More than nineteen hundred years ago, on August 24 (AD 79), volcano Mount Vesuvius, located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, roused itself from a long sleep and erupted. Within 42 hours, the thriving Roman seacoast town of Pompeii was buried under 23 feet of volcanic ash and lapilli (droplets of molten or …
Disney’s live action movie “The Little Mermaid” hits theaters on May 26, 2023. Long anticipated though not without pre-release controversy, the film promises to immerse moviegoers in a beautifully realized undersea realm. It will be complete with the characters, thrills, and whimsy of Disney’s iconic 1989 animated musical and a visual delight. The charming addition …
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Mermaids, dolphins, and humans are forever bound. This claim all Merfolk will swear is true. Just how this came to be is told in a fairytale, which begins as all their true stories will: Long, long ago, when the sea was young… Long, long ago, when the sea was young, it held all life. And …
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🐬 Walt Disney Pictures live-action adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved story “The Little Mermaid” will hit theaters in the U.S. on May 26, 2023. It will feature the accomplished singer and actress Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel. Danish author Hans Christian Andersen penned the tale in 1837, and it has remained a …
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Gryphons were real…or so the ancient Greeks believed. Could they have been right? After all, they did have proof. The Gryphon was unique in the Greek pantheon of hybrid creatures. For example, the winged horse Pegasus; the half man, half horse Centaurs; the Minotaur with its human body and bull’s head; the Sphinx—all were …
Around 675 BC, a wandering Greek poet made the wondrous claim that gryphons were real—not a mythic creature lost in the mist of time, but a living presence in the world. This in turn sparked a cultural fascination for the creature that lasted a thousand years. The poet Aristeas from the Greek island of Proconnesus …
Long after her death, Queen Nitocris of Babylon slapped the hand of a Persian king while serving up a lesson on greed. I would have loved to work her story into my novel Quest for Gryphon Gold, but as it had no place there, I’ll share it with you here. This mischievous lady was queen …
Framed against blue sky in modern Turkey, the ruined stronghold of Syrian goddess Atargatis (ah-TAR-gah-tis) still stands. She is the known world’s first mermaid. This center for her worship is Hierapolis, a once-thriving holy city in Classical antiquity. Founded about 4,000 years ago, its greatness peaked then declined during the 3rd century BC, but …
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The same breath behind our words and the same life rhythm in our language infuse the movement of our bodies and find wordless expression in dance. When I was seven, I took my first ballet class, bumped and bloodied my nose on the wooden barre, and fell in love with dance. That day, I discovered …
Gabrielle Rhody introduces “10 Fantasy Clichés and Ideas to Change Them” with a provocative observation: “Walk into any book store, and you will find shelves and shelves of fantasy books. But the same clichés run through most of them, and many are so predictable that you only have to read the back cover to guess …
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