Myths Your Teacher Hated Podcast

This week on MYTH, we’ll continue Monkey’s epic journey to the west to retrieve Indian magic.  The story is slowly nearing it’s conclusion after our break for a very special Valentine’s Day.  This is the fifth episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.  If you haven’t heard the first four parts, I’d recommend going back and listening.  The first episode provides a lot of back story on the Monkey King and on the chinese cosmology, the second tells how this whole quest thing got started, the third tells Sanzang got tricked into banishing Monkey from the party, and the fourth tells how Sanzang ended up hanging from a tree surrounded by bandits.  To summarize, Monkey was trapped by Buddha and could only be released if he served the monk Sanzang on his journey to the west to retrieve the magic sutras from India.  Along the way, getting into a stupid amount of trouble and getting out mostly through literal deus ex machina, they acquire two more disciples: Ogre and Piggy.  After some sitcom antics, San

This week on MYTH, it’s one of the world’s first chick flick stories.  After listening to the Falling in Love Montage podcast, I’m pretty sure this story hits a lot of the standard tropes.  You’ll meet the archetype for the bitchy mother in law, hear why it might be a good idea to feed the ants once in a while, and learn that true love cannot be denied (at least if you have the right gods on your side).  Then, in Gods and Monsters, it's a chick flick double feature, where we’ll meet the statue that has inspired multiple rom coms. 

This week on MYTH, we’ll continue Monkey’s epic journey to the west to retrieve Indian magic.  This is the fourth episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.  If you haven’t heard the first three parts, I’d recommend going back and listening.  The first episode provides a lot of back story on the Monkey King and on the chinese cosmology, the second tells how this whole quest thing got started, and the third tells why Monkey is currently sulking.  To summarize, Monkey was trapped by Buddha and could only be released if he served the monk Sanzang on his journey to the west to retrieve the magic sutras from India.  Along the way, getting into a stupid amount of trouble and getting out mostly through literal deus ex machina, they acquire two more disciples: Ogre and Piggy.  Monkey managed to become even more immortal, but it didn’t help him against a scheming demon that convinced the kind of dumb monk that Monkey had killed a few people for shits and giggles.  Given how many demons have shown up alre

This week on MYTH, we’ll continue Monkey’s epic journey to the west to retrieve Indian magic.  This is the third episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.  If you haven’t heard the first two parts, I’d recommend going back and listening.  The first episode provides a lot of back story on the Monkey King and on the chinese cosmology, and the second is the beginning of the current story.  To summarize, Monkey was trapped by Buddha and could only be released if he served the monk Sanzang on his journey to the west to retrieve the magic sutras from India.  Along the way, getting into a stupid amount of trouble and getting out mostly through literal deus ex machina, they acquire two more disciples: Ogre and Piggy.  In this episode, you’ll learn that the ancient Chinese had some serious trust issues with women, that you should probably trust your allies over random people you just met, and that eating babies is a fantastic idea.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll hear how you can stop a hopping corp

This week on MYTH, we’ll begin Monkey’s epic journey to the west to retrieve Indian magic.  This is the second episode on the epic tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.  If you haven’t heard the first part, I’d recommend going back and listening.  It’s not strictly necessary to understand this week’s story, but it provides a lot of back story on the characters which will be helpful. In this episode, you’ll learn how to get a dragon horse, that monsters have some funny ideas about what buddhism means, and that the best way to complete a quest is to have a god do most of the work.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll find out how mistreating animals can create hellspawn.    

This week on MYTH, we'll be staying in the far east for the beginning of one of the most famous epics.  I'm really excited about this one! It's Episode 6A, Who's Your God Now? We'll be diving into the epic story of the Monkey King from Chinese mythology for several episodes. This week, it's Monkey's origin story (because he's basically the world's first superhero) and the tale of how he went from being a normal stone monkey to being an immortal ninja wizard. He's one of my favorite characters of all time, so I'm really excited to share. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it's the Dragon King Brothers: giant penises in charge of water.

This week on MYTH, we're headed to the Far East for a pair of folktales from Japan.  Both stories heavily feature the peony, but they take very different paths.  The first is the tale of a lonely girl in feudal Japan.  She is to be married to a man she's never met and she's not sure how she feels about it.  The second story is about a rich, drunken frat boy of a samurai who falls in love with a beautiful woman in the woods.  Unfortunately, he's a drunken frat boy, so hijinks ensue.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, we meet a ghostly Japanese school girl because I couldn't do my first story from Japan and NOT tell a schoolgirl ghost story.

This week on MYTH, it's a story near and dear to my heart; it's the Norse account of the invention of beer.  It's everything you'd expect a Viking story about alcohol to be! It has Odin being a sneaky dick (because sky gods are assholes), Thor doing a bad job of being sneaky, and fights with giant sea monsters.  If you saw the Marvel movies and wondered if Thor could really be that much of a meathead, this episode will answer that with an unequivocal YES.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, it's the story of the Draugr, a viking version of the revenant.  It's a terrifying zombie capable of a ludicrous number of terrible things because the Norse never did things by half measures.

It's Halloween, so it's time for the creepy legend of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island.  This is a weird story that pops up a lot in popular culture (everywhere from Spawn Comics to Supernatural to American Horror Story), so this week we'll be getting in to what happened leading up to the colony's disappearance and the stories about what happened.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, it's the story of the skinwalker, a creature from Navajo folklore that proves that the werewolves in Twilight were definitely evil witches.

This week on MYTH, it's the story of Anansi, a trickster god from West African folklore.  It's a tale about how we got stories in the first place, and it's one of my favorites.  If you've never met Anansi before, you're in for a treat.  His smartass wisecracks and his ability to be a pain in the ass to those in power make him spiritual cousins with Peter Parker, and he's appeared in at least a few Spiderman comics.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, it's the Popobawa, a recent monster with an unfortunate way of waking you up at night.

This is the second of the two-part episode on the ancient Greek creation myth.  In this episode, I'll cover the story of Pandora and her famous box and the creation and destruction of multiple populations.  The Gods and Monsters segment this week covers Empousa, the seductive, fire-haired forerunner of the vampire.

This is the first of two episodes telling the story of the creation myth of the Ancient Greeks.  It covers the birth of Chaos through the dividing of the cosmos between the Olympians.  On Gods and Monsters, we'll delve into the history of the Greek God Morpheus.  As always, this episode is NSFW.