Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

by O'Brien, Cory

so he goes back to Gilgamesh’s kingdom

  where Gilgamesh is right in the middle of trying to bang some dude’s wife

  and Enkidu shows up like “Dude what the hell are you doing?

  WANNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER INSTEAD?”

  And Gilgamesh is like “YESSSS.”

  so they punch at each other until they get tired of gargling their own teeth and then decide to be BFFs.

  I am not a scientist, but this may be why women live longer than men.

  Anyway, their first act as ULTIMATE BESTIES

  is to walk all the way across the known world to punch Humbaba, the magic tree guardian.

  Humbaba is not a bad dude or anything

  he’s really more like those hippies that chain themselves to live oaks and whatnot

  except he has INTESTINES all over his face

  and his breath is a combination of DEATH and FIRE.

  Anyway, Gilgamesh and Enkidu skip off toward this sacred cedar tree

  LITERALLY HOLDING HANDS.

  IT IS ADORABLE.

  They skip for LEAGUES AND LEAGUES AND LEAGUES

  and Gilgamesh keeps waking up in the middle of the night like “BRO, I HAD A BAD DREAM

  IT WAS ABOUT VOLCANOS OR FIRE-BREATHING BIRDS OR LIGHTNING OR SOMETHING.”

  And Enkidu is like “Naw, bro, those are totally sweet and appropriate things to dream about.”

  BUT THEN THEY FINALLY FIND HUMBABA’S FOREST

  and Humbaba pops out like “’Sup.”

  And then this god Shamash who is apparently the sun god

  suddenly shows up and hits Humbaba with ALL THE WINDS.

  First there’s the winds you would expect like north, south, east, etc.

  Then there’s some kinda reasonable stuff like blizzard, storm, and sandstorm.

  But then shit really flies off the handle and we get whistling wind, ice wind, demon wind

  and just straight up BAD WIND.

  Anyway, all those winds immobilize Humbaba in an aethereal bukkake throwdown

  so Gilgamesh is about to chop off Humbaba’s head

  and Humbaba is like “DUDE WE ARE IN A FOREST.

  THERE IS WOOD LITERALLY COMING OUT OF OTHER WOOD.

  YOU DO NOT NEED TO MURDER ME FOR THIS SPECIFIC TREE.”

  But Gilgamesh murders him anyway

  and then he’s like “Sweet now I can use this tree to make a huge door.

  I don’t really have a place to put a huge door right now

  but like my grand-pappy used to say:

  ‘You never know when you’re gonna need a really huge door.’”

  So they’re back at home, enjoying this sweet door and also each other’s company

  when Ishtar has to come along and fuck it all up.

  (Ishtar, by the way is the goddess of basically everything worth doing:

  sex, war, and babies.

  Wait, I don’t mean that you should do babies, though. That is gross/illegal.)

  So Ishtar is like “HEY, GILGAMESH I HAVE THIS GAPING HOLE IN MY BODY

  I’M WORRIED IT MIGHT JUST START SHOOTING OUT MY ORGANS OR SOMETHING

  I HEAR YOU HAVE SOMETHING ABOUT THE RIGHT SIZE TO PLUG THIS HOLE

  IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”

  And Gilgamesh is like “Whoa, girl, slow your roll.

  Your tits are exceedingly fine but I am aware of a little something called history

  and history tells us that every dude you have banged

  has either caught on fire or turned into a dwarf.

  I am sure there are dongs aplenty in this kingdom of mine.

  Go nuts.

  Just steer clear of MY nuts.”

  So Ishtar goes up to Godtowne and she is like “GUYS GILGAMESH WON’T STUFF MY MUFF.

  GIVE ME THE BULL OF HEAVEN SO I CAN GO RUIN EVERYTHING.”

  Yeah, apparently they keep this bull around for if they ever need to ruin everything

  and the gods are pretty laissez-faire about how it gets used

  so Ishtar drags the bull down to earth

  and Gilgamesh eventually sees it after it’s killed like a million people

  and then he and Enkidu are like “BEST BUDS TAG-TEAM MURDERCYCLE YEAH!”

  and they handle the bull to pieces in a matter of seconds, and steal its horns

  and then they high-five so hard that another thousand or so people die.

  BUT ALL IS NOT WELL, MY FRIENDS

  because tonight it is ENKIDU’S TURN TO HAVE THE DREAMS.

  He dreams that the gods are all sitting around talking

  and they’re like “Man,

  Enkidu and Gilgamesh are a two-man meatgrinder grindin’ up all our best abominations.

  We gotta kill one of them, but we can’t kill Gilgamesh his name is in the title.

  Guess we better kill Enkidu, huh?”

  And Enkidu wakes up like “THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY TO INTERPRET THIS FAVORABLY.”

  Then he gets real sick and he dies.

  Now, we all know about the nine stages of grief or whatever

  but those are for CHUMPS.

  Gilgamesh’s grieving process has three steps:

  Step one: Cry about it.

