Top Tens – TV: Top 10 TV Series (3) Spartacus

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(3) SPARTACUS (2010-2013)

 

THIS…IS…SPARTACUS!

That’s not an actual quote, but I couldn’t resist evoking the film 300, obviously a major influence on it. Spartacus – my other Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones, except with even more oiled loins.

A very graphic, very violent, very sweary and very sexually explicit series produced by Sam Raimi (of Evil Dead fame, as well as Hercules and Xena – Lucy Lawless herself appears in it) – so something for everyone, although it takes a couple of episodes to grow into itself (with the first episode in particular appearing as a cheesy knock-off from 300).

And the mother of all lines, especially memorable when your own mother quotes it back at you after you introduced the series to her – “neither coin nor c***” (with the latter four-letter c-word being what you’d expect). It sure stuck in my mind after that. Thanks, Mum! In fairness, she loved the series, although she quoted that back to me as one of the more eyebrow-raising lines of the series. (Her comparison of manipulative hot slice of crazy Ilithyia to my ex-wife also stuck in my mind).

Obviously the series adapts the story of the historical gladiator-turned-rebel leader Spartacus, “but drenched in an over-the-top aesthetic lifted directly from 300” – each episode is chock full of slow-motion fight scenes, in-your-face blood spatters and explicit sex.

Are you not entertained?

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars (2) Anglo-German War

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Battle of Britain map – public domain image (Wikipedia – “Battle of Britain”)

 

 

(2) ANGLO-GERMAN WAR

(1 SEPTEMBER 1939 – 8 MAY 1945)

 

This is the big one – the war everyone thinks or talks about for the Second World War, mostly because of the predominance of Anglophone history and popular culture

The war that started with the German invasion of Poland and Britain’s declaration of war on Germany to honor its guarantee to Poland, with a familiar narrative after that – Dunkirk and the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the war in the Mediterranean and Battle of El Alamein, and ultimately landings in north Africa, Italy, and France.

And yes – the Anglo-German war between Britain and Germany became what would more accurately be described as an Anglo-American war with Germany.

Even for the latter, however, the term Anglo-German war is apt as the Anglo prefix is as applicable to the United States as to Britain, whether in Anglophonic or Anglospheric terms (or both). Indeed, Hitler saw Germany’s ultimate contest for world power against the United States and its economic predominance – which he sought to offset by a Europe united under Germany and particularly by a German empire over the resources of the Soviet Union, with Russia in a similar role to Germany as India in the British Empire (at least as argued by historians such as Adam Tooze).

For that matter, that Anglo prefix is as applicable to the Dominions that were major combatants within the British Commonwealth – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even South Africa.

However, one should not overlook that for a year of the Second World War, from June 1940 to June 1941, the Second World War was almost entirely an Anglo-German war, with Britain as the only major combatant opposed to Germany, albeit with its Dominions and the Commonwealth.

That was a war very different from what might be characterized as the Franco-German war in the First World War – where France held the line on the Western Front and consequently remained the primary or supreme Allied combatant on land. Of course, Britain and France had the same hope for the Second World War, but the Franco-German component of the war effectively ended with the fall of France, with the primary contest no longer between French and German armies as in the First World War.

Instead, Britain found itself engaged in a war in which it relied predominantly on sea power and airpower against a German army which had won predominance in continental Europe. Of course, Britain had traditionally relied on sea power, as it did in both world wars – adding airpower in the Second World War – and sought to rely on allies with larger forces on land to bring to bear against its opponents.

On the one hand, Germany lacked the sea power and airpower to be able to defeat Britain. It might be observed that all of its major opponents in the Second World War, Germany was only able to defeat France – Britain had too much sea power and airpower, the Soviet Union was too big, and the United States combined the worst of both those worlds along with oceanic distance.

On the other hand, Britain could not defeat or even challenge German predominance on land, even with those allies briefly conjured up on the continent, Greece and Yugoslavia.

As H.P. Willmott noted in The Great Crusade:

“At no point could she challenge Germany’s control of western Europe. Never in British history, not even at the height of British naval supremacy, had British sea power been able to challenge, let alone defeat, a great continental power, and by 1940 the superiority of overland communication meant that German military forces could be moved in greater numbers and more quickly that any British force that attempted to establish itself on the mainland. In addition, the reality of the situation was that British naval power in 1940 was barely able to ensure Britain against defeat by the strangulation of her trade”.

In a sense, this was the war that both Britain and Germany had anticipated in the contest between them, both politically before the war and in the war itself – in which Britain stood as the guardian of the world order and of its world empire or power, secured by victory in the First World War, which Germany sought to challenge.

In The Winds of War, American author Herman Wouk has his German military analyst von Roon evocatively label the war as the War of British Succession – Germany’s bid for world empire to succeed Britain’s falling one – although even von Roon ruefully notes that all it (and the Soviet war effort) achieved was to see one Anglo-Saxon world empire replaced by another.

In that, it was arguably already too late – with the contest between Britain and Germany just shadowboxing over an illusion of world power that had already been eclipsed by the two true world powers, and which would only endure until those two powers ended their isolationism (or had it ended for them) to step into the conflict.

Britain’s strategic hope ultimately relied on the substitution of another power for France as ally with large forces on land to bring to bear against Germany. That hope was understandably focused on the United States but ultimately Britain saw not only one but two powers in that role, eclipsing Britain itself in the war and in the world – firstly the Soviet Union on the eastern front and secondly the United States on the western front.

However, even then it took some time for the United States to eclipse Britain in its army and air force in the European theater – the former in terms of American divisions engaged in combat shortly after the Normandy landings – although the British navy remained predominant in the Atlantic.

Speaking of scale, while even the Anglo-American war against Germany remained secondary to the Nazi-Soviet by a substantial margin, at least on land, it was still of an impressive magnitude – with the invasion of Normandy remaining as the largest seaborne invasion in history.

And speaking of the Normandy invasion, the Anglo-American landings throughout the war remain impressive, not least as that superiority of overland communications for Germany remained a factor to be overcome throughout the war. It is impressive that the Anglo-American alliance pulled off successful major landings not just once but three times – not counting the various minor landings on or about the same time – in north Africa in 1942, in Italy in 1943 (both Sicily and the mainland), and most of all in France in 1944, with the Normandy landings a military feat unequalled then or since.

Once again, while not so much a war in its own right as the previous entry – at least after 1941 given it overlapped with (and relied) on the Nazi-Soviet war to engage the majority of the German army – it is a war that can be a subject all of itself, or indeed many subjects, including that or those of its own top ten list or lists.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 TV Series (4) Fargo

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(4) FARGO (2014 – 2024)

 

What can I say? Given how highly I rank the Coen brothers – Joel and Ethan Coen – in my top 10 Films, it was only to be expected that I would rank this TV series based on their film of the same name highly. Although the Coen brothers only take the role of executive producers, the creator and primary writer is Legion’s Noah Hawley, who seamlessly adapts their cinematic style to the TV screen – so much so that it is essentially Coen Brothers The Series. It’s an anthology series, with each season as self-contained storyline and new set of characters at different points of time in the wider Fargo-verse in Minnesota and the Dakotas, although each season “retains similar themes and tropes that ultimately keep them connected” (and just enough trademark Coen fantasy or surreal elements)

The first season remains my favorite as it follows insurance salesman Lester Nygaard – played by Martin Freeman in a distinct turn from his more characteristic nice-guy roles – descent into his heart of darkness after shady ‘fixer’ Lorne Malvo – played by Billy Bob Thornton with more than a hint of the actual devil about him (not to mention No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh) – influences him to stop absorbing the disappointment of his mundane life and start lashing out against those who belittle him. (And how!)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars (1) Nazi-Soviet War

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German advances during the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa from 22 June 1941 to 25 August 1941 – public domain image map by the History Department of the US Military Academy

 

 

(1) NAZI-SOVIET WAR / GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

(22 JUNE 1941 – 8 MAY 1945)

 

Wait – what?

