Mythology Flashcards
hero of The Iliad
Achilles
an extremely beautiful boy loved by Aphrodite, any handsome young man
Adonis
hero of the Aeneid
Aeneas
Trojan hero who fled after the fall of Troy to Carthage
Aeneas
____ fell in love with ______ in Carthage, but committed suicide when she realized that he could not stay with him forever
Dido, Aeneas
Said to have founded Rome (the other story is of Romulus and Remus)
Aeneas
she, his wife (along with her love) killed Agamemnon after he returned from the Trojan War
Clytemnestra
Helen of Troy’s husband in Greece, brother to Agamemnon
Menelaus
daughter of King Oedipus, conflicted but buries her brother despite the King forbidding it, sentenced to death, play by Sophocles
Antigone
Mother of Eros and Aeneas
Aphrodite
He was worshiped at the Delphic Oracle, where a priestess gave forth his predictions
Apollo
Embarked on a quest for othe Golden Fleece (the wool of a flying ram)
Jason and the Argonauts
Hera sent this creature with 100 eyes to guard Io from Zeus because only some eyes would be closed to sleep at any one time, Hermes played music to put him to sleep and kill him
Argus
King Arthur’s greatest champion, love affair with Queen Guinevere ends Arthur’s kingdom
Sir Lancelot
Gave King Arthur Excalibur (in another version he pulled it from a stone), enchanted Merlin, and raised Lancelot after the death of his father
Lady of the Lake
this pure knight found the holy grail, could see it in all its spendor because of his purity and virtue, son of Sir Lancelot
Sir Galahad
other knight who found the holy grail, opera by Wagner
Sir Percival
knight of the round table, story in which he battles the Green Knight
Sir Gawain
Arthur’s evil half-sister, sorceress
Morgan le Fay
this magician was an advisor to King Arthur and his father Uther Pendragon
Merlin
legend says he created Stonehenge as a sepulcher of Pendragon
Merlin
King Arthur and this nephew kill each other in battle
Mordred
island where they carried King Arthur to after his death (or he still lives there), ruled by Morgan le Fay
Avalon
goddess who helped the Greeks during the Trojan Water and later Odysseus in the Odyssey
Athena
stables that Hercules cleaned out by diverting two rivers to flow through the stables, during the Labors of Hercules
Augean stables (favor was for King Augeas)
Charles Perrault story, monster keeps his former wives behind a certain door and warns his new wife not to open it, 6 wives fail, but last passes the test
Bluebeard
prophetess in Troy during Trojan War, her predictions about the Greeks coming were true but never believed. Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy but made people not believe her after she refused his amorous advances.
Cassandra
3-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades, Hercules had to dognap him
Cerberus
a concession or bribe
to give a sop to cerberus
Roman God for Demeter
Ceres
the boatman who carried souls of the dead across the River Styx into Hades, received a coin as payment
Charon
monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a dragon/serpent
chimera
Jason (of the Argonauts) was raised by this centaur, became the constellation Sagittarius
Chiron
sorceress who turned people into pigs, crew of Odysseus fell prey to her spells
Circe
ingenious inventor, designer of the labyrinth, and one of the few to escape from it after imprisoned there, father of Icarus (made his wings)
Daedalus
flattered the king too much so the king sat him under a sword suspended by a single hair
Damocles
Daughter of Agamemnon, helped her brother Orestes kill their Mother Clymnestra and her lover (for killing Agamememnon)
Electra
the place where souls of the good went after death, beautiful peaceful place with sunlight, fresh air, etc.
Elysian Fields
creature who is part man and part goat
satyr (roman name “faun”)
discovered Florida while searing for the Fountain of Youth
Juan Ponce De Leon
Aesop fable where a ____gives up on grapes saying “those grapes are probably sour anyway”
“The Fox and the Grapes”
Primal mother figure, gave birth to the sky, the mountains, and the sea, mother of the titans, wife of Uranus
Gaea / Gaia
God of the sky, gave birth to the titans, husband of Gaea
Uranus
God of time, husband to Rhea, father to Zeus, ate his children to stay in power
Cronus
Mother of the gods, wife to Cronus, mother to Zeus
Rhea
patron saint of England (and Boy Scouts), slayed the dragon
Saint George
rode naked on horseback covered only by her long hair to get her husband Lord of Coventry to ease taxes
Lady Godiva
Alexander the Great cutthis knot with his sword to quickly solve a complex problem
Gordian knot
the cup used at the Last Supper, sought after by King Arthur and the knights of the round table
The Holy Grail
enormously strong black man who worked on railroads and died from exhaustion after he outperformed a steam drill in a contest
John Henry
12 seemingly impossible tasks given to Hercules such as cleaning the Augean stables and killing a 9-headed Hydra, done to atone for killing his 6 sons and to gain immortality
Labors of Hercules
wand of Hermes, traditional symbol of physicians
caduceus
Actual Native American Chief in the 16h century, husband to Minnehaha, urged peace with the European settlers, known in “The Song of ____” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hiawatha
