Three Underworld Queens of different religions

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Indeed they would.

Also in Japanese folklore there are creatures known as the Yokai which are like their equivalent to the demons, although not all yokai are regarded as truly "evil", some were even good and helped heroes like the mountain hag Yama Uba who found the orphan Kintaro as an abandoned infant in the woods and instead of devouring him she took pity on him and raised him like a son, but the nurturing love she gave him also had the effect of granting him superhuman strength and making him a kind of Japanese version of the heroes Herculese or Samson.

https://japan-avenue.com/blogs/japan/yama-uba

Btw she was the inspiration for the witchy character Yubaba who was portrayed as the greedy boss lady operating the bath house for spirits in "Spirited Away", and in that movie she was very protective of her oversized infant son whom she spoiled and sheltered from the outside world.

But anyways in regards to the yokai, while not all yokai were truly "evil", there were three who were regarded as the most evil beings in all of Japan: An oni named Shuten-doji, a kitsune named Tamamo-no-Mae, and a tengu named Sutoku Tenno.

https://yokai.com/shutendouji/

https://yokai.com/tamamonomae/

https://yokai.com/sutokutennou/

Of all these three, Tamamo-no-Mae fascinates me the most. It was said she would travel all across Asia to China, India, and finally Japan. Her favorite thing to do was to become the favorite concubine to powerful kings and emperors and, through her magic, make these powerful men either die from a mysterious illness that could not be diagnosed or cured, or she would drive them into insanity and cause them to commit depraved acts. Eventually her influence would bring about the collapse of entire dynasties and bring ruin to an empire and she would move on to her next target.

The Japanese believed she was slain by an archer and her evil spirit was sealed away in an giant rock marked off with sacred ropes for many centuries.

...but interesting enough this same rock said to hold her evil spirit was found split in half some time ago. It even made the news and this was around the time the pandemic happened and Russia decided they were going to invade Ukraine.

Maybe this evil foxy lady is out there again doing what she does best?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/31/world/ja ... index.html

Sure is a weird coincidence.

Fascinating stories, really. I don't know which one I find more interesting, the one about Yokai spirits or about Tamamo-No-Mae with her seductive-sexual power who is still blood thirsty and make a mess with poor man, kings and their kingdoms. No wonder she was killed, but obviously her evil spirit was not and so far had to be seald in a rock. The coincidence of rock cracking at the same time when pandemic happened and later on the war btw Russia and Ukraine, gives me the chills a little bit. But the sadly funny thing is that later one, the war, healed the world from virus like in a matter of seconds.

Yes, the stories about evils spirits that were trapped in dark caves or seald in rocks could be found all around the world.

We have several versions of the same story about evil spirit and dragon called "Baš Čelik" which means "The head of steal". It was based on another fairy tail - "Nine peaphans and the golden apples"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Peahens_and_the_Golden_Apples

And a movie called " The magic sward" has been filmed in 1950. I'll put the link with a movie with English subtitles, if you want have a look, it is really interesting.



You'll see an interesting scene of releasing evil spirit of Baš Čelik, who was trapped in a casc with iron rings.

If you don't have a time or wish to watch it, at least hear this beautiful old melody .

Vida's song:

And as for "seducing" power many women have had over powerful men, sometimes it was not only about their looks or true (or no) sexapil. Many of them involved themselves into serious "witchcrafts", studying actually various plants, herbs, mushrooms, minerals, animals body parts, etc., so that end product would be a poisonous drink, a sleeping "pill" or just a kind of liquid that worked as "love spell".

Just recently I have watched a Chinese TV serial, actually romantic drama 'Scent of time", which is full of that kind of things. But actors are soooo beautiful and the story is interesting, you don't know what is reality and what is the dream and even dream in a dream.

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/scent-of-time/umc.cmc.5m9j84bpfmxpi6vswge2pboys

Yeah Tamamo-no-Mae is a really fascinating figure in Japanese folklore. And it's interesting to me how she follows the same exact pattern for commiting evil. Her favorite thing to do was to disguise as beautiful women and travel around Asia and become the favorite concubine to powerful men and through her influence she would bring their empires to ruin.

Just like how Lilith, Lamashtu, and Lamia (who are arguably the same entity spread across three different cultures) enjoyed murdering infants and pregnant mothers and seducing vulnerable men in their sleep.

Or how Eris the Goddess of Chaos loved to cause traumatic devestation for humans and the gods just for the heck of it by tossing that golden apple of hers.

Evil without real reason.

Also thank you for that link. It sounds like a very interesting tale and I will definetly read more of it when I have time.

I think they have that movie available on a free streaming app I use called Tubi TV. If they do I definetly watch it.

Reminds me of Cleopatra or Wu Zetian.

The movies and TV shows always portrayed these powerful female rulers as the "exotic beauty", but in reality the whole reason they seduced such powerful men was not because of their beauty but because these two ruthless women were highly intelligent, well-educated, and charismatic.