Wasn’t the Nazi-Soviet War – called the Great Patriotic War by the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia – essentially just the Second World War, as in the central or primary theater of military conflict of the war? The First Front, as Winston Churchill readily admitted in his history of the war?

Yes – and that’s my point. The Nazi-Soviet War might well be viewed as THE Second World War – with all the other conflicts in the Second World War overlapping or as prelude or aftermath to the war between Germany and the Soviet Union.

And it is a war that can effectively be considered or studied in isolation from other theaters or conflicts, as a subject all of itself. Or indeed, many subjects, including as subject or subjects of its own top ten lists – notably battles, but arguably even of a top ten wars list or continuity iceberg like this.

It was fought, on land and in air, between the armed forces of the Soviet Union and those of Germany with its European allies – the latter often overlooked, albeit Germany remains of primary importance – with little overlap, at least in terms of military forces, with the other conflicts or theaters elsewhere. Yes – there were also naval forces involved but they were peripheral to the scale of conflict on land and in air.

The primary overlap – in terms of military forces was of course the increasing drain of military commitments imposed by the Western allies on Germany or its European allies in other fronts – albeit for Germany’s European allies that included their increasingly desperate search to desert their alliance with Germany for exit strategies from the war.

However, those commitments remained secondary, even arguably a sideshow, to Germany’s primary conflict on its Eastern Front. Sometimes I quip that the Second World War was, for the Western allies, a timely Anglo-American intervention in a Nazi-Soviet War. Timely that is, for the fate of western Europe and Germany itself, that might otherwise have seen more extensive Soviet occupation and one or two irradiated cities – as at the time of the Normandy invasion, the Soviet Union was quite capable of defeating Germany on its own.

Note that I am speaking in terms of military forces. The Western allies did of course also provide extensive economic support to the Soviet armed forces but I’m speaking strictly in terms of armed forces in actual fighting – as per Stalin, “how many divisions has he got?”. However, it is a pet peeve of mine when people attribute the survival of the Soviet Union in 1941 or even 1942 to Allied economic support or Lend-Lease. Such things are difficult to quantify and Allied economic support certainly aided Soviet victories from 1943 onwards – but is far less clear for the successful Soviet defense of itself in 1941 or 1942 as the large majority of Lend-Lease was from 1943 onwards.

There is also its sheer scale of combatants and casualties – still the largest invasion and land war in history.

In terms of scale of combat, the Soviet Union mobilized over 34 million men and women for its armed forces – almost twice as many as the next largest combatant, Germany (as well as more than twice as many than either the United States or China.

Indeed, the Soviet Union represented more than a quarter of men or women mobilized in the entire war (over 127 million). And when one considers that the large majority of men mobilized by Germany (about 18 million) were for its war with the Soviet Union, as it was for its European allies, then easily over a third of all men and women mobilized for armed forces in the Second World War were or in for the Nazi-Soviet War.

Not to mention the scale of casualties – the Soviet Union had almost 27 million people killed, at least a third of the highest estimates for 80 million people killed in the whole war. When you consider once again the large majority of those killed for Germany and its European allies were in the Nazi-Soviet War, then you’d be getting close to half all casualties in the entire war – particularly if one were to include casualties for Poland (and I think there’s a strong argument for that).

There’s also the sheer scale of impact – which can be simply stated that on any account of it, the Nazi-Soviet war was the decisive conflict within the Second World War. It’s instructive to recall the ideologies underlying this impact – and perhaps a bit humbling to reflect how much the victory of liberal democracy in the twentieth century depending on the contigency of the casualties communism could sustain fighting fascism (as well as the concentration of economic power in the United States).

And then there’s the narrative of the Nazi-Soviet war, reasonably well known in broad outline albeit somewhat distorted or obscured in historiography until recently.

The broad outline essentially follows each year of the war. The first year of war – from 22 June 1941 to June 1942 essentially follows the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa – and its defeat in its advance on Moscow.

The second year of war – from June 1942 to June the following year – essentially follows the German campaign in Case Blue against Stalingrad and the Caucasus Mountains – and its defeat.

The first two years of the Nazi-Soviet War often seem to present something of a paradox, as observed by H.P. Willmott:

“From today’s perspective, it seems incredible that Germany could have conquered so much of the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942 and that on two separate occasions could have brought her to within measurable distance of defeat. Hindsight provides the element of inevitability that suggests German defeat in his campaign was assured because the first time, Hitler raised the scale of conflict to levels that Germany could not sustain…and herein lies a paradox: before the campaign began there would seem to have been no means whereby Germany could prevail, yet once the campaign started it would seem impossible for her to lose”.

That paradox is resolved by a closer study of the war, but a large part of it is that the Soviet Union fought back from the outset, if not always well then certainly hard – imposing costs in casualties and time which Germany and its allies ultimately could not pay.

Something of this can be observed in the diminishing returns of Germany’s successive campaigns – that whereas the German campaign in 1941 was on all three parts of the front (north, central, and south – albeit shuffling between them as it went), the German campaign in 1942 was only on one part of the front, in the south.

Those returns diminished further with the German campaign that commenced the third year of the war – Operation Citadel against Kursk – where the German campaign was not only on one part of the front, the centre, but a smaller part even of that. And for the first time, the German campaign was defeated in the summer when it was launched.

Thereafter, the Germans were on the defensive or outright retreat from the relentless Soviet advances, albeit slowly in that third year. While it was the Soviet army that had originated (prior to the war) the true ‘blitzkrieg’ of the war – the concept of the ‘deep battle’ or ‘deep space battle’, a strategy aimed at destroying enemy command and control centers as well as lines of communication – it lacked the means to employ this strategy fully until the fourth year of war, when it had sufficient elite or experienced armored and mechanized formations as well as the logistics and mobility to support them.

And oh boy, it showed with the Soviet campaign that opened the fourth and final year of war – Operation Bagration, named for a Russian general in the Napoleonic Wars, on the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June. The Red Army took one of Nazi Germany’s three army groups on the Eastern Front, Army Group Center in Belorussia and Poland, completely by surprise – effectively destroying it, while exposing Army Group North to siege in the Baltic states and Army Group South to attack in the Balkans.

Operation Bagration well deserves to be compared as equal to the success of Operation Barbarossa for Nazi Germany, but without the same sting of ultimate defeat as the latter – although at least one subsequent Soviet campaign was arguably even better.

Indeed, by 1945, it is possible to argue, as Willmott does, the complete transposition of the German and Soviet armies in terms of military proficiency. By 1945, “the operational and technical quality of the Soviet army was at least the equal of the Wehrmacht at its peak” (with the Soviet Vistula-Oder offensive in January 1945 “perhaps the peak of Soviet military achievement in the course of the European war”).

On the other hand, “the German army of 1944-45, for all its reputation, had the characteristics so meticulously catalogued when displayed by the Soviet army in 1941: erratic and inconsistent direction, a high command packed with place-men and stripped of operational talent, the dead hand of blind obedience imposed by political commissars upon an officer corps despised and distrusted by its political master, failure at every level of command and operations”.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 TV Series (5) Barry

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(5) BARRY (2018-2023)

 

Its unprepossessing title belies just how much this series rocks as dark comedy and drama, named for its protagonist, a Marine sniper veteran from the war in Afghanistan turned hitman now seeking to take a much more bizarre turn into something completely different…acting. That happens after he stumbles into a theatric acting class of laughably bad amateur actors while stalking his latest hit in Los Angeles, a fitness instructor having an affair with a Chechen mafia kingpin.

Unfortunately for Barry, he’s a good hitman – with a stone-cold combat-honed talent – but not so good an actor. Even worse, his career as a hitman is not so easy to quit – or in the words of the third Godfather film, “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” – as it constantly throws out its tentacles to ensnare his best efforts to escape it. Not least by his former associates – his slimy “agent” Monroe Fuches (masterfully played by Stephen Root) – and by his former client (and fanboy), Chechen mafia lieutenant NoHo Hank (hilariously played by Anthony Harrigan).

