Myths and Legends

My imagination loves to run wild through the fields of fantasy.  As far as I can remember, the first movie I saw was Walt Disney's Peter Pan (when it first came out, and I was six years old).  

I saw this little boy flying around in the air, accompanied by a beautiful fairy (modeled on Marilyn Monroe), fighting pure evil (Captain Hook) and play-fighting Indians, flirting with unclad mermaids in a tropical lagoon, rescuing girls on Skull Rock, and living in a secret place underground which was accessed through a hollow tree and a tunnel that went under water (so you could look up into the water).  Ever since then, I have wanted to be a Peter Pan and to never grow up out of such a wonderful world.

My imagination was deflected for a while. Walt Disney's Davy Crocket (and his coon-skin cap) did it.  The frontier captured the imagination of me and of everyone else.  All of my heroes were cowboys.  When I wasn't playing cowboy, I was watching cowboy shows on TV.  There was Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, Paladin on Have Gun Will Travel, Bret (and Bart) Maverick, Wild Bill Hickock (with Jingles), Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Yancy Derringer, the Rifleman, the Rebel, Zorro, the Cartwrights of Bonanza, and others in the evenings, and then Saturday was filled with Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger and old cowboy movies. These were all true heroes, good through and through.  But that ended when the anti-hero arrived.  He was 'the man with no name' in A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  Another anti-hero who caught my imagination (I read all the books by Ian Fleming) was James Bond as played by Sean Connery.  I did not go the next step into the policeman genre (though I did like Rockford Files, and Humphrey Bogart detective movies).

Even during the cowboy years, fantasy kept its grip on me.  Every year Mary Martin played Peter Pan on TV, and I watched it.  Twilight Zone presented odd and wonderful stories every Saturday night.  And I, like many others, watched the Wizard of Oz every Spring when it came on TV, and had my taste for fantasy satisfied for a short time at least.

What finally captured me completely for fantasy were the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.  C.S. Lewis (my spiritual father) recommended him, and I read him.  As is true of many others, my imagination was stimulated and inspired greatly by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  The majestic Gandalf, the friendly hobbits, the great and strange and hard struggle against terrible evil were all enchanting.  Here is Gandalf sacrificing himself in the battle with the balrog deep under the mountains.

I learned that behind Tolkien's dreams lay the Norse and Celtic myths, and he even used many names from those myths (Gandalf is one of the names of Odin).  I began a tremendous research into the Norse myths, and finally wrote an epic poem on the Norse gods.  Here's a picture of Thor with his hammer, Mjolnir, and behind him his eternal enemy, Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent who lies in the ocean ring and circles the flat world of men called Middle Earth (Midgard). .

Since Tolkien, I have enjoyed reading fantasy (not science fiction), and have read many fine authors.  L. Sprague De Camp is one of favorites, and Fritz Lieber, and Robert E. Howard, as well as others.  

Naturally, anyone interested in fantasy must get into the legends of King Arthur, so I did.  I researched the legends, reading Malory, of course, and the Mabinogian, and the Grail Cycle, and other odds and ends.  I wrote a book of those stories.  It was so much fun that I went on to the Robin Hood legends, and wrote a book of those stories based largely on the original ballads.

One Halloween, I decided to write a book on the hunting of a vampire.  I had wanted to do something like it for a long time (thinking about it in comic book form, because I like to draw).  The vampire is such an amazing symbol of decadence (the undead, blood-sucking, sexually repressed images).  So I wrote the book between Halloween and New Years.

After I had seen an episode of the Hercules TV show, I got interested in doing Hercules--or more properly, Herakles, as in the Greek originals.  So I read lots about the mighty hero (mostly by Robert Graves).  There is a lot more to him than the kiddy shows tell.  He was part of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts.  I decided also to have him meet Samson, who also lived in the same time period.

Then I became very interested in Sindbad the sailor, and read the Arabian Nights by Burton (the best version).  I wrote the first four chapters / adventures, but then more or less faded on it.  That's the first time that's happened, but I am sure I will get back to the book someday.  

Instead, what I got interested in was the ancient Mesopotamian hero, Gilgamesh, of all things.  At first, I did not much like the stories, except for the wondrous fact that he ventured far to find and speak with Noah.  Obviously, he had lived within a few centuries after the Flood.  For a very long time, I had been interested in writing a fantasy that took place in the world before the Flood, and then ended with the Tower of Babel.  Soon, the story of the hero Gilgamesh combined with Babel, and fascinating things came out of my pen.  I have not really polished any of my other stories, but I did polish the story of Gilgamesh.

I have written quite a number of poems, and have put the best into a book.  I like vivid images.  I like the poetry of T.S.Elliot, and the musical poems of Bob Dylan.

My books will probably never be published, to be honest.  They are too Christian for secular publishers and they contain too much sex and violence for Christian publishers.  As usual, I do not fit in any popular slot.

[All of the pictures on this page (except for the Arthurian one, the beginning postcard, and the poster of Peter Pan) are by Greg Hildebrandt; with the Lord of the Rings one being by Greg with his brother Tim.  The music is from Enya, my very favorite musical artist.]