Legends and Mythology

Staring into the terrifying thunderous tumult of the Corryvreckan whirlpool, it's easy to see why its sheer primal energy has fascinated people for centuries.Now Edinburgh folklorist Stuart McHardy has suggested a startling new theory - that the awe-inspiring natural vortex between the islands of Scarba and Jura in Argyll and Bute was the true origin of the Holy Grail.At its wildest, some say the whirlpool forms a spectacular swirling cauldron 300 feet wide and 100 feet deep. The cause is hidden beneath the waves – a giant rock pinnacle rising from the depths to within 95 feet of thesurface.

Water on the seabed is forced upwards when it hits the submerged rock, causing huge waves. The noise can keep the neighbours awake up to 20 miles away. McHardy believes that the Corryvreckan was, for pre-Christian Picts, a "Mother Goddess" - the Mother of All Fertility Symbols. "These ancient pagan tribes saw the whirlpool as a giant cauldron - or Grail - of rebirth," he says. "They believed it was the womb of all creation and could even awaken dead warriors. It was literally their Holy Grail." In his new book On the Trail of the Holy Grail, McHardy writes that incoming Christian monks tried to erase all trace of this ancient way of thinking. They rewrote what they saw as dangerous pagan beliefs, downplaying the regenerative power of femininity, promoting the idea of asingle, male God and disguised the religious significance of the whirlpool. The final blow to the Old Religion is thought to have come from the legendary warrior Arthur, the hammer of the Picts. Historian of the Clan Arthur, Hugh McArthur, believes a 10th century Welsh poem contains cryptic clues that reveal the Corryvreckan's central role in early stories about the Holy Grail. Preiddeu Annwn (The Spoils of Annwfn) describes how King Arthur and three boatloads of warriors sail to the Welsh Otherworld to steal a magical "cauldron of inspiration". Arthur's boats pass through the "gates of Hell" to Caer Sidi (the Fortress of the Fairies) but only seven of his force survive. McArthur writes: "It is this successful but costly raid on the most unassailable fortress in Britain that made Arthur the livinglege......

Ancient tribe of Maya passed on a legend that tells of the 13 crystal sculls able to save the world from a terrible catastrophe. Once in 1927 a British archeologist Mitchell-Hedges was able to confirm the Mayan legend through his own discovery: when the man was clearing debris from atop a ruined temple at the ancient Mayan city of Lubaantum his daughter found one such skull made out of pure quartz.Later a few more of these mysterious artifacts came into possession of people in different parts of the world. Places where the human sized ancient crystal skulls have been found are generally various ruins and many are guarded bydescendants of indigenous people throughout the world.The skulls have mystical qualities: they can bring their owners into the state of hypnosis, cause people to hallucinate or have dreams about ancient Indians. Some say they can even make wishes come true. According to the Crystal Links research a conservator and restorer Frank Dorland studying one of the skulls discovered that it had zygomatic arches acting as light pipes, using principles similar to modern optics, to channel light from the base of the skull to the eye sockets. The eye sockets in turn were miniature concave lenses that also transferred light from a source below, into the upper cranium.

Finally, in the interior of the skull was a ribbon prism and tiny light tunnels, by which objects held beneath the skull could be magnified and brightened.As a result, when placed upon a source of light, the skull acquired glowing eyes and appeared to be on fire. Yet the origins and the manufacturing of the skulls remain inexplicable. World Mystery Research Center reports that several of ancient skulls have been brought to Hewlett-Packard, located in the San Francisco area. Hewlett- Packard, long known as a manufacturer of printers and computer systems, has one of the most extensive scientific and crystal research laboratories in the world. The scientist working at HP, who had a chance to work with some of these ancient crystal skulls were hard pressed to explain how a primitive culture could have carved crystal into such precise shapes and especially against the natural axis of the crystal without the use of sophisticated tools! Thus far, four types of ancient quartz skullsare k......

From The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai
(New York:  Doubleday, 1964)

Presented here is a chapter discussing Lilith, taken from Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York:  Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69.  Graves and Patai have collected traditional Hebrew myths that amplify (and sometimes radically alter) stories found in the Book of Genesis.  This chapter, titled "Adam's Helpmeets", deals in part with the Lilith myth.  Each section of the chapter excerpted here recounts a "story" collected from non-biblical sources, frequently the Talmud -- sources are footnoted.  The footnotes are followed by notes of author commentary.  Hebrew Myths is recently back in print in a new hardcover edition . The best detailed discussion and historical evaluation of the Lilith myth will be found in The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai (Wayne State University Press, 3rd edition, 1978).   Patai presents an in-depth evaluation of the important but oft ignored role played by the feminine in Hebrew myth and religion, following the story of the Hebrew goddess from antiquity through its manifestations in Kabbalah and in the developing myth of Lilith.  We highly recommend this work to those interested in the story of Lilith. Those interested in the Lilith myth might also find interesting an essay discussing Gnostic creation mythology and the important role played by the feminine in the unique Gnostic reading of the Book of Genesis:  The Genesis Factor: Gnostic Creation Mythology. 

Chapter 10: Adam's Helpmeets (Excerpt from The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York:  Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69.)(a) Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound, Adam awoke and said: 'This being shall be named "Woman", because she has been taken out o f man. A man and a woman shall be one flesh.' The title he gave her was Eve, 'the Mother of All Living''. [1] (b) Some say that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world; [2]  but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing...

The vampire has long been a source of morbid fascination, particularly for authors of gothic fiction. Although The Vampyre - Polidori's uninspired pilfering of an unfinished tale by Lord Byron in 1819 - sparked a hugely popular revival in vampire literature that eventually led, in 1897, to Bram Stoker's Dracula (and its subsequent exhaustive film adaptation), vampire fiction can be traced back as far as classical Greece.Many attempts to explain the vampire myth have been cursed by the difficulty in separating the genuine folklore from the lurid fiction it inspired; Stoker, for example, seems to have added several qualities to the vampire which were subsequently adopted into the literature as genuine - suchas the idea that a vampire has no reflection.Some researchers have plumped for psychological interpretations of the vampire, others have suggested rare blood diseases (such as Dr Dolphin's porphyria hypothesis), but all are flawed and inspired more by the fictional vampire than his folkloric archetype. The 'vampires' exhumed and dispatched throughout eastern and central Europe during the middle ages are not really the subject of this discussion. Paul Barber studies these cases in some detail, and shows how corpses can be expected to appear in the 'vampiric' condition - bloated, with blood at the mouth.

Such outbreaks are undoubtedly largely brought about by the plague, which was also a factor behind the witch hunts. His hypothesis, although admirable, is somewhat strained when he tries to explain the many and varied apotropaic measures,and unconvincing in explaining why such a complex mythology developed originally. I believe that behind the old folklore is a core phenomenon. The vampire, and the apotropaic measures dictated by lore, is clearly essentially pre-Christian. In this article we will explore ancient worldviews and archaic magico-religious practices to gain an astonishing insight into the genesis of the vampire. The key to decoding the vampire, I suggest, is shamanism.

Shamanism Shamanism is the earliest known form of religion, whose roots can be traced back to the Palaeolithic era, and is the root of all modern magic. The shaman would be held responsible for the fertility of his tribe's land, the welfare of his people and their luck in hunting. He would fall into a trance-like state and travel into the spirit worlds to consult withthe powers......