Titania is a Fairy Queen who appears as an important character in Shakespeare’s play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ written in the mid 1590’s. In the play she is the wife of the Fairy King Oberon and the two are fighting over a changeling child; because of the fight Titania is refusing her husband’s company and so he sets one of his servants out to make her fall in love with a foolish mortal as a punishment. Titania’s name connects to that of the goddess Diana, suggesting that Titania was meant to be an epithet for the well-known goddess. Diana is often associated by early modern writers with both fairies and witches so there is a certain logic to this idea. Titania’s name is not widely seen elsewhere in literature although it does appear in one magical text found in the British Museum.
Titania appears in a handful of works after Shakespeare, usually paired with Oberon or as a minor character; examples include a reference to her in Faust I and in an opera titled ‘Oberon, or the Elf King’s Oath’. Shakespeare’s Titania did not find widespread popularity in modern culture although she does either appear, or is referenced, in some video games and literature. Perhaps her most high profile modern appearance would be as the Summer Court Queen in the Dresden Files books, although she does also appear as the Queen of the Black Court in Dana Marie Bell’s ‘Grey Court’ series.
Loki the most complicated Norse character and the giantess Angrboda (“She who Brings Anguish”) had three notorious children. His first son was the Jormungandr the Midgard Serpent, the second daughter was Hel the Queen of Helheim, and the last one was Wolf Fenrir the God of Destruction.
Jormungandr
Jormungandr was also known as the Midgard Serpent. He was cast into the deep ocean by Odin the Allfather as a precaution against the Ragnarok. Deep under the ocean laid Jormungandr who quickly grew large enough to encircle the whole Midgard. Jormungandr held his own tail in his mouth. He was the sworn enemy of Thor. These two (Jormungandr and Thor) had encountered each other once before the days of Ragnarok.
As Ragnarok was looming large, Jormungandr raised from the ocean and accompanied Loki’s army to enter Asgard. This Midgard Serpent had his last battle with Thor and got killed by the blow from Mjölnir hammer. Thor, unfortunately, was slain by the venom of the dead Jormungandr.
Hel
The only daughter of Loki, Hel, was banished into the land of Helheim located deep under the root of Yggdrasil tree. There, Hel built up her own kingdom of the dead and presided over that place. She was the queen of the deceased and the land of Helheim. According to the myth, if one soul belonged to Hel, without her permission, that soul could not do anything but serve in the land of Helheim. No one could ever interfere with this practice, even Odin the Allfather.
Hel joined the army of the Jotun to battle against Aesir gods. She brought the dead alongside.
Fenrir
Hardly could any villain in Norse myth rival the reputation of Wolf Fenrir. Fenrir was the worst nightmare to the Norse gods because Fenrir was predicted to swallow Odin in Ragnarok. As the gods scared that this scenario would come into being, they decided to raise the wolf by themselves. When the wolf grew up at an incredible speed, they bound Fenrir with a magical fetter. Fenrir then was sent to a middle-of-no-where place until he broke free on the threshold of Ragnarok.
In Ragnarok, Fenrir and his father, Loki, led the giant army to fight against the gods. Fenrir opened his enormous mouth with his jaw stretching from heaven to earth and swallowing anything that hindered him. When battling with Odin, Fenrir gained the upper hand and swallowed the god, proving the prophecy to be true.
Other Children of Loki
Sleipnir – Sleipnir was the result of one-night chase between Loki and a stallion Svadilfari. This happened when Loki wanted to prevent Svadilfari from finishing building Asgard Wall. Loki in disguise as a mare seduced Svadilfari to distract the stallion from finishing its task. As a result, a little horse was brought to life. Sleipnir was his name. And in fact, Loki was the mother of Sleipnir horse. Yes, Loki was the mother! Sleipnir horse then was given to Odin the Allfather by Loki. Sleipnir was a true treasure as he could travel not only on land but also over the sea and through the air. Odin rode Sleipnir into the battle of Ragnarok where he met Wolf Fenrir.
Nari and Vali – these two children of Loki had little material about them. The most well-known tale about these two was in the Punishment of Loki. The ironic story told that Vali in the form of a wolf killed his brother Nari. The gods used the entrails of Nari to bind Loki to the rocks as Loki’s most severe punishment for causing trouble to the gods.
