why don’t you just go down to Hades and get your lady back, then?”
Orpheus says “I think I will.”
So Orpheus goes to Hades
and he just charms the pants off of Hades so hard
with his lyre and his singing
that Hades says
“Fine, dude.
Give me back my pants you just charmed off
and I will give you back your woman
but only if you pass a ludicrous and arbitrary test:
See, your chick’s ghost will follow you all the way out of Hades
but you can’t look at her until you’re both in the real world, or I get her for keepsies.
Make sense?”
and Orpheus says, “Not really, but okay.”
And he starts walking.
And on the way out he sees a bunch of demons
So he’s like “Hey, demons.”
And they’re like “’Sup, Orpheus?”
And he says, “Oh, just leading my chick out of hell.”
And they say, “Your chick? What chick?”
and then they kind of chuckle a little bit.
So this is making Orpheus nervous like, REAL nervous
and he really wants to look
but he knows he can’t look
so at the VERY MOMENT that he steps out of Hades
he turns around to see if she’s really there
and guess what?
SHE IS
but she is STILL IN HELL.
So Orpheus fails the test
and Eurydice disappears forever
and he’s back to square motherfuckin’ one.
This upsets him so much that he vows to only screw underaged boys for the rest of his life.
So he goes and sits on a hill
and dyes his hair black and just plays emo shit all the time
until one day all of these followers of Bacchus show up
and they’re like “Hey, dude, we’re having a party right here right now.
You still down with Bacchus?”
and Orpheus is like “Fuck no. I only worship the SUN.”
And they are like “Dude, are you sure about that?
We are a bunch of hot chicks and we are about to have an orgy
and only people who are down with Bacchus are invited to the orgy.”
And Orpheus says “Hell no. I only have sex with people’s SONS.”
And the chicks are all like, “Well, okay, if you say so”
and then they tear off his skin
and rape his corpse
and rip his head off
and chuck it into a river
along with his lyre which he is inexplicably still able to play
and he just floats off down the river making awesome music forever.
So the moral of the story is
Unless you can play your instrument with your head ripped off
and your arms and skin missing
You Are Not a Real Musician.
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS BANG COWS
So this dude Minos is having all kinds of problems being king of Crete
because his brothers all want to be the king of Crete instead
so they are all murdering each other like nonstop
until Minos is like “Hey, Poseidon you should make me win.”
And Poseidon is all “Okay I am going to send you a bitchin’ white bull.
It means you will win
but you have to kill it later in my honor.”
And Minos says “Sure, okay, just make me king already.”
So Poseidon sends this bull
and Minos becomes king
but then he REALLY likes this bull.
I don’t think you guys understand what hot shit bulls were in ancient Greece
you have to remember Minos didn’t have the Internet
so bulls were like THE HEIGHT OF TECHNOLOGY
and this was like the APPLE IPAD OF BULLS
so he decides “How ’bout I don’t kill this bull?
What’s the worst that could happen?
I’m already king, right?”
WRONG.
Well, I mean, he is already king
but something bad definitely happens
because Minos has a wife
and Poseidon goes and hits up Aphrodite like “You know what you should do?
You should make Minos’s wife
fall in love with MY BULL.”
and Aphrodite looks up from giving Ares a blow job and she’s like “Okay, lemme just finish this.”
So all of a sudden Minos’s wife is like mad attracted to this cow
but the problem is that the cow is not at all into chicks.
Human chicks, I mean.
It’s not a gay cow.
Not that that would have been a problem.
Some of my best friends are gay cows.
But anyway Minos’s wife has this brilliant idea so she calls up this dude Daedalus
and she is like “I need someone to build me a giant wooden cow suit
so I can fuck cows”
and Daedalus
who is a fantastic genius inventor with no concept of right and wrong
is like “Sure, no problem.”
And he makes her the suit
and she puts it on
and she goes out and makes hot animal love to that bull
simultaneously inventing furries
and getting totally preggers
and Minos is none the wiser until she gives birth to a HIDEOUS COWBABY
aka THE MINOTAUR.
So Minos does the smart thing and calls up the Oracle at Delphi
because that never leads to bad decisions
and the Oracle says “Dude, just build a maze around it. No harm no foul.”
So Minos calls up Daedalus
(the same Daedalus who caused all these problems with his excellent cow suit)
and he hires him to build this awesome maze
and then instead of paying him with money
he pays him with years in prison
locked in a tower over the ocean with his son Icarus.
