norse mythology: Recent Episodes
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language is one of the most important things that a human learns. Without the creation of language we would have no idea what our past was or how to communicate with others,We'd be living a completely different life. A couple million years ago all we had was grunts and calls but with the Great Leap it evolved to being sentences and words differing us from other animals because of the sophistication. But animals learned how to communicate with their behavior to each other. Like other animals we do learn to recognize and define sounds that could come from predators or anything dangerous. In the book The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, he talks about monkeys and how they communicate, specifically the Vervet monkey because they also have to learn how to actually pronounce things, like different calls to other monkeys. Many animals also communicate like this but theirs are especially interesting because of the pronunciation. I find the idea of animal communication other than just behavior sort of confusing because we cannot know exactly what they mean as said in The Third Chimpanzee “ are vervet sounds words or sentences? Does the leopard call mean “Leopard!” or does it mean “there goes a leopard” or “watch out for that leopard!”. Maybe it means all of that and we’ll never know.” (Diamond, page 134).
The basilisk myth is from ancient medieval europe. They believed it was born from an egg which was nurtured by serpent or toad and then started to take on features of a Cockerel. According to them the Basilisk was a deadly creature and could kill with just one glance. It was also a serpent king, probably only around 12 fingers in length but could breathe fire. Everywhere it goes it leaves the trailer of venom. The basilisk's only weakness was Phoenix Tears. This is how the Basilisk is described in my story. Many years ago two little girls disappeared in the forest. One of them was the daughter of a knifesmith named Machaeropaeus. After their mysterious disappearance the knife smith's wife and Maid went on a search for them. Coming up on a cave from an underground cellar of a house, falling in, the maid went in meanwhile the wife stayed above not wanting to dirty her shoes. Upon entering however the maid could see the children lying motionless on the floor and decided to try calling their names. after a couple minutes went by she called many times with no reply as did the wife. Left with no other option, the maid built up her courage to near the children alone, while the wife watched outside. The maid too, sunk to the floor next to the children completely limp, while the wife nervously watched. Instead of running in to check on the main the wife decided the better choice would be to run out of the woods and spread word on the mysterious events. with rumors spreading everywhere throughout the city of Warsaw everyone took a sinking feeling there could be a basilisk hiding in the cellar. The Senate, a former Chief to the king, named Benedictus was known to possess knowledge of the Basilisk and ordered the bodies be taken from the seller with long poles so that he may examine them. They were a horrid, gory, sight ,after close consideration Benedictus pronounced them poisoned by a basilisk’s glare.
The Myth of The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong, is from Mandarin China And has been used in multiple Novels and stories over the years. It is about a Legendary monkey, born from Stone, who gains Supernatural powers. The Monkey King thinks of himself as a Demon with great influence and Power. He sees himself as a king. He was born from a Stone with the nurture of Heaven and positive nature But also with Earth which has negative nature. Having both meant the stone could produce living things. It would create a stone egg the size of a ball that would hatch to be a stone monkey when the wind blew. When a monkey is born two beams of golden light shined towards the Jade Palace and frightened the Jade Emperor sending two of his officers to investigate. His officers found the stone monkey and reported it back to him with the light fading as the monkey drank, though the emperor thought nothing of it. The Monkey got familiar with other animals on the mountain and then found a group of monkeys and joined. The group of monkeys found a stream and decided to chase it up to the waterfall saying whoever got their first would be their King. With sun Wukong jumping into the rushing water the other monkeys almost did as well but came up onto an iron bridge with a cave on the other side. Sun Wukong tried to convince the other monkey's to jump in the water with him but they refused and declared him as their King instead making the cave their new home. Sun Wukong named himself the Monkey King and took the throne. However, after the passing of one of his old friends he's left very unhappy and decides to make himself a raft and leave his Island to search for an immortal who could teach him how to skip death. When he makes it to a new island he sees humans frightened by him who run away leaving him the chance to take their clothes left out to dry. while wandering around this new island he walks into the woods and sees a Woodcutter singing a song about the origin. The Monkey King decides to question him on the song and learns it was taught to him by an immortal living in the forest.