Preface

There are hundreds of tales out there relating the deeds and exploits of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. But where to get started? And how to get started in a way that helps “grow out” a collection of tales that build on each other in a way that also helps ground each individual telling?

One of the strategies I have found trying to makes sense of the Fenian tales is to branch out from one tale to another by way of “but that’s another story” links. Having character sketches for various characters also provides a way of embuing those individuals with more substance: with each telling, and each new anecdote told about, or tale involving, them, they become more real, and tales can be told more convincingly about them.

So as a way in to classical mythology, I am going to try three approaches:

• stories around “names” that can hook into other tales outside of classical mythology; so for example, the sinking of HMS Eurydice has a natural bridge to Orpheus and Eurydice;

• “but that’s another story”: so for example, when Orpheus goes to the underworld and sees Hades and Persephone, that provides a hook in to Demeter and Persephone;

• many tales told around a particular character: for example, a whole collection of tales based around Hera that tell of the various ways in which she exacts revenge against the women that her husband Zeus seduces. I think that Artemis may also be a good focus for a range of “revenge” tales.

As ever, where possible, I’m going to try to draw on out-of-copyright source material, which means you can freely take the content and do with it what you will, and I can try to find stories as they might have been told a hundred or more years ago.

— Tony “Monty” Hirst, Isle of Wight, July-, 2023