, in an attempt to stave off what they believed could be a plague of vampires. This once flourishing village was completely deserted in the aftermath. </p>
<p>Just recently at an ancient Roman site in Italy the severed skull of a ten-year-old child was discovered with a large rock inserted in the mouth to prevent biting and bloodsucking. Then skull belongs to a suspected <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181012093005.htm">15th-century revenant</a> which they are calling locally the “Vampire of Lugano”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1051690638574522374"}"></div></p>
<p>There has been a wealth of other stories from the UK and other parts of Western Europe – but, despite this, thanks to the Dracula legend, most people still assume such practises and beliefs belong to remote parts of Eastern Europe. But our research is continuing to examine “vampire burials” in the UK and is making connections to local myths and their legacy in English literature, many years before the Byronic fiend Count Dracula arrived in Yorkshire carrying his own supply of Transylvanian soil.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam George has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council </span></em></p>
New research is uncovering medieval legends about the undead in Britain.
Sam George, Senior Lecturer in Literature, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100015
2018-07-16T05:10:56Z
2018-07-16T05:10:56Z
From dragons to dreaming serpents: tracing the cultural history of the monstrous Lambton Worm
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227728/original/file-20180716-27018-1t1et1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 1894 image of Lambton fighting the worm from the book More English Fairy Tales.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Page_facing_202_illustration_in_More_English_Fairy_Tales.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The mind needs monsters, as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhdqm">David Gilmore tells us</a> in his classic 2003 text on the subject. But I’m not sure that I really needed mine. What is there to need in a massive and monstrous worm living under the bed?</p>
<p>Psychologists tell us that monsters begin to occupy a child’s imagination from the age of <a href="https://psychcentral.com/lib/midnight-monsters-and-imaginary-companions/">two or three</a>, in response to normal <a href="https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/july-2015/monster-mind">neurological development</a> and functioning. By preschool most children will have experienced monster-related fears. Around half of all <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-06589-019">high-school students</a> still retain fears of imaginary and supernatural phenomena.</p>
<p>I was part of that half, carrying with me a terrifying creature that would threaten to make appearances in the dusk and dark of my adolescent playing-around-the-watery-edges of creeks and lagoons. But I’ll hazard a guess that my monster was different to most of those detailed in the psychological literature: I know exactly where it came from and what it was called.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-monsters-in-my-closet-how-a-geographer-began-mining-myths-85596">Friday essay: monsters in my closet – how a geographer began mining myths</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227720/original/file-20180716-27021-rend1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1890 illustration of the legend of the Lambton Worm by Edwin Sidney Hartland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Lambton+worm&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=93s7zzc6l37yz6jlu528irh83#/media/File:Lambton_Worm.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My monster was The Lambton Worm.</p>
<p>I’ve come to call it a “gift” from my father on account of it being him that (<a href="http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/269082/scaring-kids-ghosts-monsters-can-psychological-effects/">perhaps ill-advisedly</a>) told me about it as a bedtime story. Most of its salient characteristics are contained in the tale he told: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambton_Worm">The Story of the Lambton Worm</a>.</p>
<p>The story details a great slithering beast, a dragon that ate livestock and children along the River Wear in England’s County Durham. It grew from a tiny eel-like creature discarded by a local aristocrat from the Lambton family after a fishing trip on the Sabbath: this latter detail a narrative omen drawing attention to the dangers of profanity, a significant concern in the social history of the story.</p>
<p>Which gets to the real point of my interest: the passage of stories through time. I’m curious about the resilience of particular narratives. And, even more so, I’m fascinated by their details: those that remain unaltered, the ones that evolve over time, and the ones lost altogether.</p>
<p>Before leaving Australia in late 2017 in search of the source of my childhood terror, I was sure that the Lambton Worm was descended from ancient sources. But the exact nature of these sources, and how far the contemporary story has diverged from them, would only become clearer in the field.</p>
<h2>Toxic masculinity?</h2>
<p>Anthropologists of folk tales, like Jamie Tehrani, have tracked stories such as Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, and Jack and the Beanstalk back over a thousand years. These <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/do-folktales-evolve-like-biological-species/281527/">stories move</a>, Tehrani argues, “both vertically across generations, but also horizontally across space”, where they establish themselves in distinctive local forms (known as <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I6QrAQAAMAAJ">oikotypes</a>).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-grown-ups-still-need-fairy-tales-87078">Friday essay: why grown-ups still need fairy tales</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227726/original/file-20180716-27039-1so84um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration of the worm from More English Fairy Tales.
(1894).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story of the Lambton Worm, at its most basic, is a dragon-slaying one: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon">think St George</a>. A battle-hardened hero is inducted into service against a toxic and evil force that threatens people and their place in the world. The hero, despite the fact that many others have failed, defeats the dragon. But the story of the Worm, as an oikotype of the dragon-slayer genus of narratives, has some crucial differences to its more generic relations.</p>
<p>I put this to Tehrani, an associate professor of anthropology at Durham University – a campus situated only a few miles upstream from where the folk history of the Worm is said to have transpired on the River Wear at a site near the present village of Biddick.</p>
<p>“To me, the Lambton Worm is actually a redemption story. John Lambton was the one who caught the creature in the first place, and it’s he who must make amends by killing the Worm,” Tehrani tells me, “so this is quite different from the usual form of dragon-slayer stories.”</p>
<p>Another difference, Tehrani says, is that “usually the dragon slayer after his great victory wins the girl and the glory … But all John Lambton seems to win is a curse: that seven generations of the Lambton family will not die in their beds.” </p>
<p>For Tehrani the most <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/monstrous-worm-part-2/9914664">interesting aspect</a> of the curse is that it comes because the dragon slayer disobeys the instructions of a wise woman (or witch) and refuses to slay his own father after his success in killing the marauding Worm.</p>
<p>“So the story could be a metaphor for out-of-control male sexuality. You can’t really think of a more phallic image than a worm that grows into this enormous, dangerous thing that threatens women and children. This is toxic masculinity that has run out of control and needs to be brought to heel.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227722/original/file-20180716-27042-187laxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An earthwork in Durham, designed by Andy Goldsworthy, commemorates the local mythical beast the Lambton Worm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Toxic masculinity, at first glance, feels like one of the more contemporary “readings” of the tale. Until I was reminded of Bram Stoker’s (1911) take on the story: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lair_of_the_White_Worm">The Lair of the White Worm</a>. With lashings of gratuitous racism and misogyny, a female “nature” worm is defeated by a strategy of high “masculinity” and copious gunpowder. In Stoker’s story the plan is conceived and executed by a returning colonial made rich on the Western Australian frontier.</p>
<h2>Cross-cultural themes</h2>
<p>If monsters embody “fear, desire, anxiety and fantasy” at a “certain cultural moment”, as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen has written in his contribution to <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/monster-theory">Monster Theory</a>, then changing formulations of the monstrous Worm offer an intriguing cultural history.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=2020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=2020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227725/original/file-20180716-27015-tqh020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=2020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A guardian <em>Taniwha</em> (sea creature), depicted in a carved meeting house of the Ngati Maru people, Thames, New Zealand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For anthropologists like Veronica Strang and Robert Layton, the genesis of the Worm lies in some of the earliest known mythic sources, and relates to global stories of “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359183505050096">Water Beings</a>”. These beings are attempts to materialise attributes associated with water in the environment – like flooding rivers, thunder and lightning storms. “Without question,” says Layton, “the Lambton Worm is a water dragon.” </p>
<p>Both Strang and Layton have worked extensively with Australian Indigenous nations and these formative fieldwork experiences have led them to understand British dragons and worms in a similar frame to Indigenous dreaming serpents. </p>
<p>Strang’s thesis is that there are “universalities” in how cultures respond to the particular qualities of water, and “physiological and cognitive processes that are common to all human beings” tend to generate “cross-cultural themes of meaning that persist over time and space”. </p>
<p>Hence similar forms of Water Beings that exist around the world – the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra">Lernaean Hydra</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon">European</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon">Chinese</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon">dragons</a>, English <a href="https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=2322">worms</a>, Australian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Serpent">dreaming serpents</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taniwha">Maori <em>Taniwha</em></a>, Ethiopian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mami_Wata"><em>Mami Wata</em></a>, and so on.</p>
<p>This universality was strangely comforting as I contemplated a childhood in fear of the beast. </p>
<p>But the biggest surprise of my fieldwork was that locals in the villages of Washington (in County Durham, where the worm was once said to have done its terrorizing) were both staunchly proud of the thing and largely sure of its historical existence. </p>
<p>The consensus was that it was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_eel">great eel</a>, albeit with a “dragon’s head”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227727/original/file-20180716-27045-wyinpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local publican Geoff Mendham told the author: ‘It was a great big eel, with a dragon’s head.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Murray</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, in a world of rapid climate change, overfishing and catastrophic <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/north-atlantic-garbage-patch">plastic pollution</a> at its breeding site in the Sargasso Sea, what chance is there today for this <a href="https://eu.oceana.org/en/blog/critically-endangered-european-eel">critically endangered species</a>: the Great Lambton Eel-Worm?</p>
<p>I’ve made my peace with the beast: a rare monster indeed.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Tom Murray currently has a two-part radio program on the subject broadcast on ABC Radio National’s The History Listen. You can listen to the first episode <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/monstrous-worm-part-1/9914656">here</a>. The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/monstrous-worm-part-2/9914664">second episode</a> airs tomorrow and can also be found online <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/monstrous-worm-part-2/9914664">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Murray receives funding from Australian Research Council. This work was also made possible through a Fellowship from the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) Durham University.</span></em></p>
A monstrous worm that features in English mythology shares remarkable similarities with the watery serpents of Indigenous stories.
