What's your favorite mythological poem or story?

[Green Knight]

Surprisingly, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ISN'T my favorite, though it is pretty far up.

My favorite would have to be Le Morte D'Arthur. Started off weak, but Mallorys' writing noticably improved throught the book til you get to the end where it was damn fine writing. The Once and Future King was also a fantastic, and humorous, book which I loved a lot as I read it.

I also like the poems La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats, I believe, and Eldorado by Edgar Allen Poe.

Beowulf also holds a special place in my heart. And, of course, I like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight so much that everywhere I go I register the name "Green Knight".

So what're your favorites? And it doesn't have to be medieval literature like my list. I just prefer medieval stuff over, say, ancient Greek. Arthurian legend over Hercules and the Trojan War, which I still like, but not as much as the above.

 

[Aaron L]

I like Beowulf. La Belle Dame sans Merci was ok.

 

[herald]

I know this doesn't sounds like it should fit. But A conneticut yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

[Angelsboi]

Echo and Narcissis. So sad. I feel really bad for the poor nymph

 

[Skarp Hedin]

It's hard, of course, to really pick a favorite, but I would recommend the Enuma Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Elder Edda (especially Voluspa).

 

[Thorntangle]

Norse mythology does it for me. Where else do you find a place where dead warriors chop each other up during the day and come back to life at the end of the day to carouse all night?

Narrowed down to one story, it would probably be the fall of Loki. After he tricks one Aesir into killing Balder, the other gods bring the hammer down hard. He almost escapes but is caught and chained to a rock so that a serpent constantly drips venom in his eyes until Ragnarok. His spasms of pain were said to make the earth shake.

edit: bad spelling

 

[Wolf72]

Ozzymandias ... I think that's the title.

ya know the guy saying how great he is, "King of Kings" and all ... all that's left is some obscure ruins.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Njal's Saga.

 

[mmadsen]

Ozzymandias ... I think that's the title.

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Njal's Saga.

Well, if you were to go to, say, Selfoss or, heaven forfend, Hlidarendi, and tell the locals that your favorite "mythological" tale was Njals Saga.. heh, might not be very popular -- they take the saga extremely seriously around there, with most people believing it -verbatim-.

All of the Icelandic sagas are very good and well worth reading, and really, some of them are -just- like a D&D game.. to take an example from Njals Saga, there's one scene in which 2 parties are fighting on a frozen river. Skarp-Hedin hits Sigmund with his axe and knocks Sigmund down to his knees, and says "Now you have gone on your knees before me, but you will be flat on your back before I'm done", or words to that effect.

What's Sigmund say? "That's too bad". Skarp-Hedin then kills him.

I'm not sure I'd be very comfortable calling the Sagas "mythological", though there are definitely some supernatural and mythological elements. However, mythological or no, I heartily recommend all of them, especially Njals and Egils.