Chapter 286 "Tracing the Origin"

After sailing on the sea for an unknown length of time, the bone ship finally arrived at its destination.

It was a huge island of bones.

"Island of Death."

Captain Splitskull spoke the name of the island.

However, during this unknown number of days of sailing, Captain Split Skull also explained the news about the "Death Island".

This huge island is made of bones.

However, to be precise, it should be called "Ship Island".

This Death Island was actually formed by the gathering of bone ships.

It itself is not fixed on the sea, but also mobile.

Arriving at this island made up of countless bone boats and docking at the port, Yao Yan saw figures one by one.

Similar to him, each one was shrouded in black robes, and each one wore a bone mask with various black marks as logos.

However, when they were silent, the scene formed by the combination of this scene and the diffuse fog, according to his memory, might be more suitable in a horror movie.

After the bone boat completely docked, a figure appeared beside the boat:

"Splitskull, you took a long time this time."

Yao Yan followed the sound and saw a man in black robes with a slender figure standing there quietly in the shadow that penetrated another cabin and on the straight road formed by the deformation of the hull bones.

There are black lines on the mask's mouth.

However, the black robe on him was, to be precise, not consistent with the black robe on them.

Because the shape of the "clothes of death" on this black-robed man has changed a bit, and the outline is more "fitting". The black shadow that originally covered the skull like a hood has also formed a three-cornered hat. shape.

However, more importantly.

Under the opponent's mask, the neck is not a complete skeleton, but a blue, translucent shape.

Rather than "skeletons", terms like "ghosts" and "undead" would be more appropriate.

However, the voice made by the man in black robes had a high "pitch" and was more "female".

Captain Split Skull looked at the other party quietly after he spoke.

The fourth level, "Dead Sea Banshee".

Yao Yan got the news from the captain "Split Skull".

From the first to the third level, the power of the deceased continues to grow stronger. Because of the "voice of the heart", memory and cognition will continue to recover, and the understanding of the self will gradually be completed.

At the fourth level, the deceased will gradually "form" themselves and construct a "spirit body".

However, there are only "females".

Yao Yan's eyes fell on the black-robed spirit wearing a three-cornered hat.

He saw a lot of feather-like things on the other party's body.

At this time, the black-robed spirit raised his hand——

arm?

No, it was more like a bird wing, a chiropteran.

Yao Yan looked at the spirit body shrouded in black robes, flapped its winged hands vaguely wrapped in wide sleeves, flew up from the shadows, and disappeared into the mist.

Such a gesture reminded Yao Yan of a legendary creature——

Hubby.

To be precise, it should be Harpie.

As part of Greek mythology.

"Monsterization", which can also be said to be "demonization", is a process that occurs in the evolution of many myths.

In the era of Yaoyan, the well-known "Greek mythology" system ultimately formed a family-style pantheon with the god-king Zeus as its core.

However, as far as Yao Yan knew, the formation of this mythological system was due to the mythological construction of the "Olympus Religion".

Mythological systems are not created overnight, they all have a process of evolution.

Various versions of the myth are circulated among the people.

And often, when "religion" appears, an "integrated" version appears.

In the construction of this integrated version, there are some sayings that it is selected from society and various legends circulated and kept intact, some sayings are changed after selection, and some sayings are completely new.

There are local legends and myths from the ruled areas, and there are also legends and myths from external areas. Specifically, even the builders of religious myths cannot fully confirm the origins of which parts.

But in any case, when such a religion is formed, the general structure and a relatively complete mythological system framework are formed.

Of course, there is more than one religion, and there may be more than one religion in the same region, and the same religion may also have different sects.

The intricate real-life interest relationships and thinking have built an intertwined system.

Some parts agree, some parts contradict, and some parts completely diverge.

Such situations all exist.

In the age of animism, people were afraid of nature and all kinds of dangerous creatures. In various ideas, the mythical creatures imagined by people were often simply spliced ​​together.

Chimeras and other monsters that stitch together the images of different creatures are perfectly normal.

Some people who lack the foundation of mythology knowledge and have a desire for expression may sneer at this stitched image, but it is precisely this stitched image that best represents people's thinking in the animistic era.

Not only animals, but also the splicing of human and animal images is the norm.

