Outlaws of the Marsh. A story about various people getting together to affect social change in medieval China. Those of you who have played the Suikoden series of games, it's based on these legends. I think that it's possible that it happened, but it's bare minimum exaggerated. Reading these in Chinese is what took me from taking the class as a class I knew I could do well in to taking it as something I enjoyed.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, of course : )

Beowulf

@SD:

Huh, never head of that one before...

@abgemacht:

Just read Coleridge's "Rime" for a Lit. class...I didn't think it was special, but then I was also passing out from not sleeping and working on a paper for the last 10 hours (I usually just do it in 4 max and breeze through with my usual bag of tricks, but this is the professor who clashes with me, so I wanted to spend extra time on it.)

And I really need to become more familiar with Beowulf, I know the basic premise and have read a couple of lines, but that's it...and after reading "Paradise Lost," I'm done with epic poems for a while...I missed seeing periods and modern sentence structure! :)

(But on the "Rime," I have a question--granted I very well could've been dreaming and hearing things at that point, but I though I heard the Mariner shoots the Albatross and wears it around his neck...but albatrosses are supposed to be rather large, aren't they? how would THAT work, it might break his neck, a large bird with all it's weight put on his neck.)

Wow

Obi, please completely reread "Rime" when you aren't sleep deprived.

Yes, the Albatross is hung around his next in place of a cross, to parallel Christ. Physically how this is done I do not know, nor is it important, nor is it the most unrealistic part of the story.

Also, months ago we argued Rime vs. Odyssey. Are you telling me you had that argument without having read Rime? Shame on you. : )

Game, set, match abgemacht.

@abgemacht:

I'd read part of the Rime and knew the Christ bit, didn't knwo the end...

But you can't let on that sort of thing in the heat of a debate! :p

(I shall now have to read this when I'm not feeling ready to black out...but since my argument for Odysseus was mainly that he came first and is arguably the basis for all non-religious Western heroes, I think that argument can still be valid, ending read or not...whether I read "rime" thoroughly or not doesn't change the fact your Mariner's journey is written of 2,000 years after, and HAD to be partly inspired by, Odysseus.) :)

The original isn't always the best. See: Jimi Hendrix' cover of All Along the Watchtower.

I'd also disagree that the rhyme is necessarily a heroic journey in the same vein. Read it fully, then decide how much it borrows.

Apparently, Outlaws of the Marsh is better known in English as "Water Margin" and has about as much historical basis as Robin Hood. That's not the only similarity it has with Robin, it's essentially the Chinese equivalent. The most noteworthy change is that there's 108 "main" characters (some mainer than others).

"I shall now have to read this when I'm not feeling ready to black out..."

So you often read literature while drunk? That explains why you're able to drone on and on over some vaguely interesting subject with such confidence that what you're saying is brilliant.

First, it kills the quiet cells.

My favorite legend is that the pyramids were landing sites for alien ships. Specifically Ha'tak class ships.

@obi


I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed. You have a discussion about a work you didn't read under the pretense that you did. You then defend your position after just admitting you didn't understand/retain a majority of the work. Is this your MO?

passover wasnt just earlier last week, it ends tonight, im disapointed in you obi

It's still happening??!?! Why couldn't I get real coke??!!

@SacredDigits, I think I've vaguely heard of that... In The Cartoon History of the Universe by Larry Gonick, I think it's represented by the following conversation:
Man #1: What's the punishment for being late?
Man #2: Death.
Man #1: What's the punishment for rebellion?
Man #2: Death.
Man #1: Well guess what, we're late!

As for my favorite legend, it's this one:
"According to legend, which made the Czech Romantics swell with pride, Faust was a Czech who practised the black arts, that is, necromancy and printing. His name was Št’astný, that is, Happy, that is, Faustus. During the Hussite Revolt he emigrated to Germany, where he took the name Faust von Kuttenberg after the town of his birth (Kutná Hora in Czech). In other words, he was none other than Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. In the poem “Labyrint slávy” (The Labyrinth of Flory, 1846) Jan Erazim Vocel recounts how the defeat of Prokop Holý’s Taborites in 1434 led the Bohemian baccalaureate Jan Kutenský (Johann Kuttenberg) to devote himself to the spagyric art, to which end he sold his soul to the devil Duchamor. After his beloved Ludmila sacrificed herself to free him from the devil’s clutches, he settled in Mainz, where he invented the printing press to the eternal glory of the Slavs.
• Ripellino, Angelo Maria. Magic Prague. Trans. David Newton Marinelli. Ed. Michael Henry Heim. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Page 97."

Now that I think about it, I think I'm wrong about the Cartoon History thing, but I like the quote anyway.

