Month: September 2022

Venice flooding from a duck’s perspective

In the Donald Duck story “Zio Paperone e la deriva dei monumenti“ by Italian comic artists Giorgio Pezzin and Giorgio Cavazzano, Uncle Scrooge together with Donald and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie save the historic buildings of Venice from rising floods.

Original Italian cover

The story first appeared as early as 1977 and has all the ingredients of our current debates about the protection of cultural heritage from climate change. Uncle Scrooge suggests to put the historic buildings on large floating pillows that would rise with the flood and lower again when the waters receed. The story was published in over a dozen countries, the german version alone saw 6 reprints until 2013.

The following images are from a German edition:

Thanks to Tobias Bulang and Janet Grau for the lead and their kid’s comic book.

Tourism and Sunken Cities

In the greek town Epidavros on the Pelopones a sunken villa is marketed as a toursit attraction of some sorts.

Somewehere, down there…

thanks to Tanja Krone for the lead and the travel company!

Thunderbird and Whale

“Throughout Cascadia (southern Canadian and northern US-American west coast), earth shaking and/or tsunamilike effects are frequently described in stories about the acts and personalities of supernatural beings, often in the guise of animals. Many stories from western Vancouver Island and northern Washington tell of a struggle between Thunderbird and Whale, and throughout Cascadia stories about these figures frequently include explicit mention or visual imagery suggesting shaking and/or tsunamilike effects.

Alert Bay; a Thunderbird and Whale painted on the front of the house of Kwakwaka’ wakw Chief Tlah go glas (Malin 1999). Photo taken by Richard Maynard, 1873, print available from Vancouver Museum, 23.

Thunderbird and Whale are beings of supernatural size and power. A story from Vancouver Island says that all creation rests on the back of a mammoth whale, and that Thunderbird causes thunder by moving even a feather and carries a large lake on his back from which water pours in thunderstorms.

Shaking and ocean surges can be inferred from the story of Thunderbird driving his talons deeply into Whale’s back, and Whale diving and dragging the struggling Thunderbird to the bottom of the ocean (other versions have Thunderbird conquering Whale). Shaking is implied by imagery: Thunderbird lifts the massive Whale into the air and drops him on the land surface.

The struggle between Thunderbird and Whale is unique to the Cascadia coast and appears in stories from Vancouver Island to northern Oregon. From central Oregon south, thunder or whale figures appear individually in stories describing earthquake or tsunami themes. The central figures are variously identified as Thunder, Thunderbird, or bird and Whale, fish, or sea monster. In northern California, one tribe has an “Earthquake” figure with “Thunder” as his companion. Stories from Puget Sound and eastern Washington also use these motifs in conjunction with descriptions of earthquake effects.

Thunderbird and Whale stories are part of a systematic oral tradition that used symbolism and mnemonic keys to condense and present information in a format that could be remembered and retold for generations.”

excerpt from Ruth S. Ludwin et al.: “Dating the 1700 Cascadia Earthquake: Great Coastal Earthquakes in Native Stories”

full text: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252069651_Dating_the_1700_Cascadia_Earthquake_Great_Coastal_Earthquakes_in_Native_Stories

Sunken Lanka

From an article by Patrick Harrigan in the Colombo Sunday Times in 1989:

“One example of a recurrent storytelling motif that appears and re-appears under various guises is that of characters or even whole kingdoms that are said to be ‘sunken‘ or gone ‘underground’ and which may periodically re-surface only to disappear again. Such stories are known the world over, or course, but in Lanka they have been developed into a fine art.

The ‘original’ Lanka is said to be mostly submerged, like an iceberg. In remote antiquity, we are told, Lanka or Lemuria as some call it was a continent that was home to brilliant civilization of exceptional spiritual vitality, but which later catastrophically sank beneath the waters except for the small portion that is Sri Lanka today.

