The Mythology of Supernatural

by Nathan Robert Brown

  Baron Samedi commonly manifests before people in one of two forms, depending on the reason he is invoked. The first is for his role as a psychopomp, in which he is called Baron-La-Croix (Baron Cross). In this form, Baron Samedi stands at the crossroads between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. His second form is related to his role as the guardian of cemeteries, graveyards, and burial plots. This form is called Baron Cimetière (Baron of the Cemeteries). Baron Samedi has a great dislike for grave robbers and those who desecrate corpses. And this dislike includes voodoo houngans (a term for voodoo/hoodoo priests) who have gone into the dark practice of raising zombies. Such houngans must make proper rites and offerings to Baron Samedi to enter safely. Usually, tobacco will do (especially cigars). Some believe these separate portrayals are actually independent loa who serve or are related to Baron Samedi. When it comes to the loa, as with demons, space and separation are blurred concepts. One loa can become several, or multiple loa can join to become a single loa. This makes them hard to count.

  Unfortunately for the pre-Christian figures portrayed in “Hammer of the Gods,” Lucifer showed up and wasted all of them. It looked like the Judeo-Christian Apocalypse was going to happen after all. But Lucifer didn’t count on Dean Winchester—armed with nothing but a bitchin’ ride, a Def Leppard tape, a “GED and a ‘give ’em hell’ attitude”—throwing a monkey wrench into his little “slap fight” with Michael. For now, Armageddon has been averted. Unfortunately, only God knows what the next chapter of the Winchester Gospel will hold—and he isn’t talking.

  10

  THE WINCHESTER GOSPEL— SUPERNATURAL AS MYTH

  In addition to the lore used to create the show that is Supernatural , the series also makes use of a number of elements from mythology. The show integrates many mythological themes and concepts, from Judeo-Christian lore to mythological archetypes related to feuding brothers, from religious and philosophical concepts about the nature of reality to metaphors for father/son and human/god relationships. In a way, the show Supernatural is very much a modern mythos in and of itself.

  THE FEUDING BROTHERS ARCHETYPE

  No one dicks with Michael but me.

  —LUCIFER, “SWAN SONG” (5-22)

  Brothers fight . . . it’s pretty much a universal truth. So perhaps it is no surprise that Michael and Lucifer (or Sam and Dean) aren’t the only feuding brothers in mythology. As already discussed, the Norse god Odin was often at odds with his troublesome brother Loki. From the Norse to the Romans, from ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, nearly every mythological tradition has a story about brothers who fight, often ending with one brother killing the other.

  Although Sam and Dean Winchester often have their fights, as brothers will, they love each other. However, even Dean Winchester has had moments when he believed that he might have to kill his brother Sam one day if, as John Winchester long feared, the demon blood given him by Azazel finally caused Sam to “go dark side,” as they often put it on the show.

  FOUNDERS OF ROME: ROMULUS AND REMUS

  When it comes to the archetype of feuding brothers, one of the most well-known tales in Western mythology is that of Romulus and Remus, creators of the great city of Rome. These twin brothers are said to have been the demigod sons of Mars, the god of war, and Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin (a celibate-bound priestess of the goddess Vesta/Hestia). When they were but infants, the Tiber River flooded and caused Romulus and Remus to be set adrift by the torrent in a small vessel. Eventually, they washed ashore near the site of what would one day be Rome. The babies were found by an enormous she-wolf, who guarded and suckled them until they were old enough to fight and fend for themselves. As a result, the boys grew up tough, strong, and more than a bit wild.

  Once they had grown into men, the brothers decided to set about the task of building their own city. Remus built the interior while Romulus built the walls. When their work was through, Romulus marveled at his work and thought that no one could breach the mighty walls he’d built for their new city. Remus, however, being the typical brother he was, took a running start at the walls and cleared them in a single bound (brothers just can’t help but mess with each other, can they?).

  Seeing Remus clear his beloved walls, Romulus grew enraged. He and Remus soon got into a quarrel (some versions say they began bickering about whose contribution to the city was the greater of the two). Brotherly bickering soon turned to shoving, and shoving soon turned to blows. The situation escalated until the half-god twins were engaged in a furious life-and-death battle, and during the violence Romulus killed Remus.

  FEUDING GODS OF EGYPT: SET AND OSIRIS

  Even the ancient Egyptians were well aware of how brothers tend to fight, especially when one is good and the other is evil. In the mythos of ancient Egypt, the “feuding brothers” archetype is personified by the benevolent god Osiris and his cruel and wicked brother Set (sometimes spelled Seth). One story about these two is among the oldest and most beloved ancient Egyptian myths. The story was not written down until Roman times. A Roman named Plutarch wrote the story down, and in his writings claimed that it was the key to understanding the mysteries surrounding the Egyptian religious beliefs. The imagery of this story, however, has been found in ancient inscriptions on the walls of tombs and temples, as well as in the hieroglyphics of Books of the Dead. These “books” are actually tiny papyrus scrolls that were placed in sarcophagi alongside mummies and were meant to serve as guides to help the souls of the deceased navigate their way through the underworld and into the paradise of the afterlife.

