home of author Michelle Boule
This is a depiction of the harpies as they steal food from blind Phineas. Image taken from theoi.com. A great site about Greek myths and an excellent resource.
Mythology Mondays, a fun look at some of the myths who have showed up in the valley of Turning Creek, is on holiday for a week. You can use it to catch up with the myths we have have covered so far:
Join us again on December the 29th when we take a peek at Asclepius, who could bring the dead back to life.
Happy Holidays!
Every Monday, I highlight a different Greek myth that has woven its way into the Turning Creek series. The first book, Lightning in the Dark, is out now. If you pay close attention to the details, you will see where some of the elements and history of the series originated.
Today’s post is up later than normal. Mea culpa.
I want to talk about Dionysus.
If you are like me, the first image that comes to mind when you think about this Greek god is the song from Fantasia where everything starts out nice, but then the wine comes out and they all get drunk. Looking back, it is an odd choice for a children’s musical.
Dionysus, known also as Bacchus in later traditions, is the god of the harvest, of wine, of the earth, and fertility. His image runs the gamut from an overweight fun, loving god, to a long haired effeminate youth with an over large phallus. Like many of the gods, his story varies by region. He is most commonly thought to be the son of Zeus and the Theban princess, Semele. He was the only god on Mount Olympus whose parents were not both divine.
Unfortuntely for Semele, Zeus loved her dearly and this did not make Hera, his wife happy. Through trickery, she got Semele to request to see Zeus’s true face. Being mortal, she could not gaze upon the visage of a god without dying. Before she perished, Zeus removed her unborn son and but him in his own side until he was ready to be born. After he was born (the details on just how he came to be born are sketchy), Hermes carried the infant Dionysus to the nymphs of Nyse. He lived in a cave by the sea for nine years.
“So the God of the Vine was born of fire and nursed by rain, the hard burning heat that ripens the grapes and the water that keeps the plants alive.” – Edith Hamilton
When he comes of age, Dionysus spends years wandering the earth trying to convince different cities and regions that he was a god and thus should be worshiped. Dionysus had a serious pride and image issue, like pretty much every other Greek god.
His method for proving his divinity was usually a two or three step process. He would first demand to be worshiped. When the town refused, he would show them then gifts of the vine aka teach them how to grow grapes and make wine. If this was not enough, he would cause the women of the town to go insane and rip men to shreds. This was the beginning of the origin of the maenads and the Bacchantic women. He sounds like a really fun guy to have at parties.
As history progressed, Dionysus’s role in worship and in the myths morphed into something more than just about grapes and wine. He became a god of fertility, a god of nature, and a god of order and peace. It seems that Dionysus the myth matured and found order in the natural cycles of nature and earth.
In the Turning Creek series, Dionysus appears as the owner of the local saloon, Daniel Vine.
Every Monday, I highlight a different Greek myth that has woven its way into the Turning Creek series. The first book, Lightning in the Dark, is out now. If you pay close attention to the details, you will see where some of the elements and history of the series originated.
Today, we are talking about Hephaestus, the god of the forge, fire, masonry, metalworking, sculpture, and craftsmanship. In some myths, he is the son of Zeus and Hera. In others, he is the son of Hera alone.
Hephaestus, though a powerful man, was born sickly and ugly. In anger over his appearance, Hera threw him off Mount Olympus when he was born. He lived in a grotto for nine years, cared for by sea divinities. He learned to work the forge and he plotted revenge.
To regain his place among the gods of Olympus and to retaliate against Hera, Hephaestus crafted a golden throne for his mother. When she sat in it, overwhelmed by the gift, invisible fetters encircled her and she was immobilized. Dionysus, with motivations of his own, went down from Mount Olympus, got Hephaestus drunk, and convinced him to let his mother go. Hephaestus did as asked and Dionysus was rewarded with a place in the heavens with the gods.
Hephaestus crafted all manner of weapons and furnishings for the gods of Olympus. He made and wielded the ax which split Zeus’s forehead to birth Athena. He also crafted golden handmaidens who assisted him in the forge. As an aside, knowing what I know about Greek myths, I have to wonder exactly what kind of “assisting” they were doing.
In the myths, Hephaestus has two wives. Aphrodite was his first wife. She was an unfaithful companion to the god of fire and pined for her true love, Ares. Hephaestus takes revenge on her infidelity by creating chains which bound Aphrodite and her lover to the bed. Once ensnared, Hephaestus called all the gods to come and mock them. He divorced Aphrodite and married Algaia, one of the three Graces. Algaia is said to have borne him many children.
