Elizabeth - The Living Lore

Common Themes in Myths Across Cultures

A flood, a journey into the land of the dead, a quarrel among gods, a trickster who makes trouble for […]

Main image: Cerberus, with the gluttons in Dante’s Third Circle of Hell, Blake, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons A three-headed

A priest watches a grove, expecting the challenger who may kill him and take his place. James George Frazer made

The Moon returns to a familiar shape, and the world beneath it has changed. That combination of recurrence and difference

A calendar can tell us when an equinox occurs. It cannot tell us what that moment must mean. Seasonal ritual

A stone, a bowl of water, the movement of air, a source of light: arranged together, ordinary things can become

Mistletoe remains green on another tree’s branch, an arrangement that can look like a small exception to the ordinary rules

A video call begins, somebody finds the same old song, and a birthday is celebrated across three time zones. The

A graduation procession, a funeral, an oath of office and the lighting of a candle before a meal can look