  This particular story tells of how Osiris, an ancient god-king of Egypt, was killed by his evil brother Set. During a rather wild party, Osiris was deceived into lying down in a coffin by Set. Once inside, seventy-two of Set’s conspirators immediately slammed down the heavy lid and nailed it shut. They carried the coffin to the shores of the Nile River, placed it on a barge, and set it adrift. The barge floated up the Nile until it finally came ashore by a lavish palace near Abydos. Shortly after hitting land, the intoxicating smell of the coffin attracted a throng of royal servants from the nearby palace. The servants pulled the coffin out, dragged it into the palace courtyard, and stood it on its end. In a surprisingly short time, an Erica tree sprang up around the coffin until it was fully engulfed.

  It didn’t take long for Osiris’s wife (and sister), Isis, to realize that her husband had gone missing. She went looking for him and eventually made her way to the Erica tree near Abydos. The goddess disguised herself as a mortal and, for a short time, worked in the palace as nursemaid to the princess of Abydos, who had just given birth to a baby boy. Isis even tried to grant immortality to the infant son of the princess of Abydos using a fire spell. When the princess walked in on this and saw her baby playing with his toys while engulfed in flames, she understandably freaked out. The princess let out a loud shriek, breaking Isis’s concentration along with the immortality fire spell. Isis revealed her true radiant form, informed the princess that she just cost her baby boy the gift of immortality, and demanded to be allowed to take her husband’s coffin from the tree. The princess, of course, conceded to Isis’s wishes.

  Isis carved the coffin out of the trunk of the Erica tree, put it once again on a barge in the Nile, and floated it back toward home until midnight. At this auspicious hour, Isis spread out her wings and hovered above the corpse of her dead husband/brother. She brought Osiris back to life by flapping her powerful wings over his corpse. The two made love and she gave birth to a new god—Horus, a hawk-headed figure who later became a popular god in the Egyptian pantheon. Isis, according to a number of depictions in ancient art, took the baby god Horus to the marshes and hid him in the reeds so that Set would not harm him.

  Set became furious when he heard of his brother’s resurrection. With the help of his seventy-two conspirators, he managed to hunt down Osiris with the intention of killing his brother again, hopefully for good this time. Set and his men fell upon Osiris in an ambush and chopped him into many
pieces. They then scattered the dismembered pieces all over the land of Egypt so that he could not be resurrected by Isis. One legend says that in every spot where a piece of Osiris’s body fell, a temple was erected to honor him.

  Horus took to the skies and sought out every piece of his father’s body. He succeeded in finding every piece but the one that mattered most, his “wedding tackle” (pun intended), because it had been swallowed by a fish. He and Isis fashioned a wooden phallus to replace it, and Osiris was once again raised from the dead (more or less intact). This time, he was reborn as the Lord of Death and Resurrection. In many of the Egyptian Books of the Dead, Osiris is depicted sitting in his throne room with his sister Nepthys and wife, Isis. Above him sits a row of cobras with their hoods inflated around solar disks. Osiris is also often shown holding a shepherd’s hooked staff in one hand and a royal scepter in the other.

  On the walls of tombs and temples, Osiris is commonly depicted in his role as Lord of the Staircase. This title refers to the sixth hour of sleep, when the soul was believed to make a nightly journey into the realm of the underworld by way of a magical staircase. In the background of such depictions, Set can often be seen. However, he has been transformed into a black pig and is being driven into the exile of the wilderness as punishment for his crimes. Speaking of brothers who are exiled as punishment for fratricide, our next story brings us to one of the most infamous brotherly quarrels in world mythology.

  THE FALL OF THE SONS OF ADAM: CAIN AND ABEL

  Just about everyone in the Western world knows the story of Cain and Abel. In fact, this is probably one of the most common mythological associations people make to quarreling brothers. However, in comparison to the relationship between Dean and Sam, there is one big difference—unlike Dean, Cain refuses to take responsibility for his brother (or anything else).

  While many people assume that the only version of the Cain and Abel story comes from the Bible, this is not the case. All versions of the myth agree that Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve. There are some alternative, though admittedly less credible, versions of the myth that have tried to associate Cain with Lilith (see chapter 8). However, there is no legitimate mythical basis for this association.

  In the Judeo-Christian version of the myth, Cain was the first person to take a human life. He and Abel go to make offerings to God; Cain’s sacrifice is of wheat or grain, and Abel’s is from his livestock. As the offerings are burned, the smoke from Abel’s sacrificial animal rises to the heavens as a sign that God is pleased with it. The smoke from Cain’s offering, however, does not rise, signaling that God has rejected it. Enraged that Abel’s offerings have been accepted by God while his own are rejected, Cain flies into a rage and attacks his brother. In his anger, Cain kills Abel.

