Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (14 page)

So I don’t know whose bright idea it was to have storm gods

but these guys are nothing but problems.

We’ve got Zeus for starters

(I don’t even wanna open that can of philandering worms right now)

and then there’s Thor

world-champion ruckus causer

but as if those two problem machines weren’t enough

we also have one of the ultimate prodigies of irrational sex and violence.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you:

SUSANOO

Now I know what you’re thinking

you’re thinking that SUSANOO sounds like an overacted exclamation from a bad soap opera.

My friends, I assure you that it is not.

It is actually the name of the Japanese god of storms

birthed by Izanagi one day when he was washing his nose.

So one day Susanoo gets kicked out of heaven for being too rowdy

and on his way out he goes to say good-bye to his sister Amaterasu.

Now, Susanoo and Amaterasu are not on the best of terms

so Amaterasu thinks her bro might be trying to play one last prank on her on his way out

but Susanoo is like “No, sis, I just wanna say good-bye.

Here, let me prove my sincerity to you

by engaging you in a VERY WEIRD CONTEST.”

So what they do

is they each pick an inanimate object

and see how many gods they can make the object give birth to

because in ancient Japan

causing unlikely things to give birth

is a time-honored tradition.

In fact, having babies the normal way is considered kinda gauche.

So Amaterasu picks Susanoo’s sword

and she makes it give birth to three chicks

and meanwhile Susanoo is using his sister’s necklace to make five dudes

and then Susanoo is like “Well, I guess I win

because my sword was what gave birth to chicks

and chicks are worth double points.”

And for some reason they don’t argue over this at all

and everything is great.

BUT NOT FOR LONG

because seeing as he is the god of storms

it takes all of six seconds for Susanoo to start making bad decisions.

Everyone is basically just going around minding their own business

when WHAM WHAM WIMMY WOZZLE

here comes Susanoo, shitting on everybody’s rice fields

then he cuts up a pony and throws it at his sister’s loom

and then kills one of her attendants for no good reason.

Basically you can tell he didn’t spend very long planning this rampage

but even so, it ends up being so horrible that his sister crawls into a cave and refuses to come out.

So of course now he gets exiled for REAL

and on the way out he figures he should get some groceries

so he hits up the food goddess for some food

and she hooks him up with all kinds of stuff

but apparently she is taking all of this stuff out of really gross places on her body

and Susanoo is not okay with that

so he kills her.

GREAT JOB, DICK.

WHERE IS ALL THE FOOD GONNA COME FROM NOW?

But it’s okay

because since she is the food goddess

her whole dead body immediately turns into food

so like

silkworms come out of her head

and rice comes out of her eyes

and small beans come out of her nose

and millet comes out of her ears

and barley shoots out of her junk

and then large beans come out of her fundament

which is what my sourcebook seems to think a butt is called.

So that all turns out okay

but now Susanoo is FOR REAL TRIPLE EXILED

So he’s wandering around down on Earth

when he sees this man and woman crying all over their daughter

and he’s like “Whoa, whoa, stop that.

What’s going on?”

And they’re like “Well, see we used to have eight daughters

but every year for the last seven years

one of our daughters has been eaten by the YAMATA NO OROCHI.”

And Susanoo is like “Uhh, what is that?”

And they’re like “WELL.

It’s a snake

but instead of one head, it has eight

and instead of one tail, it has eight

and instead of being normal snake size it is as long as eight hills and eight valleys.

ARE YOU BEGINNING TO NOTICE A THEME?

Also, moss grows on its back and its eyes are like cherries

I don’t know how the world turtle and Santa Claus got mixed in here

but HOLY CANNOLI THIS THING IS SCARY.”

And Susanoo is like “Pshaw, my friends

I am your local god of storms

romping and stomping is what I DO.

How about you let me have your daughter and I will kill this big snake?”

And the parents

(who are names are Foot-Stroker and Hand-Stroker)

are like “Okay, sure, sweet.”

So immediately Susanoo goes WAZZAP KAGOW

and turns the daughter

(whose name is Beautiful-Rice-Field-Princess)

into a comb

which he immediately stuffs in his hair

presumably to keep her safe

but more likely because he has no idea how sex actually works.