“Daniel Dennett, in Freedom Evolves, writes that it makes no difference whether our moral impulses are evolved or learned. “[T]he theory that explains morality … should be neutral with regard to whether our moral attitudes, habits, preferences, and proclivities are a product of genes or cultures.” I think this is true because culture itself is ultimately a product of evolution. Whether you think “instinct” is purely biological or a learned habit, or a combination of the two, it comes down to the same goal: the minimization of harm to biological organisms.” ~ Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose, pg 66
“The rise and fall of religious beliefs is difficult to predict with assurance. It’s doubtful whether many Romans in the early second century would have predicted the rise of Christianity, whether many Europeans in the early sixteenth century would have predicted the Reformation and the subsequent rejection of Catholicism by much of the continent, whether many Americans in the early twentieth century would have foreseen the simultaneous decline of mainstream Protestant denominations and the rise of Protestant fundamentalism, or whether many in the West anticipated the recent spike in atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers. Perhaps over the next one hundred years, some faith will sweep aside other beliefs; perhaps religious beliefs, in general, will decline precipitously and all but disappear. Either outcome is possible.
However, a much more likely outcome is a significant increase in the number of nonbelievers, accompanied by a decrease, but not a collapse, in the number of believers. This increase could come fairly quickly if nonbelievers reach a critical mass, which would allow for greater acceptance and the sense among many nominal believers that it’s no longer socially injurious to acknowledge that one is an atheist or agnostic. The big break in the United States will come if and when a number of politicians who are open atheists and nominal believers to come out of the closet. But even if there is an exponential increase in the number of nonbelievers, it’s improbable that religion will be completely abandoned. Religious belief is resilient. Some debate whether religious belief has a genetic basis, but regardless of whether it has a biological foundation, it’s undeniable it has deep cultural and psychological roots. Beliefs that have had a firm grip on the human psyche for millennia are unlikely to vanish in a century.” ~ Ron Lindsay, (The Necessity of Secularism, pgs 15-16)
The seelie and unseelie courts of Scottish fairies are a particular feature of the folklore of that country; the clear separation of the faes into good and bad groupings that’s entailed is almost unique in folklore. Moreover, the notion of the two courts has, in recent years, attracted considerable attention and popularity- notwithstanding the fact that they are not mentioned in the majority of the Scottish faery-lore texts and collections. Probably the majority of recorded Scottish folklore relates to the Highlands and Islands, the Gaelic (and Norse) speaking regions, which may explain why we have relatively little material documenting the two courts.
The Scots word ‘seelie’ derives from the Anglo-Saxon (ge)sælig/ sællic meaning ‘happy’ or ‘prosperous.’ The evolution of the word in Middle English and Scots seems to have been in two directions. One sense was ‘pious,’ ‘worthy,’ ‘auspicious’ or ‘blessed.’ The second development extended the meaning incrementally through ‘lucky,’ ‘cheerful,’ ‘innocent,’ and ‘simple,’ from whence it was a short final step to ‘simple-minded,’ as the modern English ‘silly’ denotes. Because of this evolution, as well as because of the dialectical differences between English and Scots, it is preferable to use ‘seelie’ rather than to try to translate it. In passing, we might observe that Scots is in many cases far nearer to original Anglo-Saxon than modern English, which has imported so many French and Latin words.
By late medieval and early modern times, ‘seelie’ or ‘seely’ in Scots meant happy or peaceable, as in ‘seely wights,’ and the ‘seely court,’ which was the ‘happy or pleasant court.’ It followed from this that ‘unseelie’ or ‘unsilly’ described something that was unhappy or wretched. The poet Dunbar referred to Satan’s “unsall meyne” (his “wretched troop of followers”), a phrase which could be a very appropriate term for the fairies.
