GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS:

It is no accident that Europe was named for a strong, but trusting young woman who was raped by the Greek god Zeus.  This suggests that the archetype of female-negation is ingrained at the very deepest levels of Eurocentric culture.  In many places, whether by Zeus, clergy, politicians, or mates, the "divinely sanctioned" oppression of women continues largely unabated.

November 1998: In beginning this website in late March-early April 1998, I started with Europe's Green Men and Russian folklore and fairytales.  All the while, I was bookmarking huge numbers of European sites (including those for Classical Greece and Rome).   After a few weeks, I realized that the task was truly overwhelming.  If I had continued with European folklore and mythic themes, I ran the risk of never getting to the rest of the world.

Most Western scholarship is solidly Eurocentric.  Theories based on such scholarship too often are unthinkingly applied to the rest of the world (just as what is "normal" for the male is too often negatively applied to the female).  The often unheard voices and visions of the rest of the world deserve better than that.

So I left Europe behind and turned to the Maori of New Zealand, spending an enjoyable week exploring their websites.  I also began work on Asia (much still remains); and then moved to ancient Egypt and the Sahara (now complete); also sub-Saharan Africa (here too, much remains).

For this reason, although most of the artwork is in place, many of Myth*ing Link's European pages are fairly minimal -- and will remain so until I have completed more of the rest of the world....

Update 8 October 2000: I am leaving what I wrote above for my November 1998 website launch.  However, in the two years that have passed, I have been able to do an enormous amount of work on many of my European pages.  Much work will always remain to be done, but the main menu on the Myth*inglinks Home Page,  or the complete European menu at the bottom of this page, will give you an idea of the site's current scope.

Annotated Links to
Europe in General

The Rape of Europa
(Adapted & tinted from the site directly below)

http://www.metamorphose-europe.com/

[Added 8 October 2000]: Since I teach mythology and look at the world through a mythologist's perspective or, some might say, through the lens of a feminist "culture doctor," I have long been haunted by the fact that Europe was named for a raped woman.  It seems astounding to me that no one ever looks at this.  With so many names from which to chose, who chose Europa? -- and why?  Why wasn't that region called Aphroditia, for example, or Minervia, or Mercuria, or Zeusurbia, or Apollonia, or any of dozens of other possibilities?  Who decided to name the region for a violated princess from Lebanon who later birthed a troubled royal family on Crete?  Why?

Last night I received an e-mail from one of the authors of the above website and I discovered that others are as obsessed in their own ways with this topic as I have been in mine.  Their lens is different (for one thing, they don't write as feminists <smile>) but their work helps shed light on my own questions........

"Metamorphoses of Europa: 30 Centuries of Iconography" is by Alain Roba (who sent me this link from Brussels) and Christian de Bartillat.  This fabulous site is based on their book, Metamorphoses d'Europe, which has not yet been translated into English.  The website, however (which is in French, English & German), stands on its own as a fascinating exploration of art and scholarship on the princess/goddess figure we know as "Europa."  From the "Preface":

...Europa first appears in an essential myth, which came from Asia nearly thirty centuries ago. According to this, she was a Phoenician princess, both timid and triumphant, who was seduced and abducted by Zeus in the guise of a magnificent bull.... This ancient theme of abduction, which itself followed on from an earlier cult of the « woman of the bull », overrun the whole of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean Basin. Christianity both rejected and adopted it. The Renaissance revived it and Classicism admired it. It was refined in the century of the Enlightenment and underestimated in the century of the Nation States.

   In the 20th century, it was given a new dimension under the influence of psychoanalysis, witness to the affirmation of female sexuality and eroticism, symbolic, as it were, of the whole continent's initiatory journey towards a horizon of adventure and mystery....

...This goddess is still, after all, the symbol of the feminine continent, and she is still being carried away by the divine or demonic forces of a Promethean bull urged on by the force of speed and the power of machines....

...We think, that, for the first time, we have made available to a vast and often unaware public a sort of synthesis of that which is essentially Europe. We have come to realise, that even in the most cultivated circles, this symbol, the « zenith » of European consciousness is virtually unknown, except by a small and worthy cohort of specialists....

Don't miss this one!!  (Note: the illustrations in the "Preface" also appear in the "Iconography" section, where they're clickable for enlargements.)

 ***************

Pre-historic Period:Paleolithic to the Bronze Age

Old Europe

European Earth-Based Ways (Wicca)

The Wheel of the Year: [This page has links to all my seasonal greetings for the solstices & equinoxes; it also includes Imbolc/Candlemas, Beltane/May Day, Lammas, and Samhain/Halloween; the pages also include several non-European earth-based celebrations.  See under ASIA for Lunar New Year; under THE AMERICAS / Latin America / Mexico for the Day of the Dead; and under Common Themes: Earth Goddesses & Gods for Earth Day 2000.]
The Burning Times

Individuation, Seeing-through, and Liberation:  Depth Psychology and Colonialism, by Helene Shulman Lorenz, Ph.D. & Mary Watkins, Ph.D.

Silenced Knowings, Forgotten Springs: Paths to Healing in the Wake of Colonialism, by Helene Shulman Lorenz, Ph.D. & Mary Watkins, Ph.D.

Pan-Slavic Traditions & Beliefs:
Russia:

Fairy Tales & Folklore:
Sacred Ikons:
Music:

The Balkans:

(Note: here you'll find links to individual Balkan countries/states/kingdoms: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia, once these have been activated.
*** For Greece, see under "Western Europe"; for Hungary, see below under "Finno-Ugric Peoples.")

Kosovo/Serbian Peace Invocation:
Other Slavic Lands

Baltic States:

Estonia:
Latvia:
Lithuania:

Finno-Ugric Peoples:

Finland:
Hungary:
(Note: for Estonia, see "Baltic Sates";   for Sami and western Siberian peoples, see "INDIGENOUS: Circumpolar.")

Eurasia: The Caucasus & Beyond:

Classical Traditions:

Ancient Greek Traditions:

Greek Mythic Themes Clustered Around (see Home Page for new additions):

Aphrodite [Forthcoming]
Artemis  [Forthcoming]
Athena
Centaurs
Demeter & Persephone  [Forthcoming]
Hecate & Other "Dark" Goddesses [Forthcoming]
Icarus
Medusa & Pegasus
Pan

Ancient Roman & Italian Traditions:

Celtic Traditions:
Icelandic, Nordic, & Teutonic Traditions:
Medieval Life & Times:
Arthurian Themes:
Grail  Lore:
Alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermetics:
Fairy Tales & Folk Lore:

Up to Asia's Opening Page

Down to Indigenous Peoples

HOME PAGE

Note: I cannot help with homework but for those wishing to contact me on other matters,
my e-mail address will be found near the bottom of my Home Page.

This page created with Netscape Gold 3.01
Technical assistance: William Weeks
Text and Design:
Copyright 1998-2002 by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Updates:
 2 & 3 February 1999; 8 October 2000; 13 November 2000;
21 August 2001 (added Central Europe category);
12 January 2002 (added Colonialism category); 1 February 2002;
4 February 2002: for unknown reasons, my Feb. 1update never "took," despite repeated tries; I tried again tonight and failed again.  I've now deleted both slow-loading animations & hope this time it'll go through safely; 6 February 2002: (::sigh::) trying again, in old Netscape Gold 3.01 this time.