We are talking about guy who has made a career out of forcing necklaces to give birth.

And then he’s like “ALL RIGHT, GUYS

HERE’S THE PLAN:

I need you to build eight gates

and eight pedestals to put behind the eight gates

and I want you to make eight pots

full of booze that has been distilled EIGHT TIMES

because we’re kind of on a roll with the whole eight thing

and then I want you to set that all up for me

and we should be good.”

So they set all that stuff up

and pretty soon the snake comes along

and it smells the octuple-distilled booze and it is like “OH DAMN

LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE IS HAVING A PARTY.

TIME TO TRANSFER THE ENTIRE LIQUOR CONTENT OF THAT PARTY INTO MY BODY.”

Which is basically what I yell every time I show up to a party.

But yeah, the snake gets absolutely trashed in all eight of its heads

and then they passes out

at which point Susanoo just strolls by

idly decapitating each of the heads in succession

except he only gets halfway

when his sword hits something and TOTALLY BREAKS.

Oh wait, it’s fine.

It turns out what he broke his sword on is just A BRAND-NEW SWORD

so it looks like it all worked out in the end.

Pretty soon after that they let him back into heaven

because who is going to argue with a guy who just decapitated a snake eight times?

So the moral of the story

is that no matter what shape or size

drunk animals are ALWAYS hilarious.

So, Amaterasu is hiding in a cave.

She is doing this because this is what you do when your brother is the god of storms

and he does things like tear up ponies and shit in rice fields for absolutely no reason.

This is a problem.

This is a problem because Amaterasu is the sun

and the sun is important for things, like

for example

organic life.

But no one can talk Amaterasu out of her sadhole

no matter how many funny voices they do

and the gods are all starting to get pretty nervous

because how are they going to have sweet beach parties without the sun?

So they have a big meeting of all the gods

and that is quite a thing

because there are about EIGHT HUNDRED GODS.

Yeah

Shintos don’t mess around.

And all of these gods sit down and they start brainstorming

and I don’t think they ever got more than halfway through brainstorming

because here is what they end up doing:

They get a mirror

and a giant necklace

and some cherry bark

and they put it on some tree they found

and then they get this chick named Ama-no-Uzumi

whose name means “DREAD CELESTIAL FEMALE”

to do a silly dance on a washtub until everybody is just laughing their holy asses off.

Okay, so far it sounds like a pretty good party

but where does the plan come in?

Well, see, what happens

is that Amaterasu hears everybody having a good time

and she comes out of her cave like “Hey wait, why is everybody so happy?

Last thing I remember

some dude was chucking dead horses through everything.”

And all the other gods are like “Oh we are SO over that now.

Now we are all about this new goddess we found.

She is SOOOO much prettier than you it is amazing.

Look, check it out.”

And then they hold up the mirror

and Amaterasu thinks that her reflection is a DIFFERENT PERSON.

You heard it here first, my friends

the sun is on the same level intellectually

as that puppy you had when you were five

you know

the one that kept beating its head against the hall mirror because it was trying to play with itself.

So Amaterasu is so into her own radiant glory

that she can’t stop herself from walking toward the mirror

and meanwhile some other gods are creeping along behind her

roping off her escape route so she HAS to go back into the sky

and then she does

and everyone is free to get as many sunburns as they can handle.

So the moral of the story

is don’t wear reflective clothing

because the sun will think you are her

and then she will incinerate you while trying to make your acquaintance.

So tanukis:

First of all, tanukis are a type of animal that is as adorable as a bullet train full of kittens

(assuming that conveying things at high speed makes them more adorable).

Second of all they are a cross between raccoons and dogs

making them utterly terrifying ur-bastards of the highest caliber.

Third of all, they have the BIGGEST TESTICLES POSSIBLE.

This is not a metaphor.

These dudes were rooting through the bargain bin at Balls City

where they unearthed a whole case of super deluxe triple XL men-tronomes

and then proceeded to use the ungodly influx of testosterone

to go EVERYWHERE and cause ALL THE PROBLEMS.