Romulus and Remus are kinda neat, and are one of those things where they certainly never existed, but are still considered possibly historical figures. King Lear and Cordelia are supposed to have existed at some point (though they almost certainly didn't actually). And then there's the numerous variations on the "Star-crossed lovers" story, some of which probably do have some basis in fact and others which are obviously just stories.

That said, the legends which are the most interesting are the ones which are clearly fictional, and yet which are set in an actual historical time as a comment on that. So for instance the story of Nornagest, which is a comment on the transition from Paganism to Christianity or ...damn. I had another example, but I can't think of what it was now. Damn.

I'm also really fascinated by fairy tales, particularly more obscure ones. They tend to be quite dark and often kinda bizarre, like The Traveling Companion or The Juniper Bush or Allerleirauh (or All-Kinds of Fur).

@abgemacht:

Well, again, I knew the Mariner as a character, and I was mainly doing a Mariner/Odysseus and "The Odyssey came first" argument, so I felt that even though I didn't know the whole thing, it was still worth a shot arguing on what I knew, the same as a team might not have all the players healthy as they would like and available for a game, but you make do with what you have...

Sorry if I led you to believe that I knew the work cover to cover--as for my "MO" or how often/to what degree I might do that if I cite, generally I'll only do that if I've read at least part of the work AND am using a companion piece that I HAVE read all the way through, as was the case with "Mariner"/"Odyssey," and so that means not very often, as between the Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Plato, and so on works I HAVE read cover to cover--and in some cases a good few times--I usually have more than enough with just that, you just mentioned "Mariner" and I knew part of it and all of "The Odyssey," so I felt like I could speak to a certain extent on the comparison as, again, I compared the characters and the fact Homer's work set the standard, both of which, I think, may be fairly argued from knowing one work well and the other, in parts.

And I don't START a discussion on a work I don't know or know partially, just respond on it, so no, it's not my "MO," just a reactionary measure, so sorry, didn't mean to deceive you or anything, I'm not perfect, after all, I'm not going to pretend I've read everything...I just felt in that particular case I had read ENOUGH of "Mariner" to contrast the character with Odysseus, as HIS story I know so well.

@SantaClausowitz:

I know that, I'm just used to celebrating/honoring the one day, the first day, as...well, that's the way I was brought up...

@Invictus:

Haha, +1...I don't think my ideas and posts are brilliant at all...

As you just saw, not only can they suck, but they can tangle me in a web sometimes!

;)

I just hope that SOMEDAY what I write and my ideas can be better and cleverer and betterer and stupdendouser and brillainter and so on...er.

To cite someone whose works I DO know cover to cover in their invidual cases, Shakespeare didn't start out writing "Hamlet," after all...

I know that, I'm just used to celebrating/honoring the one day, the first day, as...well, that's the way I was brought up...

You should at least do the first two

Well, I should technically also abstain from ham and probably be able to read a bit from the Torah by now...

But, again--not the way I was raised, I was raised loosely as a Jew (ironically, the same father who spent most of my childhood just not caring at all about Jewish customs is now Christian-this and Christian-that in everything his converted-self endeavours in) religiously, and as I really don't buy the religion anymore, not in an organized sense--though the stories and definitely the ethnic portions are still important to me--here I am, recognizing the first 24 hours, sundown-to-sundown, of Passover, and not really taking heed of the rest...it's more the story and idea and theme of the Moses/Exodus story that matters to me, not the strict observance of the exact amount of days and the diet and all that, all of that seems extraneous, for me personally, what matters more is just honoring and remembering that Jewish spirit of perseverence that Moses and, over 2,000 years, the Jews as a whole exemplify.

Hey obi,

Have you ever read J.R.R.Tolkien's version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

On that note I'll have to say my favorite legends involve anything and everything to do with middle earth, particularly the Silmarillion. No explanation needed.

Also I find myself rather enjoying the "Merlin" series on the SciFi channel (orginially on BBC). I find it to be a rather interesting take on the Aurthurian legends..

Nope, I've read the classic poem and then a retold version, when I was younger, in a collected book of Arthurian legends by Robert L. Green...

Check out Tolkien's version if you get a chance.. I think you'd like it..

Ill throw in a bible story,Balaam and the ass. Balaam is sent to curse the Hebrews, his Donkey starts talking to him saying he wont go, Balaam reaches a hill overlooking the Hebrew camp but only blessings come out. Then later he is reported killed in a battle in a non-descript later passage

@Obi - Being Jewish is as much a lifestyle and heritage as it is a religion. It's like owning certain cars (Corvette and Jeep come to mind) or having certain hobbies (like surfing). It's so much more than going fast or driving over a rocky terrain or catching a wave. It's the relationships with other like minded individuals and the social aspects that come with it that make it transcend a religion or a car or a hobby.