Tom Murray, Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow in Screen Media, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85596
2017-12-07T19:20:08Z
2017-12-07T19:20:08Z
Friday essay: monsters in my closet – how a geographer began mining myths
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198049/original/file-20171206-31528-1my5vem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mount Mazama, a volcano in Oregon. Indigenous stories preserve tales of its eruption more than 7,000 years ago. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So you think the Loch Ness Monster never existed? That the story is a cunningly cobbled-together fiction intended to boost tourist interest in an otherwise unrelentingly dull (only to some) part of mid-Scotland? Think again.</p>
<p>The embryonic science of geomythology is breathing new life into such stories, legitimising the essence of some and opening up the possibility that other such folk tales might not be pure fiction but actually based on memories of events our ancestors once observed. </p>
<p>Lacking the scientific understanding available to us today, people in the past contextualised such observations in ways that made sense to them. Keen that their descendants should know what had happened, not least should it happen again, many such stories were passed on (commonly orally) from one generation to the next. Invariably cloaked in multiple layers of embellishment, some stories have survived until today.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Nessie’ may not be a real being, but the stories about the Loch Ness Monster may contain a kernel of geological truth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loch_Ness_Monster_02.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Science has long vilified those who argue for the existence of giant saurians lurking in the depths of Loch Ness, but there has been some rehabilitation of these “monster sightings”. The geologist Luigi Piccardi, who has done much to make the novel field of geomythology respectable, has argued that observations of “Nessie” are no more than the unusual agitation of the lake’s water surface during an earthquake. </p>
<p>The first written mention of the Loch Ness Monster, in the seventh-century Life of St Columba, notes that the “dragon” appears <em>cum ingenti fremitu</em> (with strong shaking) before disappearing <em>tremefacta</em> (shaking herself). And Piccardi <a href="https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001ESP/finalprogram/abstract_7279.htm">has noted</a> that the most seismically active sector of the Great Glen Fault, along which periodic earthquakes occur, runs along the axis of Loch Ness.</p>
<p>Piccardi also argues that many temples built during the Classical period in the eastern Mediterranean were intentionally built over geological fissures from which escaping neurotoxic gases might cause those sitting above them – like Pythia in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-secrets-of-the-delphic-oracle-and-how-it-speaks-to-us-today-61738">Oracle at Delphi</a> – to go into a trance in which they could reputedly foresee future events.</p>
<p>The Pacific Islands, the focus of most of my research over the past 30 years, has stories about past natural events – massive eruptions and earthquakes, giant waves, for instance – that have traditionally been regarded as largely apocryphal. I have focused on <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-5246-%209780824832193.aspx">some of the stories from Pacific Island cultures about “vanished islands”</a>, stories that come from almost every part of this vast region – nearly one-third of the earth’s surface. The idea of an entire island disappearing suddenly seems instinctively implausible, the stuff of Atlantean fantasy, yet there are many such stories in the Pacific that seem quite believable at their cores.</p>
<p>Take the example of Teonimenu, which probably disappeared some 400 years ago, between the islands of Makira and Ulawa in the central Solomon Islands. While most local traditions remember its disappearance as the act of a vengeful cuckold, the details about the accompanying series of tsunami waves and the location of Teonimenu on the crest of a steep underwater ridge suggest this might really have happened as a result of an earthquake-induced landslip. </p>
<p>Similar stories have been collected from central Vanuatu, where an island named Vanua Mamata abruptly disappeared about 1870. This was probably a result of an eruption-linked landslide on the underwater flanks of the giant Ambae Island volcano (which today is once again threatening to erupt). With great difficulty, it is said, the survivors saved themselves, paddling north to settle on the island of Maewo where today they recall the loss of Vanua Mamata <em>bifo bifo yet</em> (long long ago).</p>
<p>Of course, there is a limit. And that limit has been crossed when you confront many of the stories about “sunken continents” in the Pacific, perhaps Mu or (Pacific) Lemuria dreamed up by some of its early European explorers who struggled to rationalise the existence of such a large, almost landless, ocean. Some of them, like Dumont d'Urville and the geologist Jules Garnier, were convinced there had once been a continent spanning the Pacific that had sunk, leaving only the former mountaintops poking above the ocean surface. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The lost continent of Mu as proposed by James Churchward in 1927.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_lands#/media/File:Book_map1.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This theory allowed 19th-century Europeans to deny the manifestly extraordinary maritime abilities of Pacific Islanders who were portrayed as the fortunate survivors of the cataclysm, stranded on their isolated islands. Yet stories suggesting the entire Pacific (or indeed the entire Indian Ocean or the entire Atlantic) were once occupied by a single continent are demonstrably false. We’ve looked.</p>
<p>That said, there is plenty to stoke the imagination – and even a few disingenuous geoscientists happy to add fuel to the fire. Take the “sunken city” off the coast of Yonaguni Island in southwest Japan, which numerous people will assure you was once part of the continental empire of “Mu” that spanned the entire Pacific. There is no shred of real evidence of human structures off the Yonaguni coast (any more than there is of Mu), but for those untutored in the ways that sandstones and shales weather, it might appear there are giant “carved” steps and suchlike.</p>
<h2>True legends</h2>
<p>My involuntary introduction to geomythology came in mid-2000 when I was working at the international University of the South Pacific, based at its main teaching campus in Suva, Fiji. Having won some research funding and engaged three research assistants to accompany me to the Lau Islands of eastern Fiji, there was a coup; by far the nastiest of the four I have survived.</p>
<p>It seemed the wrong time to do fieldwork so I set the research assistants to work in the university library’s Pacific Collection, searching for any published stories about Pacific Islander traditions of memorable geological events. The haul they recovered astonished me and turned my attention to how oral traditions might illuminate the geological history of the Pacific.</p>
<p>One early example of this concerned myths about the formation of Nabukelevu (or Mt Washington), a striking volcano at the western end of Kadavu Island in Fiji. Long regarded by geologists as having last erupted tens of thousands of years ago, a legend from the people of nearby Ono Island suggested otherwise. Their story goes that the chief of Ono, who was accustomed to watching the sun set from a beach on the island, found one day a mountain (Nabukelevu) had appeared at the end of Kadavu to the west and blocked the view. </p>
<p>Livid, he flew to western Kadavu and battled the chief of Nabukelevu but was overwhelmed. The appearance of Nabukelevu suggests the growth of the volcano within human memory, which means about 3,000 years in Fiji. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nabukelevu, or Mount Washington, a volcano in Fiji. Fijian legend suggested the volcano erupted in human history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia/Jaejay77</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So did the legend invalidate the science? It seems it did at the time for, years later, when a road was cut around the foot of Nabukelevu, a section through the volcano’s flanks was exposed and showed buried soil with pottery fragments (a sure sign of human occupation) overlain by freshly deposited scoria. Clearly the legend was a more accurate indicator of the age of this volcano than science had once been.</p>
<p>Most Pacific Islanders who have shared such stories with me are surprisingly indifferent to the news that they may be true. It was never a concern to them that Western science might have once judged these stories to be fictional; they always knew otherwise. </p>
<p>In the last 15 years, my interest in geomythology and respect for many oral traditions have burgeoned. Moving from the Pacific Islands to Australia in 2010 inevitably led me to educate myself more about Australian Aboriginal stories. What I found was beyond my wildest dreams.</p>
<p>It began in the library of the University of New England where I read many works by linguists who had studied Australian Aboriginal languages. While focused on the structure of the languages, many of these linguists also recorded – generally as illustrations of how language was used in storytelling – ancillary details of the oral traditions of many tribes. </p>
<p>And for several of the coastal tribes, some of the most popular stories recalled times when the ocean surface – sea level – was far lower than it is today and coastal lands were consequently far more extensive. It now seems clear that Aboriginal groups in at least 22 locations all around the coast of Australia have preserved stories <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010">for more than 7,000 years</a>; in a few cases, perhaps more than 10,000 years. That is 280 to 400 generations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aboriginal stories recall a time when Fitzroy Island in northern Queensland was connected to the mainland 10,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now if Australian Aboriginal cultures were able to preserve stories so long, could not others of the world’s cultures also have done so? One <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7805.html">well-documented example</a> is of the Klamath tribe in Oregon, USA, which seems to have successfully preserved a story about the eruption of Mt Mazama – the predecessor of Crater Lake – for some 7,700 years.</p>
<p>Still, there are not many examples, which suggests two things. One is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-bullin-shrieked-aboriginal-memories-of-volcanic-eruptions-thousands-of-years-ago-81986">Australian Aboriginal society was especially adept</a> at inter-generational knowledge transmission. Undoubtedly true. The other is that in other cultures perhaps we have been too quick to discount the lingering fragments of memory for what they really are. A bit more contentious.</p>
<h2>Cities drowned</h2>
<p>Yet from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu in India, and in Gaelic cultures from Brittany (France) to Cornwall and Wales (UK), there are stories about the consequences of the ocean rising across low-lying areas of coast. Many stories recall the “drowning” of iconic cities and narrate the very human causes to which inundation was attributed. </p>
<p>For instance, there are persistent stories in parts of northwest Europe about the city of Ys that once existed on the coast, efficiently defended against the sea, perhaps in the Baie de Douarnenez in Brittany. Dahut, daughter of the ruler of Ys, King Gradlon, became possessed by a demon and wilfully opened the tide gates when the sea was high, causing the city to be drowned. </p>
<p>It is possible that this story recalls a history of sea level rising across coastal lowlands, forcing coastal cities to build and manage sea defences. Then, as sea level continued its post-glacial rise, one day, perhaps several millennia ago, the defences gave way, the ocean rushed into the city, “drowning” it and condemning its history to myth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flight of King Gradlon, by E.V. Luminais, 1884, shows the ruler of the city of Ys fleeing from the encroaching sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradlon#/media/File:Evariste-Vital_Luminais_-_Fuite_de_Gradlon.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such stories, celebrated in art and literature, are often regarded as integral to cultural identity. For this reason, attempts to explain them by science are sometimes resisted. </p>
<p>Yet, viewed dispassionately, it seems possible that stories from both sides of the English Channel (<em>La Manche</em>), for example, recall times when it was much narrower than today, as was indeed the case several millennia ago.</p>
<p>Not only are there stories like that of Ys from the north coast of Brittany and parallel stories from that of Cornwall, but also folk tales from the Channel Islands about how people were once able to walk, crossing a few streams, from there to the French mainland. This is exactly what you would expect a few millennia back, when sea level was 5-10 metres lower than it is today.</p>
<p>What research is showing is that knowledge can be transmitted orally and with a high degree of replication fidelity for thousands of years. Using phylogenetic analysis, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0078871">Jamie Tehrani</a> has demonstrated that many popular folktales, like Little Red Riding Hood, are at least 2,000 years old. </p>
<p>This remarkable fact does not mean of course that all oral knowledge is that old, but it does open up opportunities for understanding the minds of our ancestors that we never dreamed possible. Or did we?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research.</span></em></p>
Old stories from around the world tell of drowned islands, volcanic eruptions and upheavals to the land around them. Increasingly we are realising these tales preserve actual memory, often from thousands of years ago.
Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87558
2017-11-22T10:27:35Z
2017-11-22T10:27:35Z
What exactly is the Holy Grail – and why has its meaning eluded us for centuries?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195659/original/file-20171121-6013-1dbqu5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=962%2C2%2C977%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Galahad_grail.jpg">The Achievement of the Grail / Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Type “Holy Grail” into Google and … well, you probably don’t need me to finish that sentence. The sheer multiplicity of what any search engine throws up demonstrates that there is no clear consensus as to what the Grail is or was. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people out there claiming to know its history, true meaning and even where to find it. </p>
<p>Modern authors, perhaps most (in)famously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/26/featuresreviews.guardianreview17">Dan Brown</a>, offer new interpretations and, even when these are clearly and explicitly rooted in little more than imaginative fiction, they get picked up and bandied about as if a new scientific and irrefutable truth has been discovered. The Grail, though, will perhaps always eschew definition. But why?</p>
<p>The first known mention of a Grail (“un graal”) is made in a narrative spun by a 12th century writer of French romance, Chrétien de Troyes, who might reasonably be referred to as the Dan Brown of his day – though some scholars would argue that the quality of Chrétien’s writing far exceeds anything Brown has so far produced. </p>
<p>Chrétien’s Grail is mystical indeed – it is a dish, big and wide enough to take a salmon, that seems capable to delivering food and sustenance. To obtain the Grail requires asking a particular question at the Grail Castle. Unfortunately, the exact question (“Whom does the Grail serve?”) is only revealed after the Grail quester, the hapless Perceval, has missed the opportunity to ask it. It seems he is not quite ready, not quite mature enough, for the Grail.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Holy Grail depicted as a dish in which Christ’s blood is collected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=43455">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if this dish is the “first” Grail, then why do we now have so many possible Grails? Indeed, it is, at turns, depicted as the <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/597634/Holy-Grail-Real-Location-Hunt-Crusade-King-Arthur-Templars-LoveAntiques-1-million-Worth">chalice of the Last Supper</a> or of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11225538/The-Holy-Grail-the-conspiracy-theories.html">the Crucifixion</a> or <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140518/Have-POLICE-Holy-Grail-Wooden-relic-thought-Christ-s-chalice-recovered-year-stolen-burglars.html">both</a>, or as a stone containing the <a href="http://newagejournal.com/tag/serpent-grail">elixir of life</a>, or even as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/books/the-last-word-the-da-vinci-con.html">bloodline of Christ</a>. And this list is hardly exhaustive. The reason most likely has to do with the fact that Chrétien appears to have died before completing his story, leaving the crucial questions as to what the Grail is and means tantalisingly unanswered. And it did not take long for others to try to answer them for him.</p>
<p>Robert de Boron, a poet writing within 20 or so years of Chrétien (circa 1190-1200), seems to have been the first to have associated the Grail with the cup of the Last Supper. In Robert’s prehistory of the object, Joseph of Arimathea took the Grail to the Crucifixion and used it to catch Christ’s blood. In the years that followed (1200-1230), anonymous writers of prose romances fixated upon the Last Supper’s Holy Chalice and made the Grail the subject of a quest by various knights of King Arthur’s court. In Germany, by contrast, the knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach reimagined the Grail as “Lapsit exillis” – an item more commonly referred to these days as the “Philosopher’s Stone”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Holy Grail depicted as a ciborium.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>None of these is anything like Chrétien’s Grail, of course, so we can fairly ask: did medieval audiences have any more of a clue about the nature of the Holy Grail than we do today?</p>
<h2>Publishing the Grail</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/publishing-the-grail-in-medieval-and-renaissance-france-hb.html">recent book</a> delves into the medieval publishing history of the French romances that contain references to the Grail legend, asking questions about the narratives’ compilation into manuscript books. Sometimes, a given text will be bound alongside other types of texts, some of which seemingly have nothing to do with the Grail whatsoever. So, what sorts of texts do we find accompanying Grail narratives in medieval books? Can this tell us anything about what medieval audiences knew or understood of the Grail? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sangreal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sangreal.jpg">Arthur Rackham</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The picture is varied, but a broad chronological trend is possible to spot. Some of the few earliest manuscript books we still have see Grail narratives compiled alone, but a pattern quickly appears for including them into collected volumes. In these cases, Grail narratives can be found alongside historical, religious or other narrative (or fictional) texts. A picture emerges, therefore, of a Grail just as lacking in clear definition as that of today. </p>
<p>Perhaps the Grail served as a useful tool that could be deployed in all manner of contexts to help communicate the required message, whatever that message may have been. We still see this today, of course, such as when we use the phrase “The Holy Grail of…” to describe the practically unobtainable, but highly desirable prize in just about any area you can think of. There is even a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJDEcLTyYdU">guitar effect-pedal</a> named “holy grail”.</p>
<p>Once the prose romances of the 13th century started to appear, though, the Grail took on a proper life of its own. Like a modern soap opera, these romances comprised vast reams of narrative threads, riddled with independent episodes and inconsistencies. They occupied entire books, often enormous and lavishly illustrated, and today these offer evidence that literature about the Grail evaded straightforward understanding and needed to be set apart – physically and figuratively. In other words, Grail literature had a distinctive quality – it was, as we might call it today, a genre in its own right.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/urRkGvhXc8w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the absence of clear definition, it is human nature to impose meaning. This is what happens with the Grail today and, according to the evidence of medieval book compilation, it is almost certainly what happened in the Middle Ages, too. Just as modern guitarists use their “holy grail” to experiment with all kinds of sounds, so medieval writers and publishers of romance used the Grail as an adaptable and creative instrument for conveying a particular message to their audience, the nature of which could be very different from one book to the next. </p>
<p>Whether the audience always understood that message, of course, is another matter entirely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Tether works at the University of Bristol. She received funding for this research from Anglia Ruskin University, Ghent University, Somerville College, Oxford and the Stationers' Foundation.</span></em></p>
Is the Grail the chalice from the Last Supper – or the Crucifixion? Does it contain the elixir of life? Or is it Mary Magdalene’s womb?
Leah Tether, Reader in Medieval Literature and Digital Cultures, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/71126
2017-02-02T15:24:59Z
2017-02-02T15:24:59Z
How King Arthur became one of the most pervasive legends of all time
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155341/original/image-20170202-28044-7h4xf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/sword-stone-forest-399358975?src=XHTJebjwrPXK9d1UTPSOZg-1-12">Vuk Kostic/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>King Arthur is one of, if not the, most legendary icons of medieval Britain. His popularity has lasted centuries, mostly <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-arthurian-legend-64289">thanks to the numerous incarnations</a> of his story that pop up time and time again. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155350/original/image-20170202-1673-xh1lty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir Galahad pulls the sword out of the stone in front of King Arthur and the court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bangor University Library and Special Collections</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, his is one of the most enduring stories of all time. Though his tale is rooted in the fifth and sixth centuries, it has continued to captivate audiences to this very day. There is just something about the sword in the stone, the knights of the round table, Lancelot, and the wizard Merlin, that have kept us coming back to the various legends of King Arthur for such a long time. </p>
<p>In the last 15 years alone, there have been Hollywood movies, computer games, and other creative re-tellings. With Bangor University’s new Centre for Arthurian Studies just launched a fortnight ago, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbPTQIdjmY">Guy Ritchie’s new movie</a>, King Arthur: the Legend of the Sword, due to be released in late spring, there is no doubt both the scholarly search for Arthur and the impact of his legends on modern culture are continuing to flourish.</p>
<p>Arthur’s life story is one that has become almost a standard for knightly heroes to aspire to. He is seen as brave, noble, kind – everything that some might say is missing from our modern world.</p>
<h2>The epic hero</h2>
<p>Few might know that Arthur is a hero whose ancestry goes back to the Brittonic inhabitants <a href="https://theconversation.com/king-arthur-back-home-in-wales-thanks-to-guy-ritchie-40116">of early medieval Wales</a> before the arrival of the Saxons, and not just the kingly figure that appears in later romances. In fact, the Arthur of legend was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/king-arthur-legendary-figure-was-real-and-lived-most-of-his-life-in-strathclyde-academic-claims-10483364.html">neither a king</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7883874/Historians-locate-King-Arthurs-Round-Table.html">nor the owner of a round table</a>, at least not in the way we use these terms today.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155340/original/image-20170202-28040-10q1mw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur’s defeat of the Saxons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Defeat_of_the_Saxons_by_Arthur.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Records about Arthur’s life are few and far between. He emerges in the sixth century in the work <a href="http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artgue/guestsheila2.htm">of the Welsh monk Gildas</a>, where his victory at Mount Badon is celebrated, but he is not named. It is only in the ninth century Historia Brittonum, composed by another monk, Nennius, that Arthur is <a href="http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/nennius-history-of-the-britons">named as a “dux bellorum”</a>, a military commander, and his 12 battles are listed. </p>
<p>Much time passed between these early records and the 12th century’s full-blown accounts of Arthur’s reign – in the work <a href="http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/geoffrey-of-monmouth-arthurian-passages-from-the-history-of-the-kings-of-britain">of Geoffrey of Monmouth</a> and the French <a href="http://matterofbritain.com/htmlpages/legendliterature1.html">Chretien de Troyes</a>, the writers who truly made Arthur the legendary king we now know – and he took on a variety of roles. </p>
<p>In the Welsh stories, Arthur remains a warrior, often a foil for other heroes’ path to greatness. But in the early French romances, he provided a yardstick for courtly behaviour, as epic battles do not form the backbone of these later stories written on the continent. Geoffrey of Monmouth brought back the leadership and determination of an Arthur who becomes not only a king (on whom 12th century Anglo-Norman kings could model themselves), but also a conqueror – again reflecting a desire for greatness beyond national boundaries. Thus the image of the courtly king, a leader in both war and times of peace, was born.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1292&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155339/original/image-20170202-28031-13mnvnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1292&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Arthur, as painted in 1903 by Charles Ernest Butler.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Ernest_Butler_-_King_Arthur.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A modern legend</h2>
<p>However, Arthur was always connected to the realities of those countries, and the times and peoples for whom he was reinvented. The Arthurian revival <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/arthur_01.shtml#six">of the late 19th century</a>, for example, helped put him back on the international cultural map by removing the historical aura, and emphasising the values he stood for – a far cry from the medieval attempts to utilise him as a national figure from whom medieval kings could derive their right to rule. This paved the way to the fantasy worlds created, most famously, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">by T.H. White</a> in The Once and Future King, published in 1958. </p>
<p>All of these interpretations were about more than just revealing the secrets of one of the most intriguing men of all time. In this confusing and sometimes frightening world, audiences seek reassurance in the models of the past. They want a standard of moral integrity and visionary leadership that is inspirational and transformational in equal measure. One that they cannot find in the world around them, but will discover in the stories of King Arthur.</p>
<p>Is our modern appetite for fantasy a reflection of our need to reinvent the past, and bring hope into our present? Moral integrity, loyalty to one’s friends and kin, abiding by the law and defending the weak, form the cornerstone of how Arthurian fellowship has been defined through the centuries. They offer the reassurance that doing the morally right thing is valuable, even if it may bring about temporary defeat. In the end, virtues and values prevail and it is these enduring features of the legends that have kept them alive in the hearts and minds of so many through the centuries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raluca Radulescu works is a founding director of the new Centre for Arthurian Studies at Bangor University. She is also president of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society.</span></em></p>
Historic heroes like King Arthur have helped audiences through the ages to cope with troubling times.
