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Comment
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midori snyder
Registered User
(3/24/05 8:40 am)
ezSupporter
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Firebringers
Hello everyone,
I am working on an article (a bit under the gun) about Fire Bringers and thought I would throw the subject out to the board in case I've missed something wonderful (old and new ) that I really ought to know about. I am looking at Prometheus, Maui, Hermes, and Loki. I could also use some contemporary titles if you have them and films. I know there are a number of Native American firebringers....
All suggestions would be really helpful! Thanks!
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/24/05 12:48 pm)
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Re: Firebringers
There's a Greek white bird burned black by stolen fire story (funeral pyre?) but I can't remember if it's a firstfire tale. I'll check.
Raven!
Myth only or human folklore too?
There's lots on first fire in newlyweds home, first fire after new year, first fire after... well you get the idea.
Want more on the lore?
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midori snyder
Registered User
(3/24/05 3:04 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: Firebringers
hmmm, I am really interested in those tricksterish figures (especially male...since it seems so many of the fire bringers are) that steal fire from the Gods and bring it to the service of those lesser creatures--usually mortals. (as opposed to the Raven tale which is more aetiological in nature about the color of the birds or animals who attempt the task.) Although there is a wonderful "Aunt Nanci" (a female variant of Anansi the spider) who successfully steals fire from the gods after all the other animals have failed.
It's the gifting of fire I find interesting. There are some excellent Blackfeet narratives of a firebringer figure who fails (Seco no mo mun) and I suspect there are other Native American stories of those expected to carry the fire from one place to another (usually like Hermes in a plant stalk.)
I am also really intertested in modern retellings as well...there is one from David Clement-Davies (called appropriately, Fire Bringer ) but I would love to get more suggestions.
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/24/05 3:22 pm)
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Re: Firebringers
If you want the cliched "lone male hero" who saves the world all on his lonesome then I probably can't help you. I know people claim those myths are supposed to be inspiring but inspiring men to what? I prefer fire as a useful hearth-gift over fire as bringer of heroic (yawn) suffering.
But here's the myth stuff:
www.sacred-texts.com/pac/om/om21.htm (pacific)
www.mcgeorgia.uga.edu/stu...talize.htm (Cherokee)
www.mythinglinks.org/ct~fire.html (assorted web links)
www.infinityfoundation.co...i_fire.htm (Baltic fire Goddess - although some lore names Perkunas the storm God as bringer of fire)
E.A. Armstrong's book "The Folklore of Birds" has a chapter full of fire bringing birds.
Are fire-bringers mostly male? Or do westerners brought up on classical myth only find what they're looking for? Like all those non-existent "moon Goddesses" and missing sun Goddesses which mythographers find/can't find...
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midori snyder
Registered User
(3/24/05 3:45 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: Firebringers
Are you suggesting I am one of those "westerners brought up on classical myth only find what they're looking for"? Seems a bit harsh, don't you think?
I am doing research, reading widely...curious as I would be when looking say at trickster (for whom many of these fire bringers are...certainly Loki, Maui, and Hermes, are) which seem to delight in both self inflicted suffering and outrageous pleasure. They are wonderfully ambiguous these fire bringers--that's what I find compelling.
Thanks for the links.
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/25/05 7:34 am)
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Re: Firebringers
"Are you suggesting I am one of those "westerners brought up on classical myth only find what they're looking for"? Seems a bit harsh, don't you think?"
No Midori that remark wasn't aimed specifically at you which you can tell from the fact that it doesn't have your name on it and includes general remarks about mythographers researching other topics which you didn't mention. If I'm interested in a subject then I enjoy exploring around it.
On the other hand, yes I think my remark applies to most people who fall into the broad category "Westerners brought up on classical myth", myths which are deeply embedded in contemporary Western culture, and most of us find what we're looking for because we're looking for that thing. I don't know if that includes you but it includes me!
The rest of this is written in the spirit of exploring around the subject of first-fire in myth because I'm interested in it.
Many cultures don't have "stealing fire from the Gods" myths because many cultures don't have the sort of Deities who would keep a useful gift to themselves!
I know you asked for recent tales, and you may know more about this than I do, but I believe the idea of Loki as a fire-stealer doesn't go back more than 150 years at the very most. I believe the story was added to Loki by mythographers during their attempts to make all mythologies conform to the approved/expected classical model. Needless to say that doesn't make the story any less valid today as art etc. but it is an interesting origin which should effect academic assessments of the story (and makes me wary of accepting at face value mythographers' collections of stories from non-Western cultures whose languages I don't read). In the Eddas humans already have fire when the God/culture-hero Rig turns up.
Perkunas (and possibly Thor) had publicly available fire-making equipment built into at least one of His temples. In the same mythology the sun Goddess Saule sends Her fire daughter to earth and she becomes the beloved hearth Spirit. There's no selfishness by the Gods and therefore no stealing is necessary, only thanksgiving for the partnership of Deities in the important things of life.
The ancient Greek tribes, as represented in their literature, specifically approved of any lone male "hero" who would resort to any action in order to acquire status and then keep it exclusively for himself. Their Gods behaved the same way.
And then there's Agni about whom I know almost nothing.
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midori snyder
Registered User
(3/25/05 9:40 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: Firebringers
Ok..I guess I blinked at your remark because I came so very late to western mythology. My childhood was split between my father's field as an Africanist and my mother, a Central Asian scholar (mostly Tibetan...but her works traces migratory patterns of epic narratives fromTibet across India and through Afghanistan and Turkey). My own graduate work was in African Languages and Literature. So I was an adult before I studied Western Mythology (except for Beowulf...which someone gave a gorgeous and gory illustrated version when I was nine and I loved it.)
I am familiar with De Vries work (The Problem of Loki) on the missreading of "loki" and "logi" and ascribing the fire element to the figure of Loki. Still it is interesting to watch how such an idea takes on a life of its own and becomes part of the story. Just because Loki is a trickster, and manages to almost out-eat Fire, he becomes synonymous with Fire itself. Diana Wynne Jones' novel Eight Days of Luke where Loki's appearance as Luke is associated strongly with fire.
Though it does make me think it might be useful to divide the article into two segments--after all firebringers can include both those who gifted it to humans as well as those who stole it for humans. And then there are transformer fire workers--the blacksmiths, the metal workers at the forges--which seem to be an interesting interstitial place between the transformative power of deities and the labors of humans. I confess I find the tricksters more complicated and ambiguous--and therefore I guess more interesting.
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