In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle ponders the curious story of Philomela the nightingale from classical myth The story of Philomela is well-known. But a quick reminder never hurts, so here’s the story: Tereus … marries Procne, the daughter of Pandion. Tereus coming a second […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle The story or myth of ‘Pandora’s box’ is slightly unusual among Greco-Roman myths in having its origins – at least its written origins – not in the work of Homer or later myth-collectors like the great Roman poet Ovid, but in the Greek didactic poet Hesiod, […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys Sioned Davies’ new translation of the Mabinogion, Wales’s book of myths ‘Brothers transformed into animals of both sexes who bring forth children; dead men thrown into a cauldron who rise the next day; a woman created out of […]