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Baal and the Battle with Yam
Baal rejects Yamm’s demand for tribute, kills one messenger, then suffers capture before using weapons made by Kothar-wa-Hasis to defeat him. He spares Yamm at Anat’s urging and takes divine kingship, while El withdraws from active rule. Baal’s Battle with Yam Yamm demanded that Baal pay tribute and accept his supremacy. El, the ancient father god, supported the demand. The other gods stayed silent and refused to oppose Yamm. Baal called them cowards. He had seen that Yamm’s messengers showed no respect even to El. Baal seized an axe and threw it at one of them, killing him. Before he could take another weapon, the second messenger seized Baal and carried him away from Mount Ṣapān. Yamm imprisoned Baal and mocked him. Baal was the lord of fertility, but Yamm claimed control of the lands. Kothar-wa-Hasis, Baal’s friend and the divine craftsman, reached the prison in secret. He told Baal not to lose heart. Baal had fought Yamm before, and the struggle was still under way. Kothar-wa-Hasis brought specially made weapons and promised that Baal would win. Baal used the weapons against Yamm and defeated him. Kothar-wa-Hasis urged Baal to kill his enemy, warning that Yamm was dangerous and treacherous. Anat, Baal’s sister and a warrior goddess who had also fought Yamm, told him to keep Yamm as a prisoner of war. She said that victory should be followed by generosity. Baal remembered that the gods had refused to support him when Yamm’s messengers came to Mount Ṣapān. He also understood that killing Yamm might damage his position with El and the other gods. Baal therefore dropped his thunderbolt and allowed Yamm to live in captivity. After Yamm’s defeat, Baal claimed divine kingship. This formed part of the wider change in which El withdrew from active rule and Baal took the leading position among the gods. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: The Big Book of World Mythology; The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Baal’s Death and Descent Mot summoned Baal to descend into the underworld. Baal could not refuse the invitation. Before entering Mot’s realm, he mated eighty-eight times with a heifer. The heifer may have been Anat, Baal’s sister and lover, but the identification is uncertain. Baal then entered the underworld and, from the world’s point of view, died. Baal took his children and the powers of his storm-godship with him. Without him, the world lost weather and fertility. Anat, El, and the other gods mourned and wondered what would happen to the earth without Baal, the Lord of the Earth. Mot declared that he had devoured Baal. Anat attacked Mot. She split him with her sword, ground him with a hand mill, and sowed what remained of him in the fields. Baal was then able to return from the underworld. Weather and fertility returned with him. One account also says that Baal brought his dead ancestors from the underworld so that they could join a feast. Baal returned to life and to the throne. The struggle did not end permanently. Mot would challenge him again, and might defeat him again. The cycle therefore continued through Baal’s death, return, and the restoration of life to the earth. Baal’s Death and Descent. Original MythSource illustration created for this story; not a historical artwork. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: The Oxford Companion to World Mythology; Dictionary of Mythology. Baal’s Return and Battle with Mot Mot summoned Baal to descend into the underworld. Baal could not refuse. Before entering, he took his children and the powers of his storm-godship with him. From the world’s point of view, he was dead. Weather and fertility disappeared, leaving the earth without Baal’s divine force. Anat, El, and the other gods mourned and wondered what would happen to the world. Anat confronted Mot and asked what he had done with Baal. Mot said that he had devoured him. Anat attacked Mot with a sword, split him apart, ground him under a hand mill, and scattered what remained of him as seed in the fields. Baal was then able to leave the underworld and return. He brought his dead ancestors with him. Weather and fertility returned with Baal. Mot did not accept Baal’s return. He challenged him, and the two entered a new battle. Their struggle was repeated, with Baal and Mot fighting again and again. Shapash intervened in the conflict, and Baal was restored as ruler of the gods. Mot could challenge him again, so Baal’s defeat of death and the return of prosperity and fertility were not permanent. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: The Oxford Companion to World Mythology; Essential Visual History of World Mythology.
