We Americans like to think that our literature is unique and that, when we declared independence from Britain, we also declared our independence from European literature. This was not the case. The quintessential American story of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving bears striking similarities to the ancient Greek story of Epimenides of Knossos.
Brutal Words: The Unique Origins of Words Associated With Cruelty
In his book The Travels of Marco Polo, Rustichello da Pisa tells a story claiming that there was once a man known as the “Old Man of the Mountain,” who built a garden in the mountains and designed it exactly according to the precise description of Paradise given in the Koran. He would then abduct people, drug them with hashish, and take them to the garden. Then, when they woke up, he would convince them that it was Paradise itself. Then, after they had lived in the garden for a while, the Old Man of the Mountain would tell them that they needed to start holding up their end of the bargain; he would send them out to go kill certain people, telling them that, if they died in the attempt, they would only return to the garden. These people were known as hashishiyyin, which is Arabic for “hashish-smokers.” This is the origin of our modern English word assassin.
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The Most Depressing Book Ever Written: Death by Starvation by Hegesias of Kyrene
When they hear the words “most depressing book ever written,” most people probably think of a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky or Émile Zola. While works by these writers are well-known for being depressing, just wait until you hear about a book written by the early third-century BC Greek Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Kyrene. The book was called Death by Starvation or The Death-Persuader. According to the Roman orator Cicero (lived 106 – 43 BC), the entire book was essentially an argument for why everyone should just give up on life and kill themselves.
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“Ring around the Rosie” Is Not about the Black Death, Nor Has It Ever Been
A popular urban legend that has been circulating for decades now claims that the beloved children’s nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosie” is actually about the Black Death. Although this may make for a good story, it is, in fact, totally false; the song “Ring around the Rosie” did not even first appear until centuries after the Black Death had been effectively eradicated in England.
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I have already written about how the modern story of “Cinderella” is probably derived from the ancient Greek story of Rhodopis, but the story of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” also originates from ancient Greece.
Misunderstood Myths, Part Six: The Moirai and the Graiai
Disney cartoons are an American cultural icon. Sadly, Disney has a habit of taking age-old stories, changing everything about them, and making cartoons of them. Then, unfortunately, the Disney version somehow automatically becomes the “official,” orthodox version of the story, even though the Disney versions often have very little at all in common with the originals.
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The Not-So-Pagan Origins of Easter
If you have been on the internet at all around this time of year, you have no doubt at some point encountered claims that Easter is actually a pre-Christian pagan holiday and that popular modern Easter traditions such as the Easter bunny and painting Easter eggs are actually thinly-veiled pagan customs. I am here to tell you that these claims are essentially bunk. Although the holiday of Easter takes its name in English from an obscure Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess, the holiday itself is of Christian origin and there is no evidence to support the notion that popular traditions such as the Easter bunny and the painting of Easter eggs were ever pagan.
What Three Hated Symbols Used to Mean Before They Were Hijacked by Extremists
Today, every time someone sees a swastika, he or she automatically thinks “Nazism” and whenever someone sees a pentagram or an upside-down cross, he or she immediately thinks “Satanism.” All three of these symbols, however, originally possessed very different meanings with far less sinister connotations.
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The Founding Fathers’ Views on Slavery
We have all heard that our country was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal.” That is certainly what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Unfortunately, ideas are often quite different from actions. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America owned slaves and, for many of them, their public statements stood in stark contrast with their own private actions and beliefs. Nonetheless, their views on the issue of slavery were actually quite diverse and many of them changed their views on the subject over the courses of their lives. In this article, we will examine the unvarnished truth of some of the major Founding Fathers’ views on slavery.
The Story of the Liberty Bell
In 1751, Isaac Norris, the speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly commissioned the creation of a new bell for the Pennsylvania Statehouse (later known as Independence Hall) in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges in 1701.