Minos is a dumbass though
because he has locked a master craftsman and his son in a tower
along with an apparently unlimited supply of feathers and wax.
So they make wings with that stuff
and jump out the window.
But you know who else is a dumbass?
ICARUS
because he does not understand that the sun is made of heat
whereas his wings are only made of wax and bird hair
so he flies way the hell up toward the sun
and the sun says “Aw hell no”
and Icarus’s wings melt and he drowns
and his genius dad lives happily ever after no longer hampered by his dumbass son
or else he flees all over the country for years trying to avoid Minos
before finally convincing someone to murder Minos in a bathtub
or maybe both
and then it turns out Daedalus even fucked up the labyrinth
because a few weeks later some dick named Theseus just rolls in and kills the minotaur
and then escapes and gets laid a whole bunch and then falls off a cliff and dies
but that’s a whole other story and I just told you all the good parts anyway.
So the moral of the story
is don’t count your chickens before they hatch
because the chickens might be minotaurs.
NORSE
Holy shit, my friends
this mythos we are coming up on right now
is the cosmological equivalent of French-kissing a battle-ax.
These myths are rude, crude, and probably radioactive
they play music too loud and draw disapproving looks from the elderly
they will wake your mother up in the middle of the night by driving a Humvee through the armoire.
Seriously
any mythology in which the principal characters are a suicidal pirate-wizard
and what essentially amounts to a beard with a hammer sticking out of it
is the mythology for me
and for you too
once the Norse get through with you.
THE NORSE ARE METAL
So you might already know the way the Greeks thought the world got made
and also the Romans because the Romans are goddamn copycatters
and maybe you have listened to some scientists or some creation scientists
and you know one or two other ways.
Listen
I want you to forget everything you know about creation myths
because this myth
is going to BLOW YOUR DICK OFF FROM PURE WONDERMENT
and if you do not have a dick it is going to SEW ONE ON
and then IMMEDIATELY BLOW IT OFF.
Wanna know why?
because it’s NORSE MYTHOLOGY TIME.
SHIT YEAH.
So to start out, the world is already pretty badass.
It is just two things:
One is a sea of pure all-devouring fire called Muspell
guarded by a dude named Surt who is just WAITING
to ride out and murder all the gods and then set the world on fire.
By comparison, the other half of the world is pretty lame.
It is just a whole bunch of ice called Niflheim.
But the best part is that in between Muspell and Niflheim
there is a big-ass trench called Ginnungagap
which is empirically proven to be the number one funnest thing to say.
Go ahead and say it. I’ll wait.
So Ginnungagap is where shit starts to get real
because the cold from Niflheim
bumps up against the heat from Muspell
and causes a bunch of vapor to condense
in Ginnungagap
to create a frost giant
in Ginnungagap
named Ymir
(not Ginnungagap)
Actually, Ymir is more of an ogre than a giant
and he is actually more of a wuss than an ogre
because what is the first thing this guy does?
He goes to sleep
right there
in Ginnungagap.
Sleeping and sweating like a motherfucker.
He sweats so hard
that a man and a woman grow out of his armpit
and then he sweats EVEN HARDER
causing his legs to fuck each other
and have a baby
so then this cow shows up and starts shooting milk everywhere
and Ymir drinks all of it
’cause there’s pretty much no one else to drink it
other than his legbaby and the armpit people.
Then the cow gets bored and starts licking ice
and all of this licking melts away enough ice to form the shape of a dude
or maybe it is just the same dude who appeared in Ymir’s armpit.
(Ymir has mastered the fine art of being a neglectful father.)
Anyway, this guy’s name is Bor.
He marries Bestla, the daughter of some giant.
Maybe the daughter of Ymir, who knows?
Bor is quite a catch because he is the only man in existence.
So Bor and Bestla have three kids
Odin, Vili, and Vé.
Really the only one anyone gives a shit about is Odin.
He is the ruler of all things, essentially
and he gets his brothers to help him kill Ymir
who is probably still asleep
and has definitely not done anything to deserve being murdered
but Odin seems to think that he has become TOO EVIL
which probably just means that he was snoring REALLY LOUD.
Whatever the reason, they kill Ymir.
Nice patricide, Odin.
What are you going to do next
further desecrate your grandfather’s body by tearing him apart
and using his limbs as decoration for a universe you and your brothers are making?