The Très Riches Heures: A Year Painted in Detail
Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript created by the Limbourg brothers between 1413 and 1416. Its calendar presents detailed full-page paintings for every month, contrasting aristocrats with working peasants against changing seasonal backgrounds. The Manuscript and Its Commission The manuscript known as Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry was commissioned by Jean, Duke of Berry, a major collector of medieval books. The three Limbourg brothers from Gelderland in the Netherlands, led by chief artist Pol de Limbourg, joined the Duke court around 1410. They worked on this devotional prayer book between 1413 and 1416. A Book of Hours contained prayers for set times of the day, from matins at dawn to compline at night. Books of Hours replaced traditional psalters for private devotion among northern European nobility during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Inventories recorded after the Duke death in 1416 showed he owned more than three hundred manuscripts. Earlier records listed seventy-eight books acquired as gifts, exchanges, thirty-two purchases, and three manuscripts executed by direct order. The Limbourg brothers did not finish the project because all three artists and the Duke died in 1416, likely from the plague. The unfinished vellum manuscript, measuring approximately eight and a half by five and a half inches, is preserved at the Musée Condé in Chantilly. Before Les Très Riches Heures, calendars inside prayer books rarely received full-page paintings. The Limbourg brothers devoted a full page to each month of the year, topped by a lunette showing the chariot of the sun and signs of the zodiac. Their work combined northern European traditions with Italian stylistic elements. Pol de Limbourg introduced simplified facial shapes with rounded cheeks and straight noses derived from Italian models. The illustrations alternated between scenes of royal leisure and peasant labour. Winter in Court and Countryside The painting for January depicts a New Year feast in a grand hall. The Duke of Berry sits at a table wearing a blue and gold robe with a fur hat. A circular fire screen behind his head forms a halo shape. Next to him, his chamberlain urges guests forward with the call to approach. The stellar chart above the image marks the constellations of Capricorn and Aquarius. On the back wall behind the fireplace hangs a large woven cloth depicting scenes from the Trojan War. The attendants in the January scene wear costumes coloured in vermilion, tan, blue, and green. In contrast, the February illustration depicts peasant life during winter. The artists removed one wall of a rural cottage, adopting an Italian composition technique to reveal an interior view. Inside, peasants sit by a fireplace to warm their bare feet. Outside, sheep stay inside a wattle fence while a man drives a donkey across snow toward a distant village. February offers one of the earliest depictions of a snow-covered environment in European painting. Details in the scene show a peasant visiting a storage bin with visible breath condensing in the cold air. In the background, another worker cuts down a tree for firewood. Diagonal movement, wattle fences, sheepfolds, and storage buildings guide the eye from the foreground interior to the frozen fields outside. The composition pairs traditional domestic themes with new direct observations of winter conditions. MS 65 fol 2r - January. Public domain; source: Wikimedia Commons. Spring Nobles and Peasant Fields As the year moves into spring, the agricultural and courtly activities shift. The March page depicts a peasant plowing a field before the Duke castle of Lusignan. Cast shadows appear on the soil, demonstrating the Limbourg brothers attention to natural lighting. In April, courtly figures emerge outdoors to socialise in green fields filled with flowers. The background features another residence of the Duke, the castle of Dourdan. The human figures in the April scene show elongated proportions and flowing drapery lines. Garments are decorated with shades of red, tan, blue, and green. Lightening of the sky near the horizon creates space and a sense of distance. The May illustration shows a procession of riders dressed in court garments riding horses before the castle of Riom. Hunters blow horns while courtiers converse with narrow-waisted ladies. These spring illustrations demonstrate the International Gothic style through clear decorative contours and patterned clothing. The Limbourg brothers integrated architectural settings with natural surroundings. Castle towers, decorative stone walls, surrounding waters, and open fields reflect specific real places owned by the Duke or the royal family. The inclusion of accurate architectural backgrounds tied the cycle of months directly to the Duke holdings. Summer Harvest and Royal Palaces The June page shifts back to peasant labour outside the city walls of Paris. Workers mow hay and gather crops in fields next to the River Seine. In the background, the towers of the Sainte-Chapelle and the royal palace rise above the skyline. The scene illustrates the seasonal cycle of agricultural work necessary to sustain the city and court throughout the year. In October, the cycle returns to agrarian tasks set against urban architecture. A sower scatters seeds across plowed soil while another worker rides a horse to drag a harrow. Washerwomen work near the riverbank while dressed citizens walk along the path. Behind these figures stands the Louvre, which served as the French king residence during the early fifteenth century. The painting records details of the palace towers, decorative windows, outer walls, and gates. The October illumination records natural shadows, including those cast by an archer scarecrow and the harrower horse. The peasants perform their duties peacefully before the royal palace. This presentation depicted the structure of medieval society and the relationship between the ruler and rural workers. The detailed rendering of buildings turned each calendar page into a visual record of contemporary French architecture. Autumn Hunts and Year End The calendar sequence concludes with the month of December, which depicts a wild boar hunt in a forest. Mastiffs attack a cornered boar while hunters blow horns and prepare to strike. This composition shares direct similarities with a drawing in the notebook of Italian artist Giovannino de' Grassi in Bergamo. The Limbourg brothers modified the scene by omitting one dog and adding human hunters into the woods. The December hunt scene was later copied in manuscript illuminations during the early sixteenth century. Through its twelve calendar pages, Les Très Riches Heures linked secular genre subjects with a sacred prayer book. The manuscript contributed to the wider spread of private devotional books among nobility and prosperous burghers. This shift in religious book ownership altered private devotional practice across northern Europe prior to the Reformation.
