More Than You Have Bargained For Quiz

Answer: He was tied to a rock and attacked by an eagle

The Greek Olympian gods overthrew the Titans, who were led by Kronos and were the sons of Gaea and Uranus (the Earth and Sky respectively). After the war, or Titanomachy, many of them were punished: shut into Tartarus, or, in the case of Atlas, forced to carry the world. Prometheus, a Titan, wasn't punished (yet) because he was sympathetic with the gods. It wouldn't last long, however.

Prometheus was a trickster, often attempting to deceive the gods in the name of humanity. When Zeus demanded sacrifice, Prometheus offered him a bargain. Zeus could choose between bones hidden in animal fat, or meat hidden inside an animal skeleton. Zeus chose the fat, which looked more appetizing, but didn't actually have any meat in it. Thus, the Greeks weren't forced to sacrifice actual meat to their chief deity. Later, Prometheus stole fire and gave it to mortals. To punish the humans, Zeus sent down Pandora, the first woman, who introduced evil into the world. To punish Prometheus, he had Hephaestus fashion an unbreakable chain and a bronze eagle. Prometheus was tied to a mountain in the Caucasus, where the eagle would peck at his liver during the day. However, since Prometheus was immortal, the liver would grow back overnight, and the onslaught would continue.

Zeus offered to let Prometheus free if the Titan would use his powers of prophecy and reveal how Zeus might somehow be overthrown by one of his children. Prometheus refused. Finally, he was released when Chiron, an immortal centaur, agreed to die in his place, and Heracles killed the eagle.

Answer: Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh, a 2/3 immortal, 1/3 human King of Uruk, is the hero of a namesake Sumerian epic. Oppressive to his people, Gilgamesh is finally challenged by a wild man sent from the gods named Enkidu; unfortunately for the gods, the two become great friends.

After a series of adventures in which the heroes defy the gods, Enkidu is stricken with illness and dies, leaving Gilgamesh distraught. He realizes his own mortality, and seeks out Utnapishtim, an ancient immortal who survived the Flood, hoping the man could help him live forever. Utnapishtim suggests the goal is impossible, proving that Gilgamesh can't even conquer sleep for seven nights, so conquering death is a hopeless fancy.

However, he makes Gilgamesh a bargain: there is a magical plant that lives at the bottom of the sea, which grants youth to anyone who takes it.

Although Gilgamesh acquires the plant, it is stolen by a snake. Gilgamesh grieves, but, at the end of the work, resigns himself to his own eventual death.

Answer: A spear of mistletoe

Baldr, the Norse god of light, beauty, and poetry, was killed ignominiously by his brother Hodr with a spear of mistletoe. Here's what happened:

When Frigg, Queen of the gods and wife of Odin, found out that her son Baldr might die, she exacted a promise from nearly every living thing not to hurt her son. The only thing she left out was mistletoe, a small plant living outside of Valhalla, which she considered too young and insignificant to hurt her son. Loki, the Norse trickster, weaseled this information out of Frigg. Then, at a party of the gods, Loki convinced Baldr's blind brother Hodr to throw some mistletoe at Baldr. Throwing things at Baldr was a sort of game in those days, since everyone knew that anything dangerous would just bounce off his skin, due to his mother's stern protection. Well, everything except mistletoe. The spear went right through and killed Baldr immediately.

In desperation, the gods sent a messenger to the underworld, asking for Baldr back. Hel, the guardian of the underworld, agreed under the condition that every living thing must weep for Baldr. That nearly worked too; unfortunately, Loki disguised himself as a giantess who refused to weep, and Baldr was lost. In retribution, the gods chained Loki to a cave and had a serpent drip venom onto his head (better than having an eagle eat out your liver, I suppose!).

Answer: Coyote

Although Native American mythology is highly varied between tribes, several recurring motifs occur, including endowing animals with human qualities and personalities. Across many groups, a trickster god predominates in the stories, and in the Southwest, Coyote is fairly popular. Coyote often annoys other creatures or tricks them into an undesirable outcome; one legend from the Pima tribe attributes the various qualities of different human beings to Coyote's distractions to the god who was forming humans from clay.

In other myths, he is alternately described as a figure who created the Milky Way and brought fire to mankind. In this role, he is joined with other Native American tricksters like Raven.

Answer: Ra

Ra, the Egyptian solar deity, was one of the most important figures in that pantheon, as he drove the solar barge every night and day. Although his importance was lessened in the later Egyptian kingdoms (the sun disc Aten, for example, overtook Ra's importance under the rule of Akhenaten), he was considered a principal deity, just like Isis. Isis was a goddess of magic, as well as presiding over the family and marriage, and Egyptian texts often beg her to use Ra's secret name to perform a magical feat.

To acquire that name, Isis was required to dabble in some tricky bargaining. She created a snake that bit Ra at a crossroads, forcing the solar god into immense pain and discomfort, and she refused to heal him until he gave up his "secret name." In other myths, Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris, the god of the dead, and she reassembled his body after the evil god Set killed the gods and scattered its parts across Egypt.