He was sent by King Mark to get her from Ireland to Britain, they drank a potion on the way back nd fell in love, the King banished him, he died and she couldn’t make it in time, then died herself beside his corpse
Tristan and Isolde (Iseult)
A Valkyrie, or woman servant of Odin, she loved the hero Siegfried after he saved her from a ring of fire, after she found out he deceived her, she had him killed and committed suicide
Brunhilde
Roman god of doors/gateways (hence beginnings), 2 faces looking in opposite directions, January named after him
Janus
queen of Sparta and mother of Helen of Troy, Zeus raped her as a Swan
Leda
Robin Hood’s righthand man, among the Merry Men, large and tall (at least 7 ft)
Little John
location of the Loch Ness Monster (“Nessie”)
Loch Ness, a lake in Scotland
sorceress who fell in love with Jason but after he left her took revenge by murdering his new bride as well as all of the children she had borne him
Medea
Roman god of sleep/dreams, “in the arms of _____” means asleep
Morpheus
9 goddesses who presided over science and the arts, provide source of inspiration for writers
Muses
beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool and wasted away and died, spurned Echo’s love
Narcissus
this nymph pined after Narcissus, he ignored her for his own reflection in a pool
Echo
Norse ruler of the gods, god of wisdom, poetry, farming, and war, Wednesday is named after him (using a form of his name in another language)
Odin
Norse god of thunder, wields a hammer, Thursday is named after him, born in Asgard but banished to Earth by Odin
Thor
palace in Asgard, the Norse heaven, reserved for souls of those who died heroic deaths
Valhalla
Odin & Frigg live in and rule this realm, a section of which is Valhalla
Asgard
These maidens bring the souls of slain warriors to Valhalla
Valkryies
trickster Norse God, shapeshifter, competes with Thor to get the throne of Asgard, aids in the death of Baldr and is bound to a rock as punishment (causes earthquakes when he moves)
Loki
Norse counterparts of the Fates, female deities who determine the course of events, 3 sisters who each control the past, present, and future
Norns
great musician who could calm wildest animal or make stones rise up through music alone, married to Eurydice
Orpheus
charmed Cerberus with a lyre
Orpheus
went to the underworld to save his dead wife Eurydice, Hades agreed but only if he goes ahead of her on his way back up to Earth and doesn’t look back, he does at the end, she vanishes forever
Orpheus
Orpheus’ wife, failed attempt to save her left her in the underworld forever
Eurydice
Greek god of flocks, forests, meadows, and shepherds
Pan
she was given a box by Zeus and told not to open it, she did anyway, releasing all the world’s evils, but shut it before Hope could escape
Pandora
location of the Delphic Oracle (also one of the places the Muses lived)
Mount Parnassus
Tamed Pegasus with the help of a bridle given to him by Athena, killed the chimera, fell off of Pegasus to his death
Bellerophon
Medusa was this type of creature (woman body with snakes for hair) that anyone looked at turned to stone, Medusa was the only 1 of the 3 that was mortal
Gorgon
the king of Troy, father of Hector, Paris, and Cassandra, killed during the Trojan War
Priam
Aeschylus wrote ___ Bound play, Percy Shelley wrote ____ Unbound poem
Prometheus
a sculptor who fell in love with a statue, Venus made statue come to life
Pygmalion
Meoamerican god (both Aztecs and Toltecs), symbol of death and resurrection, god of wind, usually represented as a plumed serpent (bird + snake)
Quetzalcoatl
Montezuma thought that Hernando Cortez was this god
Quetzalcoatl
Robin Hood’s girlfriend
Maid Marian
Robin Hood’s priest
Friar Tuck
Robin Hood’s foe
Sheriff of Nottingham
Twin brothers raised by a she-wolf and founded Rome
Romulus and Remus (Romulus killed Remus)
story where dwarf promises a woman’s first born child that she can’t guess his name, she does, he goes crazy and destroys himself
Rumpelstiltskin
horrible 6-headed monster who lived on a rock, across the strait of Messina from Charybdis
Scylla
Whirlpool across the strait of Messina from Scylla
Charybdis
king who offended Zeus and was punished in Hades to force an enormous boulder to the top of a steep hill, everytime the boulder neared the top, it would roll back down, and he would have to start over
Sisyphus
winged monster with the head of a woman, body of a lion, guards the entrance to Thebes with the “4 legs, 2 legs, 3 legs” riddle, Oedipus passed and it killed itself
Sphinx (greek version, Egyptian version is a man’s head and guards the pyramids)
hero of Switzerland, famous for his skill as an archer, a tyrannical offricial forced him to shoot an apple off his son’s head, shot the Austrial governor Gessler
William Tell
killed the Minotaur in the labyrinth (with thread for Ariadne to get out), married the queen of the Amazons Hippolyta
Theseus
defeated the troll under the bridge
“The Three Billy Goats Gruff”
Greek and Roman god of the west wind, the most pleasant of the winds
Zephyr
___ swam the Hellespont to visit ___ guided by a lamp she lit, when he drowned one day, she killed herself
Leander, Hero