@Draug:

...

I never said being Jewish WASN'T as much lifestyle--if not more, and I'd argue it is more at this point--as it is religion.

That still doesn't mean I have to follow every tradition, or follow it to the letter...I'd actually argue--and I'd make jsut about any Othodox Rabbi flip his sideburn curls saying this--that embracing change and going with it while persevering and preserving the Jewish identity is the core of the modern Jewish mentality.

After all, "perseverance" is the key word to the Jews' existance so far.

Persevering in Egypt...
Babylonia...
Persia...
A spat with the Greeks...
Roman occupation and getting kicked out of the Holy Land...
The Diaspora...
The Middle Ages (which could count as MANY tribulations, lumped here)...
The Crusades (BOTH SIDES killing them...and with no army of their own)...
The Spanish Inquisition (...no, I'm not making the joke, someone else do it)...
The Russian Pogroms...
The Worst Moving Decision In History ("Things will be MUCH better in Germany!)...

And so on, but through ALL of that--the Jews have persevered.

They've changed quite a bit, but they've kept their traditions, too, and for an example that'd even fit within the religion itself, to an extent, after the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, and instead of being centralized in one place the Jews were scattered all throughout Europe, Judaism switched from Temple to Rabbinical Judaism...

An adaptation of the religion and culture, to be sure--but the essence is kept.

That's really my attitude on the whole thing--keeping kosher and keeping the Sabbath, not that important to me at all...honoring ancestors and giving atonement (even if I'm not sure if there is a God, let alone the Judeo-Christian one) on Yom Kippur and honoring the Exodus and Moses and keeping alive the old stories so the trials and triumphs of two thousand years are not forgotten...THAT'S more along the lines of the core of Jewish-ness I consider more important to me and aim to preserve more.

That and, as a lifestyle choice, to live in New York or Los Angeles and be absurdly rich and a writer and kvetch about my nagging Jewish mother and grandmother, of course...

;)

My nephew has a similar approach. He loves the traditions but doesn't believe in the classic religious sense. And that was what I was trying to unsuccessfully say. You don't have to be religious to celebrate the Jewish way of life, just like you don't have to be Catholic to celebrate the Italian way.

Nephew...are you a Jew too, Draug?

Didn't know that...

No. I'm Lutheran. My brother-in-law married into a Jewish family and now he works for the Jewish Federation in Akron.

I find the difference with Judaism comes from the fact that you don't need to do anything to be Jewish. You just have to be born that way. Even orthodox Jews will recognize you as Jewish as long as your mother is Jewish. Because of that, it still propagates culturally even if you renounce all the religious aspects.
You can't escape being Jewish any more than you can escape your nationality.

One of my favorite Arthurian legends was the tale of Sir Launcelot-du-Lake. Additionally, Beowulf is an amazing story.

Which version of Lancelot did you like?

"I personally HOPE Arthur was real, at least in some way"
Arthur was fictional, the setting of the myth is based on the time that the Christians were fighting with the Pagans for the control of Britain.

In real life, this was the time that England and Wales was completely under Roman rule. The Romans, who kept better historical records then the people of the Dark Ages had no record of a King Arthur, or even a Governor Arthur at the time (As the leader of England would be the Governor of Britannia, or any factions fighting for the crown of Britain like Ruthur etc. but we have records of all the governors and rebel factions that were put down).

"-Robin Hood...really, did he exist, I'm curious...?"
Prince John was the Reagent leader of England while King Richard I spent 15 years in Israel participating in the 3rd Crusade. He was a terrible leader and the people hated him, outlaws were formed and tried to overthrow the Monarchy. Robin Hood could have easily been one of those outlaws.

"-Moses...probably the one Biblical figure I really and truly feel something for, I DO think he existed, and I think his story is extremely important, even if you don't believe he ever existed, the idea of a man doing all he did for his people...well, it smacks of something like MLK in the 20th Century for me (isn't that where the "Mountaintop" speech came from?)"
Moses did not exist. Egypt was the first country to abolish Slavery and did so in C. C. 2600 BCE, or so they claimed. However just over a year ago we found supporting evidence to show that those participation in the construction of the Pyramids were actually better of then the average farmer, and got a better burial. Therefore most historians have concluded that there were not slaves in Egypt, so Moses could not have freed the slaves, as there were no slaves to free. Also not to mention the fact that both Isreal and Ramses (the city the Jews were slaves in according to the bible) are both north of the Red Sea, and by crossing the red sea, rather then going around it, would actually triple the time it would take the cross, so really makes little sense.

"-Genesis...I just can't accept that happened anymore, not the way the OT tells it..."
Atheist or Agnostic?