In my series, Hephaestus is Henry Foster, the blacksmith of Turning Creek. He is a quiet, hardworking man who is one of the few people the harpies count as a close friend.
Welcome to Mythology Mondays!
Every Monday, I highlight a different Greek myth that has woven its way into the Turning Creek series. If you pay close attention to the details, you will see where some of the elements and history of the series originated.
Today, the day before Lightning in the Dark is officially on sale, I want to highlight the myth of Iris, on which the lovely postmistress of Turning Creek is based.
Iris was the daughter of the sea god, Thaumas, and the cloud nymph, Electra. Iris shared parentage with the harpies. Iris was the personification of the rainbow. She had golden wings and carried two items: a caduceus or winged staff and a ewer of water from the River Styx. She used the water to put those who perjured themselves to sleep.
Iris was the messenger of the gods and could travel swiftly to any place in the world, above the land, under the sea, and to the underworld. In some myths, Iris was the handmaiden and messenger to Hera herself.
Iris had a twin, Arke, who had iridescent wings. Arke became the messenger to the Titans, the enemies of the gods of Olympus. As punishment for this betrayal, Arke’s wings were taken from her by Zeus and given to Achilles.
Iris was married to Zephyrus, the god of the west wind who was also the lover of Celaeno, the harpy. No one does infidelity and other shenanigans like the Greek gods. The son of Iris and Zephyrus was Pothos, the god of sexual longing.
In my series, Iris is the postmistress of a small town. She is the sage, prophet, and friend of the harpies of her generation. Iris sees it as her duty to keep her harpies grounded and help them to be better versions of themselves. She loves old books, letters, and people.
Want to read more about the characters in Turning Creek? Lightning in the Dark, the first book of the series, comes out December 2nd.
It will be available at (links will be live December 2, 2014):
ebook: Amazon, Google Books, Nook, Kobo, All Romance
Print: Amazon, CreateSpace
Welcome to the first post in a new series: Mythology Mondays.
The world of Turning Creek is populated with Remnants, descendants of the Greek myths, who have spent the years since the Fall of Olympus blending into mortal society and seeking a life of peace. When I started writing this series, I had some vague ideas about Greek myths, but getting to know the harpies has meant getting to know a ton of other myths as well.
Every Monday, I will highlight a different Greek myth that has woven its way into my series. If you pay close attention to the details, you will see where some of the elements and history of the Turning Creek series originated.
Today, I want to talk about the monsters that started it all: the harpies.
One of the most famous descriptions comes from Dante’s Inferno, which most of us had to read in school and some of us actually enjoyed.
Here the repellent harpies make their nests,
Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
With dire announcements of the coming woe.
They have broad wings, with razor sharp talons and a human neck and face,
Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees
The English word harpy comes from the Latin word harpeia and the Greek word harpayia which means “that which snatches” or “swift robbers.” They are famous for many things, including snatching the daughters of Pandareus and delivering them to the Furies and for snatching food from the table of blind Phineus. The harpies were said to be Zeus’s agents of punishment who would torture people on their way to Tartarus and steal things at his command. In some tales, they are called the “hounds of Zeus.”
The number and descriptions of the harpies varies depending on the author of the myth. The number of harpies range from one to three and they are called by a variety of names with different spellings, again, depending on the author. In the earlier myths, the harpies are nothing but the personified destructive power of storm winds. Later they are winged, fair-haired women. Their appearance continued to evolve into that of the foul, bird-like creatures we think of today. They were always seen as violent, destructive, and cruel.
There are four names most often mentioned in relation to the harpies: Aello (storm swift), Celaeno (the dark one) who is sometimes referred to as Podarge (fleet foot), and Ocypete (swift wing).
They lived on the islands of Strophades, also called the Islands of Turning. It was on these islands that they tortured Phineas until the Argonauts came to his rescue. Before Boreades could kill them, the goddess Iris, winged rainbow messenger of the gods and sister to the harpies, interceded on their behalf. At her request, the harpies were spared, but confined to the islands.
The horses of Achilles, Xanthus and Balius, were the result of a union between Celaeno/Podarge and her lover, Zephyron, the West Wind. Zephyron was married to Iris, her sister. Scandalous!
I chose the harpies as my main characters because I wanted to redeem them. I wanted to know what would happen if a violent creature was forced to live in the world with people and how they would reconcile their own nature with that of the world around them.
Come back next Monday when we talk about Iris, messenger of the gods and defender of the harpies.
Interested in the Turning Creek series? Lightning in the Dark comes out December 2nd. Available from Amazon, B&N, Google, Kobo, and iBooks. Sign up for my newsletter and never miss a new release.