The Scots word with a variety of spellings, particularly sely, and meanings including “lucky, happy, blessed”; the adjective is applied euphemistically to fairies in Scotland. This term is used in relation to the Scottish fairies, calling them both ‘Seelie court’ and ‘gude wichts’. Court in this sense meaning a group or company, and wichts meaning beings. Seelie fairies are those who are benevolently inclined towards humans and likely to help around homes and farms. It should be remembered though that they are as able and likely to cause harm as any fairy. The use of the term Seelie in relation to fairies dates back to at least the 15th century in Scotland and can be found in a book from 1801; in the ‘Legend of the Bishop of St Androis’ it says:
Before turning their thoughts to the intriguing legends associated with these ruins, any person who strays off the marked footpaths and loses his or her footing on the edge of the precipices that drop away on every side of this aptly nicknamed “citadel in the sky.” And let us not forget that early in 1244 it was a feat of rock climbing that sealed the fate of the Cathars when they were besieged here by the army of King Louis IX. After seven months, during which traditional military strategies had brought nothing but failure, Hugues des Arcis, the commander of the forces encamped at the foot of this eagle’s nest, finally decided to send a small group of particularly agile soldiers up the cliff face. Under cover of darkness, this detachment reached the summit, captured a watchtower, and installed a trebuchet, with which it proceeded to bombard the interior of the castle without respite, making life impossible for the besieged, who were forced to surrender after a few weeks.
The fate of this community, the last bastion of the Cathar faith in France, is well known. One Sunday in March 1244, the day of the equinox, the believers—more than two hundred men and women—were led down to a pyre that had been set up at the foot of the hill, steadfastly refusing to renounce their faith. What else could they do, these pacifists who had taken a vow to show courage in the face of suffering and death? The name Cathar—from the Greek katharos, meaning “pure”—was given them by their contemporaries on account of their asceticism and refusal to compromise in any way. For the same reason, those who had undergone the rite of ordination called the consolamentum were known as perfecti, although among one another they preferred the terms “good man” and “good woman.” The band of sympathizers protecting the pacifist Cathars were allowed to go free provided they pledged to stop supporting heresy and swore allegiance to the king of France.
The Château de Montségur that stands today is not the same fortress that existed at the time of these dreadful events. Historians, archeologists, and local storytellers cannot agree on all the details. For example, was the Cathars’ place of martyrdom the prats dels cremats (“field of the burned”), as indicated today by a stele, or was it a neighboring hill? At this magnificent site, so many questions remain unanswered. There’s the legendary Cathar treasure, said to have been held in safekeeping at Montségur before being smuggled out to an unknown destination. And then there are the four men deputed by the community to slip away under the utmost secrecy prior to the ultimate surrender, carrying with them who knows what. Items of treasure? Precious documents? Mysterious keys enabling the Cathar tradition to be revived elsewhere? At Montségur nothing seems impossible. In the last century a team of German researchers came, with the blessing of the Nazi regime, to investigate, convinced that the castle housed the Holy Grail, the famous cup believed to have been used to catch Christ’s blood.
What should we make of the site’s architecture, of the spectacular alignment of the sun’s rays at solstice time, as if its architects had wanted the castle to function as a kind of astronomical calendar? And doesn’t its floor plan reflect the constellation of Boötes, with the donjon representing the star Arcturus? Is it also mere chance that “Cant del Boièr” (Song of the Herdsman) remains one of the most popular folk songs in the Occitanian canon, with some people reading into its words a coded message addressed to future generations?
“After seven hundred years the bay tree will flower again”—and with it, no doubt, the Cathar faith. Thus were the words of the troubadour in the Occitania of old. Or was it the last of the perfecti to be burned at the stake? Or even a poet born generations later? Basically, nobody knows. It is even possible that the bay tree could be an olive tree, and that the date is regularly adjusted so that it never loses its relevance. No matter. The legend remains perplexing enough for visitors to be drawn in by its verses while contemplating the ruins of what the inquisitors called “Satan’s synagogue” – but never quite managed to utterly destroy.
In Greek mythology, Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus by his own mother, Jocasta, and the sister of Eteocles, Polyneices, and Ismene. When her father went into exile she accompanied the blind man as his guide.
Two versions exist of Antigone’s fate after she defied King Creon. In the first, the subject of the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, Creon ordered that she be immured as a punishment, but rather than face burial while alive she hanged herself; Haemon, the son of Creon to whom she was betrothed, committed suicide alongside her. In the second version, Creon turned Antigone over to Haemon for punishment, but he smuggled her away, and she later bore him a son. When Creon refused to forgive them, Haemon killed both himself and Antigone.