  Step two: Make everyone else cry about it using your fists.

  Step three: SEEK IMMORTALITY.

  So he goes and talks smack to some scorpion dudes, who let him walk through a mountain

  and then on the other side he finds THE WATERS OF DEATH

  which is probably not the first place I would look if I were searching for immortality

  but anyway, there is an inn there

  and Gilgamesh threatens the innkeeper until she tells him how to get across the water

  and then he threatens the guy who can get him across the water

  and then he has to rebuild the boat he destroyed while threatening that guy

  but finally they sail to the other side which is where Gilgamesh was trying to get, apparently.

  And there’s this dude there called Utnapishtim

  and he’s like “Whoa, you got some balls coming over here, son. What’s your name?”

  and Gilgamesh is like “I’M GILGAMESH.

  MY BEST PAL DIED NOW I WANNA BE IMMORTAL.”

  And Utnapishtim is like “That is the most weak-sauce reason anyone has given me to do anything.

  But anyway, let me tell you my life story:”

  SUMMARY:

  UTNAPISHTIM IS NOAH

  EXCEPT HE SAVES A LOT MORE HUMANS AND THEN HE GETS TO BE IMMORTAL

  THE END.

  And after his story, Utnapishtim is like “So, you see I busted my ass for immortality

  and frankly I don’t think the gods are down to do that again.

  You may want to just take your punk ass back across the waters of death and go die like a man.”

  But joke’s on Utnapishtim

  because Gilgamesh got so bored of the story that he actually FELL ASLEEP.

  But actually, joke’s on Gilgamesh

  because Utnapishtim bakes a ton of bread and puts it next to Gilgamesh’s face

  so that when he wakes up SEVEN DAYS LATER

  he sees all this moldy bread and he is like “Ew, gross.”

  But then I guess Utnapishtim feels bad about his prank

  so he tells Gilgamesh about this weird immortality plant that grows at the bottom of the ocean

  and then obviously Gilgamesh ties rocks to his feet and sinks to the bottom of the ocean

  (Again, this does not seem like the behavior of a dude who is trying to not die)

  and he gets this plant

  but then he stops to take a bath on his way back home and a snake steals the plant

  and
then eventually Gilgamesh gets old and dies miserable and alone

  or maybe content and surrounded by whores.

  The epic is not clear on this point.

  So basically

  Enkidu wouldn’t have died if that chick hadn’t boned him and then made him take a shower

  and Gilgamesh would’ve had eternal youth if he hadn’t stopped for a bath

  so the moral of the story

  is that REAL HEROES NEVER BATHE.

  NATIVE AMERICAN

  Now the problem with dedicating a section to the whole of Native American mythology

  is that there were a lot of people living in this country before we showed up and set it on fire

  and some of them didn’t get along too well

  and they ALL had their own stories

  so trying to tell a cohesive Native American mythology

  with only a handful of myths

  is a lot like trying to cook an alphabet soup using only the letter “A”

  so I highly recommend that you go online

  and look up some Native American myths on your own

  because there’s a TON of them

  and they’re great

  but for now

  I am going to attempt to give you a small spoonful

  of the alphabet soup that this country used to belong to.

  WISAKEDJAK IS HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE

  Now I know I told you there were a thousand and one pantheons to choose from here

  but at least as far as creation myths are concerned

  all the Native American stories start to sound pretty much the same after a while

  so I picked the Algonquin version

  because it is the one with the highest concentration of hilarious jerks.

  Speaking of hilarious jerks, meet Wisakedjak.

  His name is sometimes anglicized as Whiskey Jack

  but that’s needlessly confusing

  ’cause this dude has nothing to do with whiskey

  and in fact was around WAYYYY before whiskey

  because what kind of creation myth would this be otherwise?

  A much drunker one, that’s what kind.

  But Wisakedjak is not the kind of dude who NEEDS whiskey to get down.

  See, he’s a trickster god

  who happens to be real tight with the creator.

  So basically

  the creator makes the world

  and then he’s like “Dude, Wisakedjak

  I am so tired from making this world and stuff.

  How about you handle everything else now.

  Like, teach everyone what roots are good to eat

  and keep them from killing each other and stuff.

  You know, pretty much everything I am actually personally responsible for doing

  but like, the not-fun part of it.”

  So the creator goes to sleep

  and Wisakedjak proceeds to do the exact opposite of everything the creator told him to do

  as in, he feeds everyone poison and goes around starting fights.

  So then the creator wakes up from like a ten-year nap

  and he’s like “Whooooaaaa, dude.

  What did I tell you to do?

  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.

  You best clean up your act

  Or else I’m gonna kill everybody and then you’ll be bored.”

  So Wisakedjak calls bullshit

  and just goes right on doing what he was doing

  except like NINE TIMES HARDERRRR

  he is running up to dudes like “HEY:

  HEYYYY:

  SEE THAT GUY OVER THERE?

