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[lemorttoussaint]

This is probably testament to how tired I am right now (three hours of intense frustration will do that to you) but I had a weird thought about John the Baptist.  Is he part of the wild man archetype?  Like, woodwose, wild man of the woods, Iron Hans kind of thing?  I mean, I can see the Iron Hans story as transmitted by the Brothers Grimm being

Comments

[tinx_r]

I'll be really interested to see where you go with this :) I look forward to further posts on the subject :)

[lemorttoussaint]

Thank you! I didn't think anyone actually looked at this stuff; I tend to ramble badly where religion and mythology are concerned. If I come up with anything else on the subject I'll definitely post it.

Do you study mythology/religion/folklore, or are you just generally curious?

[tinx_r]

Just generally curious :) I did one first year paper on World Religions back in the mists of time, but that hardly counts as a scholastic background in the subject *vbg*

[melodyclark]

Someone wrote a book comparing Elijah and John the Baptist to the green man/wild man. Wish I could remember the title.

I SO agree with you about Marija Gimbutas. Her theories were nothing but softcore porn for her own amusement.

[lemorttoussaint]

Just knowing there's a book out there means I should be able to find it, so thanks for telling me about it!

And yeah, pretty much what you said about Gimbutas. She didn't do feminist scholarship any favors, that's for sure.

[lemorttoussaint]

I think I found the book: Iron John by Robert Bly. It seems to take a more symbolic, Jungian approach than I was thinking, but it's the same general idea. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.