Mythology

Bits and pieces of Greek myths, Cherokee tales, an Aché myth, and a reference to a Norse god have crept into my novel to nestle alongside new myths.

Greek mortals, immortals, and monsters—Prometheus, Hercules, Hera, Orpheus, the Sphinx, Leda and the Swan, Niobe, and Charybdis and Scylla—all have their moments on Last Shade Tree’s stage.

The cultures of other continents also bring captivating tales. The Brazilian Aché people identified the twin gods, Kuaray and Yacy (the names Aleta chose for her newborns), directly with the sun and moon. Mythology abounds with powerful twins, many of them personifications of the sun and moon. For example, Zeus’s twin children Apollo and Diana are associated with those heavenly bodies.

The Norse god Baldr was known for his purity, his wealth, his wisdom, and his glowing good looks, and this is why he is compared to the handsome Ariel. Baldr’s doting and fearful mother Frigg entreated every object in the world—except the insignificant mistletoe plant—to vow never to hurt her son. Unfortunately, an enemy of Baldr discovered his vulnerability. The most perfect of the Norse gods was slain by a spear fashioned from a mistletoe branch.

“The Haunted Whirlpool,” a tale of the Eastern Cherokee, was collected by the ethnographer James Mooney, c. 1900. At the mouth of Suck Creek on the Tennessee River, fearsome whirlpools threatened boatmen’s lives. Two men were caught in a violent whirlpool that yanked them underwater. One was eaten by a fish while the other was sucked to the very bottom of the vortex. Below him, as if looking through the roof beams, he saw a house full of people reaching their hands out to seize him. Luckily the current pushed him back to the surface. This tale is relevant because Ariel encounters the whirlpool in a frightening vision.

“The Legend of the Cherokee Rose” sprung from the suffering on the Trail of Tears. So many people died on the Trail that all the mothers gave up hope and stopped caring for their children. The Elders called on Galvladiehi, Heaven Dweller. He helped them by creating a flower: anywhere along the Trail where a woman had shed a tear, a baby rosebush sprouted, grew tall, and the flowers burst into bloom in a single day. All this beauty and the strength of the fragile rose gave the mothers new courage. The legend performs a crucial role in The Last Shade Tree’s concluding chapter.