  HE KILLED YOUR DOG

  HE KILLED YOUR PARENTS

  MURDER HIM.

  EAT THIS CYANIDE.

  GO GO GO.”

  And he just keeps doing this

  until the earth is literally saturated with blood

  there is nowhere for all this blood to go

  it’s pretty upsetting

  so at this point the creator shows up again like “THAT’S IT.

  EVERYBODY DIES.”

  So then everything floods, as usual

  and the only things left alive

  are Wisakedjak

  (even though he is almost the entire problem)

  plus an otter, a beaver, and a muskrat.

  No fish, apparently

  which is something I always wonder about in these flood myths.

  Like, a flood seems like a really great way to punish every living creature in the world

  except for fish.

  What the hell is a god supposed to do when all the FISH start being assholes?

  Anyway, let’s just sidestep that plothole completely

  and cut to Wisakedjak sitting in the water with his animal pals

  crying and feeling sorry for himself

  when all of a sudden he has an idea.

  He’s like “DUDES:

  I can’t create anything ’cause I spent all my attribute points on being a dick

  but I CAN infinitely expand anything that has already been created.

  So I need one of you guys to dive all the way to the bottom of this water

  and get me some dirt to expand.

  HEY, CREATOR IT’S OKAY IF I DO THIS, RIGHT?”

  And the creator is like “Sure you can make a new world

  as long as you use all the material I wasted on the old world.

  I don’t wanna have to go out and get a bunch of new dirt and whatnot.”

  Man

  the Algonquin people have them one LAZY creator.

  So Wisakedjak is like “OTTER

  YOU’RE SO BRAVE

  GO DO IT AND I’LL MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE FISH TO EAT”

  so otter dives down

  and comes back up with NO DIRT AT ALL

  and he keeps trying until he is too weak to dive anymore

  and Wisakedjak is like “Wow, dude

  I am pretty disappointed in you.

  Okay, it’s beaver’s turn.

  Beaver, if you bring me some dirt then I will build you a house”

  so beaver dives

  and I’m pretty sure we all know how that turns out

  because it’s not like beavers live in five-star hotels is it?

  So finally Wisakedjak turns to the muskrat

  and he’s like “All right, my man

  I do not have high hopes for you.

  In fact my hopes for you are practically subterranean.

  But that may actually work in our favor in this situation

  so if you make it to the bottom I’ll give you infinite roots to eat forever

  plus rushes to make a house out of

  and you’ll have, like, a billion babies. Seriously.”

  So muskrat dives

  and he comes up

  and he has

  NO DIRT

  so he tries again

  and he’s gone for a while

  and he comes up real tired

  and he still has no dirt

  but here’s the important thing:

  He SMELLS like dirt.

  So Wisakedjak is like “Dude, you are so close.

  Try one more time.”

  So the muskrat dives down

  and he’s gone for a LOOOONG time

  and everyone is pretty sure he’s dead.

  But then they see some bubbles

  so they reach in and pull out the muskrat

  who is pretty much dead

  but he has just a little bit of dirt with him

  which Wisakedjak turns into an island

  and then they f
inally get to stop sitting in the water.

  So then in the following days Wisakedjak finds some bones

  and uses them to make animals

  and he makes trees out of some wood

  and then the creator waits for him to finish all this work

  and then he’s like “All right, dude.

  I just decided you don’t get to have powers anymore.

  You just get the power to lie like a motherfucker.”

  So Wisakedjak just uses that power as hard as he can for ever and ever

  starting by failing to ever reward the muskrat

  because at the end of the day what worse punishment is there

  than being a muskrat?

  So the moral of the story

  is practice holding your breath

  it’s good for more than just weird sex stuff.

  KILLER-OF-ENEMIES AND THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF VAGINAS

  So this is one of those myths where I almost don’t even need to retell it

  I could just transcribe it word for word

  and it would just end up looking like something I made up.

  Watch:

  So there’s this house full of vaginas, right?

  Yup.

  Just a big ol’ house stuffed full of vaginas.

  They have actually got vaginas hanging on the walls

  thick as wall scrolls in an otaku’s cave.

  My friends, this is the quintessential tunaparty

  tacofest

  clambake

  cervical circus

  this place is lousy with vaginas, is what I’m saying.

  But the lousiest vaginas of all

  are these four girls called the vagina girls.

  They are actually just giant vaginas.

  Giant, shape-shifting vaginas that look like girls.

  Oh, also

  there are no vaginas anywhere else on earth at this point.

  This place is essentially the Fort Knox of vagina

  except the security team is actually just one guy

  or actually one monster, named Kicking Monster

  whose MO is to roll up on any poor jerk who enters the vicinity

  and kick him INTO THE HOUSE.

  This is not how guards work usually

  but hey

  no one who gets kicked into the house ever leaves

  so Kicking Monster must be doing something right

  although I think that may have more to do with the fact

  that this is a house filled with ALL OF THE VAGINAS.

  But even despite Kicking Monster