The Gods are not Their Myths
Moving beyond decorative pots & runestones
Trigger Warning: rape mention
No god is depicted perfectly through the lens of their myths. We demonize their humanity and praise their righteousness. They do horrendous things in the name of jealousy, justice, drama, love, and boredom. You don’t have to throw a stone very far to hit a problematic myth (or an interpretation of one).
One thing we all agree on is that: yes, they do bad things in the myths.
But what about how we apply the myths to our worship? We use animals and plants and ideas from myths, but it can be easy to be hung up on something bad that happened. Especially when there are plenty of myths that developing worshipers might read and think:
“I don’t want to worship someone who did these terrible things.”
Nobody likes myths where terrible things happen. Not just unfortunate or violent events, but truly immoral events. They’re queasy depictions that sound bad and feel bad. They might be good stories, but our faith is not rooted in the written word.
Most things written, recorded, sculpted and framed were a direct result of faith, not something that the faith came from.
Examples of distastefulness in the mythos include the murder of innocents, the malicious joy of bringing terror (just because), and the big one: rape. There are numerous unsettling sexual crimes, punishments, and twisted desires shown in various myths.
I don’t blame people for second-guessing a deity after learning about these myths.
I even did it myself.
- The Welsh trickster god Gwydion fab Dôn started a war to distract the king, Math fab Mathonwy — who would die if his feet were not resting on a virgin while he was not at war. Gwydion’s brother, Gilfaethwy, admired the king’s footmaiden, Goewin, and raped her while the king was out to war.
- Gwydion and his brother faced three years of punishment where they turned into different animals every year. First, they were deer, then pigs, then wolves. It’s said that they switched genders each time and even bred with each other. Math married Goewin and made her queen to make amends.
- In another tale, he betrayed his sister, Arianrhod. Using magic, he forced her to bear children, that she did not want, while under trial to be the King’s next footmaiden. Instantaneously, she birthed a set of twins. Gwydion continued to terrorize her for years, and he guilted her for refusing to raise the child that she did not want, then tricked her into raising him. He did this so much that she remained within her castle until she died (I’m sure she had a garden, at least).
- I presume they never reconciled.
These stories do not rest easy with me as a point of worship. Even though Gwydion did not take these women by force, he conspired so deeply to hurt them. The “distraction war” that he started was over pigs. He harassed Arianrhod for probably at least fifteen years!
These stories unsettle me, so I disown them.
I disown them from my faith, that is. I choose to only believe in stories that do not unsettle me.
One day, I will rewrite those myths as a secret, a misunderstanding, and a tragic romance. I will tell the birth of Arianrhod’s children as a miracle that even she was unaware of — a fluke of Gwydion’s doing, and one that he tried to correct. He will be apologetic and selfless. Arianrhod’s distance from her children will be for their protection, rather than for the sake of her pride.
This family will have its reprieve. It will be a reflection of my faith in them.
The truth is: these unsettling stories were how I was introduced to these gods. Still, I loved them. And then, I had learned to love them all over again. I’m content now with the Mabinogion and for all other deities as well; I am comfortable learning about their unsettling stories knowing that my faith is not tied to them.
You can disown all of the myths from your faith.
I see it with Zeus — when people call him the bad guy, the mistake, and the worst thing to happen to anyone ever. (Yes, people can really act like this.)
I see it with Loki — when people observe tales of him retold by Christians, when he is perceived as Satan or the Devil, when they realize he is the father of Fenrir, Bringer of Ragnarok. (I see it with all of Loki’s children, really.)
I see it with Hades and “the Rape of Persephone”.
I see it with my own Gwydion and the terrors he has committed against breaching a woman’s trust.
There’s no need to keep this stuff in your faith. Religion should be a tough practice, but not troubling. Disowning myths is a right you have as a secular practitioner.
Nobody is going to stop you, everybody is just winging it.
They are stories, not rules.
The myths were created by people —
— if you go back far enough, they were created by worshipers just like you and me. Some cultures might not be so fortunate because their texts were recorded by people who did not belong to that faith or culture, which definitely adds a much more ambiguous nature to how similar our deity is compared to that of a worshiper from over two thousand years ago.
It works the other way, too. If we lived in the year 4019, then things like the Percy Jackson series might be considered “real” myths — and the New Gods of American Gods might have developed into their own entities. Modern myths recycle into ancient myths. Ancient myths become the origins.
Believing that today’s stories will be tomorrow’s myths is one way to discern the mythology of your faith.
Being an avid worshiper isn’t really about dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s — it’s about the emotion. The feeling. The ritual. The faith.
The myths are like, “filler episodes” for the gods. It’s everything in between the feeling and the ritual and the faith. They are things that we can keep up with and hang onto. They’re a great source of tangible representations that don’t require a lot of investment on your end.
The good parts are good.
The bad parts are useless.
Okay — not useless, but they are just like normal storybooks. Once they’re shared with the world, they belong to the world. You can do whatever you want with them to appease your comfort level.
This includes not working with deities based on their horrible myths. Maybe you can’t see past it, maybe you can’t let go. Maybe you have trauma or you’re afraid to work with that deity, or you just plain don’t want to.
If you have researched a god and found their myths unpleasant:
- you are right to be upset
- you are right to not want that myth — that god
- and if it comes down to it, you are right not to worship them because of it
Discomfort will ebb and flow on its own in your religion, you do not need to add to it. It’s good to stay in your comfort zone and only advance when you are confident again.
However, what you should do is keep your ears open and if you hear a different take on a myth that discomforts you, allow yourself the opportunity to be aware of the differences.
And if you do find yourself conflicted over admiring a mythically-problematic god — I urge you to dig deeper. The gods did not only exist when the myths were written, recorded, remembered, shared, and altered — and I think that many polytheists will agree with me when I say that most gods are not inherently malicious.
You do not have to define your faith based on pottery and old poems that are difficult to read.