Raluca Radulescu, Professor of Medieval Literature and English Literature, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/63434
2016-08-04T18:08:26Z
2016-08-04T18:08:26Z
Geomythology: Can geologists relate ancient stories of great floods to real events?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132989/original/image-20160803-12186-nzj75j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cataclysmic natural disasters frame indelible human stories.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/danby-the-deluge-t01337">Francis Danby, The Deluge</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern people have long wondered about ancient stories of great floods. Do they tell of real events in the distant past, or are they myths rooted in imagination? Most familiar to many of us in the West is the biblical story of Noah’s flood. But cultures around the world have passed down their own tales of devastating natural disasters. </p>
<p>New research recently published in Science by a group of mostly Chinese researchers led by Qinglong Wu <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf0842">reports geological evidence for an event</a> they propose may be behind China’s story of a great flood. This new research delves into the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/GSL.SP.2007.273.01.01">field of geomythology</a>, which relates oral traditions and folklore to natural phenomena like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132987/original/image-20160803-12196-bi3s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of Jishi Gorge, upstream from the landslide dam researchers say unleashed a great flood in China almost 4,000 years ago. Gray silt deposits are visible dozens of meters above the water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wu Qinglong</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>“Great Yu controls the waters”</h2>
<p>The story of Emperor Yu, the legendary founder of China’s first dynasty, centers on his ability to drain persistent floodwaters from lowland areas, bringing order to the land. This ancient flood story centers on the <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4220-the-flood-myths-of-early-china.aspx">triumph of human ingenuity and labor over the chaotic forces of the natural world</a>. It’s strikingly different from other flood traditions in that its hero didn’t survive a world-destroying flood but rather pulled off feats of river engineering that brought order to the land and paved the way for lowland agriculture. But was Emperor Yu a real historic person, and if so what triggered the great flood so central to his story?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132984/original/image-20160803-12196-1doo0x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diagram of the hypothesized dam outburst process in the Jishi Gorge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wu Qinglong</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their new analysis, Wu and colleagues build on previous studies of landslides in the Jishi Gorge that dammed the Yellow River where it flows down off the Tibetan Plateau. They marshal geological and archaeological evidence to argue that when a landslide dam failed, a flood ripped down China’s Yellow River around 1920 B.C. They dated lake sediments trapped upstream of the landslide dam and flood sediments deposited downstream at elevations of up to 165 feet above river level. They estimated the landslide dam’s failure sent almost a half million cubic meters of water per second surging down the Yellow River and on across early China. They also note that the timing of this flood coincides with a major archaeological transition from the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf0842">Neolithic to Bronze Age in the downstream lowlands along the Yellow River</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132990/original/image-20160803-12234-148amqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of hanging scroll of Emperor Yu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King_Yu_of_Xia.jpg">Ma Lin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Science study not only reports evidence of a great flood at the right time and place to be Yu’s flood, but also notes how it coincides with a previously identified shift in the course of the Yellow River to a new outlet across the North China plain. The researchers suggest the flood they identified may have breached the levees on the lowland river and triggered this shift.</p>
<p>And this, in turn, would help explain a unique aspect of the story of Yu’s flood. A large river rerouted to a new course could trigger persistent lowland flooding. A longer route to the sea would impose a gentler slope that would promote deposition of sediment, clogging the channel, and splitting flow into multiple channels – all of which would exacerbate flooding of lowland areas. This sounds like a pretty good setup for the story of Yu’s long labor to drain the floodwaters and channel them to the sea. </p>
<h2>Flood stories from cultures around the globe</h2>
<p>When I researched the potential geological origins of the world’s flood stories for my book “<a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294972353">The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood,”</a> I was impressed with how the geography of seemingly curious details in many local myths was consistent with geological processes that cause disastrous floods in different regions. Even along the Nile, where the annual flood is quite predictable, the lack of flood stories is consistent with how droughts were the real danger in ancient Egypt. There, failure to flood would have been catastrophic. </p>
<p>Around the tsunami-prone Pacific, flood stories tell of disastrous waves that rose from the sea. Early Christian missionaries were perplexed as to why flood traditions from South Pacific islands didn’t mention the Bible’s 40 days and nights of rain, but instead told of great waves that struck without warning. A traditional story from the coast of Chile described how two great snakes competed to see which could make the sea rise more, triggering an earthquake and sending a great wave ashore. Native American stories from coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest tell of <a href="http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/content/76/2/140">great battles between Thunderbird and Whale</a> that shook the ground and sent great waves crashing ashore. These stories sound like prescientific descriptions of a tsunami: an earthquake-triggered wave that can catastrophically inundate shorelines without warning.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132986/original/image-20160803-12186-1aorgbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glacial dams can give way unexpectedly, releasing massive amounts of water that had been held back by the ice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/3299527031">Dominic Alves</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other flood stories evoke the failure of ice and debris dams on the margins of glaciers that suddenly release the lakes they held back. A Scandinavian flood story, for example, tells of how Odin and his brothers killed the ice giant Ymir, causing a great flood to burst forth and drown people and animals. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how this might describe the failure of a glacial dam.</p>
<p>While doing fieldwork in Tibet, I learned of a local story about a great guru draining a lake in the valley of the Tsangpo River on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau – after our team had discovered terraces made of lake sediments perched high above the valley floor. The 1,200-year-old carbon dates from wood fragments we collected from the lake sediments correspond to the time when the guru arrived in the valley and converted the local populace to Buddhism by defeating, so the story goes, the demon of the lake to reveal the fertile lake bottom that the villagers still farm. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132988/original/image-20160803-12192-1r91qj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The most deadly and disruptive floods would be talked about for years to come. Here Aztecs perform a ritual to appease the angry gods who had flooded their capital.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t expect definitive proof</h2>
<p>Of course, attempts to bring science to bear on relating ancient tales to actual events are fraught with speculation. But it is clear that stories of great floods are some of humanity’s oldest. And the global pattern of tsunamis, glacial outburst floods, and catastrophic flooding of lowlands fits rather well with unusual details within many flood stories. </p>
<p>And even though <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294972353">geological evidence put the idea of a global flood</a> to rest almost two centuries ago, there are options for a rational explanation of the biblical flood. One is a catastrophic inundation that <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Noahs-Flood/William-Ryan/9780684859200">oceanographers Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman</a> propose happened when the post-glacial rise in sea level breached the Bosporus and decanted the Mediterranean into a lowland freshwater valley, forming the Black Sea. Or perhaps it could relate to cataclysmic lowland flooding in estuarine Mesopotamia like that which inundated the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo558">killing more than 130,000 people</a>. </p>
<p>Does the new study by Wu and his colleagues prove that the great flood they reconstruct was in fact Emperor Yu’s flood? No, but it does make an intriguing case for the possibility. Yet previous researchers studying landslide dams in the Jishi gorge have concluded that ancient lakes there <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683614567885">drained slowly</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2013.09.003">dated to more than 1,000 years before</a> the dates reported in this latest article. Was there more than one generation of landslide dams and floods? No doubt geologists will continue to argue about the evidence. That is, after all, what we do. </p>
<p>It’s always been part of human nature to be fascinated by and pay attention to the natural world. Great floods and other natural disasters were long seen as the work of angry deities or supernatural entities or powers. But now that we are learning that some stories once viewed as folklore and myth may be rooted in real events, scientists are paying a little more attention to the storytellers of old.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Montgomery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New research suggests a mythical flood in China really happened about 4,000 years ago. It’s the latest case of scientists matching ancient tales to actual local natural disasters.
David R. Montgomery, Professor of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/58231
2016-04-28T05:33:58Z
2016-04-28T05:33:58Z
When myth meets reality: fabled beasts and real-life creatures
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120205/original/image-20160426-1327-yt84sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Less unicorn, more hairy rhino</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2443092">DiBgd/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fantastic creatures have fascinated humans for thousands of years. When a new skeleton of the extinct horned mammal <em>Elasmotherium sibiricum</em> was discovered recently, its common name –<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/29/siberian-unicorn-extinct-humans-fossil-kazakhstan">the “Siberian Unicorn”</a> – quickly resurfaced. But this “unicorn” was very different to the creature of Western mythology.</p>
<p>Although the new fossil suggests these creatures roamed the steppes of Kazakhstan as little as <a href="http://thescipub.com/PDF/ajassp.2016.189.199.pdf">29,000 years ago</a>, they were more like giant hairy rhinos than the legendary white horses crowned with <a href="http://didrit.perso.sfr.fr/Anthropo/Licorne0.htm">narwhal tusks</a>. <em>Elasmotherium</em> may have lived alongside humans, but that doesn’t mean they must have been the source of our unicorn stories. Similarly, when we look for the origins of other supposedly mythological monsters, we can sometimes find parallels with real animals and sometimes we find clues they were simply products of a lively imagination.</p>
<p>Sailors throughout history brought back reports of mermaids and these were most likely based on sightings of dugongs or manatees, large sea mammals with forelimbs and <a href="http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/mermaids-manatees-myth-and-reality">turnable heads</a>. Even <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2014/11/141124-manatee-awareness-month-dugongs-animals-science/">Christopher Columbus</a> is thought to have confused them with mermaids having “masculine traits”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119659/original/image-20160421-26981-1u9ipen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Horniman Museum’s merman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/micronova/5472546900/sizes/l">Afshin Darian/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the 19th century, <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfa/researchandarticles/freakshows">fairground owners</a> claimed to have acquired specimens of mermaids and mermen that more closely appeared to match the creatures of legend. It was a heyday of belief in mythological creatures when Europeans became more aware of many extinct species and exotic animals from the rest of the world that seemed to explain the origins of many myths. </p>
<p>Of course, the fairground mermaids <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1498966?origin=crossref&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">were fakes</a>. They typically consisted of the dried, shrivelled torso of a monkey stitched to the body of a fish, probably a salmon. It is difficult to see how anyone could be convinced by such an object, even in a dimly-lit fairground tent, yet they were popular and there was a small industry based in Japan for producing these exhibits.</p>
<h2>Sea monsters and dinosaurs</h2>
<p>Other legendary marine creatures include the monster known as the kraken, which may well have been inspired by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-life-origins-of-the-legendary-kraken-52058">giant squid</a>, and various sea serpents. Philip Henry Gosse, the Victorian naturalist, described evidence of sea serpents from many sources in his book <a href="https://archive.org/details/romanceofnatural00gossrich"><em>The Romance of Natural History</em></a>. He concluded that sightings were best explained by living plesiosaurs, marine cousins to the dinosaurs, whose fossils were becoming well known in the early 19th century.</p>
<p>A similar explanation has been proposed for sightings of large reptile-like monsters in lakes, one of the most famous being in Loch Ness in Scotland. The 20th century produced eye-witness reports and a <a href="http://www.scotlandnow.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/heritage/pictures-discover-loch-ness-home-4976262">famous photograph</a>, but a great deal of wishful thinking is needed to view them as convincing. More to the point, the likelihood of small breeding populations of these supposed plesiosaurs for over 60 million years is tiny.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120184/original/image-20160426-1359-1jnp1lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do I look mythological to you?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarities to giant reptiles can also be seen in dragons, and the term has been applied to animals that are still alive today. But while the real-life Komodo dragon (<em>Varanus komodoensis</em>), a monitor lizard that exceeds 2 metres in length, <a href="https://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactSheets/Komododragon.cfm">is impressive</a>, it differs dramatically from the creatures of legend such as the one supposedly slain by St George. These are portrayed as having bat-like wings in addition to forelegs (true dragons), or the forelimbs transformed into wings (wyverns), just as happened when birds evolved from their reptile ancestors.</p>
<p>There may be paintings, sculptures and 34 separate references to dragons <a href="http://rwotton.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/biblical-birds-reptiles-and-dragons.html">in the Bible</a>, but there is no scientific evidence that anything like these animals ever existed. The same can be said for angels with bird wings or fairies with insect wings.</p>
<p>Human culture has always had mythology and we have a need to produce explanations of things that we do not understand. We like the idea that there are other worlds that can be contacted through mythological creatures but also like to feel fear at a safe distance. As a result, the line between fantasy and reality can become blurred, making it harder to know where one ends and the other begins.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Wotton has received funding from NERC, NATO, The Royal Society and The Wenner-Gren Foundation. This article does not represent the views of the research councils or other public bodies.</span></em></p>
Fantasy often meets reality when we try to find explanations for mythological creatures.