Answer: Shintoism

Shintoism, the indigenous religion of Japan, is animist and believes in spirits called kami. Perhaps the best-known of these kami is Amaterasu, the sun goddess, from whom the Emperor was said to be descended.

Amaterasu was a daughter of Izanagi and was born from his left eye; her brother and storm god Susanoo was born from Izanagi's nose, and the moon god Tsukuyomi from his right eye. Like all siblings, Amaterasu and Susanoo had their spats, one notably ending with Susanoo hurling a horse at his sister, destroying her rice fields, and killing one of her attendants. Amaterasu, offended, hid inside a cave, shutting herself from the world and sapping it of light and warmth. She was eventually lured out by the sound of the other gods dancing, and Susanoo was punished by being banished from heaven.

Answer: Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of the city of Rome, were the children of Mars (the war god, an analog of the Greek god Ares) and Rhea Silvia, supposedly a descendant of Aeneas. Because Rhea Silvia had sworn chastity, her husband was understandably upset when she conceived the twins, and Romulus and Remus were left to die in the wilderness. But of course, as in all Greco-Roman traditions, people left to die on a mountainside rarely do, so the twins were suckled by a she-wolf and survived infancy.

Romulus and Remus conflicted, however, over where to build the new city that prophecies said they were to establish. Romulus wanted Palatine Hill, but Remus preferred Avantine, so they had a competition: whoever saw more good omens for the city while standing on his chosen hill would get to build the city there. Romulus saw more vultures (apparently a good omen?), but Remus claimed he saw his first, and the conflict was never really resolved. Romulus, the winner of the contest according to most, lent his name to the future city. However, Remus impeded the city's construction, laughing at Rome's low walls, and jumped over them to prove his point. Romulus had his brother killed for insolence, and the legend went that anyone who attempted to jump Rome's walls afterwards would suffer a similar fate.

Answer: Anansi

Certainly the most famous tale of Western Africa, which was transported to the Caribbean and the Southern US through the slave trade, is that of the spider Anansi, a classic trickster. In some regions, his name has been corrupted to Aunt Nancy, but the tricky personality remains.

In the best-known myth associated with Anansi, the young creature approached the sky god Nyame, requesting him to release the world's stories. Nyame refused, saying that he would only hand over the stories if Anansi could secure four creatures: a dwarf, a python, a leopard, and some hornets. Using his trickery, Anansi managed all of them.

He convinced a python to lie flat on a branch and be tied to a tree, to "measure his length", trapped the leopard in a hole in the ground, and locked the hornets in a calabash gourd.

The dwarf was caught with a doll covered in sticky gum. When Anansi returned with the animals, Nyame was forced to relent, and gave out all of the stories to Anansi.

Answer: Sir Gawain

Born to a confusing lineage, Sir Gawain was actually King Arthur's nephew and one of the greatest knights of the Round Table. He's best-known, though, for being the subject of a work written by the mysterious Pearl Poet, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."

In the story, Gawain is challenged at a feast by a man dressed entirely in green, but with red eyes, to a simple contest. The Green Knight will submit to Gawain's blade, if he can return in a year and a day to confront Gawain. Gawain accepts, cuts off the stranger's head, and is understandably mortified to see the stranger pick up the head and ride away.

Gawain travels to meet the Green Knight and submit to the bargain, codes of chivalry preventing him from taking the intelligent route of not going. Gawain stops at the castle of Bertilak, who offers him shelter. The two also strike up a friendly bargain: whatever Bertilak captures while hunting during the day, he will give to Gawain, if Gawain gives Bertilak anything he "receives" during the day. Lady Bertilak comes in and seduces Gawain, but he only accepts a kiss from her, which he then reciprocates with Bertilak.

The next day, Gawain accepts two kisses from Lady Bertilak, and the day after, he takes three kisses and her magical girdle, which will prevent him from harm from the Green Knight. He doesn't give Lord Bertilak the girdle, however. When Gawain finds the Green Knight and submits his neck, the knight is unable to harm him. However, in a bizarre twist of events, it's revealed that the Green Knight actually is Bertilak transformed by the magic of Morgan la Fay. Gawain wasn't ever intended to actually die. They laugh the whole story off and end up living happily ever after.

Answer: Faust

The story of Faust is fairly simple: the German scholar desiring to learn secrets, makes a pact with the Devil that he will rule during his life, and the Devil can have his soul afterwards. As hundreds of creative works since have proven, selling your soul to the Devil is NEVER a good idea, and usually Faust realizes the error of his ways, often right before he gets to spend an eternity of pain.

The most famous treatments of the story are probably Johann Goethe's "Faust", a play in two parts, and Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", but other authors who have written about the Faust legend include Alexander Pushkin, Lord Byron, Thomas Mann, and Oscar Wilde ("The Picture of Dorian Gray").

In addition, it's a common theme for operas (those by Gounod and Berlioz are most famous), classical music (Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Beethoven composed famous treatments of the story), and even other media like Broadway musicals ("Damn Yankees") and big-screen movies ("Ghost Rider").