Did I open up Pandora's Box?

[yendi]

So, while we were in the Girl Scout store last week, Elayna made some comment about a stuffed animal being "a pegasus." As with bad grammar, I pretty much instinctively correct factual errors Elayna makes, so I said that there was actually only one Pegasus, and that all others are just winged horses. This led to some discussion about the idea of mythology, and I promised to tell her some myths.

I told her the story of Demeter and Persephone (and Hades, of course) last night, and she loved it. And wants myths every night.

Which, on the one hand, is very gratifying. At her age, I'd already read every book on Greek myths I could get my hand on, and was on the verge of discovering the Norse (most impressive, since they didn't want to be found). And I still love mythology, and want Elayna to get into it.

On the other hand, Elayna is a bit more sensitive than shadesong and I are. And although I'm willing to skip some sections of myths, I'm not willing to alter events. And a lot of stories (including Pegasus, who is directly tied into the whole nasty Perseus/Medusa thing) have nasty moments. In this case, it's no big deal -- I can skip the origin of Pegasus, and the death of the Chimera isn't going to bother Elayna. With Theseus (who is going to be the subject of the next few nights), I'm simply going to skip Procrustes -- she can handle most of the other details (and the eventual trip to Hades to kidnap Persephone might be a nice tie-in with last night's tale).

But I'm eventually going to have to tell some stories with Zeus in them. And eventually, I'm going to have to tell Zeus's origin, or the story of Perseus, or Hereakles, or another tale. I may try to tell the stories to her during the day, if possible. I dunno. I fret -- she had a nightmare a couple of weeks back as the resulf of Courage the Cowardly Dog, a show that makes me laugh hysterically, but never really scares me, and wouldn't have scared me at her age. So I feel like I need to be super careful. But I don't want to put her in a bubble.

Anyone have any favorite Greek myths they like to tell their kids?

Comments

[mfree.livejournal.com]

Stay away from Saturn.

far away....

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

No kids (yet), but let me think of some suitable myths:

Eros and Psyche (one of my favorites, and one of the tamest -- no one even dies)
Pandora's Box (not a favorite, but it does have Hope)
Atalanta and the golden apples
Pygmalion and Galatea (good thing about this one, you can point out all the parallels)

[toratigris.livejournal.com]

Eros and Psyche was definitely my favorite as a child. Very low on the murder and mayhem scale.
Orpheus and Eurydice is another lovely one, if rather depressing, given the ending.

Hmmm...it's hard to come up with others, given that the Greeks and their gods were really Not Nice People as perceived by a modern audience...

[mfree.livejournal.com]

err, Kronos even.

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

There are some great books for kids about Greek Mythology, a lot of which are on this list (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2079KQNXDDRNT/qid=1030154367/sr=5-1/ref=sr_5_1/103-7419410-7726226). Maybe it would be a good idea to check a couple of these out and see if there are any stories that are well-written adaptations, or at least with pictures that might be a little more soothing than the imagination.

I know that personally I was a very spooked kid, but I loved mythology, mostly because the stories were generally so improbable that it was hard to be afraid of them.

[bob-dot-com.livejournal.com]

It's not like your re-writing history. These are just stories anyhow, so if you have to gloss, gloss.

Besides, the greco-roman gods are boring, tell her tales of Bob, like the time Bob was detailing his spaceship and this chick with these huge boob...

nevermind..

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely tell her Psyche and Eros, as other people have suggested. I STILL love that story and she'll be fairly familiar with it anyway, from Beauty and the Beast, which will let her begin to see the way we recycle stories and adapt them to fit our own culture.

Are you sticking with classical Grecian and Roman mythology?

If you're branching out, there are some FABULOUS Native American Trickster stories, most of which have funny moments with serious undertones.

Also, if you want to gloss over the odd bits of sex, Indian mythology is gorgeous. Get a copy of Ka for yourself and share the bits that you think are appropriate. She's a smart kid, so she should be able to appreciate some of the stories in there.

Also, Chinese mythology has a lot of animal tales that are really really fabulous.

I'd say Russian folk tales, but they tend to be pretty gruesome.

myths

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I read all of the 'Fairy Tale' series when I was little...the ones where every volume was a different color and featured myths/stories from a different culture or region...anyone know what I'm talking about? who edited it? not Lloyd Alexander, was it?

My dad read the Iliad and the Oddysey to me when I was 5, so I pretty much blame everything on him. ;p

[skylion.livejournal.com]

Cupid? Might want to shy away from Pan.

I was telling my kids versions of Native American folk stories. They love Coyote, and especially Raven stuff. And to laugh, alot of it I would tell thru the lens of the White Wolf Studios Werewolf mythos. They ate it up, especially how the Raven's wings were turned black.

Re: myths

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I think that's the series I read as a kid. No idea anything about it, except I read a lot of books in it and enjoyed every one.

[yendi]

Yeah. "And then he ate another baby," just isn't a phrase I want to utter too often.

[yendi]

Well, Buffy has Hope too, and I like that one a lot better. :-) But yeah, I'll consider all of these. Though I'm not a huge fan of them (Atalanta excluded). But I have to remember that this is for Elayna, not me.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I had read all the Norse, Greek & Roman myths by the time I was seven - my father had a set of red-bound books called "Newnes Pictorial Knowledge" (I think), which detailed all of them. I think they have been cleaned up a bit for kids, but not a huge amount.

I don't have kids or know much about them, but: She's going to come across the real versions sooner or later, and it's best if you tell her "Look, I think these bits might give you nightmares, so I'm going to leave them out for now." Elayna is, by all accounts, a reasonable kid, and will probably deal well with this.

That said, she's a kid, she's going to have nightmares, and many of them are going to be caused by things you can't control - glimpses of things, mis-hearings and strange ideas she's gotten from schoolmates and the like. I'd propose that it's better for her to have nightmares about something where you can say "That's just a story", and be right, because you told it to her. Am I making sense?

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I think your best bet is probably to get a treasury of Greek and Roman myths that's intended for younger readers. How old is Elayna again? I'm just asking because I was reading all kinds of myths probably starting in second grade, and although I was scared by a lot of stuff from TV, the myths never frightened me. I think I just sort of figured, "well, they're gods, weird things happen around them." Like the eating children thing, and Athena coming out of Zeus' forehead. It took me a while to figure out that Zeus was actually running around raping women, but I figure the books I read probably glossed that stuff over. But y'know, I was raised in parochial schools, so I was hearing about stoning, crucifixion, and whipping starting in kindergarten... so gory stuff didn't bother me too much. It was when my imagination ran away from me that I ended up scared.

Crow

Myths for Kids

[melvh.livejournal.com]

Well, my first suggestion is to get the watered-down versions that you can find in the Kid's part of the Library. It's perfectly acceptable to have a child grow with a tale as they develop the capacity to understand & appreciate it.

If that's not an option, I was always fond of Icarus & Daedalus --which emphasizes that sometimes you just have to listen to your parents... And, of course, Rudyard Kipling had a great way with children's stories --moralistic & otherwise. But those aren't myths.

I don't remember being too squeamish about mythology when I was her age, but then, I also had older brothers who were giving me E.A.Poe to read at bedtime & made me watch the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits & Night Gallery on those nights when I still couldn't drop off for some reason.

Of course, these are the same brothers who sent me to the first grade firmly convinced the alphabet started with "z".

::sigh:: I don't know if I should love them or loathe them for their coloring my youth...