Featured image in Public Domain.
Legendary characters from folklore are people or deities that may or may not have existed, normally from a period of time thousands of years ago, such characters are normally known for great, sometimes perhaps unnatural acts of heroism and great feats that a normal person would not have been capable of in most cases. It is likely most of the stories of these characters were based on real people and events but that many of the accounts and stories of the individual and events were and have been exaggerated over time, from telling to telling, which is a common trait of folkloric stories, meanwhile others have just been created through creative story-telling specifically just for entertainment reasons and has spread and developed from there.
A number of legendary characters have played a big part in pop culture inspiring movies and stories, such characters include Merlin, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Egyptian pharaohs and famous Roman figures such as Achilles and Spartacus among many others throughout the world.
Today I have picked out five of these legendary characters to go over, telling some of their story and who they were.
Number 1 – Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure in British-Welsh folklore, possessing magical abilities like that of a wizard, he used these abilities to help other such legendary characters, such as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, although in the original tale Merlin has nothing to do with these characters. Merlin was born from a typical mortal woman who was a nun but his father was an Incubus, which in mythology is a male demon that rapes woman in their sleep, being born from these two very different characters, one of God and one of the Devil, Merlin became a paradox receiving his powers from the two opposing forces, good and evil.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a British cleric who lived between 1095 to 1155 (not entirely accurate) is credited with developing/chronicling the legendary character Merlin into what it is today, he primarily based Merlin off of two other legendary characters, one from Wales called Myrddin Wylit, also called Myrddin the Wild and Merlinus Caledonensis, a dubbed poet, seer and “madman” and Emrys/Embreis, a fictional character partly based on the 5th century, historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus.
Merlin’s powers often included telling accurate prophecies and using magic to trick his allies’ enemies, such as disguising someone in the form of somebody else. One rendition of Merlin also said he learned to talk to wild animals after going mad and living as a Wildman in a forest.
In the stories to do with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table Merlin is bewitched and either forever imprisoned or killed by “The Lady of the Lake” which is one of the legendary characters in the stories, it was an ironic end to the legendary character as one of his traits was an insatiable lust for beautiful woman. His body is often said to be buried in the legendary fictional Broceliande magical forest, most commonly identified as Paimpont Forest in France.
All of the above is mostly a single rendition of the character, but there are numerous other versions of his birth and death among other things.
Number 2 – Osiris
Osiris was a legendary figure and god from Ancient Egyptian mythology and religion, being the god of life, death, flooding of the Nile and the afterlife. Osiris was the brother to the Egyptian goddess of life and magic, Isis but also strangely her husband, they had a son called Horus who was the Egyptian god of the skies.
Osiris was pharaoh of Egypt, which made his brother, Set (also called Seth), the Egyptian god of desert, thunder, evil, pain and suffering rather envious, leading to Set murdering his own brother Osiris by tricking him into a box and pouring lead on to it and trapping him inside and then throwing it into the Nile, Set then made himself pharaoh, but Horus, being a loyal son, avenged his father Osiris by defeating Set and becoming pharaoh himself, one of the tales describes Isis finding Osiris and bringing back to life for one night, which is when Horus, their son, was conceived by Isis. It’s one of those old good Vs evil storyline tropes, but, being that it is old mythology it is one of the originals.
Osiris’s parents were Egyptian goddess of the sky, Nut, and Egyptian god of the Earth, Geb. As well as his brother Set and his sister/wife Isis, Osiris also had another sister, Egyptian goddess of death, decay and darkness Nephthys.
During Ancient Egyptian times Osiris was widely worshipped, mostly in hopes of a good crop harvest as well as for the preferable conditions for their crops to thrive.
All of Ancient Egyptian mythology is very interesting to read as it includes many more stories about all kinds of different gods and goddesses.
Number 3 – Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc is a Saint and Legendary figure from France and the realest person on this list, but the reason I am including her is due to her apparent ability to communicate with the Divine. She gained notoriety and widespread recognition from taking part in the Hundred Years’ War against the English and its French loyalists, the young woman, having received apparent visions from Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine of Alexandria who had told her to fight and support Charles VII of France against the English and his other opponents in the latter part of the long war, to prevent English domination.