Bill Hader absolutely, dare I say it, kills it with his performance as the titular protagonist – showing his dramatic chops as well as his comic roots, particularly in the penultimate episode of the first season which won him an Emmy, as he showcased all his character’s emotional turmoil as Barry delivers a single line in his bit part in Macbeth with breathtaking intensity.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars

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Screenshot of collage of images used as feature image for Wikipedia “World War II” – some public domain (top right, middle left, bottom left and right) and others (top left and middle right) licensed from German archive footage under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en

 

TOP 10 SECOND WORLD WARS

 

One of my favorite quips is that the Second World War is the American Iliad while the Cold War is the American Odyssey.

As usual, I’m joking and serious – but seriously, I’d go even further in that the Second World War is the modern Iliad, the modern historical epic of war.

And as such, I thought I’d compile my Top Second World Wars

Wait – what? Top 10 Second World…Wars? Plural?!

No – I’m not missing another noun there, such as Top 10 Second World War Battles, Top 10 Second World War Theaters, or Top 10 Second World War Campaigns. Those are subjects for their own top ten lists, indeed quite extensive ones, along with other Second World War subjects, albeit there is some overlap between theaters or campaigns and the present subject.

No – this isn’t some rhetorical sleight of hand, where I define some other previous conflicts as the first and second world war respectively. Again, the subject of conflicts that might be categorized as world wars – including but beyond the two world wars labelled as such – is surprisingly extensive, deserving of its own top ten.

So…what then? Wasn’t there only the one Second World War?

Well, yes – except perhaps when there wasn’t.

My tongue is (mostly) in my cheek – it’s one of my top ten lists where I look at a subject which has a fundamental continuity… but which also can be demarcated into distinct parts in their own right. If you prefer, you can think of it as my Second World War iceberg meme – in this case an iceberg of Second World War continuity. Hence, I won’t be doing my usual top ten countdown but just counting them out.

I can illustrate my point by posing a simple question – when did the Second World War start?

A simple question with what seems a straightforward answer – 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.

But is it so straightforward? Well, perhaps for the fundamental continuity of the war waged by and against Germany, but that is to focus on Europe rather than Asia. If one shifts to a historical focus on the latter, one might well substitute 7 July 1937, with Japan launching its full-scale war on China. Even then, one could look back to the earlier Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931 – or for that matter, even in Europe, to the background to the German invasion of Poland.

And that is my point. While wars may have a fundamental continuity that leads to them being described as a single whole in history with definitive starting or ending dates, they may also consist of – or evolve from or into – overlapping conflicts, particularly when they have a sufficient span or scale. Perhaps none more so than considering the largest war in history, at least in absolute terms, fought on a global scale for six years – the Second World War.

What is my baseline of the Second World War – or surface of the Second World War continuity iceberg? I define it according to the conventional historical frame and timeline of the Second World War – the war against Germany and its allies, subsequent to its invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, outlasting the surrender of Germany itself for a few months against Germany’s last ally standing, Japan, until the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945.

So that said, these are my Top 10 Second World…Wars.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention: Subject)

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Free ‘divine gallery’ sample art from OldWorldGods

 

 

I live in a mythic world.

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

And in both cases, I also have special mentions.

 

That’s right – I don’t just have a top ten mythology books, or my usual twenty special mentions. I have further special mentions by subject – essentially the mythologies or mythological subjects in my top ten mythologies or special mentions. Alternatively, you can look at it as my list of books for further – or classic – reading indexed by mythology or mythological subject.

My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, if the subject is prolific enough. Here, ironically, it was so prolific I had to condense it to only twenty special mentions, given that I had my top ten mythologies and their twenty special mentions with which to work. Of course, as I usually observe, that would make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way – or top fifty here as I have two sets of twenty special mentions, one by book and one by subject.

 

Just to remind you, these were my Top 10 Mythology Books (as at 2025):

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS TIER?)

(1) BIBLE

(2) HOMER – ILIAD & ODYSSEY

(3) BARBARA WALKER – ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(4) KATHERINE BRIGGS – DICTIONARY OF FAIRIES

(5) PETER DICKINSON – THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS

(6) PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS

(7) WESTON LA BARRE – THE GHOST DANCE

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

(8) RONALD HUTTON – THE TRIUMPH OF THE MOON

(9) NATALIE HAYNES – DIVINE MIGHT: GODDESSES IN GREEK MYTH

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER – BEST MYTHOLOGY BOOK OF 2024)

(10) NATALIE LAWRENCE – ENCHANTED CREATURES: OUR MONSTERS & THEIR MEANINGS

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention – Complete & Revised 2025)

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Free “divine gallery” art sample from OldWorldGods

 

 

I live in a mythic world – and I have special mentions!

 

That’s right – I don’t just have a top ten mythology books, I have a whole host of special mentions. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way. My special mentions are also where I can have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.

 

 

0 The Fool – Rider-Waite Tarot (A.E.Waite & Pamela Colman Smith as artist)

 

 

(1) TAROT – RIDER-WAITE & CROWLEY THOTH

 

The Tarot earns the top special mention in my Top 10 Mythology Books for the decks of cards, particularly the two iconic and definitive modern decks – special that is, because they are not books as such but decks of cards.

Of course, there are a plethora of modern Tarot decks, most of which originate from those two definitive modern decks (named for their creators) which were themselves substantial reconstructions from earlier tarot decks, pumping up their esoteric mystique – the Rider-Waite deck and the Crowley-Thoth deck, my Old Testament and New Testament of Tarot respectively. (And like Martin Prince in The Simpsons dismissively handwaving away Ray Bradbury from his ABC of science fiction with “I’m aware of his work”, I’m aware of the third most common modern Tarot deck – the Marseilles Tarot).

Interestingly, both these two definitive decks were by female artists, Pamela Colman Smith for the Rider-Waite deck and Lady Frieda Harris. My personal preference is for the artwork and themes of the Crowley-Thoth deck (even if Crowley himself was one generally weird dude and sick puppy), albeit still shaped by the influence of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

Netherlandish Proverbs – painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder 1559

 

(2) FOLKLORE INDEX

 

Well, Folklore Indices to be precise – two of them, usually used in tandem, the Thompson Motif-Index of Folklore, and the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index of folklore tale types.

Both are regarded as standard tools of folklore studies – and are endlessly fascinating to browse even for those outside folklore studies with a general interest in mythology or culture.

As its title indicates, the Thompson Motif-Index was compiled by American folklorist Stith Thompson (at the substantial length of 6 volumes) as a catalogue or index of motifs – the granular elements of folklore or folktales.

As Thompson himself defined it, “a motif is the smallest element in a tale having a power to persist in tradition. In order to have this power it must have something unusual and striking about it”.

Although in compiling the index, Thompson used a broader-brush approach to motifs as anything that goes to make up a traditional narrative.

Obviously a full summary even of the categories of the Thompson Index would be too exhaustive, let alone the thousands of motifs themselves, but the categories are organized by broader themes denoted by letters from A (Mythological Motifs) to Z (Miscellaneous Groups of Motifs).

This includes animals, taboos, magic, the dead (including ghosts and vampires), marvels, ogres (and monstrous figures in general), tests, deceptions, reversals of fortune, ordaining the future, chance and fate, society, rewards and punishment, captives and fugitives, unnatural cruelty, sex, the nature of life, religion, traits of character and humor.

And as its title indicates, the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (ATU or AT Index) also involved Thompson – but as originally compiled by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne and as further expanded and revised by German folklorist Hans-Jorg Uther, classifying tales by their type.

As defined by Thompson, “a type is a traditional tale that has an independent existence. It may be told as a complete narrative and does not depend for its meaning on any other tale. It may indeed happen to be told with another tale, but the fact that it may be told alone attests its independence. It may consist of only one motif or of many”.

The Index divides tales into sections with an AT number for each entry, which also have their own broad title and including closely related folk tales – for example, 545B “The Cat as Helper” includes folk tales with other animal helpers. Similar types are grouped together – “tale types 400–424 all feature brides or wives as the primary protagonist”.

To illustrate further, 510A is their Cinderella entry (including other versions and similar variations), itself a subcategory of 510 Persecuted Heroine, and noting other entries with which it is commonly combined.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

 

 

(3) THOMAS BULFINCH –

BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (1867)

 

I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses.

