Drunk Mythology

The sacrifices that we made to the eldritch gods in the heart of winter have paid off and they have seen fit to bestow upon us humble mortals the gift of another fertile spring. Or, to put it another significantly less superstitious way, the axial tilt of the planet has once again become favourable to the life-forms inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere... spring has sprung to put it yet another, much clearer, way. Whilst we have the wonderful logical system of science to help us understand this our our ancestors had nothing but there imaginations to rely upon. As a result they came up with some breathtakingly bat-shit mental explanations to 'explain' the worlds natural phenomena. By far my favourite of these narratives is the Greek myth of why we have seasons. As a tribute to the beginning of this fine season I will recount this tale to you now... whilst drunk. I have undertaken the first part of this experiment already. So I will now recount this tale to the best of my somewhat hampered ability.

... lets see how this effects my ability to communicate complex ideas...

Right so the Ancient Greeks entire mythology can only be described as so nut-tighteningly awesome that the only thing you can logically compare it to is the Marvel Comics universe. If you've ever played God of War a.k.a Kratos Fucks With The Gods Shit, then you'll know how the Ancient Greeks were like fuckin' awesome at myth... they were the Batman of making shit-up. These are the guys who invented Science, Intelligent Discourse and Democracy and had no problem with firing logic, restraint and common sense into the heart of the bastard sun in order to make up a good story. The Greek story of the seasons goes a little something like this.

... tree. Look I add the pictures last, and I'm smashed.

Hades, the younger brother of Zeus and Poseidon and apparently the whipping-bitch of the family, was ruler of the Underworld, a job he got tricked into due to the aforementioned bitch-whipping. He was lonely because goth-chicks hadn't been invented then and the whole lord of the realm of the dead thing was a massive turn off for everyone else... I don't know maybe they don't have showers in the Underworld. Also he only got to meet dead people. Then one day he met Persephone, now I can't remember if she was in the Underworld of if Hades was wandering around the mortal realm because both options are equally ridiculous, anyway Hades fell completely in love with her kidnapped her back to his kingdom. Faster than you could say 'Stockholm Syndrome' the two were married and in love.

Yes. This is my go to image for Stockholm Syndrome.

Meanwhile Persephone's mum, who was called Demeter, realised her daughter was missing and threw a total bitch-fit. Now Demeter was the goddess of life, flowers, crops and basically all the shit that grows out of the ground, as such she's a goddess we can totally get onside with... Go Team Demeter! Demeter spent fucking ages hunting for Persephone with no luck what so ever. On a side-note if someone I cared about went missing and I knew the person who was in charge of all of the dead people I'd probably give him a fucking bell... you know, just to check. Actually on another side-note Hades was Demeter's brother and therefore Persephone's uncle... you crazy Greek bastards.

Even I have some limits... and I'm going to use a Fritzl picture later.

So anyway Demeter starts making like Rick Castle and asking all the god's where in the name of themselves has Persephone gone... during this time Hades wasn't seen by anyone either, just saying they weren't a smart bunch of dieties. After a few months of searching, which is a few months longer than it takes the X-Men to find Sabretooth, seriously is there not a Greek of knowing where the fuck shit is? Finally someone managed to put 2 and 2 together, I don't know the god of maths or some shit, and realised that Hades had kidnapped Persephone. I'm guessing that at this point someone knocked on Hades' door and he stood snickering until Persephone asked if he wanted another sandwich or a blow-job. Look the girl married her kidnapper, that means she was crazy and crazy girls are great in the sack.

So Demeter went to Persephone's dad, Zeus, to ask him to intervene... if you're not following, Demeter and Zeus are brother and sister, I was going to say you couldn't make this shit up but then I remembered that someone obviously did. Zeus showing all the fatherly concern of Josef Fritzl replied by going 'pfft'.

Warned you.

Demeter bitch-fitted a bitch-fit so bad it nearly killed the earth. She went on strike, and refused to any of her godding until Zeus got her daughter back. This was the first winter, so no-one was even slightly prepared to deal with it in any way shape or form. Somehow Hades managed to ignore the massive pile of frozen dead-guys that were turning up at his door. Which just goes to show how much shit a lonely guy can ignore when he's got a hot chick hanging off his cock. After sometime Zeus, presumably getting tire of all the prayers being variations of 'so-cold, so-cold, so, very, very cold' gave in and finally intervened and organised some sort of sit-down.

"Look, I want to fuck your daughter senseless for at least a third of the year."

So all the interested parties, excepting of course all the freezing humans, whose opinions count for very little in these situations, got together and in the first ever case of shared custody agreed that Persephone would spend four months of the year slutting it up for Hades and the rest of the year hanging out with her mother... because apparently those are the only options available to the mythological Greeks. Seriously this entire story is fucking mental. Unfortunately Demeter, being something of a mental, can't deal with this and throws a four month long hissy-fit once a year, that we have to put up with and that's why we have winter.

Even Gods can be really shit at negotiating.

So, in conclusion, we have to tolerate cold, darkness and death to sate the libido of the God of Death and the Afterlife. Actually now I write that sentence out it actually doesn't sound like as bad an idea as it did in my head. I mean the guy commands the armies of hell and shit... Let's keep him chilled the fuck out. So yeah that's why the Ancient Greeks thought we had seasons. It's also the reason why if I was in fact religious I would totally choose the paganism and pray to the Greek Pantheon. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed drinking it.

eddie <why do we build the wall? we build the wall to keep us free>