The "bull with five horns" was likened by Pseudo-Fredegar- interpolating Gregory of Tours who authored an earlier record of the legend- to both Neptune and the Minotaur, as it was both seaborne and taurine. It is not known whether one or both traits are original to the legend or if their combination is an accretion by one or both of the Christian authors.[1] The clerical Latinity of the name does not indicate whether it is a translation of some genuine Frankish creature or a coining.
The suggested rape and subsequent family relation of this monster attributed to Frankish mythology correspond to both the Indo-European etymology of Neptune (according to Jaan Puhvel, from Proto-Indo-European*népōts, "grandson" or "nephew", compare also the Indo-AryanApam Napat, "grandson/nephew of the water")[2] and to bull-related fertility myths in Greek mythology, where for example the princess Europa was abducted by the god Zeus, in the form of a white bull, that swam her to Crete; or to the very myth of the Minotaur, which was the product of Pasiphaë's, a Cretan Queen's, intercourse with a white bull, initially allotted to King Minos, Pasiphaë's husband, as a sacrifice for Poseidon.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, and possibly also the father of Iapyx. Among his most famous creations are the wooden cow for Pasiphaë, the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete which imprisoned the Minotaur, and wings that he and his son Icarus used to attempt to escape Crete. It was during this escape that Icarus did not heed his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun; the wax holding his wings together melted and Icarus fell to his death.
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur, also known as Asterion, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". He dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, upon command of King Minos of Crete. According to tradition, every nine years the people of Athens were compelled by King Minos to choose fourteen young noble citizens to be offered as sacrificial victims to the Minotaur in retribution for the death of Minos's son Androgeos. The Minotaur was eventually slain by the Athenian hero Theseus, who managed to navigate the labyrinth with the help of a thread offered to him by the King's daughter, Ariadne.
In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by the Minotaur. After his death, King Minos became a judge of the dead in the underworld.
In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was a queen of Crete, and was often referred to as goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, Pasiphaë is notable as the mother of the Minotaur. Her husband, Minos, failed to sacrifice the Cretan Bull to Poseidon as he had promised. Poseidon then cursed Pasiphaë to fall in love with the bull. Athenian inventor Daedalus built a hollow cow for her to hide in so she could mate with the bull, which resulted in her conceiving the Minotaur.
Theseus was a divine hero in Greek mythology who is famous for slaying the Minotaur. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages.
In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess from Tyre and the mother of King Minos of Crete. The continent of Europe is named after her. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa."
A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes terror and fear, often in humans. Monsters usually resemble bizarre, deformed, otherworldly and/or mutated animals or entirely unique creatures of varying sizes, but may also take a human form, such as mutants, ghosts, spirits, zombies, or cannibals, among other things. They may or may not have supernatural powers, but are usually capable of killing or causing some form of destruction, threatening the social or moral order of the human world in the process.
In Norse mythology, the Vanir are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr. After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir. Subsequently, members of the Vanir are sometimes also referred to as members of the Æsir.
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are different variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis.
In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalus had revealed the labyrinth's secrets and imprisoned them—either in a large tower overlooking the ocean or in the labyrinth itself, depending upon the account. Icarus and Daedalus escaped using wings Daedalus constructed from birds’ molted feathers, threads from blankets, the leather straps from their sandals, and beeswax. Before escaping, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low or the water would soak the feathers and not to fly too close to the sun or the heat would melt the wax. Icarus ignored Daedalus's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing the beeswax in his wings to melt. Icarus fell from the sky, plunged into the sea, and drowned. The myth gave rise to the idiom, "fly too close to the sun." In some versions of the tale, Daedalus and Icarus escape by ship.
In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was the bull Pasiphaë fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur.
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism.
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities found among Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions.
Mannus, according to the Roman writer Tacitus, was a figure in the creation myths of the Germanic tribes. Tacitus is the only source of these myths.
The mythologies in present-day France encompass the mythology of the Gauls, Franks, Normans, Bretons, and other peoples living in France, those ancient stories about divine or heroic beings that these particular cultures believed to be true and that often use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. French myth has been primarily influenced by the myths and legends of the Gauls and the Bretons as they migrated to the French region from modern day England and Ireland. Other smaller influences on the development of French mythology came from the Franks.
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the 18th century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. In Germany, by about 1795, there was a growing interest in Homer and Greek mythology. In Göttingen Johann Matthias Gesner began to revive Greek studies and a new humanistic spirit. His successor, Christian Gottlob Heyne, worked with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid the foundations for mythological research both in Germany and elsewhere. Heyne approached the myth as a philologist and shaped the educated Germans' conception of antiquity for nearly half a century, during which ancient Greece exerted an intense influence on intellectual life in Germany.
The pagan religion of the Germanic tribal confederation of the Franks has been traced from its roots in polytheistic Germanic paganism through to the incorporation of Greco-Roman components in the Early Middle Ages. This religion flourished among the Franks until the conversion of the Merovingian king Clovis I to Nicene Christianity, though there were many Frankish Christians before that. After Clovis I, Frankish paganism was gradually replaced by the process of Christianisation, but there were still pagans in the late 7th century.
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself.
The Indo-European cosmogony refers to the creation myth of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology.
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