We’re going old school for this one, as in nineteenth century old school – named for its American author Thomas Bulfinch and published as a collection of three volumes after his death in 1867. Yet Bulfinch’s Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) – as indeed it was for me as my introduction as a child to the world of classical mythology. Well, technically that was the first volume – the Age of Fable – which also featured a briefer recitation of Nordic mythology, admittedly a close second to my love for classical mythology. (The second volume – The Age of Chivalry – featured Arthurian legend, while the third volume The Legends of Charlemagne is pretty much what it says on the tin).

Looking back to it now, it’s somewhat dated and has its flaws as a reference – particularly as his obituary noted, it was “expurgated of all that would be offensive”. Or in other words, half the fun of classical mythology or all the sex and violence. (Indeed, his Wikipedia entry includes an uncited reference that Bulfinch was an anti-homosexuality activist in his final years. If true, that would have made for some awkwardness when compiling classical mythology – those gods tended to swing all ways). Which is somewhat disappointing, because having learnt that Bulfinch was a merchant banker, I fondly imagined him as staid banker by day and Bacchanalian by night, similar to the hedonistic heathen imagined by Chesterton in The Song of the Strange Ascetic.

However, it remains one of the most accessible single-volume references to classical mythology for the general reader – as Bulfinch wrote in his preface:

“Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation.”

Anyway, its impact as an introduction to classical mythology remains profound – if, deep within my psyche, there is any mythology that tempts me to actual religion, it’s classical mythology.

Yes – it’s the nymphs.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER – OR IS THAT NYMPH-TIER?)

 

 

 

(4) BREWER’S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE (1870)

 

Another nineteenth century old school entry, indeed only a few years after Bulfinch’s Mythology and ranking with it as classic reference.

I’m somewhat disappointed that the Brewer of the title is not a reference to brewers of alcohol, somewhat similar to the Guiness Book of Records originating from pub arguments, but from Reverend Ebenezer Cobham Brewer.

However, like Roget’s Thesaurus, the reference book has moved on from him – including into the public domain in its 1895 edition – but continues to be published in new editions, effectively retaining Brewer as a brand name.

It contains “definitions and explanations of many famous phrases, allusions, and figures, whether historical or mythical…The ‘phrase’ part of the title refers mainly to the explanation of various idioms and proverbs, while the “fable” part might more accurately be labelled “folklore” and ranges from classical mythology to relatively recent literature”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Art by Simon Bisley for “Slaine: The Horned God” written by Pat Mills for the 2000 AD comic as one of my favorite adaptations of Frazer’s sacrificial sacred king in popular culture. Well, that and The Wicker Man (which also features in Slaine)

 

 

(5) SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER –

THE GOLDEN BOUGH (1890)

 

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?” –
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Behold the monomyth of the sacrificial sacred king.

That is – the monomyth of a recurring or universal mythic archetype, as used by Joseph Campbell for his archetypal hero’s journey. But it doesn’t get much more monomythic that one of the original monomyths – Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough.

The Golden Bough proposed the monomyth or recurring mythic archetype of sacrificial sacred kings – or their surrogates once the kings wised up to it – as incarnations of gods or solar deities whose death and resurrection in turn represented fertility. And believe me, Frazer saw these sacred kings or fertility cults everywhere – including Jesus and Christianity, controversially at the time – such that he filled several volumes up with them, although more people (including me) tend to read his abridged single volume.

Now I think that Frazer was always entertaining and occasionally illuminating in The Golden Bough – his discussion of the principles of sympathetic magic, a term coined by himself, seems particularly definitive – but in terms of factual or historical accuracy…not so much as he’s much more mixed at best in this respect. As the old adage goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail – and when all you have is a theory of sacred kings, then by god or goddess, everything begins to look like a sacred king, even if you have to hammer everything into shape for it. After all, we all have to make sacrifices…

While Frazer is or was mostly dismissed as a footnote in academic study, The Golden Bough has been highly influential in literary culture, because whether or not it is true, his mythic archetype of the doomed hero or sacrificial sacred king has the elements of a ripping yarn.

Just for starters, there’s his influence on T. S. Eliot, who openly acknowledged the influence of Frazer on The Waste Land, although with the characteristic pessimism of that poem, proposed the cycle might be broken, leaving only violence and death without rebirth – and in which the dying god is just another buried corpse, perhaps even prompting to mind a Nietzschean murder victim or contemporary zombie apocalypse, rising writhing from their own resurrection – “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, has it begun to sprout?”

Or there’s his influence on Campbell’s own monomyth. Or on Sigmund Freud, lending itself to the segue of his influence on Camille Paglia, who described her primary influence as a fusion of Frazer and Freud (although doubling the inaccuracy of the former with that of the latter).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Art by Simon Bisley for “Slaine: The Horned God” written by Pat Mills for the 2000 AD comic as one of my favorite adaptations of Graves’ Goddess in popular culture, even more so than it was of Frazer – since it essentially adapted Graves, who in turn adapted Frazer

 

(6) ROBERT GRAVES –

THE WHITE GODDESS / THE GREEK MYTHS (1948 / 1955)

 

Graves saw Frazer’s sacred king and raised it with a queen, his titular White Goddess. For Graves, the monomyth was his theme, or rather the great mythic and poetic Theme:

“The Theme, briefly, is the antique story, which falls into thirteen chapters and an epilogue, of the birth, life, death and resurrection of the God of the Waxing Year; the central chapters concern the God’s losing battle with the God of the Waning Year for love of the capricious and all-powerful Threefold Goddess, their mother, bride and layer-out. The poet identifies himself with the God of the Waxing Year and his Muse with the Goddess; the rival is his blood-brother, his other self, his weird.”

However, The White Goddess is not as accessible in its prose as Frazer’s The Golden Bough and is essentially a compilation of poetic musings, which has its shining moments but can often become turgid or bogged down in Graves’ esoteric discussion of the Irish tree alphabet or the poems of Taliesin. And like The Golden Bough, it’s best read as poetry than for factual or historical accuracy.

And he was an apostle of the White Goddess again in his study of Greek mythology. However, it remains my favorite single volume study of Greek mythology.

Essentially it comes in two parts.

The first part is a conventional compendium of Greek mythology – literary retellings of the various myths from their sources – and it is this part that is the basis for the book as my favorite single volume study of Greek mythology, albeit somewhat dense in its prose style.

The second part – his interpretative notes or commentary – is where things get more wild, albeit all in good poetic fun. This is where Graves ‘decodes’ or reconstructs Greek mythology to his monomyth of the Goddess or prehistoric matriarchal religion – “Graves interpreted Bronze Age Greece as changing from a matriarchal society…to a patriarchal one under continual pressure from victorious Greek-speaking tribes. In the second stage local kings came to each settlement as foreign princes, reigned by marrying the hereditary queen, who represented the Triple Goddess, and were ritually slain by the next king after a limited period, originally six months. Kings managed to evade the sacrifice for longer and longer periods, often by sacrificing substitutes, and eventually converted the queen, priestess of the Goddess, into a subservient and chaste wife, and in the final stage had legitimate sons to reign after them”.

So there you go. Of course, the historical accuracy of Graves’ interpretation or commentary has been almost universally contested or considered to be idiosyncratic – “the interpretive notes are of value only as a guide to the author’s personal mythology”. His characteristic rejoinder was to plead poetic privilege, essentially rebuking his critics or classical scholars “You’re not poets!”. And it’s hard to argue with poetry.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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New World Library, Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, 3rd edition

 

(7) JOSEPH CAMPBELL –
THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES (1949)

 

Behold the monomyth!

Joseph Campbell, arguably the leading scholar of mythology, developed the monomyth or Hero’s Journey as the archetypal heroic narrative in which the protagonist hero sets out, has transformative adventures and returns home. And it has been a favorite of comparative mythology and literary or writing studies ever since, particularly after George Lucas identified it as a major influence on his original Star Wars trilogy.