Roger Wotton, Emeritus professor of biology, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/58157
2016-04-25T20:10:48Z
2016-04-25T20:10:48Z
Why are we still searching for the Loch Ness monster?
<p>People are fascinated by the unknown, by the possibility that there are things out there that are yet to be discovered.</p>
<p>We think that most of our planet has been mapped by satellites and continents have been thoroughly explored. Although scientists estimate that <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/24/7519.full.pdf">millions of species are yet to be discovered</a>, these are mostly assumed to be very small animals, especially invertebrates.</p>
<p>Long gone are the days of famous explorers, when the borders of uncharted lands were marked with warnings such as “here be dragons”. And yet, many of us, still hope that some amazing, unexpected creatures may be hiding somewhere.</p>
<p>These creatures are the so-called “cryptids”, animals such as the Himalayan Yeti, north American Bigfoot or Australia’s own Yowie. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous is the Loch Ness monster, which has been back in the news recently, thanks to the discovery of a nine-metre long object at the Scottish lake.</p>
<p>A team of <a href="https://www.km.kongsberg.com/ks/web/nokbg0238.nsf/AllWeb/86C5DFECBE7501ECC1257F940037A42F?OpenDocument">Norwegian researchers found</a> what was initially thought to be evidence for the existence of the monster, informally known as “Nessie”.</p>
<p>But this evidence later turned out to be <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-14/loch-ness-monster-film-prop-discovered-by-drone-in-scotland/7326834">just a prop</a> from the 1970 movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066249/">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</a>, which sank after its buoyant humps were removed.</p>
<p>This team of researchers was using some advanced sonar technology in the hope of unveiling the mystery of Loch Ness once and for all. But the prop is all they have found so far. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mEKBX89lYLE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Certainly, many people were disappointed. But from a scientific perspective, what are the odds that a prehistoric reptile actually inhabits the depths of Loch Ness?</p>
<h2>Finding ‘Nessie’</h2>
<p>Let us examine the arguments that can be reasonably put forward for the existence of a “monster” in Loch Ness.</p>
<p>The first written report of an unusual aquatic creature in the proximity of the lake <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/the-worlds-oldest-loch-ness-monster.html">dates back to the seventh century</a>. But medieval texts aren’t terribly reliable, as they often include monsters and supernatural creatures.</p>
<p>We have to wait until the end of the 19th century for the <a href="http://www.nessie.co.uk/htm/the_evidence/sight.html">next sighting</a>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the eminent English palaeontologist William Daniel Conybeare described the first fossil skeleton of a plesiosaur about 50 years earlier, and these prehistoric animals rapidly captured people’s imagination.</p>
<p>Could this have affected the sightings that came in the years that followed?</p>
<p>If we exclude the plethora of anecdotal accounts that occurred in the 20th century, the “evidence” so far is in the form of photographs and movies, which sceptics dismiss as floating logs, seals or hoaxes. Then there are sonar images, which unbelievers claim to represent fish schools, algal blooms or echoes from submerged cliffs (or even movie props).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119422/original/image-20160420-25634-1nqax0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of a plesiosaur, which is said to be similar to the mysterious Loch Ness monster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Kostyantyn Ivanyshen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some scientists argue that a giant aquatic reptile would have a hard time surviving in the frigid waters of the Scottish lake (around 5°C, on average). But sea turtles are large reptiles as well (some exceed 200kg) and they can thrive in the cold waters off the coasts of Iceland and Alaska.</p>
<p>A study by French scientist Aurélien Bernard and colleagues, published in <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5984/1379">Science in 2010</a>, examined the oxygen isotopes extracted from the fossil bones of plesiosaurs. The isotopes showed that these animals were likely capable of adjusting their body temperature (endothermic), and were therefore capable of surviving in relatively cold waters.</p>
<p>However, unless Nessie is a fish, it would need to surface regularly in order to breath and so its apparitions should be fairly frequent. But they are not. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119562/original/image-20160421-8026-1pzr6wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reconstruction of a plesiosaur at the South Australian Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South Australian Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such discrepancy could be explained by the peculiar body shape of the creature, purportedly looking similar to a plesiosaur. The small head located at the end of a long neck would make it easy to conceal the body in the murky waters while only its nostrils break the surface for a few gulps of fresh air.</p>
<h2>More than one Nessie needed</h2>
<p>But there is another problem that makes the existence of such a creature extremely unlikely. Nessie cannot possibly be a single creature that has survived for thousands of years.</p>
<p>What we call Nessie, if real, must be a population of several interbreeding animals that made it to our days. Population biology tells us that only two interbreeding animals would not be enough for a species to survive.</p>
<p>But, if we have several Nessies, why is it so hard to see these creatures?</p>
<p>The lake was sealed off from the ocean at the end of the last Ice Age, at least 10,000 years ago. Any population in question must be somewhere in the lake, if it actually exists.</p>
<p>What’s more, animals die. So why hasn’t a carcass of one of these animals been found?</p>
<p>New species of large animals do turn up unexpectedly every now and then. The <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/coelacanth-latimeria-chalumnae-smith-1939">Coelacanth</a>, a fish thought to be extinct for millions of years, was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938, and the <a href="http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/12/a-forgotten-fossil-megamouth-gets-a-name/">megamouth shark</a> is another living fossil discovered only about 40 years ago.</p>
<p>But these are creatures that live in the ocean, a very poorly explored part of our planet.</p>
<p>Considering how much attention has been devoted to exploring the waters of Loch Ness in the past few decades, with sonars, submersibles and the like, I would be very surprised if a creature the size of a plesiosaur was actually living down there.</p>
<p>So I ask again, why are we still searching for the Loch Ness monster?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Palci does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The hunt for ‘Nessie’ has been going on for decades but there’s a good reason why nothing has been found.
Alessandro Palci, Research Associate in Squamate Evolution, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/52058
2015-12-30T10:42:46Z
2015-12-30T10:42:46Z
The real-life origins of the legendary Kraken
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105272/original/image-20151210-7459-nachrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_octopus_attacks_ship.jpg">Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Kraken is perhaps the largest monster ever imagined by mankind. In Nordic folklore, it was said to haunt the seas from Norway through Iceland and all the way to Greenland. The Kraken had a knack for harassing ships and many <a href="http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/60177#page/391/mode/1up">pseudoscientific reports (including official naval ones)</a> said it would attack vessels with its strong arms. If this strategy failed, the beast would start swimming in circles around the ship, creating a fierce maelstrom to drag the vessel down.</p>
<p>Of course, to be worth its salt, a monster needs to have a taste for human flesh. <a href="http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/131226#page/516/mode/1up">Legends</a> say that the Kraken could devour a ship’s entire crew at once. But despite its fearsome reputation, the monster could also bring benefits: it swam accompanied by huge schools of fish that cascaded down its back when it emerged from the water. Brave fishermen could thus risk going near the beast to secure a bounteous catch.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.scielo.br/pdf/hcsm/v21n3/0104-5970-hcsm-21-3-0971.pdf">history of the Kraken</a> goes back to an account written in 1180 by King Sverre of Norway. As with many legends, the Kraken started with something real, based on sightings of a real animal, the giant squid. For the ancient navigators, the sea was treacherous and dangerous, hiding a horde of monsters in its inconceivable depths. Any encounter with an unknown animal could gain a mythological edge from sailors’ stories. After all, the tale grows in the telling.</p>
<h2>Scientific legend</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105269/original/image-20151210-7422-7i8rdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Giant squid found in Ranheim, Norway, measured by Professors Erling Sivertsen and Svein Haftorn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, 1954</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The strength of the myth became so strong that the Kraken could still be found in Europe’s <a href="http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/70332#/summary">first modern scientific surveys</a> of the natural world in the 18th century. Not even Carl Linnaeus – father of modern biological classification – could avoid it and he included the Kraken among the cephalopod mollusks in the first edition of his groundbreaking <a href="http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/ing/Libro.php?Libro=1359"><em>Systema Naturae</em></a> (1735).</p>
<p>But when, in 1853, a giant cephalopod was found stranded on a Danish beach, Norwegian naturalist Japetus Steenstrup recovered the animal’s beak and used it to <a href="https://books.google.dk/books?id=qzo4AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA182&hl=pt-BR#v=onepage&q&f=false">scientifically describe</a> the giant squid, <em>Architeuthis dux</em>. And so what had become legend officially entered the annals of science, returning our image of the Kraken to the animal that originated the myths.</p>
<p>After 150 years of research into the giant squid that inhabits all the world’s oceans, there is still much debate as to whether they represent a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238390512_Giant_squid_beaks_Implications_for_systematics">single species or as many as 20</a>. The largest <em>Architeuthis</em> recorded reaches <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-giant-squid/">18 metres</a> in length, including the very long pair of tentacles, but the vast majority of specimens are much smaller. The giant squid’s eyes are the largest in the animal kingdom and are crucial in the dark depths it inhabits (up to 1,100 metres deep, perhaps reaching 2,000 metres).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9HGMxZEl60k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Like some other squid species, <em>Architeuthis</em> has pockets in its muscles containing an ammonium solution that is less dense than sea water. This allows the animal to float underwater, meaning that it can keep itself steady without actively swimming. The presence of unpalatable ammonium in their muscles is also probably the reason why giant squid have not yet been fished to near extinction.</p>
<h2>Hunter or prey?</h2>
<p>For many years, scientists debated whether the giant squid was a swift and agile hunter like the powerful predator of legends or an ambush hunter. After decades of discussion, a welcome answer came in 2005 with the unprecedented film footage from Japanese researchers <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/272/1581/2583">T. Kubodera and K. Mori</a>. They filmed a live <em>Architeuthis</em> in its natural habitat, 900m deep in the North Pacific, showing that it is in fact a fast and powerful swimmer, using its tentacles to capture prey.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105271/original/image-20151210-7447-1jxt9s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reconstruction of an epic battle between a giant squid and its nemesis, the sperm whale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">American Museum of Natural History.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite its size and speed, <em>Architeuthis</em> has a predator: the sperm whale. The battles between these titans must be frequent, since it is common to find scars on whales’ skins left by the squids’ tentacles and arms, which have suckers lined with sharp chitinous tooth-like structures. But <em>Architeuthis</em> doesn’t have the muscles in its tentacles to use them to constrict prey and it can never overcome a sperm whale in a “duel”. Its only option is to flee, covering its escape with the usual cephalopod ink cloud.</p>
<p>Although we now know it is not just a legend, the giant squid remains perhaps the most elusive large animal in the world, which has greatly contributed to its aura of mystery. Many people today are still surprised in learning that it really exists. After all, even after so much scientific research, the Kraken is still alive in popular imagination thanks to films, books and computer games, even if it sometimes turns up in the wrong mythology, such as the 1981 (and 2010) ancient Greek epic <em>Clash of the Titans</em>. These representations have come to define it in the public mind: a beast lurking in sunken ships waiting for reckless divers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodrigo Brincalepe Salvador does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The myth of a monstrous giant squid prowling the oceans has persisted for centuries but scientists have been able to reveal the truth behind the stories.