Yes.
This is exactly what Odin and his brothers do.
I mean you gotta give them credit
they use pretty much every part of this dude.
Like, not only do they make his blood into lakes and oceans
and his bones into mountains
and skin into earth
and his teeth into tiny rocks
but they use his skull to make the sky
which is such a dumb idea that they have to get some cheap slave labor to make it work.
So they go over to Ymir’s corpse
which is crawling with maggots at this point
and they are like “Hey, maggots
wanna be a sentient humanoid species?”
And the maggots are like “DO WE?”
So they turn into dwarves
and Odin is like “Great, awesome
how about you repay us by holding up this skull we found.
We wanted to make it into the sky but skulls are not really meant for that.
We’ll even name the guys who do it North, South, East, and West.
It will be awesome.”
And the dwarves are like “Okay, fine.”
But listen, guys
just because they have already used Ymir’s skull and skin and bones and teeth and blood
does not mean they are finished defiling his corpse
because the next thing they do
is they chuck his brains into the air
and they become CLOUDS.
Did you think clouds were beautiful fluffy collections of water vapor?
WRONG, ASSHOLE.
BRAAAAINS.
Then they make the stars out of all the sparks coming out of Muspell
and give all the land along the coast to the giants
I guess to say sorry for murdering Ymir and building a world out of his corpse.
But the giants are still pissed
and Odin is like “I need a fort to protect myself from all these giants.
What will I build it out of?
Oh, I know
EYEBROWS.”
The fort he builds becomes a safe haven for all the humans, called Midgard.
Also, they drag Ymir’s corpse over Ginnungagap
And Odin makes a place called Asgard
using surprisingly few of Ymir’s body parts
and he lives there with his wife, Frigga
and is startlingly faithful to her
and fathers all the other gods, who are called the Aesir.
So the moral of THIS story
is that we need to invent space travel with a quickness
because all of Ymir’s body parts are about to get REAL ripe, REAL fast.
THOR GETS HAMMERED
When Odin finally gets done making the world
and settles down to get busy with his wife, Frigga
the first radical dude to get born is named Thor.
Thor is pretty much the baddest motherfucker you will ever lay eyes on.
In fact, if you ever laid eyes on him
he would probably walk up to you and DESTROY YOUR EYES WITH HIS HAMMER.
Thor’s hammer is called Mjolnir and it was made like so:
So Loki (the god of being a needless prick all the time)
sneaks up on Thor’s wife, Sif, one day
and shaves off all of her hair like he’s one of the guys on Jackass or something
and Thor really loves hair, I guess
so he gets SUPER ANGRY and he chases down Loki and is like “Hey
how about I cut off all your FACE?!”
and Loki is like “But I need my face for making infuriating smirks with!”
And Thor is like “Well, how about . . . I just break every bone in your body?”
and Loki is like “No, I need those too.
How ’bout instead I have the dwarves make your wife some new hair?
it will be made of GOLD and it will grow like NORMAL HAIR.”
and Thor is like “AWESOME.”
So Loki goes to these dwarves
like “Guys, I sorta promised Thor that you would make his wife the ultimate toupee.”
And the dwarves are like “Sure, no problem.
Do you want us to make it out of gold
or DOUBLE GOLD?
We REALLY FUCKING LIKE GOLD because we are DWARVES.”
Hey, by the way I’m sorry if I’m being racist against dwarves
but that is just how dwarves are, okay?
Some of my best friends are dwarves.
Anyway, Loki is like “Regular gold is fine”
and the dwarves are like “Okay, okay
well, how about we also make you a boat called Skidbladnir
which can fit all your friends and all your treasure
and always has wind in the sails
and can be folded up and put in your pocket when not in use
and how about we also make Odin a spear
scratch that, an UNSTOPPABLE spear.”
and Loki’s like “Damn.
All WE ever did for YOU GUYS was make you hold up the sky for forever.”
So Loki brings all this sweet loot back to the gods
and then he gets this great idea
which is to bet the dwarves that they can’t make three more EVEN BETTER treasures
FOR FREE.
But he doesn’t have much cash on him, so instead he just bets them his HEAD.
And these dwarves named Brokk and Eiti take the deal
because it’s not like they have to bet anything themselves
and they go to the forge
and Brokk pulls out this big-ass boar skin and he is like “Okay, Eiti.
It is completely crucial that you crank the bellows constantly.”
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology Page 4