Campbell identified it as the monomyth because he saw it to be at least a recurring mythic structure to heroes, if not universal. Of course, it helps to be a monomyth if you pitch it in broad terms that apply to almost any story – the hero (ad)ventures into the mythic world – the supernatural or mysterious realm – and brings something back, not least himself in transformed form.

As per Campbell – “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

Or even more broadly, a hero goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis and comes home changed or transformed – which is almost any story.

It also helps to structure it in the basic modern dramatic format of three acts – which Campbell styled as departure, initiation (often featuring death and rebirth or resurrection) and return.

And it helps even more to combine this broad structure at the same time with a number of specific variations from virtually every story – which Campbell styled as stages – which themselves have an almost infinite number of permutations.

Even so, you can’t deny the poetic resonance of Campbell’s stages as he styled or titled them – from the Call to Adventure (often accompanied by a Refusal of the Call) that starts it all, through the Belly of the Whale and the Road of Trials as well as my personal favorite The Meeting with the Goddess, to the triumphant return as the Master of Two Worlds and the Freedom to Live.

Of course, the monomyth has its critics – from those who criticize that its very generality (or vagueness) detracts from its validity or usefulness, to those who criticize its male frame of reference (with some offering up the heroine’s journey as an alternative) or its inherently aristocratic (or autocratic) elitism.

Yet, who can deny the emotional resonance of the hero’s journey – and who hasn’t yearned for their own call to adventure?

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(8) MIRCEA ELIADE –

THE SACRED & THE PROFANE / SHAMANISM (1957 / 1964)

 

“The nostalgia for Paradise…the desire to find oneself always and without effort in the center of the world, at the heart of reality”.

 

Behold the monomyth!

Campbell’s term of monomyth may be somewhat unfair for Eliade, since he established multiple paradigms in mythology or religion “that persist to this day” – hierophany, sacred space and time, the nostalgia for Paradise, the axis mundi or Center of the World, all myths as creation or origin myths, the eternal return, the terror of history, the coincidence of opposites, deus otiosus, and homo religiosus.

On the other hand, all of his paradigms might be considered permutations of his core concept of hierophany, the manifestation – or intrusion – of the sacred in the world, including but not limited to the earlier concept of theophany or manifestation of a god. In turn, it is hierophany that creates sacred space and time, or rather, divides the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time.

And the rest of his paradigms really flow from that. The mythic or religious connotes the nostalgia for Paradise or desire to return to sacred space or time, which is also the axis mundi or center of the world.

“Myth, then, is always an account of creation” – the primordial time “when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the world’s structure”. By enacting myths and rituals, one doesn’t simply commemorate them but participates in them – one “detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time”, or the eternal return.

On the other hand, “yearning to remain in the mythical age causes a terror of history” – the desire “to escape the linear succession of events” – “Eliade suggests that the abandonment of mythical thought and the full acceptance of linear, historical time, with its terror, is one of the reasons for modern man’s anxieties”.

As for the coincidence of opposites, “Eliade claims that many myths, rituals, and mystical experiences involve a “coincidence of opposites” or “twofold revelation” – “they express on the one hand the diametrical opposition of two divine figures sprung from one and the same principle and destined, in many versions, to be reconciled…the very nature of the divinity, which shows itself, by turns or even simultaneously, benevolent and terrible, creative and destructive, solar and serpentine, and so on”.

Deus otiosus – the inactive (or leisurely) god – is perhaps my favorite paradigm by Eliade. Contrary to those who proposed that religions evolve from polytheism to monotheism, Eliade argued that supreme heavenly beings were less common in advanced cultures.

“Eliade speculates that the discovery of agriculture brought a host of fertility gods and goddesses into the forefront, causing the celestial Supreme Being to fade away and eventually vanish from many ancient religions. Even in primitive hunter-gatherer societies, the High God is a vague, distant figure, dwelling high above the world. Often he has no cult and receives prayer only as a last resort, when all else has failed. Eliade calls the distant High God a deus otiosus (idle god)”.

His book on shamanism, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, is the second of his landmark duo of books after The Sacred and the Profane. It applied his ongoing ideas to shamanism, whicn in turn he saw as the ongoing death and resurrection of shamanic figures.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Wiley-Blackwell, 1st edition

 

(9) WALTER BURKERT –
GREEK RELIGION (1985)

 

If Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths are my Old Testament of classical mythology, Burkert’s Greek Religion is my New Testament. Alternatively, the three are my holy trinity of classical mythology (which I suppose would make Nietzsche the Father, Graves the Son and Burkert the Holy Spirit of classical mythology).

No, seriously. For me, Nietzsche and Graves are poles at the other end of a thematic spectrum from Burkert – which I suppose would make all three the points of a thematic triangle. Whatever.

The line from Nietzsche to Burkert is perhaps more obvious – both came from a long tradition of German classicists or classical philologists, indeed its most prominent figures in the English-speaking world (or at least authors of its most prominent books), but in some ways diametrically opposed from each other.

Nietzsche essentially extrapolated a recurring dichotomy of the Apollonian and the Dionysian from classical mythology, above all in its literary manifestation in Greek tragedy, hence his title The Birth of Tragedy. He wrote as an eccentric poet-philosopher, or as he himself described it, a ‘rhapsodizer’ (prompting thoughts of Nietzsche as rhap-artist), not unlike his own prophetic ‘madman’ and apostle of the death of God before his time – “I have come too early…my time is not yet”.

Graves strikes me as similar to Nietzsche – probably someone somewhere has studied or written of the influence of Nietzsche on Graves, if any, but I don’t know anything about that subject – writing as a fellow rhapsodizer or poet, but as an apostle of the Goddess rather than of the death of God, extrapolating his monomyth of the Goddess or prehistoric matriarchal religion from classical mythology.

Of course, the historical accuracy of either has been almost universally contested or considered to be idiosyncratic – “of value only as a guide to the author’s personal mythology”. But who cares? They’re fun! And it’s hard to argue with poetry.

Burkert’s The Greek Religion on the other hand, originally published in his native German in 1977 and translated into English in 1985, has been widely accepted as a standard work in the field. And unlike Nietzsche or Graves, Burkert pretty much extrapolates nothing, robustly sticking to the facts of his literary or archaeological sources.

Burkert presents classical polytheism as inherently chaotic in nature, but at the heart of classical religion was sacrificial ritual – “The term gods…remains fluid, whereas sacrifice is a fact”.

His section headings say it all about his comprehensive survey of Greek religion – Prehistory and the Minoan-Mycenaean Age; Ritual and Sanctuary; The Gods (the Olympian dirty dozen and the balance of the pantheon); The Dead, Heroes and Chthonic Gods; Polis and Polytheism; Mysteries and Asceticism; and Philosophical Religion.

“He describes the various rituals of sacrifice and libation and explains Greek beliefs about purification. He investigates the inspiration behind the great temples at Olympia, Delphi, Delos, and the Acropolis―discussing the priesthood, sanctuary, and oracles. Considerable attention is given to the individual gods, the position of the heroes, and beliefs about the afterlife. The different festivals are used to illuminate the place of religion in the society of the city-state. The mystery cults, at Eleusis and among the followers of Bacchus and Orpheus, are also set in that context. The book concludes with an assessment of the great classical philosophers’ attitudes to religion”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(10) MARINA WARNER –

NO GO THE BOGEYMAN: SCARING, LULLING & MAKING MOCK (1998)

 

Marina Warner – or Dame Marina Warner to give her title as well – is an English mythographer, typically writing about mythology, folklore or fairytales.

Typically her focus is on female figures – literally in her book Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form. Indeed, she started with the ultimate female figure of Catholic veneration, the Virgin Mary (well, after a book on the Empress Dowager or Dragon Empress of the Qing Empire, Tz’u-his), which she followed with a book on Joan of Arc.

Perhaps her leading book on female figures of folklore and fairytales was the evocatively titled From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers).

In a sense, this book is the companion to that one and something of an exception to the rule of her usual female lens, focusing as it does on the figures of male terror in folklore, fairytales, and fiction – “ogres and giants, bogeymen and bugaboos” (which sadly omits my personal favorite terms of bugbear and bete noire).