Rodrigo Brincalepe Salvador, PhD student in Paleontology, University of Tübingen
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/42077
2015-05-20T10:07:35Z
2015-05-20T10:07:35Z
The curse of Frankenstein: how archetypal myths shape the way people think about science
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82298/original/image-20150519-30551-66qvf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is the real villain in Frankenstein the scientist who created him, or the people who refused to understand him? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-107343878/stock-photo-united-kingdom-circa-a-stamp-printed-in-great-britain-shows-the-curse-of-frankenstein.html?src=t3aNML1CeS9KmjHioOH3jg-1-1">Stamp via www.shutterstock.com. </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“One doesn’t expect Dr Frankenstein to show up in a wool sweater,” <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986022,00.html">wrote</a> political commentator Charles Krauthammer, ominously, in the March 1997 issue of Time magazine. He was referring to British scientist Dr Ian Wilmut, who eight months earlier had successfully created Dolly, the world’s most famous sheep, by cloning her from another adult sheep’s cell.</p>
<p>Krauthammer’s criticism was unsparing. “This was not supposed to happen,” he insisted. Dolly was “a cataclysmic” creature. But PPL Therapeutics, the company responsible for funding the science behind Dolly, was undeterred, and four years later produced five cloned female pigs. Again, the news provoked outrage. Lisa Lange, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, echoed Krauthammer <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&dat=20000315&id=EdQzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yugFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5529,1558628&hl=en">when she dismissed</a> justifications of cloning: “There’s always a reason given to validate these Frankenstein-like experiments.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82261/original/image-20150519-30538-jjzm24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frontispiece to Mary Shelley, Frankenstein published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFrankenstein_engraved.jpg">By Theodor von Holst via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Invoking Mary Shelley’s myth of Frankenstein is standard fare in arguments over controversial science. In 1992, Boston College English professor Paul Lewis coined the term “Frankenfood” in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/13/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-8-13-00-on-language-franken.html">a letter to the New York Times</a> that argued for stricter FDA regulation of genetically modified foods. “If they want to sell us Frankenfood,” he wrote, “perhaps it’s time to gather the villagers, light some torches and head to the castle.” Dr William Davis, author of the bestselling book Wheat Belly, refers to modern strains of wheat as “frankenwheat,” and then blames them for nearly every chronic illness imaginable. And 19 years before Dolly, in-vitro fertilization pioneer Dr Patrick Steptoe tried to preempt such criticism when he defended his role in the birth of Louise Brown, the world’s first “test-tube” baby. “I am not a wizard or a Frankenstein,” <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1988-03-23/news/mn-1905_1_patrick-steptoe">he pleaded</a>.</p>
<p>Steptoe was wise to dissociate himself from Frankenstein. Research suggests that story archetypes – encoded in powerful, culturally pervasive myths – may play a crucial role in how people process new information. In their studies of jury verdicts, for instance, psychologists Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastie <a href="http://conium.org/%7Emaccoun/LP_PenningtonHastie1992.pdf">found that</a> jurors made decisions, in part, by fitting the evidence into previously defined narrative structures. </p>
<p>The persuasive power of these structures has led Rutgers law professor Ruth Anne Robbins to argue that attorneys should represent their clients as “<a href="http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/vol29/iss4/1/">archetypal heroes</a>” (her example of choice is from another modern myth, Harry Potter). Heroes are more likely to be perceived sympathetically, while villains – Dr Frankenstein and Dr Steptoe alike – will be perceived as criminals, independent of the evidence.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82252/original/image-20150519-30494-y4i7jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam and Eve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALucas_Cranach_d._%C3%84._001.jpg">Lucas Cranach the Elder, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, myths appear to lead consistently away from the truth, not toward it. Researchers from the University of Oregon have found that pairing statistics with narratives detracts from accurate evaluations of risk. And in a 2014 British <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0089177">study of vaccination intentions</a>, subjects exposed to the powerful narrative archetype of a conspiracy – complete with “secret acts of powerful, malevolent forces” – were more likely to fear vaccines, despite access to evidence of vaccine safety.</p>
<p>The Frankenstein myth is particularly potent, since it recapitulates elements of the world’s most famous myth. Temptation leads Adam and Eve, like Dr Frankenstein, to acquire forbidden knowledge, which results in a cataclysmic fall from grace. </p>
<p>The potency of this narrative – the sinful knowledge seeker who departs from nature – worries New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan, who believes it can shut down rational, nuanced dialogue. He told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have to be very careful about deploying these powerful myths. There’s no reason to believe that technology, in general, is inherently dangerous or out of control. Not only that, Frankenstein can narrow our focus to biological and reproductive science. Other technologies, weaponized satellites and military technology, those don’t attract the same kind of criticism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>People don’t just live by archetypal myths – they are <em>constituted</em> by them. Group identity, from religion to politics to race, depends on an investment in the truth of a few indispensable stories, which in turn serve as shorthand justifications of one’s preferred moral and social order. “When you tell a story about your client, you pick a storyline that people can identify with,” Robbins explains of her approach. This helps explain why mythically justified beliefs are so resistant to evidence: changing them means changing oneself. </p>
<p>The biasing power of myth is disconcerting, but it also points to a potential solution. If, in some cases, narrative can trump scientific evidence, perhaps literary criticism can come to the rescue. </p>
<p>Take the myth of Frankenstein. As Krauthammer, Lewis, and Davis tell it, genetically modified organisms are dangerous, unnatural and disgusting, and those who oppose them are the archetypal heroes. The villains are foolish, power-hungry scientists like Wilmut and Steptoe, whose unchecked hubris threatens to plunge mankind into darkness.</p>
<p>In the original tale, however, Dr Frankenstein’s creation is no monster, but rather a kind, gentle Creature. Tragically, the Creature soon learns to fear humans, who, terrified by his appearance, drive him away with stones and never come to understand his true identity.</p>
<p>The real villain in Shelley’s story is neither Dr Frankenstein nor his creation – it is the intolerant, torch-wielding villagers. Only after experiencing their cruelty does the Creature become a monster, exacting revenge on those who refused to give him a chance. This is the real myth, the original myth, and it suggests a radically different moral and social order than the more familiar version. If we embrace it, maybe the evidence about controversial science will start to tell a different story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Levinovitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Critics of controversial science like GMOs and cloning often invoke the myth of Frankenstein to highlight the dangers of new technology. But these critics may overlook the moral of Shelley’s story.
Alan Levinovitz, Assistant Professor of Religion, James Madison University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40116
2015-04-16T05:20:31Z
2015-04-16T05:20:31Z
King Arthur back home in Wales – thanks to Guy Ritchie
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78073/original/image-20150415-31670-1scorai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guenevere in May, Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, abridged ed. Alfred W. Pollard, illustrations by Arthur Rackham, 1917.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bangor University Library Rare Book Collection</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>King Arthur is back at his mythical home – Wales. Guy Ritchie’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3496992/">Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur</a> is currently being filmed in Snowdonia, starring Charlie Hunnan opposite villain Jude Law. This in the same week that Bangor University’s rare books collection boasts the <a href="http://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/latest/a-celebration-of-arthurian-studies-at-bangor-university-22437">extension of its Arthurian archive</a> after a generous donation from Flintshire County Library.</p>
<p>Ritchie’s surefire Hollywood blockbuster is due to be released in the summer of 2016, and there are <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/king-arthur/34517/new-details-of-guy-ritchies-king-arthur-film">early reports</a> that it could be the first of up to six films.</p>
<p>Yet another film about King Arthur, possibly six? You might have thought that there have been enough renditions of the Arthurian legend to occupy anyone remotely interested. In just the last 15 years we’ve had the BBC’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1199099/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Merlin</a>. Joseph Fiennes starred in another TV series, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1672189/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Camelot</a>. Then there was <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349683/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">King Arthur</a>, the 2004 film starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley. The more gritty historical version in 2007’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462396/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Last Legion</a>. The list goes on. </p>
<p>But it seems that we just can’t have enough of all things Arthurian – the legend and its many possible permutations never cease to fascinate. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"575398577796612096"}"></div></p>
<p>By choosing to shoot parts of the film in North Wales, Ritchie signals that he’s taking the legend back home, where some of the stories – and our obsession – originated. We know that Jude Law’s villain is the warlord Vortigern, which hints that Ritchie is returning to one of the first legends about Merlin.</p>
<p>The story goes that Vortigern, fleeing from the Anglo-Saxons, was trying to build a fort at <a href="http://www.castlewales.com/dinas_em.html">Dinas Emrys</a>, but the tower his men built kept on collapsing. A young Merlin (in the legend, Ambrosius – Emrys in Welsh) reveals that this was happening because two dragons, one red, one white, were fighting in a pool underground and so toppling Vortigern’s tower. Merlin prophesied that the red Welsh dragon was to overcome the white Saxon dragon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78085/original/image-20150415-31678-df1qn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vortigern watches the fight between the red and white dragons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Arthurian roots</h2>
<p>This legend of Dinas Emrys reaches back to the Welsh Dark Ages. So our fascination with all things Arthur is far from new. Arthur’s roots are in the historical record and have seen innumerable incarnations over the centuries. He first appears in the sixth century, when the Welsh monk Gildas states in his <em>De excidio et conquestu Britanniae</em> (Of the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) that he lived within 45 years of the Battle of Mount Badon, where the Britons were victorious. Gildas does not mention Arthur by name, but in the ninth century Nennius, another Welsh monk, writes that Arthur led and was victorious against the Saxons in 12 battles.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78078/original/image-20150415-31691-eun0f0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for an 1893 edition of Le Morte Darthur.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bangor University Library Rare Book Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then in the tenth century <em>Annales Cambriae</em> (Annals of Wales) Arthur is mentioned as the victor against the Saxons at the Battle of Mount Badon in 516, and Arthur and “Medraut” are mentioned fighting at the Battle of Camlann in 537.</p>
<p>With the arrival of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s <em>Historia regum Britanniae</em> (History of the Kings of Britain) in the 12th century, a new era began for the Arthurian legend. Geoffrey made Arthur a king, and Merlin his adviser. In doing so he opened up the floodgates for the abundant medieval vernacular retellings of his story in romance form. Arthur and his Round Table soon found themselves in a mini-European Union of sorts: each nation invented a hero who joined the merry crew. Their stories were retold in almost every European language. </p>
<p>Thomas Malory’s 15th century <em>Le Morte D'Arthur</em> then synthesised the French and English Arthurian stories in circulation in the late Middle Ages, and the Arthurian legend remained alive and well throughout the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. </p>
<h2>Legendary chick lit</h2>
<p>The last Renaissance edition of Malory’s <em>Le Morte D'Arthur</em>, by William Stansby in 1634, was something of a watershed. The Stansby edition marks the moment when the legend ceased to be a scene of scholarly endeavour to locate the historical Arthur. Now, romance trumped it. Arthur became an early form of chick lit.</p>
<p>So many copies were printed that they were still about in the 19th century and inspired the creation of a new English Arthurian canon when the Victorians cottoned on – Arthur mania was definitely as strong then as it is today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78076/original/image-20150415-31681-1f3pm48.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur, London: printed by William Stansby for Iacob Bloome, 1634, Volume II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bangor University Library Rare Book Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Arthurian and non-Arthurian romance was disparaged by the schoolteachers of the post-medieval period as not suitable for gentlewomen and ladies (adultery and manslaughter abound in Malory’s tale). But this didn’t deter its audiences from enjoying it. Stansby managed to keep the medieval feel of the text by using both woodcuts and the black letter type reminding his readers of medieval manuscripts. His edition was still popular in the 18th century, when one reader wrote in the flyleaves of the Bangor University copy that the story had been written by “one Moor [sic] in the time of Edward IV”. </p>
<p>New Arthurian literature was still produced and sold: the Queen’s physician, Sir Richard Blackmore, wrote not one, but two epic poems in 12 books each (Prince Arthur and King Arthur) in 1696. Each went through three editions. </p>
<p>Blackmore was certainly a better physician than he was a poet, but the enduring fascination with all things Arthurian was certainly preserved and then flourished with the Victorians in all aspects of the arts. The obsession endures to the present day – so don’t expect Ritchie’s time in the spotlight to last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raluca Radulescu works for Bangor University and has sometimes received research funding from the British Academy and the AHRC. This article reflects the views of the author.</span></em></p>
We just can’t have enough of all things Arthurian – the legend and its many possible permutations never cease to fascinate.
