Pantheon Mythology Sources

[Hark]

I've been struggling to find good sources to read the myths of various pantheon. A lot of what I can find comes with modern storytelling changes, or mixed mythologies without clear delineation between the two. When researching Tuatha I find most sources also have Scottish and othe Celtics stories mixed in, for example. Or I find show encyclopedia style entries rather than actual stories.

Does anybody have any recommendations of sources where research the myths of various pantheons? I've found fairly good sources for Nordic myths, I have some Irish folklore, and I grew up thinking Greek mythology was all that existed, so I'm pretty well versed on that and can easily find new sources.

[Watcher]

Accessing martial on the Túatha Dé Danann is simultaneously very easy and somewhat challenging. There are hundreds of scholarly translations of the texts online for free (though they are somewhat dated), but knowing where to find them and the like is challenging.

The best resource I can give you is CODECs which is a massive academic database for Celtic Studies. While the database has a lot within it, such as information about manuscripts, shorthand, and paleographical information, it can also provide direction to online scholarly translations of various texts, as well as suggestions of scholarly translations you can buy. There are quite literally hundreds of stories, so I can assemble three of the main bodies of medieval Irish literature for you here.

The Mythological Cycle, the stories of the Túatha Dé Danann.

The Ulster Cycle, the stories of Cú Chulainn and his friends, in the tragic but inevitable collapse of society after the death of Conare Mór.

The Finn Cycle, the stories of Finn and the Fianna, set in the post-apocaliptic world of post-Ulster Cycle Ireland, and leading up to the time of Patrick.

If you have any questions about the Túatha Dé, I am sporadically around and am a doctoral candidate in Celtic Studies. So, I'm always happy to answer questions.

[Penelope]

Watcher two questions

Can you send me a link to an English language summary of the Ulster Cycle?

Also, are there any historical links between the Tuatha and Nemetondevos pantheons?

[Watcher]

Watcher two questions

Can you send me a link to an English language summary of the Ulster Cycle?

Also, are there any historical links between the Tuatha and Nemetondevos pantheons?

I am not really aware of any summaries of the Ulster Cycle, it is a 120+ stories body of literature written across about 600 years, so summarizing it is challenging. But, very very roughly, I can say the following as a summary: The Ulster Cycle is the story of a society in collapse, destabilized by the machinations of the otherworldly Túatha Dé Danann. After manipulating events to have their demigod Conare Mór elected to the High Kingship of Tara, the Túatha Dé Danann orchestrate events to see to it that the High King is killed by his own foster-brothers, shattering the Edenic peace brought about by Conare's kingship. In the wake of this betrayal, the five fifths of Ireland are shattered, and the authority of the High Kings is destroyed, resulting in a period of endemic violence, bad kings, and unstable warrior-aristocrats bringing Ireland to the brink through their obsessive hunger for status and glory. Of these warrior-aristocrats, the young Cú Chulainn joins the forces of his uncle Conchobar mac Nessa, striving to be the greatest warrior in Ireland, committing atrocities, including kinslaying, oathbreaking, and murder as he tries to support his uncle's unjust authority. He lives to see his family and friends die, killing his own son, several of his foster-brothers, and his boyfriend, until he is eventually hunted down and killed by the now-adult children of the warriors he killed at the age of 33 (or 27). With the death of Cú Chulainn, the Ulster Cycle slowly peters out, with the last of the heroes of Ulster, Conall Cernach, surviving into old age and helping establish a new high king to return a fragmented peace to Ireland before being killed himself. As Cú Chulainn said: blood damns the heart, fury destroyed the world.

And, for links between the Túatha Dé and the Nemetondevos... not any really major ones? There are some theoretical links, but the big challenge is that the Túatha Dé Danann are medieval 'echoes' of pre-Christian deities (some of them, possibly, we think.). Some of those proto-Túatha Dé characters probably had some connections with deities in the rest of the Celtic speaking world, but not many of them. We theorize that Nuadu and Nodens were linked once in the past, and the same with Brigid and Brigantia (note now absolutely unconnected these figures appear when you compare them now). Lug and Lugus might be similar, but their name has a root in a word for 'Spear-fighter' which is... not a very uncommon thing, so it is entirely possible that two deities just had the same vague name.

The Túatha Dé as we see them in Scion are modeled after a 12th-century snapshot of the figures, and thus likely have very little connection with the pre-Christian deities of Ireland. For instance, the Fomori as 'rivals' or 'enemies' to the Túatha Dé is the result of 12th century politics in Ireland, the Fomori being created into Norse-expies due to contemporary political issues. Before that point, Fomori was just another word to describe the Túatha Dé. This is why the Fomori and Túatha Dé have such an interconnected family tree, they were not two seperate families originally historically, Bres, Balor, Elatha, etc, were all just Túatha Dé. The Túatha Dé we are most confident in their pre-Christian divinity status are the more obscure ones too, namely Midir and Boanann. There is a theory that The Morrígana are modeled off The Furies from Classical literature based on their earliest depictions literally being annotated with the names of The Furies, which I think is probably true, though I expect there was probably some originally Irish basis that was built on.

[Penelope]

Thank you.

[Svarogg]

Wisdom Library (https://www.wisdomlib.org/) has a huge collection of translated works of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. So that would be a good starting point for researching South Asian legends, and myths.

These days I have been looking up the mythology in the Philippines and the Aswang Project (https://www.aswangproject.com/) happens to be a very helpful resource.

Finally, Northern Illinois University has a website set up for teaching Southeast Asian languages. The section dedicated to Laos includes pages for myths, legends, and epics. (http://www.seasite.niu.edu/lao/Lao_F...ore_course.htm)

[PXGentleman]

This is an extremely useful thread, in potentia, and I'm going to keep an eye on it.
Incidentally, if you are interested in information on the Theoi, the best place to look is, well, https://www.theoi.com/

[Maitrecorbo]

Dr Jackson Crawford has a Youtube channel explaining various elements of Norse mythology that i was given to understand to be very well explained.

And i think http://www.voluspa.org is a good site for reading the Eddas and the sagas.

[Astromancer]

Have you read the Metamorphosis? It's a book length poem. "I sing of bodies changed ..." Nearly as influential as Homer Ovid's book defines what we know of the Theoi on profound levels.

[Grevnor]

A good friend of mine swears by www.sacred-texts.com for virtually anything religion related with a written record. It's one huge archive, so I can't give any specifics, just that there is a lot on there. Search by topic and see what comes up?

Edit: It's at least a better starting point than Wikipedia.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Archive.org is your friend. It contains multitudes of digital scans of public domain works - and there a lot of mythology and folklore publications from the 19th century alone.

[Maitrecorbo]

Finding respectful and faithful myths on the First Nations can be really challenging.
The best site ive found so far is the following http://www.native-languages.org

From best as i can tell its been put together and worked on by people of First Nations origins.
Its not perfect but aside from asking someone directly this is as good as it gets.