Although of course Dame Warner has been prolific enough I could compile a top ten books just of those written by her. She also gets bonus points being identified as the “lady writer” of the Dire Straits song of that name – as the writer the singer sees on television “talking about the Virgin Mary” and who reminds him of his former lover.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(11) H.A. GUERBER –

MYTHS OF GREECE & ROME / MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN (1908-1909)

 

“Hélène Adeline Guerber…also known as H.A. Guerber, was an American writer of books, most of which were lively retellings of myths, legends, folklore, plays, epic poetry, operas and history.”

There are scant details about H.A. Guerber herself, apart from being an American teacher and writer – even though her books, mostly retellings of myths or legends such as The Myths of Greece and Rome, remain in print as classics. Of course, her occupation as teacher would account for her books being accessible to children, as they were for me.

Her Myths of the Norsemen is one of my favorite books for Norse mythology – and a vintage one at that. It owes its status as my favorite to being one of two books I first read to learn about the Norse myths as a child – the other being Bulfinch’s Mythology, but to be honest this did it better, not least because of its exclusive focus and the art plates throughout the book. It still boggles my mind that they had this vintage book in my school library – although one advantage of its vintage publication is that it is freely available online.

The full title of this book is Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas – and Guerber shows her own poetic sense in the book:

“Northern mythology is grand and tragical. Its principal theme is the perpetual struggle of the beneficent forces of Nature against the injurious, and hence it is not graceful and idyllic in character, like the religion of the sunny South, where the people could bask in perpetual sunshine, and the fruits of the earth grew ready to their hand.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(12) JONATHAN KIRSCH –

THE HARLOT BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD / A HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD (1998 / 2006)

 

Jonathan Kirsch is the author of some of my favorite studies of the Bible. Not of the whole Bible, mind you – for one thing, he tends towards a Jewish focus on the Old Testament (with one notable exception), and for another, he has a particular focus on points of interest there as well.

The Harlot by the Side of the Road was his first such book and its subtitle says it all – Forbidden Tales of the Bible. As does the usual expression of shock he quotes in his introduction – do you mean THAT’S in the Bible?!

“The stories you are about to read are some of the most violent and sexually explicit in all of Western literature. They are tales of human passion in all of its infinite variety: adultery, seduction, incest, rape, mutilation, assassination, torture, sacrifice, and murder”

We’re talking Lot and his daughters in Genesis, then echoed by the Levite and his concubine in Judges, only worse. Much like Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis is echoed, only worse, as Jephthah actually sacrificing his daughter in Judges. Which pretty much sums up those two bloody books of the Bible, which would do Quentin Tarantino or Game of Thrones proud.

Indeed, most of the book is from either Genesis or Judges. There is a couple of exceptions, including the one where God tries to kill Moses, until Moses’ quick-thinking wife Zipporah does a spontaneous circumcision of their infant son and smears Moses’ forehead with the bloody foreskin. Which is just odd, akin to of those weird variants of vampire that can be held at bay by some bizarre obsessive-compulsive ritual.

Which perhaps brings us to his book on Moses, although I just don’t find Moses as intriguing a character as the subject of his similar book on King David. After all, Exodus and its related books might easily have been summed up with the subtitle Are We There Yet?

I do like how he compares God and Moses to a constantly bickering old married couple. I mean, I’m only paraphrasing slightly with this exchange:

GOD: “I have had it with these Israelites! I’ll kill all of them and start over with you and your descendants!”
MOSES: “And what would the Egyptians say? That you saved the Israelites from slavery only to kill them in the desert?”
GOD: “Hmmm. Okay – I’ll just kill some of them.”

I’ve always imagined one Israelite turning to another as the God in a box starts yelling again from the Ark of the Covenant – “I preferred the calf”.

As I said, I prefer King David to Moses, because despite the former’s many flaws – and David could be a monumental ass at times – he’s just such a charming rogue, so much so that even God was charmed by him as God’s golden boy. Or at least, he charmed the original author of the Bible – I particularly like the theory Kirsch references that the nucleus of the Bible started as a court biography of David, to which preceding events were added almost as a legendary Hebrew Dreamtime.

However, my absolute favorite Kirsch book remains his study of the Book of Apocalypse or Revelations, not coincidentally my absolute favorite book of the Bible, in A History of the End of the World (and that one notable exception to his focus on the Old Testament I noted at the outset).

Again, the subtitle of the book sums it up – How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Civilization. Or for that matter, the scholarly quip he quotes in his introduction – “Revelations either finds a man mad, or leaves him so”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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(13) BETTANY HUGHES –

HELEN OF TROY / VENUS & APHRODITE (2005 / 2019)

 

A thematic duo of books for my top two favorite female figures from mythology – Aphrodite Venus and Helen of Troy (which I understand to be adapted from or for TV series written and presented by Hughes).

And for those who think it a cheat to include two books within the one entry, I’d rank her Helen of Troy over her Aphrodite & Venus (despite ranking Aphrodite over Helen for my top female figure from mythology). Firstly because it was, well, first of the two (including in my reading order of them) and secondly because it seemed to me the more developed in depth. Don’t get me wrong – her Aphrodite book is an interesting presentation of the goddess in her many aspects, written in Hughes’ characteristic engaging style, but I just would have preferred it to be a little longer to consider its subject a little deeper.

“As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for nearly three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield”. And that’s literally as soon as men began to write, as she was enshrined within the Iliad, Homer’s epic poem that is the foundation of Western literary culture.

The subtitle of the book sums up her aspects in myth and history – goddess, princess, whore. I was aware of her divine mythic aspect from other sources – including one referenced in this book that saw Helen as a semi-divine figure in a blissful life, ironically with Achilles, but aptly enough coupling the world’s most beautiful women with its greatest warrior. And of course her divine origin as a daughter of Zeus in the form of a swan with Leda, with Helen hatched from an egg.

However, I was intrigued by Helen of Sparta, “the focus of a cult which conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess”. For that matter, I often tend to overlook that Helen was from Sparta (SPARTA!) – and Hughes is evocative in fleshing her out as a Spartan princess or Mycenaean aristocrat, as well as fleshing out Paris as delegate from Troy as Hittite satellite, doing the Bronze Age equivalent of sliding into her dms.

It reminded me of other reading – that while we moderns tend to query a casus belli as retrieving a stolen wife, substituting other theories for the Trojan War, when one looks at ancient or tribal war, that wars fought over women or a woman may not be so strange after all.

And that of course brings me to that other aspect of Helen – “the home-wrecker of the Iliad” and “bitch-whore of Greek tragedy”. It’s an aspect that evokes the original sin of Eve on a geopolitical scale, “held responsible for both the Trojan War and enduring enmity between East and West”. There’s even an apple in Helen’s myth!

As for Aphrodite & Venus, it’s summed up by its subtitle – history of a goddess. And what a goddess! It starts – aptly enough – with her mythic birth (or one of its versions at least), reminding us of something that Botticelli’s famous birth of Venus often charms us to forget, that Aphrodite wasn’t just born from the bubbles of sea foam, but the bloody foam formed by or around the severed genitals of a deposed divine ruler.

It evokes images of the Anatolian goddess Cybele imported into Greece and Rome, some of whose frenzied male devotees were reputed to have castrated themselves at the height of her ecstatic festivals – which I suspect at least of few them regretted in the distinctly, ah, un-ecstatic light of the next day.

I don’t know of any association or connection between Aphrodite and Cybele – the Greeks associated Cybele with mother goddess Rhea – but Aphrodite was certainly associated with ancient near Eastern goddesses of love and war like Ishtar, aptly enough for Aphrodite’s’ blood-foamed birth. Hughes explores this association, seemingly conflated with her origin in Cyprus, as demonstrative of a divine figure far more complex in all her aspects than the mere classical pinup or party girl to which she is often reduced.

