thewingedword

I just realized that my position paper topic (Neil Gaiman's modernization of mythology in his work) basically gives me free license to read his books (Good Omens, American Gods, Anansi Boys), browse his blog, and look up obscure books of mythology, all in the name of research. I am brilliant.

In that vein, looked up the Four Horsemen on Wiki, and found interesting things. Turns out that the White-Horsed Horseman is more popularly viewed as the Antichrist, and that Pestilence is just the horse. He also carried a bow, which confused me, until I saw "And I saw, and behold a white horse: he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him", which explains it. I like the crown better, too.

"And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. 
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine."
Oh, Famine. You are so cool. That quote makes rather more sense when you realize that it's about a quart of wheat for a full day's pay.

Random interesting fact about Death's Pale Horse: "The word used to describe the color of the 'pale' horse is the Greek word chloros, or a sickly yellow green. It is meant to convey the tinge of the deathly ill, or recently dead. Since the literal translation does not carry these connotations in English the word is rendered 'pale' in most translations."

Historically, the view of Christ as the rider of the white horse was a minority opinion but was still held for a time by such men as Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards! My AP US History teacher told us about him. He had the crazy eyes, like John Brown. Every time we ran across someone like that, she would say "And he had the crazy eyes!" and we would all laugh and flash crazy eyes at each other. Good times.


If Supernatural is going to delve into Christian stuff, they should go into some of the cool old mythology. Mostly because I need, if not an episode, at least a fic in which a small town is going crazy, people who've never shot anything bigger than a rabbit in their lives going after their neighbors like rabid dogs, and they're searching so hard for a demon that they miss (or almost miss) the woman in the corner with red hair and a laugh like a machine gun. Or, or, or, orange eyes. Eyes like fire. Hmm.