Joe Biden has officially termed the mass killings and death marches of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which occurred in 1915 and 1916, as a “genocide.” Historians estimate that a million or more Armenians died during this atrocity. There is simply no longer any doubt that this took place, though Turkey has denied it for a century and even at the time took steps to hide the murders. Biden’s gesture is an admirable stand for human rights, and of course endangers the U.S. relationship with our NATO ally Turkey. But Turkey’s odious President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is ruining his great country with his religiously-based autocracy, deserves no coddling. He’s declared that Biden has neither the historical nor moral authority.
Above is a photo labeled “The corpses of Armenians beside a road, a common sight along deportation route.”
Nidhogg (Norse Níðhöggr) is a ferocious dragon who gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree which supports the nine worlds of Norse mythology. This power-hungry monster is sometimes referred to as “the Malice Striker,” an appropriate name given that he rules over dark criminals and is bent on destroying peace and virtue.
Nidhogg is a tremendous dragon. His body is covered in bright scales, and horns erupt from his head. A pair of forelegs, complete with massive claws, help him to rip at the roots of Yggdrasil, but he has no back legs, only a serpentine tail. Beneath his bat-like wings, he carries the corpses of criminals.
His mammoth body can be found twisting through the roots of Yggdrasil, especially around Niflheimr, the cold world from which all the rivers of Midgard spring. Occasionally, he might slither into Hel to visit the dark goddess who some people consider his master.
Balance is extremely important in Norse mythology, and while Nidhogg does represent a ghastly force, he is still important to supporting the balance of Yggdrasil. A great eagle, who represents wisdom and virtue, perches in the uppermost branches of the tree, while Nidhogg, representing chaos and evil, lurks in its roots. The constant tension between the eagle and the dragon is fueled by Ratatoskr, a squirrel who runs up and down the tree ferrying insults between the two enemies. This tension may seem undesirable, but it actually promotes a cycle of growth in the tree of life. After the eagle and the dragon spend the day destroying Yggdrasil in their frenzy to attack each other, the tree is bathed in water from the wells of Urd, which promotes healing and new growth.
In addition to bringing balance to Yggdrasil, the monster also figures in the punishment of criminals. He rules over the dark shores of Nadastrond, to which the corpses of murderers, adulterers, and oath-breakers are banished. A terrifying hall, with walls woven from serpents and a ceiling that drips venom, waits for these criminals, and inside the hall, the dragon chews on their bodies.
Finally, the dreaded dragon has a role to play in Ragnarok, the day when the giants will attack the gods and destroy most of their world. Ragnarok will begin when the dragon finally manages to chew through the roots of Yggdrasil, causing the tree to yellow and the worlds it supports to plunge into a three-year winter. At the end of this frigid and chaotic period, he will fly up from the underworld, carrying dead criminals and leading the giants on an attack against the gods. Ultimately, the he will survive this battle and become the force of evil which balances good in the post-Ragnarok world.
A Fairy Path or Fairy Road is the route by which the fairies regularly travel between any two locations. These paths can be found in many places and are invisible to anyone without the Second Sight, unless they happen to catch the Fairy folk unaware. Fairy Paths are often said to stretch between known fairy hills or locations but may also be found in more obscure locations.
It is considered very bad luck to build on a fairy path and those who do so always suffer for it one way or another. In the most benign cases the building will suffer from disturbances, often at night, as the fairies pass through the building following their accustomed route. As one source says:
When the house happens to have been built in a fairy track, the doors on the front and back, or the windows if they are in the line of the track, cannot be kept closed at night, for the fairies must march through.
In other instances attempts at building would be destroyed as soon as they were begun by being knocked down and a noted method of testing for a fairy path by those who “could not see them was to put up posts where the building was meant to go and see if they remained standing the next day. In extreme cases the person attempting to build might be killed or suffer extreme misfortune.
The Welsh Tylwyth Teg (“Fair Family”) have fairy paths as the Irish and Scottish fairies do, although their reputation is more dangerous. As one anecdotal source says:
“…the Tylwyth Teg have paths (precisely like those reserved for the Irish good people or for the Breton dead), and that it is death to a mortal while walking in one of these paths to meet the Tylwyth Teg.”
The fairies were known to move their homes at certain times of year, notably on the quarter days, and when they did so they would travel along these fairy paths to get from one hill to another. At any time of year, however, a Fairy Path could be perilous.
Mark Bere Peterson’s Counterculture, Urban Legends, Paganism & Witchcraft 