One such aspect is as goddess of the Roman Empire itself – evoked in Hughes’ chapter Venus and Empire – as Romans traced their empire to legendary Trojan founder, Aeneas. Aeneas – leader of exiles from the Trojan War, heir to the Trojan royal lineage of Priam, Paris and Hector, and above all, son of Aphrodite. The Romans also looked more favorably on her consorting with the god of war, as while the Greek god of war represented the brutish violence of war (with Athena representing the art of war), the Romans saw their counterpart Mars as representing more martial virtue and honor.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Reaktion Books 2021

 

(14) PAUL ROBICHAUD –

PAN: THE GREAT GOD’S MODERN RETURN (2021)

 

Io Pan! Io Pan Pan!

Pan, the original horny god with the groin of a goat or as Bill Hicks styled him, randy Pan the Goat Boy. God of nature, mountains, shepherds and sexuality – also the source of our word panic, for the divine mad fear he could inspire in people, including as savior of Athens, the invading Persian army at Marathon.

As a Capricorn goat boy myself, I’ve long been a Pan fan. And so too is Paul Robichaud, a devotee of Pan. Well perhaps not the Capricorn part, but he has written a whole book as a paean to Pan.

Ironically, the only classical Greek god reported as dead – in a historical legend by Plutarch, with a sailor during the reign of Tiberius reporting a divine proclamation from an island that “the great god Pan is dead” – but reports of his death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, were greatly exaggerated. Pan was the one god that endured more than all the others, even to the extent of embodying in horned and hooved form all classical paganism as a whole in modern romanticism and neo-paganism. Perhaps aptly enough, given the pun on Pan – as the word for “all” in Greek also being Pan.

Robichaud comes from a background as an English professor – it shows in his fluent prose style, but also a focus on literature as he explores how Pan has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality, and popular culture through the centuries. The chapter titles best demonstrate this odyssey of Pan from mythic Pan – through medieval and early modern Pan, Pan’s romantic rebirth, Pan in the twentieth century (and his Edwardian height of popularity) and Pan’s occult power – to contemporary Pan.

All the usual suspects are here as cultural or literary devotees of Pan, but most notably those from Edwardian children’s literature of all places – prompting Bill Hick’s joke about his Goat Boy being available for children’s parties (“Mommy, I want Goat Boy to come play at our house”). Kenneth Grahame’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Peter Pan’s namesake, as well as much of his persona – with the Lost Boys as his satyrs.

Sadly, no C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, despite its deliciously Dionysian portrayal, maenads and all. Pan did often pal around with Dionysus after all, but generally not so much the other gods – not to mention all those fauns in Narnia. Wait a minute…Mr Tumnus is Pan! Spread the word.

Of course, there are bound to be omissions – Bill Hicks’ Goat Boy for one, Rhys Darby’s fleeting Pan-like figure in Flight of The Conchords’ Prince of Parties song for another. There’s just too much Pan – or is that too many Pans? – out there.

Also sadly, Rochibaud does suggest one of my favorite historical legends of how Christianity embodied Pan as its devil – as being just that, a legend dating back only to the nineteenth century (following the hypothesis of Ronald Hutton to that effect).

I still prefer the legend. In one of my story ideas, a somewhat lost and forlorn Satan muses to the protagonist (with whom he has occasional chats) of his origin from Pan (as one of his multiple-choice origin stories). The protagonist calls him out on his conflicting origin stories, to which Satan replies “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am legion, I contain multitudes”. But then he becomes sadly wistful “I would give anything just to dance in the moonlight again, when I was not evil but only wild and free”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Cambridge University Press, 1st edition

 

(15) FRANCIS YOUNG –
TWILIGHT OF THE GODLINGS (2023)

 

Small god-shaped holes – or everything you know about fairies is wrong.

Well, perhaps not quite everything, but at least the belief that Britain’s fairies and supernatural beings are the direct preservations or survivals of pagan gods.

But they are small god-shaped holes – filling the niche through many cultures, particularly European folklore or mythology, for ‘godlings’ or what Francis Young dubs small gods (borrowing from Terry Pratchett), although I’d have been tempted to go with hemi-demi-gods.

Essentially those supernatural beings ranking beneath the top-tier gods or major cult figures, somewhere between the human and divine – such as fauns and nymphs in Roman culture, not coincidentally one of the influences Young traces for fairies.

Young argues that earlier folkloric beings (albeit probably only as far back as those Roman godlings) were reinvented within Christianity to fill the niche – or the small god-shaped holes of culture.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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That’s one trippy cover – from a 2023 reprint edition by Martino Fine Books

 

 

(16) PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA (1963)

 

Or how I found Goddess and what I did to Her when I Found Her.

No really, that’s the subtitle of the book. The Goddess in question is the playful goddess of chaos in classical mythology, Eris or Discordia, but as the object of the Discordian “religion”, which is either a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke.

The Principia Discordia is the central Discordian “religious” text – and much briefer than other such texts. Written by the pseudonymous Malaclypse the Younger and Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, it is full of contradictions and humor:

“Is Eris true?”
“Everything is true.”
“Even false things?”
“Even false things are true.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.”

At the same time, as noted in its Wikipedia entry, it contains several passages which propose that there is serious intent behind the work, for example a message scrawled on page 00075: “If you think the PRINCIPIA is just a ha-ha, then go read it again.” Also, it is is quoted extensively in and shares many themes with the satirical science fiction book The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, one of my top ten SF books.

“Notable symbols in the book include the Apple of Discord, the pentagon, and the “Sacred Chao”, which resembles the Taijitu of Taoism, but the two principles depicted are “Hodge” and “Podge” rather than yin and yang, and they are represented by the apple and the pentagon, and not by dots. Saints identified include Emperor Norton, Yossarian, Don Quixote, and Bokonon. The Principia also introduces the mysterious word “fnord”, later popularized in The Illuminatus! Trilogy”.

“I can see the fnords!”

I particularly enjoy how it deems every single man, woman and child on Earth as “a genuine and authorized pope of Discordia” – even including an official pope card that may be reproduced and distributed to anyone and everyone. Or that it has five classes of saint as exemplars and models of perfection – with the lowest class of saint being for real people, deceased or otherwise, as the higher classes of saint are reserved for fictional beings, who by virtue of being fictional, are better able to reach the Discordian view of perfection. The canonization of Discordian saints was a profound influence upon myself to canonize my own saints of pagan Catholicism – and apostles of the Goddess.

 

RATING: 4 STARS*****
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

(17) THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS (1983)

 

Eternal salvation or triple your money back!

Similar to Discordianism – with which it is often compared (and with which it arguably overlaps) – the Church of the SubGenius is either a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke, although in my opinion it doesn’t lend itself as much to the latter as Discordianism.

“The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion described by some of its own members as an ‘insane bogus UFO mind-control cult’…elements of self-help groups, UFO cults, Scientology, apocalyptic Christianity, and utterly shameless money-grubbing antics”.

It purportedly originates from its revered prophet, J.R. Bob Dobbs, usually known simply as “Bob”. (When printing “Bob”‘s name, the “Bob” must always be surrounded by “quotes”). “Bob” is the prophet (as well as avatar and embodiment) of Slack, the cosmic spiritual quality as ineffable as the Tao for which the Church and all its members strive – and to which the Con or Conspiracy is opposed. Which conspiracy? Why, all of them of course – as the Conspiracy represents them all.

The ultimate goal of all SubGeniuses (SubGenii?) is to survive until X-Day, when godlike aliens “will arrive and Rupture all the dues-paying SubGenii to a never-ending tour” (pleasure tour?) “of the universe, while converting Planet Earth into the intergalactic equivalent of a greasy-spoon truck-stop”. For those left behind (anyone who isn’t a paid-up SubGenii), it’s not going to be fun as “human pain is apparently a very high-priced drug among the various gods, demons, and alien beings of the complex and ever-growing SubGenius Pantheon”. X-Day is prophesied to occur on 5 July 1998, at 7 AM – “the fact that that date apparently passed without the arrival of the Alien Fleet has forced SubGenii to come up with a multitude of excuses”.

The Book of the Sub-Genius is of course its foundational text, although the New(er) Testament, Relevation X, comes close!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

(18) WIL HUYGEN & RIEN POORTVLIET –

GNOMES (1977)

 

“Yeah, Rien Poortvliet just called. He wants you to pose for him…Oh come on, beloved illustrator of Gnomes? Jesus, read a coffee table book!”