After travelling to the currently uncrowned monarch of France, she made a good impression on him and he allowed her to travel with a relief army to the ongoing Siege of Orleans and within only nine days the siege had lifted and Charles had finally gained a victory after so many humiliating defeats that had demoralized the general French population and its armies.
Although it is up for debate how much of an effect Joan of Arc had in the latter parts of the war, a number of noble-man who led armed forces had taken much of her advice, believing a lot of it was of the divine and that Joan did have a profound effect on their success from that point on leading up to the coronation of Charles VII after successfully winning the long drawn out war. The fact that Joan of Arc’s appearance had a sudden change-around for Charles armies in the latter part of the war cannot be ignored.
Sadly, Joan of Arc was captured in 1430 at Compiegne, 23 years before the end of the war, by a Burgundian Faction of French nobles who were allied with the English, she was shortly thereafter handed over to the English where she was put on trial by a pro-English bishop called Pierre Cauchon, where she was found guilty and burnt on the stake in 1431, at about the young age of 19 years old.
Later in 1456 Pope Callixtus III authorized an inquisitorial court and concluded that charges against her had been debunked and declared her a martyr. Much later in 1920 she was recognized as a Saint after being canonized.
Joan of Arc continues to be a point of reference for much pop culture as well as a compelling story, for someone so young to do such apparent great things and at a time where a woman would never have been expected to be in her position.
Number 4 – Medusa
Medusa is a mythological monster and legendary character from Greek mythology. She was described as a terrifying humanoid being with hair of venomous snakes and the ability to turn people who gazed upon her face into stone, as well as that… she also had wings, just to top everything off. The type of monster she was is known as a “Gorgon” in Greek mythology.
Depending on who you ask there are two different versions of who her parents were, one claim is that her parents were Phorcys and Ceto, a god and goddess of the sea, while others claim it was a Gorgon and Ceto. Medusa is well known in mythology around the world but she also had two lesser known sisters, one called Stheno and another called Euryale, both of which were also Gorgon’s. Whether Medusa had beauty or not has been a source of back and forth change throughout the many thousands of years that the myth has existed, from time period to time period, other versions claim Medusa got her snake hair and stone-gaze after Athena gave it to her, for being mad that she had been raped in her temple, by Poseidon.
Her ending came after she was slayed by Greek myth hero Perseus with help from numerous artifacts and weapons provided to him by other Greek Gods, such as Athena, Hades and Hephaestus, one of the artifacts was a shield with a mirror, from Athena, that allowed him to look at Medusa without turning to stone, conveniently being the only Gorgon out of the three who wasn’t immortal, enabling Perseus to slay her. Upon dying she gave birth to Pegasus and Chrysaor as she was pregnant from Poseidon.
This is only a small snippet from the entirety of the Medusa mythology, including the key parts, Greek mythology is very expansive and includes many mythological gods, goddesses and creatures.
Number 5 – Achilles
Finally, we have Achilles, another legendary character from Greek mythology. One big thing about this character is that a part of our body is named after him, the Achilles tendon, as it is one of the bodies weakest points, Achilles himself was brought down by a weakness, as to why one of our bodies weakest points was named after him. Now when people refer to the Achilles’ Heel of something, they are referring to someone or somethings greatest weakness that ultimately leads to downfall.
In Greek mythology Achilles, also called Achilleus, was a Greek hero in the Trojan War, a well-known war in Greek mythology where the downfall of the city Troy was caused by a gift/peace offering of a giant wooden horse that included a sinister ulterior motive hidden within it, allowing the city to be sacked from within after it was brought inside.
One of Achilles greatest feats was taking down the Trojan hero Hector outside Troy’s city gates. But eventually Achilles met his well-known downfall to Paris, also called Alexander, who was the son of the King and Queen of Troy, Achilles was said to be invulnerable to death due to his mother, Thetis, dipping him into the river Styx when he was a mere infant, but he unknowingly did have a weakness… his heel, being the only part of his body that didn’t touch the river due to his mother holding him by his heel while dipping him into the river, was his only vulnerable part, Achilles’ Heel, was his downfall, Paris/Alexander killed him with an arrow to his heel.
Thank you for reading this. Do you have a favorite legendary character from mythology and folklore? Perhaps a favorite story? Also, I am starting a new project for the mystery/unexplained posts, I am going to go through the alphabet and do an unexplained cryptid or entity for each letter, starting with A where we will look at the Aswang.
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