Ben Hellman
Teaching Gluskabe: Wrestling with American Values
Gluskabe turning man into a cedar tree. Scraping on birchbark by Tomah Joseph 1884. (Image from Wikipedia). I never read a piece of...
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Ben Hellman
- Sep 6, 2021
Timely Lessons from the Land of the Coming of the Light
Just before dawn, Rockport, Maine August 26 (photo by author). The Native tribes of New England formed the Wabanaki Confederacy....
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Ben Hellman
- Jun 28, 2021
Into the Mouth of American Kitsch: Wisconsin’s House on the Rock
The author contemplating another round of phantasmagorical excess at the House on the Rock, Spring Green, Wisconsin. Photo by Rachel...
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Ben Hellman
- Jun 17, 2021
Immortal Queer; LGBTQ+ Narratives in Mythology
Loki consumes the female Gullveig’s heart, and is impregnated, an illustration of lines from Hyndluljóð, or Song of Hyndla, by John...
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Ben Hellman
- Jun 1, 2021
Sons of Earth and Fire; The Strange Case of the Narts’ Metallic Men
Batraz blasts down from the heavens, landing in the hearth of the Narts, the force of it burying him to his thighs, by artist Andrew...
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Ben Hellman
- Mar 29, 2021
Stealing Fire: John Colarusso and the Tales of the Narts
A fountain in Vladikavkaz, Russia with the Nart Sosruquo, dancing on the edge of a magic bowl. (Image courtesy Lhiten Hatko.) A range of...
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Ben Hellman
- Mar 19, 2021
Daylight for the Win; A Folklorist’s Notebook Celebrating Equinox
An arrival of daffodils in our yard in Southern New Hampshire, March 19. Photo by my wife, who helped uncover them a bit yesterday. In...
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Ben Hellman
- Feb 10, 2021
NASA Channels its Inner Goddess; Breaking Boundaries with Artemis
NASA-produced art representing woman on the moon from the Artemis program marketing campaign: “Her features are abstract enough that all...
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Ben Hellman
- Jan 25, 2021
Toying with Ancient Stories; Uncovering the Tales of the Old English Poem “Widsith”
Danish King Hrothgar with his nephew Hrothulf, cutting down the Heathobards as Heorot Hall burns, following the failed wedding union...
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Ben Hellman
- Dec 8, 2020
Seldom Told Tales; Unraveling Viktor Rydberg’s Norse Mythos
Freya and Svipdag, by the illustrator John Bauer. This is one of several stories I had never read about before reading Viktor Rydberg's...
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Ben Hellman
- Nov 23, 2020
Discovering the Dawnland
The Abenaki's Promethean Gluscabe, outside the Millbrook Heritage Centre in Nova Scotia, Canada, part of the ancient lands stretching as...
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Ben Hellman
- Nov 10, 2020
The Endless Hunger; Confronting Grief With Gilgamesh
Statue of Gilgamesh at the University of Sydney (based on an ancient bas-relief at the Louvre) and Herbert Mason's Epic of Gilgamesh. If...
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Ben Hellman
- Oct 31, 2020
Noodling through Norse Myths; Folklorist's Notebook
Some of the books I've been moving to and from various end tables, usually not as neat as this. It has been a week of Norse myth study...
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Ben Hellman
- Oct 22, 2020
A Roundup of Mythology News; Folklorist's Notebook
An avenging Medusa, Abenaki Folklore, a new Beowulf, a fascinating take on Norse Mythos, and the 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize for...
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Ben Hellman
- Oct 17, 2020
Orpheus and Eurydice Go Shopping
(She really didn't want to go in the first place). Edward Poynter's 1862 "Orpheus and Eurydice" altered by the author's brilliant wife....
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Ben Hellman
- Oct 15, 2020
Divinity and Identity: Xu Zhen's Guanyin
“The European Thousand Armed Classical Sculpture,” by artist Xu Zhen at the National Gallery of Australia's Xu Zhen exhibition, “Eternity...
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Ben Hellman
- Sep 6, 2020
Kathleen Herbert and the Lost Gods of the Harvest
(Left to right) Kathleen Herbert’s Looking for the Lost Gods of England; an epitaph for John Barleycorn in my wife's family cabin, dated...
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Ben Hellman
- Aug 24, 2020
The Mahabharata for the Intimidated
An Illustration to the Mahabharata: The Pandava and Kaurava armies face each other, circa 1700, Mewar, India; courtesy of Wikimedia. To...
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Ben Hellman
- Aug 18, 2020
The Protester and the Power of Ancient Ireland
Portland protester, photographed by Dave Killen, Oregonlive.com and a Sheela-na-Gig (Lavey, Cavan) found in a churchyard in 1842 and...
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Ben Hellman
- Aug 7, 2020
Clinging to Summer with Lughnasadh
Today is the midway point between the summer solstice and the fall equinox and perhaps, like me, you feel a sudden desire to stop time...
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