Seriously, the Japanese cannot stop making statues of these little jerks

getting wrecked in straw hats then dropping ludicrously ill beats

drummed out on their DISTENDED MANBULGES.

Think I’m making this up?

I dare you to put down this book right now

and go look up “tanuki testicles” on Google image search.

Yep

those guys on the second row are using their balls to bludgeon large fish to death.

You’re welcome.

BUT YOU DID NOT BUY THIS BOOK TO HEAR ME WAX POETIC ABOUT RACCOON BALLS

(or if you did then you have oddly specific taste in literature.)

So here is a myth about a tanuki:

Okay, so a tanuki gets married to a fox and they have a baby

but they are having problems finding food because their forest is WAYYY overhunted.

And they’re about to starve to death when the tanuki is suddenly like “Oh wait

we have magical shape-shifting powers.

Man, it is so great being a mythological creature.”

So the fox shape-shifts into a dude and the tanuki shape-shifts into a dead tanuki

and the fox carries the tanuki into town and is like “Hey, guys, who wants to buy a tanuki?”

And everyone is like “I WILL GIVE YOU A HUNDRED BUCKS FOR THAT TESTICLE DOG.”

And the fox is like “SOLD.”

Then she uses the money to go buy a ton of food

and meanwhile the tanuki escapes from the house of the dude that bought him and goes home.

But one of the sucky things about food

is that it gets eaten and then it turns into poop

and so eventually they need to come up with a plan to get more food.

So the fox is like “All right, well I should probably be the dead body this time

because it would be kinda suspicious if I walked into town again and tried to sell the same tanuki.”

So the tanuki turns into a peasant dude

and the fox turns into a dead fox

and the tanuki carries the fox into town.

But oh no

it looks like some of those leviathan testicle veins have burrowed into the tanuki’s skull

because this is the point where his balls seize control of his entire brain

and start hammering on the button marked “BAD DECISIONS.”

See, he gets into town and he negotiates a sale

and then he’s like “You know one of the bad things about a wife

is you have to share food with her

so how about I tell the dude I’m selling my wife to that she’s still alive

and then he’ll kill her and I’ll live happily ever after!”

So he does that terrible thing and the guy kills the fox with a brick

and then the tanuki celebrates his newfound bachelorhood by going out and getting TRASHED

and he stumbles back home to his son at like three a.m.

and the kid is like “Hey, Dad what happened to mom?”

And the tanuki is like “Uh, well

whatever it was, it definitely had nothing to do with me purposefully getting her bricked to death.”

And the kid is like “Uh, sure.”

But as the days go by the kid starts to get more and more suspicious

and also the tanuki is being a huge dick and not sharing any food with him

so he’s really got no love for this dude whatsoever

and finally one day he’s like “Yo, Dad

you know mom taught me all her magical secrets before she died?”

And the tanuki is like “Bullshit. Prove it.”

And the kid is like “Okay. How about you go to a bridge in the forest

and I will shape-shift into something and try to cross the bridge

and if you can recognize me, you win.”

and the tanuki is like “YOU’RE ON, SON.”

So he goes to this bridge in the middle of the woods

and a few minutes later his son shows up

but his son doesn’t cross the bridge.

He just chills out by the far end of the bridge and waits for his dad to screw himself

and sure enough, here comes the local king on his chariot of jewels and human misery

and the tanuki is like “HAHAHA, NICE TRY, SON.

YOU THOUGHT I WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU

AS A PROCESSION OF NOBLEMEN AND ALSO A CHARIOT.

ALLOW ME TO RUN UP AND PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE.”

And the king is like “Okay, why is a raccoon dog trying to blackjack me with his ballsack?

Guards, I believe you are trained to handle wild animals and their comically large genitals?”

And the guards are like “SIR YES SIR.”

And they throw the tanuki into the river where he proceeds to die like a chump.

After that, I guess the kid starves to death

because he just killed his only surviving family member

and now who is he going to pretend to sell to the villagers?

So the moral of the story

is that although the temptation may be great

you should not assume that everybody you meet is a shape-shifter.

It is almost as dangerous as not assuming everyone you meet is a shape-shifter.