French anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who was extremely interested in myths and folk stories around the world, developed a structuralist theory of mythology.
The basic idea of this theory is that myth is a language. He carried out a massive project, a four-volume study called Mythologiques where he followed a single myth from South America to Central America and finally to the Arctic Circle, and by doing that, he traced a single story, a single myth from one end of the Western Hemisphere to the other.
This shows us the power of a good story. After retiring from his academic work, he continued to write now and then about meditation, art, music, philosophy, and poetry.
I have nothing, but admiration for this man; his works opened so many windows for someone like me, who is interested in linguistics, mythology, philosophy, and spiritual practices, to understand more about these subjects and think outside the box and physical and cultural borders we humans tend to draw in our mind.
The Witcher, a game I really enjoyed playing, has a storyline based on the novel series The Witcher by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The Witcher also put CD Projekt, a Polish video game developer, publisher, and distributer on the map of major players within the gaming industry. Even so, these games are based on fictional fantasy novels that are filled with Slavic mythology and folklore, as well as Norse mythology and cosmology.
The main character Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher – a genetically enhanced human with special powers that allow him to slay different monsters. The game’s system of moral choices is also built in a way that we often see in classical myths; it consists of time-delayed consequences and a lack of black-and-white morality. Geralt’s sword has inscriptions in the Glagolitic script, the oldest known Slavic alphabet. Runestones within the game bear the names of Slavic gods such as Svarog (the god of celestial fire and blacksmithing) and Perun (the god of the sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, and oak trees).
A Striga a monster you encounter in the Witcher games, also known as Strzyga in Polish and Shtriga in Albanian mythology. It is a woman transformed into a monster by a curse, basically a vampiric witch that in Albanian folklore sucks the blood of infants while they sleep. They usually live in the forest in hidden places and have supernatural powers, the forest being a very common setting in The Witcher storylines.
Last, but not least, the original Proto-Slavic name of the English word witcher is vedmak (Belarusian: вядзьмак, вядзьмар; Bulgarian: вещер; Croatian: vještac; Macedonian: вештер; Russian: ведьмак; Czech: vědmák; Ukrainian: відьмак; Polish: wiedźmak; Serbian: вештац) and in Slavic mythology, a vedmak is a warlock or male witch, the female equivalent being vedma.
Of the video games in this blog, the final one to mention is Assassin’s Creed. It is a Ubisoft video game series with a large open world that is packed with fantasy, history, and mythology-derived storylines, action, adventure, and stealth.
Currently, with the last release in 2020, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, this video game series consists of 24 games. The games in this series are dedicated to different cultures and mythologies. For example, in the last one, Assasin’s Creed Valhalla, Eivor, the character you play, has the chance to enter Valhalla, meet the gods of the Æsir, and fight alongside them, which in Norse mythology is an honour reserved for great Viking warriors that died on the battlefield.
A number of collectible items in the game also reference the mythical items of the gods of the Æsir. You can go to Jötunheimr, one of the nine realms in Norse cosmology, which is home of the Giants, also known as Jötunn. The final boss, of course, is Fenrir, an enormous wolf that is one of the three children that Loki, the trickster god, and a shapeshifter, had with the giantess Angrboða.
Fenrir is the one who is supposed to kill Odin during the events of Ragnarök. As usual in this game series, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla links back to another game of the series, this time Assassin’s Creed 3. Eivor has the chance to go to Vinland, which is what the Vikings called the territory of modern-day Canada.
Last but not least, in the context of this blog I would like to mention the mobile phone application Headspace. I started to use it more actively during the COVID-19 pandemic as a tool to cope with additional stress.
The fantastic thing about this app is that it has managed to bring meditation as a practice to the general public. The story behind it is also wonderful; one of the founders of the Headspace app, Andy Puddicombe, trained as a Buddhist monk for 10 years, and he really does know a thing or two about meditation.
He has managed to deliver meditation practice using a localized, easy to understand approach for everyone who wants to commit to this on a daily basis. One way to learn about meditation is to start with meditation techniques and early Buddhist texts, for example, the Pali Canon or Chinese Agamas.
But let’s be frank, how many people would end up studying these ancient texts? Therefore, Headspace is a wonderful way to teach day-to-day meditation to laypeople. Another example of how to create message from local to global audience using ancient knowledge and spiritual practices.
