Yemọja
Nigeria Yemọja is a Yoruba water orisha of the oceans and rivers, particularly Nigeria’s Ogun River. Maternal and protective, Yemọja cares for her children, bringing comfort and cleansing their sorrows […]
Category Archives: Myths and Folktales
Women have been depicted as goddesses, creatures, biblical figures, legends and folk tale heroines throughout history – many based in a grain of truth.
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Catalina of Dumaguete
Heroine of Negros in the Philippines
Camilla, Queen of the Volscians
Italy The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in […]
Atalanta
Greece The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in […]
Nafanua
Nafanua was an ancient Samoan war goddess and ali’i, or chief. Her peaceful conduct of politics influenced the modern used of the fono communal meeting place for the fa’amatai system of decentralised government.
Draupadi
India This article, written by Naomi Appleton, has been republished with permission from the Dangerous Women Project, created by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University […]
Semiramis
Semiramis, a celebrated queen of Assyria, round whose personality a mass of legend has accumulated. According to Diodorus, the Greek historian, she was the wife of Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, and flourished about 2100 B.C. She is said to have founded Babylon, and made it the most magnificent city of the world, and everywhere through her dominion she left monuments of her greatness.
Clever Manka
There was once a rich farmer who was as grasping and unscrupulous as he was rich. He was always driving a hard bargain and always getting the better of his poor neighbors. One of these neighbors was a humble shepherd who in return for service was to receive from the farmer a heifer. When the time of payment came the farmer refused to give the shepherd the heifer and the shepherd was forced to lay the matter before the burgomaster.
Rapunzel
One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some.
Udea
Once upon a time there was a man and his wife who had seven boys. The children lived in the open air and grew big and strong, and the six eldest spent part of every day hunting wild beasts. The youngest did not care so much about sport, and he often stayed with his mother.