Encyclopedia » Myths & Legends

Like a Fish to Water

The incredible story of Francisco de la Vega Casar, The Fish Man of Liérganes, and the tragic legend of Pesce Cola (Nicholas Fish).

When an 18th century Benedictine monk, himself Professor of Theology, not only echoes but ends up publishing essays in which he writes about the existence of fish men, rescuing in detail two specific cases between the 13th and 17th centuries, one of them in Cantabria and the other in Sicily, and also discarding any supernatural explanation for the phenomenon, it is worth at least taking a look at those texts where both events are collected and narrated. Read More

Prometheus and the Legend of Fire

In the town of Mekone, gods and humans once met to decide once and for all which parts of the sacrificed animals should belong to one or the other. As it concerned the gods, and Zeus in particular, to choose first, Prometheus concocted a stratagem in favor of humans, even knowing that he would pay a high price for it… Read More

The Flight of Icarus

Although the human being has been born to fly, doing it before time, without prudence and believing someone capable of challenging, either with arrogant superiority or with innocent naivety, the universal forces and laws, can bring disastrous consequences that can mark for always our lives. Myths and legends, beyond their greater or lesser relationship with a true story, apart from their aura of fascination and mystery, always contain a teaching, a moral, a piece of advice, a warning… to be taken into account in our daily challenge, which is none other than the transit through the sinuous, fascinating and unpredictable path called life. Surely we have all felt like Icarus at some point, and it is no less true that a Daedalus also lives inside us. It depends on us their harmonious coexistence. Read More

The Flying Dutchman

The sad fame of the Cape of Good Hope, renamed the Cape of Storms, the frightened idea that people had of solitary voyages in unknown seas and a certain dose of superstition, which branded as sacrilegious the desire to look beyond what is known, fostered various legends, the best known of which, and of which there are different literary versions, is that of The Flying Dutchman. Read More