Ptolemy of Alexandria, the 2nd Century AD ‘Father of Modern Geography’, and other ancient geographers consistently reckoned Lanka or Taprobane of their time as being many times greater than the island known to geographers today. Was it really so, or was Taprobane larger only in the imagination of those who saw it or heard of it?”

see full article here.

The serpent disliked the weight upon his head

“At the beginning of time, the surface of the Earth was primeval ocean where this great serpent swam or lay. The daughter of the highest deity (who dwelt in the heavens and had birds as servants) came down from the upper realm and spread a handful of earth to form the world. The serpent, however, disliked the weight upon his head, and, turning over, caused this newly made world to be engulfed by the sea.”

A folktale from Indonesia.

from: Dixon, R. B. Oceanic Mythology, Cooper Square Publishers, New York. (1916)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/om/om16.htm

Frazer: The flood myth

It might be time for a clarification. Since flood myths play quite a big role in cristian creationist ideology and since there is a lot of material online on the subject hosted on creatonist propaganda websites, I feel I need to distance myself from the creationist idoelogy once and for all. I am arguing in this blog that mythology and folklore are aesthetic reflections of natural events like tsunamis, high tides or other extreme weather phenomena. In othe words, most myths are most likely creative renditions of lived experience. This does however not mean that myths are true or – for that matter – that the bible is right. In fact I am opposed to any creationist ideology, particularly of the US-American Christian ultra-right, and fundamentally opposed to the idea of founding ethical codes of conduct on religious authority.

Having said that much, here is an online source of a chapter from Sir James George Frazer‘s book “Folk-Lore in the Old Testament” from 1918. (On a creationist website…)

The Scotish scientist Frazer is one of the founding fathers of anthropology and his study “The Golden Bough” (1928) became one of the most influential and popular texts in anthropology.

This is the section from “Folk-Lore in the Old Testament” on the flood myth. In it he gives a very detailed account of several flood myths from all continents:

https://creationism.org/books/FrazerFolkloreOT/FrazerFolkloreOT_4.htm

Flood stories from around the world

In this really impressive online source, a guy called Mark Isaak has collected hundreds of flood myths from literally all over the world. Quite a collection! It gives a good impression of the omnipresence of the flood myth. Check it out here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html


You can also chek out this article on the topic online which gives more of an overview.

The louse and the flea

A fairy tale as collected by the Brothers Grimm:

A little louse and a little flea kept house together. They were brewing beer in an eggshell when the little louse fell in and burned herself to death. At this the little flea began to cry loudly.

Then the little parlor door said, “Why are you crying, little flea?”

“Because little louse has burned herself to death.”

Then the little door began to creak.

Then a little broom in the corner said, “Why are you creaking, little door?”

“Why should I not be creaking?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.”

Then the little broom began to sweep furiously.

Then a little cart came by and said, “Why are you sweeping, little broom?”

“Why should I not be sweeping?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.
Little door is creaking.”

Then the little cart said, “Then I will run,” and it began to run furiously.

It ran by a little manure pile, which said, “Why are you running, little cart?”

“Why should I not be running?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.
Little door is creaking.
Little broom is sweeping.”

Then the little manure pile said, “Then I will burn furiously,” and it began to burn in bright flames.

A little tree that stood near the little manure pile said, “Little manure pile, why are you burning?”

“Why should I not be burning?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.
Little door is creaking.
Little broom is sweeping.
Little cart is running.”

Then the little tree said, “Then I will shake myself,” and it began to shake itself until all its leaves fell off.

A girl who came up with her water pitcher saw that, and said, “Little tree, why are you shaking?”

“Why should I not be shaking?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.
Little door is creaking.
Little broom is sweeping.
Little cart is running.
Little manure pile is burning.”

Then the girl said, “Then I will break my little water pitcher.” And she broke her little water pitcher.

Then the little spring from which the water was flowing said, “Girl, why did you break your little water pitcher?”

“Why should I not break my little water pitcher?