Ilmarinen and the Golden Bride
Ilmarinen forges the sky and makes a new moon and sun, but neither shines. Väinämöinen discovers that Louhi has imprisoned the true celestial bodies inside a northern hill, and her fear of his attack finally releases them. Ilmarinen Forges the Sky Ilmarinen forged the heavens and pounded out the vault of the sky without a ground plan or a piece of string. He was an eternal smith, skilled enough to make the firmament. Later, the northern lands lost the moon’s pale light and the sun’s brightness. The young took counsel, the middle-aged considered how people could live without them, and the maidens went to Ilmarinen’s smithy. They asked him to rise and forge a new moon and a new sun. Ilmarinen rose from the wall and from behind the stone stove. He forged a moon of gold and a sun, but neither body shone. The people remained in darkness. Through divination, Väinämöinen learned that the moon and sun were inside a hill at North Farm. He travelled there, fought the people of North Farm, and defeated them. He reached the hill but could not enter it or release the imprisoned bodies. Väinämöinen returned home in a downcast state. Lemminkäinen said that, if Väinämöinen had taken him as a magician, the locks would have opened and the moon and sun would have been freed. Väinämöinen replied that charms, enchantment, touch, and force of arms could not break the bolts. He went to Ilmarinen and asked him to forge a three-tined cultivator hoe, twelve ice picks, a large set of keys, and spear points. Ilmarinen made the tools. While working at the smithy, Ilmarinen said that he was forging a neck ring for the mistress of North Farm, so that she would be fastened to the lower slope of a great mountain. Louhi, the gat-toothed mistress of North Farm, sensed the coming trouble. She flew home, released the moon from the stone, and let the sun loose from the rock. She changed herself into a pigeon and flew to Ilmarinen’s smithy. The moon and sun were freed from the hill, while the new bodies Ilmarinen had made remained without light. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: the kalevala. Ilmarinen Catches the Pike The iron-taloned eagle struck at the enormous pike in the river of Death’s Domain. Its talon slipped from the stone and slid off the crag. The pike dived away, leaving marks on its ribs and rips across its shoulders. The eagle attacked again. Its wings flashed like flame and its eyes shone like fire. On its third attempt, it seized the fish in its talons and pulled it from beneath the deep waves to the surface of the clear water. Ilmarinen had forged the eagle for this task. The mistress of North Farm had promised him her daughter if he caught the big, scaly pike from the lower parts of the Abode of the Dead. He was forbidden to use a seine, a net, or a landing net. A hundred men had already gone after the fish, and none had returned. Troubled by the task, Ilmarinen went to the maiden’s room. She told him not to lose heart and advised him to forge a fiery eagle, a flaming griffin. The eagle carried the pike from the river. Its scales covered the water, so that it no longer seemed like water. Its feathers filled the air, so that the air no longer seemed like air. Ilmarinen took the fish to the mistress of North Farm and said that he had caught it in the river of Death’s Domain, in the lower parts of the Abode of the Dead. He asked whether she was now ready to give him the maiden. The mistress replied that he had handled the fish badly. He had struck off its head, cut through its stomach, torn its breast, and tasted the stomach. Ilmarinen answered that game did not come undamaged, even from better places, and that this fish had come from the river of Death’s Domain. The mistress then granted him the maiden as his lifelong companion and comfort. Ilmarinen Catches the Pike. Original MythSource illustration created for this story; not a historical artwork. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: the kalevala. Ilmarinen Forges a Golden Bride Ilmarinen wept over his dead wife every evening. He wept through the nights and during the days. For two months and then three, he mourned. In the fourth month, he gathered gold from the sea and silver from the waves. He collected thirty sled loads of logs, burned them to charcoal, and forced the coals into his forge. He put the gold and silver into the furnace and set the slaves and hired men to work the bellows. They worked poorly, so Ilmarinen worked the bellows himself. A colt then emerged from the forge with a golden mane, a silver head, and a copper body. The others rejoiced, but Ilmarinen thrust the colt back into the fire. He said that he wanted a golden sweetheart and a silver spouse. He added more gold and silver and began again. He hammered the image through the night and continued during the day. He made legs, but they did not rise. He shaped hands, but they did not turn to embrace him. He forged ears, but they heard nothing. He fashioned a mouth and eyes, but the figure could not speak or look at him. Ilmarinen said that it would have been a pretty girl if it had speech, a mind, and a tongue. He placed it beneath a gauzy net, on soft pillows and a silky bed. He prepared a bath, washed himself, and lay beside the golden bride. In the morning, he found the side against which he had slept cold. Ilmarinen offered the golden bride to Väinämöinen. Väinämöinen rejected it and told him to pound it up for other uses or take it to other lands for suitors who wanted gold. Ilmarinen threw away the golden image. He then set out for North Farm to seek the younger sister of his dead wife. She answered him with abusive words, so he abducted her and set out for home. During the journey, she reviled him. His anger grew, and he sang her into a seagull. Ilmarinen returned home and told Väinämöinen about North Farm's carefree life through the Sampo and about his failed courtship. Source note: Primary text: the ancient sources. Corpus check: the kalevala.