Day 3 of the World Building Blog Fest hosted by Sharon Bayliss is about Religion, so today I’m going with something a little more fun: mythologies.
The Norse had stories about dragons, like Fafnir. Dragons were cunning and dangerous symbols of greed and ultimate evil. In Norse stories, they were all things that some hero, like Sigurd, had to kill.
But, when the Norse in THE BARD’S GIFT move into the heart of North America, they come up against a new creature that doesn’t quite fit into any of the mythologies they know, though in some ways it resembles the dragons of their legends–the thunderbird.
Thunderbird is a creature of Native American legend. Generally described as a huge rainbow-colored eagle. In the Pacific Northwest, Thunderbird is often depicted carrying off a whale in much the same way that a bald eagle might carry off a salmon.
Thunderbird is strongly associated with storms. Its wing beats gather the clouds and cause the thunder. Opening and closing its eyes or beak create lightning.
In some stories, Thunderbird is solitary. In others, there’s a community of thunderbirds. In the Pacific Northwest, Thunderbird could remove his feathers and bird head like a cloak and take human form.
Thunderbird is also a defender of mankind, but one that’s easy to annoy. Thunderbird must always be approached with utmost respect and caution. So, people who were used to thinking in terms of dragons, might just have a hard time dealing with thunderbirds, instead, don’t you think?
i love the thunderbird! i can totally picture it! and it has character!
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I love him too.
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Forgive me for commenting just once, but wow, that’s whole lotta research that went into this story. But the combination of Norse and Native American mythology sounds brilliant. Definitely worth a looksee.
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Thanks!
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I like the combination of mythologies, too.
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Thanks.
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Thunderbird, that’s a sexy beast! Approach with caution, of course!
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🙂 Wait until Friday’s excerpt.
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“…people who were used to thinking in terms of dragons”, this made me smile. Is that I? 🙂
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