Archer, “Sea Tunt: Part I”

 

It always surprises me that gnomes are of such recent vintage, compared to other legendary creatures – “A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century”.

He introduced them as earth elementals – to match sylphs as air elementals, undines as water elementals, and salamanders as fire elementals. Note to self – air and water are the s€xy ones.

Anyway, they were “widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature” and “typically depicted as small humanoids who live underground”.

So what’s the difference from dwarves? The short answer is not much, at least in depiction (as opposed to origins in folklore), and any difference is really a matter of stylistic choice. Apparently kobolds or Germanic mine spirits also overlap with gnomes.

Although probably the most famous gnomes are garden gnomes – garden or lawn ornaments crafted as statues of gnomes, typically with beards and pointed conical caps (in the style of those old school dunce caps), that originated in the nineteenth century.

Essentially, Poortvliet’s illustrations of gnomes in this book, written by Wil Huygen, follows the visual depiction of gnomes in the style of diminutive garden gnomes. Ironically, it distinguishes gnomes as always bearded from dwarves as always beardless, which is the opposite of their most popular contemporary depiction as character races in Dungeons and Dragons – arguably following the books of Tolkien, except with gnomes as similar to hobbits or halflings (without the hairy feet).

As for the book itself, it “explains the life and habitat of gnomes in an in-universe fashion, much as a biology book would do, complete with illustrations and textbook notes” – often with astonishingly intricate fictional detail. The titular gnomes are also depicted as living harmoniously with animals and nature, evoking contemporary environmental themes.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

Twitter account profile image as at 8 May 2024

 

(19) LEGENDARY CRYPTIDS

 

As “the biological equivalent of UFO sightings”, cryptids and cryptozoology are another modern mythology par excellence, hence my weird-tier special mention for the Legendary Cryptids X-Twitter account and Youtuber (because it is special mention for what is, after all, my top ten for mythology books).

Legendary Cryptids hasn’t published any books as far as I’m aware – but I anticipate would readily feature any books on cryptids or cryptozoology and has probably compiled enough material for a book.

My personal highlights are the cryptid maps he features for various countries and the ‘iceberg’ memes that in the style of such memes look at increasingly deep or esoteric cryptid lore the further you go below the surface.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

(20) CATHERINE JOHNS –

S€X OR SYMBOL: ER0TIC IMAGES OF GREECE & ROME (2002)

 

It is one of my rules in my top tens to throw in a kinky entry amidst my wilder special mentions, usually as my final (twentieth) special mention, at least where the subject matter permits.

And here it certainly does – it is not surprising given how large sexuality looms in human biology that it similarly looms large in our mythology.

I remember in high school that it was a running gag among my friends of drawing d!cks in each other’s textbooks, kind of like the end credits of the 2007 film Superbad. Juvenile, yes I know, or rather adolescent.

The Greeks and Romans were a lot like that – they had art of d!cks everywhere. Well, erotic art in general, but mostly a lot of d!cks. And no, we’re not just talking the ubiquitous nudity of classical art – we’re talking hardcore d!cks, literally in the sense of what is termed ithyphallic.

So much so that when Victorians – the prissy British of the historical Victorian period that is, not the residents of the Australian state – collected classical art in galleries or museums, they found themselves inundated by d!cks, like my high school textbooks or those Superbad end credits, which they then hid in restricted sections or basements.

And these were mythic d!cks! No, seriously – “many had a religious and apotropaic function”. Apotropaic, as in good luck charms or warding off evil, because nothing does that like a d!ck, albeit often depicted with wings or feet. We’re talking things like herms, statues with male genitalia used as boundary or crossroad markers, often invoking the (phallic) god Hermes or Mercury.

And this book has the extensive images of Greek or Roman art to prove it. Like looking through my high school textbooks…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

TOP TENS – MYTHOLOGY:

TOP 10 BOOKS (SPECIAL MENTION) – TIER LIST

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) TAROT – RIDER-WAITE & CROWLEY-THOTH

(2) FOLKLORE INDEX

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(3) THOMAS BULFINCH – BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY

(4) BREWER’S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE

(5) SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER – THE GOLDEN BOUGH

(6) ROBERT GRAVES – THE WHITE GODDESS / THE GREEK MYTHS

(7) JOSEPH CAMPBELL – THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES

(8) MIRCEA ELIADE – THE SACRED & THE PROFANE / SHAMANISM

(9) WALTER BURKERT – GREEK RELIGION

(10) MARINA WARNER – NO GO THE BOGEYMAN

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(11) H.A. GUERBER – MYTHS OF GREECE & ROME / MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN

(12) JONATHAN KIRSCH – THE HARLOT BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD / A HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD

(13) BETTANY HUGHES – HELEN OF TROY / APHRODITE & VENUS

(14) PAUL ROBICHAUD – PAN: THE GREAT GOD’S MODERN RETURN

(15) FRANCIS YOUNG – TWILIGHT OF THE GODLINGS

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(16) PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA

(17) BOOK OF THE SUB-GENIUS

(18) WIL HUYGEN & RIEN POORTVLIET – GNOMES

(19) LEGENDARY CRYPTIDS

 

(20) CATHERINE JOHNS – S€X OR SYMBOL: ER0TIC IMAGES OF GREECE & ROME

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention: New Entry) (20) Catherine Johns – S€x or Symbol: Er0tic Images of Greece & Rome

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(20) CATHERINE JOHNS –

S€X OR SYMBOL: ER0TIC IMAGES OF GREECE & ROME (2002)

 

It is one of my rules in my top tens to throw in a kinky entry amidst my wilder special mentions, usually as my final (twentieth) special mention, at least where the subject matter permits.

And here it certainly does – it is not surprising given how large sexuality looms in human biology that it similarly looms large in our mythology.

I remember in high school that it was a running gag among my friends of drawing d!cks in each other’s textbooks, kind of like the end credits of the 2007 film Superbad. Juvenile, yes I know, or rather adolescent.

The Greeks and Romans were a lot like that – they had art of d!cks everywhere. Well, erotic art in general, but mostly a lot of d!cks. And no, we’re not just talking the ubiquitous nudity of classical art – we’re talking hardcore d!cks, literally in the sense of what is termed ithyphallic.

So much so that when Victorians – the prissy British of the historical Victorian period that is, not the residents of the Australian state – collected classical art in galleries or museums, they found themselves inundated by d!cks, like my high school textbooks or those Superbad end credits, which they then hid in restricted sections or basements.

And these were mythic d!cks! No, seriously – “many had a religious and apotropaic function”. Apotropaic, as in good luck charms or warding off evil, because nothing does that like a d!ck, albeit often depicted with wings or feet. We’re talking things like herms, statues with male genitalia used as boundary or crossroad markers, often invoking the (phallic) god Hermes or Mercury.

And this book has the extensive images of Greek or Roman art to prove it. Like looking through my high school textbooks…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 TV Series (6) The Queen’s Gambit

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(6) THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT (NETFLIX 2020)

 

“The one thing we know about Elizabeth Harmon is that she loves to win”.

Not many TV series get such acclaim or hype as this sleeper hit – based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis – particularly for a series revolving around chess, indeed one that made it engaging for a mainstream audience.

“The Queen’s Gambit manages to personalize the game and its players thanks to clever storytelling and, in Anya Taylor-Joy, a lead actor so magnetic that when she stares down the camera lens, her flinty glare threatens to cut right through it.”

Although its engaging quality was in the drama of its leading character, Elizabeth or Beth Harmon, the chess prodigy rising from the tragic circumstances of being an orphan (from her mother’s su!cide), while struggling to overcome her emotional problems and literal addictions. It was something of a breakout role for Anya Taylor-Joy playing the lead – sure, she’d made a name for herself in roles in The Witch and Split, but this role really saw her showing her dramatic chops and getting the critical acclaim to match (which has seen her becoming nearly ubiquitous in films since).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)