Raluca Radulescu, Reader in Medieval Literature, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35954
2015-02-12T00:51:00Z
2015-02-12T00:51:00Z
Sailing the high seas in 3D: The Flying Dutchman goes hi-tech
<p>3D goggles might be commonplace at the cinema, but few associate the opera with digital technology, or would ever expect to wear 3D goggles in a theatre. </p>
<p>A new production of <a href="http://www.palaistheatre.net.au/whats-on.htm?event_id=482">The Flying Dutchman</a>, created by <a href="http://www.victorianopera.com.au/">Victorian Opera</a> and <a href="https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/motionlab/">Deakin Motion.Lab</a>, and featuring the <a href="http://www.ayo.com.au/">Australian Youth Orchestra</a>, is set to challenge these assumptions.</p>
<p>Premiering February 14 at St. Kilda’s Palais Theatre, The Flying Dutchman brings together digital environments, CGI characters and live performers for a spectacular interpretation of Richard Wagner’s beloved opera. The production uses modern cinematic techniques – polarised screens and powerful stereoscopic projectors – to bring a new spin to performing arts in general, and opera in particular.</p>
<h2>The Dutchman and the deep</h2>
<p>With its violent storms, mythical characters, enormous ghost ship, and thrilling tale of supernatural love, The Flying Dutchman merges a fantastical story with Richard Wagner’s epic score.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71140/original/image-20150204-28618-24cy9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The arrival of the Flying Dutchman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victorian Opera/Deakin.Motion.Lab</span></span>
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<p>The opera draws on nautical folklore of a doomed ghost ship, telling the story of Captain Daland and his crew’s encounter with the Flying Dutchman’s ghost ship in the middle of a storm. Daland meets the Dutchman himself, a shadowy man cursed to sail the seven seas for all eternity.</p>
<p>Once every seven years, the Dutchman is given the opportunity to find a good and faithful wife, and to finally be freed of his curse. Daland offers his daughter, Senta, to the Dutchman … for a price. The end, which sees Senta and the Dutchman united beneath the waves, is both tragic and redemptive – exactly the recipe for an epic opera.</p>
<p>As a character, the Dutchman has been the subject of pop culture for centuries, appearing to great acclaim in Disney’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/">Pirates of the Caribbean</a> franchise. In Wagner’s interpretation of the myth, Daland’s inner battle between helping the Dutchman and feeding his greed becomes the focus of the opera.</p>
<h1>Wagner and the totality of art</h1>
<p>When it first premiered in 1843 in Dresden, The Flying Dutchman encapsulated the idea of <em><a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/231963/Gesamtkunstwerk">Gesamtkunstwerk</a></em>, or “total artwork” – the perfect merging of all media including theatre, literature, art, design and music. Wagner didn’t coin the term, but his operas have come to represent this notion of the totality of art, in which media converges and the lines between art-forms become blurred.</p>
<p>The sheer scale of Wagner’s operas lends itself to the use of digital and computer-generated 3D media. As fans of opera will be aware, the Ring Cycle has already been given a partial digital <a href="http://ringcycle.metoperafamily.org/">make-over</a> at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, directed by Robert Lepage. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70874/original/image-20150203-9181-119kko3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/taaalia/9264730265/in/photolist-6hAGcV-6hESTQ-6hAFRi-6hAGZa-8J36w8-2vVkpu-f7GawH-6hETiE-6hERgG-6hAJXK-6hESj9-6hETKd-6hAJoa-6hAGkg-6hEUx3-6hAGtF/">Taaalia/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Lepage’s extensive mechanical set, which elevated performers on stage and transformed into representations of fjords, horses, an underwater world or the mythical Valhalla, was overlaid with interactive digital imagery. Despite wonderful moments of imagery, the creaks and groans of Lepage’s mechanical machine, as well as the exorbitant expense of mounting the production, will most likely defer the re-staging of that particular Ring.</p>
<h2>Bringing the opera to new audiences</h2>
<p><a href="https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/motionlab/">Deakin Motion.Lab</a> has embarked on a major partnership with Victorian Opera (funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant Scheme) to develop full digital scenographies for three operas and to test the creative possibilities for digital technology in traditional and non-traditional environments. </p>
<p>Underlying these research aims is a question about how digital technology might make opera economically viable to tour more widely, including to audiences in rural or regional settings. Because large set-pieces have found new incarnations as weightless digital objects, the trappings of large-scale and epic opera productions become easily transportable to any space with a screen. </p>
<p>Unlike Lepage’s Ring, this production of The Flying Dutchman takes full advantage of digital technology, using a much more minimal set than is normally required. </p>
<p>It has been carefully designed by designer Christina Smith and Matt Scott to integrate the visual perspective of the 3D images. This approach greatly reduces the need for sets or props to be shifted between scenes, or to be stored between seasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71141/original/image-20150204-28598-xid4a0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Two ships shear past each other.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victorian Opera/Deakin.Motion.Lab</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The project also examines how digital technology might attract new audiences for opera, in particular younger generations who are already comfortable with 3D imagery and the interactive technology that drives the gaming industry. By creating the opera sets using game engine software, artists can provide opportunities for interactivity with the performers onstage. </p>
<p>Almost as if they were creating a film, cameras fly over the ocean at speed. They zoom in on the ship to take audiences inside the Dutchman’s vessel or moving along the roads to meet the Flying Dutchman as it makes berth at the harbour. Within these epic landscapes, digital scenography creates depth and volume that is unhindered by the size of the stage itself.</p>
<p>Digital characters will populate the world of The Flying Dutchman, and unlike human actors, these characters are not bound by gravity or the limitations the human body. For that reason, supernatural characters like ghosts are ideal to represent as digital avatars, doubling or tripling the size of the performing cast. </p>
<p>In this version of The Flying Dutchman, ghostly crews aflame with the blue glow of St Elmo’s fire populate the Dutchman’s ship. Deakin Motion.Lab’s artists, coders and 3D character animators are able to draw from human movements and actions using motion capture technology, which provide the movement cues for the digital characters.</p>
<p>Over the next two years, Deakin Motion.Lab will work with Victorian Opera on two more productions, investigating the potential to take trans-media performance further. Hopefully this will give traditional works, like Wagner’s operas, a new life in non-traditional venues and attract younger audiences.</p>
<p><em>The Flying Dutchman plays at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne on February 14, 17 and 19. Details <a href="http://www.palaistheatre.net.au/whats-on.htm?event_id=482">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Vincs works for Deakin University. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and from research consultancies in the digital and performing arts.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Beth Vincent works for Deakin University. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council and from research consultancies in the digital and performing arts. She is a dance critic for The Age newspaper, and a board member of Ausdance Victoria. </span></em></p>
3D goggles might be commonplace at the cinema, but few associate the opera with digital technology, or would ever expect to wear 3D goggles in a theatre. A new production of The Flying Dutchman, created…
Kim Vincs, Director, Deakin Motion.Lab, Deakin University
Jordan Beth Vincent, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin Motion Lab, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29630
2014-07-25T08:58:18Z
2014-07-25T08:58:18Z
Brain or brawn? New Hercules film is bringing back the muscle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54818/original/ysm58f67-1406214215.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The muscle man.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kerry Brown/© 2014 Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hercules is once again back on our screens. This latest version has <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0425005/">Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson</a> in the title role, alongside an international cast which includes a host of British stars. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000457/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">John Hurt</a> is Cotys, king of Thrace, who hires the services of Hercules and his band of mercenaries, notably <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0574534/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Ian McShane</a>’s Amphiaraus and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001722/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Rufus Sewell</a>’s Autolycus.</p>
<p>As with any re-working of Greek myth, there are likely to be critics who deride the plot’s departure from ancient precedent. But in fact Herakles (to give him his Greek name) was subject to constant reinvention, even in antiquity. </p>
<p>The strong-man monster-slayer of modern film is also the Hercules of the literature and art of archaic Greece (c.750-500 BC). A specific group of <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html">12 labours</a> is only established later – but already in the archaic period 11 of the canonical set are found in some form or another, alongside a host of other exploits. All of these involve battling with formidable adversaries, whether humans or monsters. Occasionally, they’re even gods. In the great majority of cases the opponent has been threatening the welfare of others, so that Hercules’s inevitable victory is not just a demonstration of prowess, but also a service to the local community. He is later even worshipped with the cult title Alexikakos, “Warder-off of Evil”.</p>
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<p>But then in the classical period (c.500-300 BC), writers tapped into his dramatic potential beyond the brawn. Some explored his tragic potential – the superhero, anchored to his duty and unable to return to the domestic sphere. Others exaggerated his “heroic” appetites for comic effect, whilst others again even suggested a more reflective hero who might provide a role-model for philosophers and kings. </p>
<p>And all of these elements were explored by Roman writers and artists too. Their Hercules was influenced to some extent by the local Etruscan hero Hercle, but largely inherited his character traits and stories from the Greek Herakles. Monster-slaying still plays a part, but romantic and comic elements come more to the fore in Latin literature.</p>
<p>Of course, Hercules outlasted the ancient world. He’s cropped up in a bewildering variety of contexts. Early Christian writers saw the labours as an allegory for the moral struggles of the faithful, and Renaissance artists popularised the story of his choice between virtue and vice. At the same time, Hercules was claimed as patron of the ruling families of Ferrara and Florence, and even as a direct ancestor of the French monarchy. By the time he reached the multi-media world of the 20th and 21st centuries, the monster-slaying hadn’t been forgotten, but had to compete with a heavy overlay of moralising interpretations.</p>
<p>This particular film owes a special debt to the Hercules of the late 1950s and 1960s sword-and-sandals genre, as well as the comic-book super-hero tradition which developed alongside it. This Hercules drew on a tradition established in the 19th century of strongman acts, which fed into the early development of body-building as a means to self-betterment, an important element of the American dream.</p>
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<p>Most obviously, the casting of Dwayne Johnson hints at a deliberate return to this great tradition of the muscle man Hercules. This began with his original on-screen incarnation, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050381/">Steve Reeves</a>, and continued via a host of 1960s films which starred body-builders into the 1970s, when <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065832/">Arnold Schwarznegger took the role</a>, and even the 1980s, in the form of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085672/">Lou “The Hulk” Ferrigno</a>.</p>
<p>A different sensibility arose in the 1990s. You can see this from the more understated physicality of Kevin Sorbo’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111999/">Hercules in the Legendary Journeys</a> series. Interestingly, 2014’s earlier incarnation of the hero, Renny Harlin’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043726/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Legend of Hercules</a>, was more along the lines of this model. But I wouldn’t say that the casting of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1553725/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Kellan Lutz</a> was the only problem with this film – it was widely agreed to be dully scripted, woodenly acted, and cheaply produced. </p>
