Edward Garboczi
Tag: Book Review
Why should Christian students study Norse and Greek mythology? After all, these mythologies are full of false gods and false ideas about creation. There are at least four good reasons: (1) these traditions contain many great adventure stories and moral tales that are profitable to read, (2) Western culture is built on our Greek, Roman, and Judeo-Christian heritage, (3) to be culturally literate, that is, to be able to read with understanding, one needs to know these mythologies, since there are many remnants of them in our language and idioms, and (4) one sees how wonderful the true God is by comparing Him to false gods. Note that any classical school will present these topics, for similar reasons.
Let’s look at a few simple examples of what I mean in the third point above, for the Norse mythologies first. Two names for days of the week come from the two most important Norse (and Danish) gods: Wednesday comes from Woden’s (Odin’s) day and Thursday comes from Thor’s day. This is the same Thor as in the Marvel Thor and Avengers movies. Tuesday comes from the Norse god Tiw (Tyr) and Friday comes from Frigga, a Norse goddess. Many other common English words, including “eggs” and “butter,” come from Danish, because the Danes, who worshipped Odin and Thor, conquered the eastern part of England. The Greek mythologies give us the Midas Touch, by which we mean someone who can readily make a lot of money, since everything he or she touches “turns to gold.” The King Midas myth is about a man who asked for and received the power to turn anything he touched into actual gold. Someone who has an Achilles’ heel has a fatal weakness, and the thick tendon behind our ankle is actually medically called our Achilles heel. In Homer’s great poem The Iliad, Achilles was the foremost hero of his day, who was made invulnerable to weapons by being immersed in the River Styx by his mother – all except the heel by which she held her baby as she dipped him in. What is a Herculean task? It is a task that is almost impossible to complete without great effort. Hercules was a strong hero in Greek mythology who was bound to do twelve nearly impossible jobs for a wicked king. Olivia Coolidge does an excellent job in presenting a selection of these Greek and Norse mythological stories in clear prose, primarily aimed at middle school readers but also good for high school readers. She was an American writer who was born in England, and lived to the age of 98. She wrote many books bringing ancient history and mythology to an audience of modern children and young adults. The two books mentioned in this review are a very good introduction to these two mythologies. If your child reads Greek Myths carefully, he or she should be able to find where the words Europe, music, titanic, atlas, psychology, and chronology originate in Greek mythology and discover even more connections to modern Western culture. Writing essays about these connections would be a great way to incorporate writing skills into cultural literacy. Reading Legends of the North will do the same for the Norse mythologies and their connection to our modern world – besides being great fun to read.