And as for Cleopatra I have found an article that proves exactly what you said about her: inteligent and charismatic, the one who's company was enjoyable to be with, in spite of the fact that she was not a beauty at all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/cleopatra-mark-antony-no-beauties-coin-shows-1.676697

But I wonder if she still used, at least a little bit, a help of some "witchcrafts" . I wouldn't be surprised if she did since she used to consult a lot her magicians, which means she appreciated some supernatural forces , when and where she thought it was necessary..

My first thought is the idea of the "eat of the realm and be stuck there" - both Persephone and Inanna fall into this trap in the Underworld (and is similar to eating of the Fae realm).

Commonalities between different myth systems seem quite frequent. The Underworld itself makes sense to me, as being underground. After all, on the surface is where things grow, and caves stay generally the same through generations. Plus, under the earth is where bodies tend to be buried.

And the Queen of the Underworld, despite there often already being a God in charge down there, seems somewhat cyclic - from the Mother we come, and to the Mother we go.

Just some quick thoughts.

That's an excellent point. It's like the "Underworld Queen" could represent the void that exists between birth and death. After all some like Persephone and Izanami were linked to the cycles of life as well as death.

Like Monty Python says in the song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: "You come from nothing, you go to nothing. So what have you lost? Nothing!"

Last edited by RedDeathFlower13 on 25 Mar 2024, 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

I wonder how many myths have the rule of "don't eat there"? I'm rather busy today, but can make time for curiosity in spurts.



Oh, and I love that song

Me too hehe

And I'm not sure? I know in Greek Hellenism and Japenese Shintoism they had a similar belief in food growing in the Underworld reserved only for the dead to eat.

Likewise Greek Hellenistic beliefs also had the food called Ambrosia which was reserved only for the gods to eat. Eating it was said to bring immortality. Very few mortals were permitted to eat it but they did make acceptions like in the case of Psyche who endured great hardships to be with her husband Eros the God of Love and as a wedding gift she was presented with Ambrosia and allowed to become the Goddess of the Soul so that the two lovers could be together forever.

Also in Chinese Taoism they believed in foods that brought immortality aswell and that only their gods were permitted to eat them. For example a peach tree that only produced fruit once every thousands of years and would be gathered by the god of longivity known as Shao Lou (I actually own a wooden carving of this deity)



Also there is a Chinese moon goddess known as Cheng'e who accidently drank the elixer of immortality that was meant for her mortal husband, an archer who saved the world by slaying several fire birds but allowing one to live and become the sun. After this she was placed on the moon she was told by the other immortal gods that she would spend her time making the elixer of immortality for them as a kind of punishment.

Here's a short video about Chang'e and she inspired the Japanese folk tale "The Bamboo Cutter" which is actually the inspiration for the Sailor Moon anime.

Yes, perhaps it is more of the "forbidden food" concept. Fruit of the tree of knowledge/good/evil/what have you. And immortality is a rather common theme. Perhaps the Underworld food is a dark reflection of Immortality. You can live forever, but only here. Except for Persephone, for half the year, as her mom knows people.

I like the Chenge story, as well as the Bamboo Cutter adaptation.

Speaking of the tree of knowledge, this parallels Prometheus bringing Fire. For this, both he and humanity were "punished" (though I don't mind women at all; nor toiling the earth for my food).

Very nice carving

Indeed, it does also mirror the "forbidden fruit" story of Genesis in which Adam & Eve doomed mankind to Earth for eating the one fruit they were told not to eat.

So even the Abrahamic religions have their own version of the "Forbidden Fruit" story.

I also like the contrast of Food for the Gods growing in the beautiful happy Heavenly world where they lived vs the Food of the Dead for essentially all dead souls who have to travel to the Underworld as well as the deities who rule over the gloomy Realm of the Dead.

And also Prometheus is another interesting tale. A God who was NOT indifferent to the plight of humans and took pity on us, but for this he was punished by Zeus for stealing fire for us. The poor guy was chained and had his liver torn out by an eagle (or I think harpies in some cases), and Zeus tried to destroy man by introducing the first woman Pandora with her cursed box.

Zeus was a real bastard.

Speaking of the Pandora's Box myth, it also seems parallel to the Genesis story of Eve being tricked by the serpent to take a bite out of the forbbiden fruit and tempt Adam to eat it, thus as a consequence woman was blamed for the "fall of man" which is really sexist obviously, but it goes to show how the ancient world used women as a convient scapegoat for society's ills.

The fact that you vocalized some of my implications that I couldn't be bothered with explaining. I'm sending you a PM regarding something.

In fact, this discussion (and others) combined with my roomie's dream and her desire to express it beyond...

The idea of archetypes, not going off topic, but the Underworld itself as a neutral place.

Fits into my story idea.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. Been a very long day. But i may check the pm out tomorrow.