Mythlet: A Mouth Like Flame and Breathing Death

Live from Mount Olympus

Onassis Foundation

Kids & Family, Stories For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2021

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Perseus cut off Medusa’s head, shouldn't she have lost her power? Dr. Kate Birney says “Definitely not!” and reveals the Middle Eastern origins of this ghastly Greek monster. Dr. B also shows us how the ancient Greeks used Medusa’s terrifying power to protect themselves from evil spirits. Check out our Instagram @OCCNY or search #livefrommountolympus to see some scary images of Medusa and her Mesopotamian inspiration, Humbaba!

Live from Mount Olympus is a production of the Onassis Foundation, and co-produced by The TEAM. The podcast is directed by Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown) and Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and created by Peabody Award-winning producer Julie Burstein. Karen Brooks Hopkins is the executive producer.

Live from Mount Olympus is presented by TRAX from PRX with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Find out more at Onassis.link/Olympus

Our actors include Vinie Burrows, Jill Frutkin, Divine Garland, Amber Gray, Adrienne Hopkins, Natalie Hopkins, Modesto "Flako" Jimenez, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Christina Liberus, Nehemiah Luckett, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Kristen Sieh, Jillian Walker, Baby Perseus is played by Calvin Samuel Blanch and Whit Vega Margolin-Vaughan, and André De Shields is Hermes.

Our production team includes: sound designer David Schulman; production assistant Tessa Zitter; writer Nathan Yungerberg; music composed and performed by Magda Giannikou with Luca Bordonaro; and illustrations by Jason Adam Katzenstein.

Our guest today, Dr. Kate Birney, is Chair of the Archaeology Department at Wesleyan University. Our mythlets are produced by Tessa Zitter and Julie Burstein and mastered by John Melillo.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Call off your soldiers, Phineas, and fight me yourself, or you will all meet a horrific fate from what I carry in this bag.
0:10.0	Remember that moment in season one of live for Mount Olympus,
0:14.6	when Perseus meets Andromedous former fiance?
0:18.4	What power could a boy like you have against my army of men?
0:25.0	The garden's head.
0:29.0	So you might think that killing the beast by cutting its head off means that you've rendered it powerless, right?
0:38.0	It can't hurt you anymore. You are wrong.
0:40.0	Medusa is in fact even more scary when you cut her head off because that powerful gaze has now become the weapon of the hero.
0:49.0	Dr. Kate Bernie is back with more wisdom about ancient weapons.
0:53.7	But this time, the weapon is not made of bronze or steel.
0:59.6	Instead, it's the head of a monster.
1:04.0	Medusa.
1:05.0	As you probably remember,
1:08.0	Medusa is one of three scary sisters.
1:11.0	The Gorgons crawled out of the sea, monstrous and scaly and
1:16.7	terrifying at a time so long ago that it's at the very edge of memory.
1:23.0	The word Gorgon itself comes from a root that means this roaring or shrieking sound.
1:30.0	And in fact, the Gorgon probably originates from an ancient Mesopotamian demon by the name of Humbaba.
1:38.0	Mesopotamia is in modern day Iraq, and it's called Mesopotamia because it is literally the area between
1:45.2	the rivers, Meso Potemos, between the Tigris and the Euphrates. And in Mesopotamia
1:51.5	whom Baba is most often shown as a disembodied head facing straight out.
1:58.0	And he's described in these texts as having a terrible shrieking roar, piercing eyes, mouth-like flame, and breathing death.
	...

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