  Realizing what he has done, Cain runs and attempts to hide from the sight of God. The all-seeing God cannot be hidden from, of course, and comes to where Cain is hiding. When God asks Cain where his little brother has gone, Cain makes the now infamous reply, “I am not my brother’s keeper” (See? Cain was the “anti-Dean”). God, of course, already knows what Cain has done. As divine punishment for committing the murderous act of fratricide, Cain’s head is forever stained with a “mark” by God, and Cain is exiled into the wasteland known as Nod. The meaning of the so-called mark of Cain is a matter of debate. The myth doesn’t make the purpose of this mark entirely clear. Some say that the mark of Cain is a badge of shame. Others claim that it instead served to protect him from those who might try to kill him as retribution for killing his brother. Even this second interpretation has two sides, because it is unclear if the mark of Cain only served as a visual warning or if it actively protected him from harm.

  There is yet another interpretation of the mark of Cain. In myth Cain is said to have been associated with an ancient Semitic tribe known as the Kenites, who are believed to have worn some form of unique mark upon their foreheads. This may have been the origin of the mark of Cain element of the story. Proponents of this interpretation believe that the myth of Cain and Abel is an allegory for the fall of an ancient agricultural Semitic tribe (in ancient times, most Hebrew tribes were nomadic herders).

  In the Muslim version of this “brother versus brother” myth, however, Cain’s motivations for killing Abel are even more selfish. You may be thinking, “What could be more selfish than killing your brother for being favored by God?” Well, in this version of the myth Cain and Abel are both born with their own twin sisters. When his children reach marriage age, Adam decides to marry each brother to his twin sister. Cain, however, feels that he is getting the short end of the stick in the deal because Abel’s twin sister is far more attractive than his own. Enraged by the knowledge that he would be forced to marry the less attractive of the two sisters, Cain begins throwing stones at Abel. Eventually, one of the stones hits a fatal spot and Abel falls dead.

  Also in the Muslim version, Cain is unsure about what to do with his dead brother’s corpse until he sees two ravens quarreling. When the fight between the blackbirds is over, one lies dead. The victor raven scrapes a trench into the soil and buries his fallen opponent in it. Seeing this inspires Cain to do the same, and he buries Abel’s dead body in the earth. Because of this, Allah curses the Earth for allowing Abel’s body to be buried within it. Allah then exiles Cain, along with his twin sister (yes, the “ugly one”), into the land of Nod.

  After Cain went into exile, it is said that he created the first city of humankind and fathered a tribe of his own, the Kenites, with his twin sister (for him at least, she was the last woman on Earth). Cain’s descendants are said to have been an evil people who developed a number of evil inventions and ideas that accelerated the destruction of humankind—walls and boundaries, units of measurement, laws, and, most evil of all in the view of Hebraic nomadic shepherds, land ownership. These malevolent inventions, the story goes, bound humans to physical possessions and brought about an end to human freedom, which to this day has not been restored.

  Most versions agree on how Cain met his end. In an ironic twist of fate, Cain was killed by the hand of one of his own descendents, Lamech, the son of Methushael. Methushael was Cain’s great-grandson, the chronology of which suggests that Cain lived for roughly three hundred years.

  ANGELIC VESSELS: BLOOD OF THE NEPHILIM?

  Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.

  —CASTIEL, “LAZARUS RISING” (4-1)

  One biblical story that has puzzled Christians for centuries stems from the following passage from the book of Genesis:

  It came to pass, when men began to multiply across the face of the Earth, and daughters were born to them, that the Sons of God saw the beauty of the daughters of men; and the Sons of God took the wives for themselves, choosing from the daughters of men. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with Man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

  —GENESIS 6:1–3

  This part of Genesis refers to an event that was drawn out in much greater detail in the book of Enoch. The “Sons of God” were in fact angels who chose to mate with humans. As you read in chapter 3, a number of these angels (such as Azazel) also corrupted humans with new technologies and ideas that allowed them to wage wars and otherwise sped up their self-destruction.

  Where there is sex, of course, there are usually children. And the Sons of God who mated with the daughters of men were no different. They gave birth to a race of powerful giants, called Nephilim. This event, which was previously given far more attention in the book of Enoch, is also briefly referred to in the Judeo-Christian Genesis:

  The Sons of God came in to the daughters of men and bore children. They produced giants (or, in some translations, Nephilim) who were on the Earth in those days, and also afterward. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown who were later wiped out by the flood.

  —GENESIS 6:4

  Now compare
the above passages to those from the book of Enoch, which directly associates the birth of the Nephilim with the rebel angels:

  And it came to pass in those days when the children of men had multiplied that beautiful and comely daughters were born unto them. And the angels, the children of Heaven, saw and lusted after the daughters of men, and said to one another: “Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men and with them beget children.” And Semlazaz, who was their leader, said unto the others, “I fear you all will not indeed agree to commit this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.” And they all answered to him: “Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon our plan but to commit this deed.” Then they all swore and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were two-hundred in all; who descended to Earth in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon . . . And these are the names of their leaders: Semlazaz the leader, Araklba, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqael, Baraqijal, Azazel, Armaros, Batarel, Zachariel, Samsapael, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel.

  —BOOK OF ENOCH (ETHIOPIAN VERSION)

  The book of Enoch tells of how these fallen angels were cast forever into places of darkness. However, in the writings of the book of Jubilees it is explained that God allowed 10 percent of the Nephilim (and many of the fallen angels) to wander the Earth as disembodied spirits or demons so that they could corrupt the children of men with various temptations until the coming of the Final Judgment.