crystalattice's Full Review: S. Baring-Gould - Curious Myths Of The Middle Ages...
I picked this up in a book store's bargain bin because it looked interesting. I thought it would have a variety of myths to cover but it turns out most of the stories it discusses are Christian in nature.
However, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Several of these stories I hadn't heard before (Pope Joan) or only knew about in a vague way (The Wandering Jew). It provides insight into how Christianity built upon common pagan myths to provide spiritual guidance for Catholics of the time.
The author, Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, lived in the Victorian era and died in 1924. Hence, parts of the book are looked at through the eyes of a devout Christian who believes in the full glory of the Christian God. On the other hand, because Reverend Baring-Gould was a historian, he is also able to show objectivity most of the time. This isn't to slight the Christians, it just means that sometimes they let their faith influence how they write.
The stories covered in the book are:
*The Wandering Jew
*Prester John
*The Divining Rod
*The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
*William Tell
*The Dog Gellert
*Tailed Men
*Antichrist and Pope Joan
*The Man in the Moon
*The Mountain of Venus
*Saint Patrick's Purgatory
*The Terrestrial Paradise
*Saint George
*Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins
*The Legend of the Cross
*Schamir
*The Piper of Hameln
*Bishop Hatto
*Melusina
*The Fortunate Isles
*Swan-Maidens
*The Knight of the Swan
*The Sangreal
*Theophile
The stories are covered in a fairly traditional historical format. The author provides a brief telling of the main Christian myth and usually provides several retellings from different countries. He then traces the history of the story from country to country, trying to show how it has evolved over time as it traveled around Asia, Africa, and Europe. Many of the stories are traced back to the Aryan area in India.
He is often able to show that the original stories have changed little as each culture adopted them. Even though each culture claims them to be original stories, it's quite obvious that they have a common ancestor.
Like Christian holidays, the stories were adopted from common myths already present in pagan cultures. The Church simply put a Christian spin on them to show Christians the errors of their ways if they fall back to their pagan roots.
Most of the stories I wasn't aware of, like the Man in the Moon. I always assumed the title applied to how the dark areas of the moon looked vaguely like a "smiley face". The "true story" involves a man being placed on the moon for violating some religious or cultural taboo; the "real" image is of a standing man carrying a bundle of sticks on his back.
One of the problems with the book as that, since the author lived in the 19th century, he wrote it for the period. Meaning that many quotes from foreign sources are in their original languages, like Latin, German, or even Middle English. He doesn't provide translations very often so parts of the chapters may be useless to many people.
Even if the quotes are from medieval times, because of how people wrote it can be hard to decipher what they actually say. For example:
"Holy byschoppes some tyme ther were,
That tawgte me of Goddes lore.
In Irlonde preched Seyn Patryke,
In that londe was non hym lyke..."
Though you can work out what is being said, it takes a little effort and slows the flow of the book.
That being said, there is a lot of information in the book and it's interesting to see how common many stories and beliefs are throughout the world. Whether you're a student of history, mythology, or religion, you should enjoy these stories.
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