Perseus

Yeah.

And the story I want to grab hold of is Medusa and Perseus.

It's a really old story.

It's a Greek myth story.

Awful things happen to her and the gods put a curse on her and they turn her head into snakes.

And anybody who looks at her turns to stone.

And we have a hero, Perseus, who comes along, who, who's going to solve this problem.

of this monster Medusa.

in these stories.

So this is the perspective of Medusa and Athena in the story of Perseus and Medusa.

It's very good.

I really like these books.

She gets exiled, sent off to a remote island with her Gorgon sisters cut off from the world, and her new nature is lethal.

immediate whoever looks at her dies or turns to stone which might be worse there's no controlling it no easing into it it's simply true the second it happens the way the tower is simply true the second the lightning hits And that's where Perseus comes in, sent generations later to bring back her head, partly as a heroic trial, partly as the request of a king who wants her dead for his own political reasons.

Perseus gets help from the gods, a mirrored shield from Athena, winged sandals, that whole loadout.

And the trick is that he never looks at Medusa directly.

He watches her only through the reflection in his shield, tracks her that way, and then and manages to strike while she's asleep, taking her head off without ever meeting her actual eyes.

Here's the detail that always gets me, though.

Her power doesn't die with her.

Perseus keeps the severed head, uses it as a weapon afterwards, turns enemies to stone with it, whips it out like some grotesque trump card in later fights.

So according to this interpretation, Mithras slaying the bull symbolizes the end of the age of Taurus, and sets up Mithras as a god powerful enough to shift the cosmic frame itself, able to literally move the heavens.

Ulanzi identifies Mithras with the constellation Perseus, which stands directly above Taurus in the sky, and Perseus wears a Phrygian cap.

It's a genuinely elegant theory.

It ran in Scientific American and won a big following, though a big following with the public.

Three by one.

Stone, Perseus, snakes.

Medusa.

Medusa.

Bear is the guy you take your dangerous enchanted objects to.

So you're Perseus, you kill the Kraken with the, the head of the Gorgon.

What do you do with the Medusa head afterwards? You put it in your closet.

What if your kid finds it? That's dangerous.