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Appropriation or syncretisation?  Or maybe just the evolution in understanding?  You decide.

Zeus is the Greek king of the gods, the god of sky and weather who fertilizes the fields and protects the home.  He is the god of law, order and fate.  He was typically depicted as a mature, regal man with a beard.  Typical symbols associated with him:  lightning bolt, eagle, ram, bull, snake, cornucopia and scepter.

Of all the myths, it is the myths of the sun that give me the most trouble.  The typical sun myth is that the divinity of the sun rides around the earth in some type of conveyance and then takes a different one or a different form to return to the original starting point.  This myth stems from the original belief that the sun travels around the earth.  It is the ancient’s explanation for the days and nights.  Yet we of the modern era know this is incorrect.

Bulls.  Big, strong, temperamental creatures that have had loomed large in man’s past.  Bull jumping, bull baiting, bull fights and running of the bulls are events where they were, and in some cases still are, featured.  They were used in the form of oxen to pull plows and carts.  Their virility kept up herds, generating wealth for their owners. In some areas, placing a bull head above a door gives protection and luck much like the horse shoe.  As sacrifices, few animals were more costly.  From them we get the terms ‘seeing red’ and ‘bull-headed’.  A lot of myths feature bulls, even modern myths like Paul Bunyan and his blue ox.  In some cultures, earthquakes are blamed on a rowdy celestial bull believed to have the world upon its horns.  A lot of masculine divinities, particularly those of the sun and the sky, are associated with bulls.

(Still on vacation this week!  Hopefully my travel mates are still on speaking terms with me!)

The god of the guessing game is Thor! 

Too easy?  It wouldn't have been for me as I know very little of the Norse pantheon.  I can, however, now tell my son the differences between Marvel’s Thor and Thor of the Norsemen.

I’m on vacation this week, so instead of an article I leave you with a guessing game. 

My 6 year old son recently asked me about this divinity and how he differed from his doppelganger.  Hopefully, this is not too easy.  Explanation will be posted next week.

Ares is not a very popular god.  I'd say in a lot of areas he is pretty reviled.  People need to keep in mind that the gods can give or they can take.  Ares is not only the bersker, the bloody warrior, the lover of battle.  He is also the protective father, the defender of the home and land, the policeman.  Some areas would chain his statue as a representation that they wanted him kept close to their home in order to defend it.  If you believe that he is the same as Mars, then he also has agricultural aspects (which makes a lot of sense, since blood is a really good fertilizer).  But today, I'm not here to discuss Ares but to offer a prayer to him.

One of Zeus’ epithets is Georgos, meaning “farmer” or literally “earth worker”.  This epithet obviously describes his agricultural connections.  Now some may find this surprising.  “But he’s a sky god!”  He is now, but remember, Zeus was raised on Gaia.  He only became a sky god when the Titans were defeated in the Titanomachy.  Zeus Georgos was honored on 30 Maimakterion (November/December) which was the time plowing and planting of grain.  (I like to imagine it as right around the time of the US holiday of thanksgiving.)  He received bloodless sacrifices like ambrosia (water, oil and a sweetened mixture of edible seeds) or cakes. The dios kodion, the fleece of Zeus, was probably carried around the fields in his name for purification and protection from bad weather.