For various reasons, perhaps to show one's courage and strength, perhaps to intimidate the enemy, perhaps because of fear, or perhaps just because of a dream.

Because of these complicated reasons, people have mixed various images.

For example, Zhu Jiuyin, Fuxi and Nuwa.

However, with the evolution of the times, under the influence of simple thinking such as literal meaning, "Zhulong" will be taken for granted by people as "dragon head and dragon body".

Some people will make mistakes even if they know it, and some people will "trace the origin" and "restore history".

However, mythological images are fictional things, and there are many versions of them.

In mythology, every image is meaningful.

Rumors, distortions, reconstructions, deconstructions, interpretations.

These are all part of mythology.

Because these are all realistic and have realistic backgrounds, but simply "tracing the origin" will destroy their realistic meaning.

For example, a certain image was originally a posture of animal splicing, with a simple body and a ferocious shape, and only an image.

This represents the roughness of the painting technology at that time, and the roughness of the splicing itself can also clearly show the source of each part.

The first evolution, this image, was recorded in writing for the first time.

What does it mean to be recorded in writing? Perhaps it represents the beginning of the emergence of writing in this era, or it may be the first time that the writing of this era included this image.

The former is simple and clear, while the latter may represent the conquest of one force over another.

In the second evolution, a part of this image was replaced by another animal.

This may be a problem of the recorder himself. He has never seen this kind of creature and described it "almost" according to his own experience. This may represent that the class of the recorder is completely out of touch with life practice, or it may be the complete extinction of a certain animal, or it may be a geographical change, or it may be the impact of climate.

In the third evolution, the image of this animal was refined, but the image tended to be more kind, and there was no change in the written record.

Or it may be the subjective idea of ​​the recorder himself, or it may be that people in this era are completely out of touch with this kind of creature, this mythological image, or it may be the change in the status of this image in this force, this culture, and this civilization.

In the fourth evolution, the image of this legendary animal became fierce and deteriorated, and some evil deeds were also included in the record.

This may represent the image conflict between the painter and the writer, or it may be one-sided, the painter painted according to the description, or the recorder described according to the picture.

Another possibility is that the recorder heard about many unexplained deaths in the society at that time, or even around the recorder, and then linked them to the thing.

These are folklore and mythology.

In Yao Yan's era, there were many people who wanted to "trace the origin" to re-describe the images of these gods and monsters.

Their images are more refined, but why?

Why do they want to depict these images?

This may be a manifestation of a social trend, such as reversal literature, such as people's disgust with rumors and fallacies

The birth of a thing has many reasons.

The "monsterization" in religion and mythology cannot be generalized.

A certain religion is highly exclusive and exclusive, so it has a higher degree of rejection of gods and monsters outside its own system, and there are more descriptions of "evil".

If a religion advocates a threatening missionary method, this kind of description will be more serious.

Different degrees of monsterization itself represent different practical meanings.

And the image of Harpy, according to what Yao Yan knows, it may be a god that appeared before the Olympian religion.

The image of a human head and a bird body is a simple splicing feature of the era when all things have spirits, but in the process of human development, the sublimity of the deified image and the inclusion and monsterization of pagan things are different.

Harpy has experienced both.

However, in that era, "human head and bird body" means "human head" and "bird body", not human body covered with feathers, with human as the main body and bird characteristics.

The charming and beautiful humanoid posture was quite rampant in Yao Yan's era.

Harpy, with this posture, at least explains one thing.

"Era".

Ocean, death.

In this world, the formation of this humanoid posture should be at least around the time when Yao Yan lived.

ps: Taking advantage of the Chinese New Year, I read the mythology and folklore books I bought before.

If you are interested, you can also take a look.

"Z Country Monster Stories", "Z Country Local Chronicles and Folk Customs Data Collection Southwest Volume/Northwest Volume/East China/North China"

"Greek Mythology", "Theogony", "Book Library", "Metamorphosis", "Seasonal Records"

I have only read these during this period. There are many others, which I will not describe one by one. You can read them all.

Oh, of course, I recommend that you try to figure out the author/translator's psychology when reading, and also figure out the reasons for different versions based on the wording and sentence habits in the text description.

Of course, it would be better to speculate on the evolution of mythological images and the reasons for the differences between different versions based on historical books and descriptions of the times.