Category: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Ivan Kotliarevsky

Aeneid. Travestied Inside Out into Little Russian language by I. Kotliarevsky [Енеида. На малороссійскій языкъ перелиціованная И. Котляревскимъ]

After the fall of Troy, Aeneas ("Aeneas was a lively fellow, / Lusty as any Cossack blade") and the Trojans run away to sea. Juno asks Aeolus to sink the Trojans. Aeolus creates the storm, but Aeneas gives Neptune a bribe, and the storm calms down. Venus feels worried about her son Aeneas and complains about Juno to Zeus. Zeus says that the fate of Aeneas is already sealed - he will go to Rome and found a strong state there. After much suffering, the Trojans reach Carthage, where Dido (...)

literary

YEAR: 1798

COUNTRY: Russia Russian Empire

TAGS: Aeneas Aeolus Anchises Apollo Ascanius Carthage Creusa Cupid Dido Euryalus Juno Jupiter Latinus Lavinia Mercury Minerva Neptune Nisus Paris Sibyl Trojan Horse (wooden) Trojan War Turnus Venus Virgil Virgil’s Aeneid Vulcan

Margaret Mahy

Memory

In Memory, nineteen-year-old Jonny Dart is a dancer suffering from the post-traumatic stress disorder. Some years before, his sister Janine, also a dancer, had fallen from a cliff while playing a game with Jonny and their friend, Bonny Benedicta, in which Jonny was the "wolfman," and Bonny the "pythoness," or the "oracle." Jonny, who resented his family’s favouritism towards his sister, is haunted by the thought that he might have pushed Janine and develops a (...)

literary

YEAR: 1987

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Dionysus Oracles Pythoness Sibyl Sophia

Paul Shipton

The Pig Who Saved the World

This comic adventure novel is a sequel to The Pig Scrolls, starring a pig named Gryllus. Gryllus was one of Odysseus’ crewmen who was transformed into a pig by Circe. When the rest of the sailors were returned to their human form, he hid in the bushes, and after being found by Sibyl, a courageous prophetess, and Homer, an awkward teenage poet, goes on to (unwittingly and unwillingly) save the world.In the sequel, The Pig Who Saved the World, Gryllus and his friends go back to the isla(...)

literary

YEAR: 2006

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Circe Homer Labyrinth Midas Odysseus/ Ulysses Odyssey Orpheus Polyphemus Proteus Sibyl Sirens Sisyphus Thanatos Tithonus Underworld