<p>Perhaps the western world of 2014 is in need of a proper strong-man and some uncomplicated monster-slaying. Political uncertainty was characteristic of archaic Greece (a period of colonisation and the formation of the city-state) as it was in the Cold War era of the 20th century. And if Hercules the muscle-man appealed to audiences then, he has every chance of success today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Stafford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hercules is once again back on our screens. This latest version has Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson in the title role, alongside an international cast which includes a host of British stars. John Hurt is Cotys…
Emma Stafford, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/28378
2014-07-22T16:13:00Z
2014-07-22T16:13:00Z
Understanding transitions may be critical to our survival
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54570/original/ktzrcfyh-1406041353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Big jobs. Sisyphus by Shutterstock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mopic</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Next time you have a bad day at work, consider <a href="http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/sisyphus.html">Sisyphus</a>. His annual appraisal by the ancient Greek gods was so bad (over the previous 12 months he demonstrated deceitfulness, greed, malice and homicide) that he was reassigned to rolling a massive boulder up a steep hill only to find that when he neared the top, the boulder would somehow always slip through his grasp and return back to the bottom. This was a job not just for life, but for eternity.</p>
<p>If Sisyphus had somehow been able to crest the hill, then at least he would have been able to demonstrate the important mathematical concept of <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8950.html">critical transitions</a>, abrupt and often momentous changes.</p>
<p>Sisyphus is painfully aware of the fact that the natural state of the boulder is at the bottom of the valley. If he stops pushing and heaving, then that is where it will end up. The bottom of the valley is an <a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Attractor.html">attractor</a>. Sisyphus’ efforts attempt to drive the boulder away from this attractor. If he releases the boulder, it relaxes back to this attractor in ways similar to the relaxation of a rubber band back to its resting state after you stretch it. Pinging a rubber band across the office shows that relaxation can be very sudden with respect to the force that moved it away from the attractor in the first place.</p>
<p>If Sisyphus had been able to roll the boulder to near the top of the hill he would have found that the going gets easier, as the top is where the slope decreases until it becomes flat at the crest. At this point, a small nudge would be sufficient to set the boulder moving down the the other side of the hill and come to rest within a different attractor. Getting back to the previous attractor could require just as much effort as moving it in the first place. Not that I imagine Sisyphus would be in hurry to return. But given time his attitude would change. And time was something that Sisyphus had in abundance.</p>
<p>Alas, we may have precious little time to avert critical transitions such as the possible <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.full">collapse of ice sheets, dieback of the Amazon rainforest and thawing of Tundra permafrost</a>. It would be effectively impossible for us to reverse these transitions once they tip over into new states. States that may prove to be well outside of any <a href="http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-programmes/planetary-boundaries.html">safe operating space for humanity</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for some of them we may have passed the point of no return some time ago. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-now-only-watch-as-west-antarcticas-ice-sheets-collapse-26957">collapse of significant portions of the Western Antarctic ice sheet now appears inevitable</a>. While its complete destruction may take centuries this is much faster than that the rate at which it was created. Many generations put their shoulder to that particular boulder and drove it beyond its tipping point. They did so largely ignorant of the consequences of their actions which will include many metres of sea level rise.</p>
<p>Being able to <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6105/344.abstract">warn of impending critical transitions</a> is something we would very much like to do. While there are some promising techniques that analyse how the system changes over time such as looking for wobbles as it approaches a crest between two attractors (<a href="http://www.early-warning-signals.org/theory/why-should-we-expect-early-warning/">critical slowing down</a>), or small but rapid changes as the system moves back and forth between the attractors (<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7429/full/nature11655.html">flickering</a>), we are a long way from being able to provide any alert in real time. In the meantime perhaps we should consider much simpler but more robust approaches to managing our interactions and impact. Precautionary principles should be paramount, in conjunction with the observation that it’s much easier to break complex systems than fix them.</p>
<p>More generally, unlike Sisyphus we can stop for a moment to consider just what are we struggling against and to what end. The seemingly never ending quest for more development, products, services – <a href="http://storyofstuff.org/">more stuff</a> – will further ratchet up and stress already brittle systems. Producing a critical transition to a more sustainable civilisation will require redirecting our efforts. <a href="http://globalatlas.irena.org/default.aspx">Renewable energy</a> and <a href="http://www.earth911.com/general/close-the-loop-primer/">closed loop recycling</a>, in the context of <a href="http://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/">new economic thinking</a> that puts planetary resources and justice at its centre, show us the way out of the landscape we have travelled, and in part created. </p>
<p>Such transformation won’t happen overnight and we may not be the ones to crest the hill. But as a result of our efforts right now, future generations may one day see the sun rise on a very different world. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Next time you have a bad day at work, consider Sisyphus. His annual appraisal by the ancient Greek gods was so bad (over the previous 12 months he demonstrated deceitfulness, greed, malice and homicide…
James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/25727
2014-04-17T11:47:11Z
2014-04-17T11:47:11Z
Archaeology adds another twist to Rome’s foundation story by ageing it 100 years
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46665/original/zp6z2r6p-1397724810.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What happens to Romulus and Remus?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wolfgang Zwanzger/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10763755/Rome-ages-200-years-as-archaeologists-discover-new-remains.html">It has been reported</a> that new archaeological finds have pushed back the age of Rome. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a wall built to channel water, which dates back to the ninth century BC. </p>
<p>Media attention has focused on the fact that the dating is significantly earlier than the traditional idea that Rome was founded on 21st April 753 BC by the twins Romulus and Remus. With Rome due to celebrate its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/13/archaelogists-find-rome-century-older-than-thought">2,767th birthday</a>, the timing makes for a particularly good story.</p>
<p>But where did the traditional date come from, and how did it get such authority that journalists still quote it? If the level of precision strikes you as suspicious, it should do, since 753 BC was fixed in the first century BC by the Roman scholar <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623569/Marcus-Terentius-Varro">Varro</a>, who compiled a timeline of Roman history to his own day. </p>
<p>But Varro wasn’t the first person to worry about when Rome was founded. The dating of Rome came about through the amalgamation of different traditions. First, there were stories about <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/509038/Romulus-and-Remus">Romulus and his successors</a>, the early kings of Rome. The twins Romulus and Remus were known as the children of the god Mars, abandoned at birth through the machinations of their wicked uncle Amulius. Miraculously suckled by a she-wolf, they were adopted by a shepherd, and grew up to take vengeance on their uncle and restore their father to the throne. This heroic story has a darker aftermath, since the twins quarrelled over the foundation of Rome. This culminated in Romulus killing Remus, casting a bloody shadow over the new city.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46666/original/w9jpf92j-1397724926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Forum ruins in Rome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Caluian/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>There were also Greek legends that the hero <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7113/Aeneas">Aeneas</a> escaped the fall of Troy and came to Italy, where his son or grandson founded Rome. Being part of the Trojan war story was attractive, since it linked Rome to the more famous world of Greek myth, and gave the Romans a personal stake in these stories. </p>
<p>But how could Romulus and Aeneas be connected? The foundation story that became canonical, first told by the historian <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/199711/Quintus-Fabius-Pictor">Fabius Pictor</a>, managed to square the circle. Aeneas was said to be the founder of the Roman race (the mixed offspring of the native Italians and the Trojans). The city founded by his son was not Rome but Alba Longa (a nearby settlement that did have strong connections with early Rome), and it was there that Romulus and Remus were born many generations later. They then went on to found Rome itself. Ancient writers differ on the exact date they give for this new foundation, but Varro’s 753 came to be the accepted version. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46667/original/ssd73pqb-1397725388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Aeneas’ Flight from Troy, Federico Barocci.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Other Roman authors are less interested in exact dating than in finding numerological patterns between the foundation of Rome and other important events. The early poet <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188565/Quintus-Ennius">Ennius</a> claims that there was a gap of 700 years between the foundation of Rome and its sack by the Gauls (387/6 BC), reflecting a traditional belief that civilisations fall after a 700 year span (a fate that Rome avoided).</p>
<p>And then the poet <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/629832/Virgil">Virgil</a> goes back earlier in time to form an attractive sequence around the number three: Aeneas ruled for three years, his son for thirty, and their successors for 300 before Rome was founded. In both cases, the important thing is not so much precision regarding the date, but symbolic patterns that create a sense of destiny.</p>
<p>As for 21 April, this was the festival of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/443601/Parilia">Pales</a>, the Italian goddess of shepherds. Since Romulus grew up as a shepherd, connecting him to this festival was appropriate, and it gave Rome a date to celebrate its birthday each year.</p>
<p>When we move from myth to archaeology, the situation is rather more complicated. There is evidence that the hills of Rome were inhabited as early as 1000 BC, but the process by which these villages developed into an urban settlement was gradual. </p>
<p>This raises the questions of how, and when, is a city “founded”? Should we say Rome was founded when the first bronze-age settlers formed a village in the area? Or was it only founded when it became an organised city-state? And when does a settlement become sophisticated enough to merit the title of a city? The concept of a “foundation” makes sense when a group travels to form a new colony elsewhere. This was a concept familiar to the ancients, since Greek settlers had founded new cities in south Italy and Sicily from the eighth century BC. But for an organic and native growth like Rome, it’s the wrong way of looking at things.</p>
<p>So why does the idea of dating and origins have such a hold? No doubt it’s got to do with our love of numbers and anniversaries. It’s fun for contemporary Romans to be able to celebrate their birthday next week, and even if the date isn’t historical, it has thousands of years of tradition associated with it. It also gives the archaeological finds far more popular appeal if the media present them as connected to this legendary date, even if it’s to “prove it wrong”. </p>
<p>And trying to link ourselves back to a bigger or more fantastical story is an old trick. The ancient Romans sought to integrate their own local stories into the more famous world of Greek myth, by finding ways to make Romulus and Aeneas part of the same story. In connecting the “factual” story of archaeological discoveries to the “legendary” story of Romulus, modern journalists are doing much the same thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Swift does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It has been reported that new archaeological finds have pushed back the age of Rome. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a wall built to channel water, which dates back to the ninth century…
Laura Swift, Lecturer in Classical Studies, The Open University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.