Little louse has burned herself to death.
Little flea is crying.
Little door is creaking.
Little broom is sweeping.
Little cart is running.
Little manure pile is burning.
Little tree is shaking.”

“Oh,” said the spring, “then I will begin to flow,” and it began to flow furiously. And everything drowned in the water: the girl, the little tree, the little manure pile, the little cart, the little broom, the little door, the little flea, and the little louse, all together.

from: Children’s and Household Tales (1812 – 1857)
online source: https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm030.html

The Great Flood of Gun-Yu

The Great Flood of Gun-Yu (Chinese: 鯀禹治水), also known as the Gun-Yu myth, was a major flood event in ancient China that allegedly continued for at least two generations, which resulted in great population displacements among other disasters, such as storms and famine. People left their homes to live on the high hills and mounts, or nest on the trees. According to mythological and historical sources, it is traditionally dated to the third millennium BCE, or about 2300-2200 BCE, during the reign of Emperor Yao.

Emperor Yu and the great flood

Treated either historically or mythologically, the story of the Great Flood and the heroic attempts of Emperor Yu and various human characters to control it and to abate the disaster is a narrative fundamental to Chinese Culture. Among other things, the Great Flood of China is key to understanding the history of the founding of both the Xia dynasty and the Zhou dynasty, it is also one of the main flood motifs in Chinese mythology, and it is a major source of allusion in Classical Chinese poetry.

from wikipedia

see also this article about the geological facts behind this and other flood myths.

Emperor Yu once more, batteling the flood and a dragon.
A statue of Yu The Great in today’s China

“Orașele înecate” by Felix Aderca

In this 1936 classic Sci-Fi novel (english title: The Drowned Cities), Romanian author Felix Aderca describes a future, when global cooling has forced humans to flee the Earth’s surface, rebuilding civilization on the seafloor, accessing the heat of the inner core.  Here are some quotes from the German edition, describing the nearing end of the submarine citites:

„Mit unfehlbarem Instinkt begannen die Einwohner das nahende Ende zu fühlen. Ihr Arbeitsvermögen nahm rasch ab. Die Aufmerksamkeit ließ nach und die unsinnigsten tödlichen Unfälle häuften sich. Die Leute verunglückten unter unglaublichen Umständen. Es wurden sogar bei dem Bewetterungsdienst Tote gefunden, wo die Leute nur zwei automatische Metalschleusen zu überwachen hatten. Wie es hier zu tödlichen Unfällen kam, konnte niemals geklärt werden. In den Werkstätten und Laboratorien mit großen Arbeitsgruppen bewegten sich die Menschen kolonnenweise. Die einzelnen Menschen trugen kleine Lämpchen an der Stirn und, um in der Dunkelheit lastenschleppend nicht aufeinanderzuprallen, warnten sie Entgegenkommende mit langgezogenen UUU-Rufen, als seien sie im Nebel kreuzende Schiffe.“

„Die vier Städte am Meeresboden, von denen nur eine einen schwachen Lichtschimmer aussandte, schwangen in der Stille der Wassermassen wie tonlose Gongs. Haie, Stachelrochen und Polypen warteten geduldig das Ende ab.“


english google translation:

“With unerring instinct, the inhabitants began to sense the approaching end. Her ability to work declined rapidly. Attention waned and the most senseless fatal accidents began to pile up. People crashed under unbelievable circumstances. Dead bodies were even found at the ventilation service, where people only had two automatic metal airlocks to monitor. How fatal accidents happened here has never been clarified. In the workshops and laboratories with large working groups, people moved in columns. The individual people wore small lamps on their foreheads and, so as not to crash into each other in the dark, carrying loads, they warned oncoming people with long drawn-out UUU calls, as if they were ships crossing in the fog.”

“The four cities at the bottom of the sea, only one of which emitted a faint glimmer of light, rang like soundless gongs in the stillness of the waters. Sharks, stingrays and polyps patiently awaited the end.”