Mythic Cosmos

Mythic Cosmos A channel dedicated to Mythology. A journey through a Mythic Cosmos!

We use the phrase “a sop to Cerberus” to mean a small offering or bribe to placate trouble.Cerberus, the offspring of Ec...
06/11/2025

We use the phrase “a sop to Cerberus” to mean a small offering or bribe to placate trouble.

Cerberus, the offspring of Echidna and Typhon, was the three-headed, serpent-tailed dog guarding Hades. Visitors to the underworld would offer him honey-cakes—sops—to bypass him. Capturing Cerberus was Hercules’ twelfth and last labour.

We use the word “Europe” to name one of the Earth’s continents—but its origin lies in mythology.Europa was a beautiful P...
12/10/2025

We use the word “Europe” to name one of the Earth’s continents—but its origin lies in mythology.

Europa was a beautiful Phoenician princess, seduced and abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull, and brought on the bull’s back to Crete. The European continent is named after her.

The term ‘Europa’ is first used in a geographic sense in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the known world, it was first used by the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, and the historian and geographer Hecataeus in the sixth century BCE.

We use the phrase “halcyon days” to describe a peaceful, happy, or idyllic time.Alcyone, daughter of Ae**us, and her hus...
01/10/2025

We use the phrase “halcyon days” to describe a peaceful, happy, or idyllic time.

Alcyone, daughter of Ae**us, and her husband, Ceyx, would often address each other as ‘Zeus’ and ‘Hera’ in their insouciance. When Zeus’s anger at their hubris caused their deaths, the gods took pity on them, changing them both into halcyons, that is, kingfishers. Halcyon days therefore are the fourteen days in winter in the Mediterranean when storms are made to abate by Ae**us, so that the birds can come on shore to build their nests and lay their eggs.

We use the word “hubris” to describe dangerous overconfidence and excessive pride, especially when it defies the gods or...
07/09/2025

We use the word “hubris” to describe dangerous overconfidence and excessive pride, especially when it defies the gods or natural order.

Hubris described the flouting of behavioural norms, of violations of honour and, specifically, of mortals vying with the gods through acts of pride or overconfidence. Ineluctably, such behaviour would attract Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and the downfall of the one indulging in hubris. Those punished for hubris included Arachne, Niobe and Icarus, who was given wings constructed of wax and feather by his father, Daedalus. Ignoring his father’s admonitions not to fly too high and close to the sun, the wings melted and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.

We use the word “hermaphrodite” to describe a being with both male and female attributes—a term rooted in Greek mytholog...
07/09/2025

We use the word “hermaphrodite” to describe a being with both male and female attributes—a term rooted in Greek mythology.

Hermaphroditus was the child of the union of Hermes and Aphrodite, and bore the sexual attributes of both deities. According to Diodorus Siculus:

“Hermaphroditus was born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman, in that he has a body which is beautiful and delicate like that of a woman, but has the masculine quality and vigour of a man. But there are some who declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as they do they have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.”

We use the word “ambrosial” to describe something exquisitely tasty or heavenly in scent—and its origin is truly divine....
02/09/2025

We use the word “ambrosial” to describe something exquisitely tasty or heavenly in scent—and its origin is truly divine.

Ambrosia was the food of the gods of Olympus, and bestowed immortality. The word arises from brotos meaning ‘mortal’, preceded by a privative ‘a’, thus ‘immortal’.

https://youtu.be/zNnfJKA3tlc?si=WOfcUgEQr2hAKNIK

We use the term “hermeneutic” when we talk about interpretation, especially of language, meaning, or sacred messages.As ...
01/09/2025

We use the term “hermeneutic” when we talk about interpretation, especially of language, meaning, or sacred messages.

As divine messenger, Hermes was patron of eloquence, and of commerce and road travel, as well as of lies and thieving. Among his numerous inventions were the alphabet, music, numbers, measures, weights, astronomy, gymnastics, and the art of fighting. ‘Hermeneutics’ in its early usage belonged within the ambit of the sacred. Messages from the gods, in their ambiguity, posed an implicit quandary. Hermes delighted in the unease of the addressees of the messages he delivered. As a technical term, ‘hermeneía’ was introduced by Aristotle c. 360 BCE, in his “On Interpretation”, among the earliest Western philosophical texts on the relationship between language and logic.

We use the word “Athenaeum” today for places of learning, especially literary or philosophical institutions—but its orig...
30/08/2025

We use the word “Athenaeum” today for places of learning, especially literary or philosophical institutions—but its origin traces back to both ancient Greece and Rome.

The first such institution was a famous school for the promotion of literary and scientific studies. It was founded in Rome by the emperor Hadrian, who was enamoured of philosophy and of what he regarded as philosophy’s birthplace, the city of Athens, whose patron deity was Athena, goddess of wisdom.

We use the word “ocean” to describe the vast body of saltwater that covers most of the Earth, but it has ancient mytholo...
24/08/2025

We use the word “ocean” to describe the vast body of saltwater that covers most of the Earth, but it has ancient mythological roots.

The Titan Oceanus, eldest son of Uranus and Gaea, was a great river encircling the mass of dry land that constituted the Earth. In most versions of the Titanomachy, Oceanus withdrew from the conflict along with the Titaness Themis and her son Prometheus. He had also earlier refused to side with his brother Cronus in the latter’s revolt against their father, Uranus.

We use the word “ethereal” to describe something light, sublime, or unworldly in nature.Aether was a primordial deity pe...
21/08/2025

We use the word “ethereal” to describe something light, sublime, or unworldly in nature.

Aether was a primordial deity personifying the sublime air breathed by the gods, in contrast to the inferior air, breathed by humanity.

We use the word “hermetic” to describe something secret, sealed, or relating to hidden knowledge.For Greeks in Hellenist...
17/08/2025

We use the word “hermetic” to describe something secret, sealed, or relating to hidden knowledge.

For Greeks in Hellenistic Egypt, Hermes became conflated with the Egyptian god Thoth, as both were psychopomps (conductors of souls to the Underworld), and the two were worshiped as one in the temple at Khemnu. Thoth/Hermes was deemed the true author of everything discovered and generated by the human mind, the father of all wisdom, law, worship, and sundry inventions, and was therefore named ‘thrice great’: Trismegistus. In the early centuries CE, he became central to a quasi-religious movement, akin to neo-Pythagoreanism. The movement’s writings, the Corpus Hermeticum, comprised multitudes of highly venerated texts. ‘Hermetic’ thus refers to Trismegistus and the magic seal he invented to keep the occult texts secret.

We use the word “Dionysian” to describe something wild, ecstatic, and free of restraint.Dionysus, god of wine, ecstasy, ...
14/08/2025

We use the word “Dionysian” to describe something wild, ecstatic, and free of restraint.

Dionysus, god of wine, ecstasy, and frenzied celebration, was the winter double of Apollo’s summer glory and instructed his followers on how to be (temporarily) freed of their inhibitions.

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