There are Vulcans on Earth right now!!!

[Pennjazz]

You can find them here...

http://www.calvulcans.com/index.aspx

[Cogito]

How weird of them to choose that name. It doesn't seem related to anything they're doing.

Do you think it was founded by a trekkie?

[Distracted]

More likely California, PA is a steel town. Vulcan is the (Roman, maybe?) god of the forge.

[Silverbullet]

Yup, Vulcan is the Roman God of the Forge. The Greek name starts with an H but damned if I can remember it.

SB

[WarpGirl]

Hephaestus

[enterprikayak]

shacked up with aphrodite

[WarpGirl]

Sort of. Since his mother, or his father (different myths disagree) threw him off olympus because he was ugly and made him lame Hephaestus was quite a bitter guy. So he made a special throne that trapped the erstwhile parent. This of course set the pantheon in a tizzy. They begged Hephaestus to realease him/her. Hephaestus being quite smart demanded a wife. He originally wanted Athena (whom he tired to rape before) but Zues wasn't about to force his favorite virgin daughter to marry ugly Hephaestus. Besides she was much more powerful in the pantheon in her own right. So knowing he'd never get her he demanded Aphrodite. Zues knowing if he didn't appease his son was in trouble caved. Aphordite was not pleased she was furious. But just because you're the Goddess of love and desire with a talent for starting catastrophic wars doesn't mean you can say no to the god of thunder. Aphrodite wasn't one to sit at home and cry. She had more lovers than any god except Zues, Hephaestus was quite miserable about that. He was quite faithful.

PS Aphrodite had very little to do with actual love. She was the embodiment for sexual desire. Eros her son by Hephaestus' brother Ares had everything to do with the emotional aspects of love. But considering the things his mother did to him it isn't at all shocking that he had a slight malicious streak. But all in all, you could say he was one of the "good guys" of the pantheon.

[Kotik]

Yeah, those greek gods were a nasty bunch, were't they? I've read the Illias and the odyssey. That lot make a swinger club look like a catholic girls choir.

[Pennjazz]

Thought there might be a few of you to get a kick out of this...

California, PA didn't have steel mills, but did have some coal mines nearby...

(From wikipedia...)

Vulcan fell down for a day and a night, landing in the sea. Unfortunately, one of his legs broke as he hit the water, and never developed properly. From the surface, Vulcan sunk like a pebble to the cool blue depths where the sea-nymph, Thetis, found him and took him to her underwater grotto, and raised him as her own son.

Vulcan had a happy childhood with dolphins as his playmates and pearls as his toys. Late in his childhood, he found the remains of a fisherman's fire on the beach and became fascinated with an unextinguished coal, still red-hot and glowing.

Vulcan carefully shut this precious coal in a clamshell and took it back to his underwater grotto and made a fire with it. On the first day after, Vulcan stared at this fire for hours on end. On the second day, he discovered that when he made the fire hotter with bellows, certain stones sweated iron, silver or gold. On the third day he beat the cooled metal into shapes: bracelets, chains, swords and shields. Vulcan made pearl-handled knives and spoons for his foster mother, he made a silver chariot for himself, and bridles so that seahorses could transport him quickly. He even made slave-girls of gold to wait on him and do his bidding.

So, maybe it had to do with using coal for the fires in the forging of metals (blacksmithing)...

[WarpGirl]

Yep like his Greek counterpart Vulcan/Hephaestus= God of the Forge. Sorry I went a little overboard with the Mythology. I'm a neard and my insomnia is really bad this week.

[justTripn]

California University of PA. Been there many times for the kids' soccer tournaments.

[Silverbullet]

Didn't Hepaetus catch Aphrodite and Ares having it on. She diddled just about eveyrbody including a few humans. She was an equal opportunity gal.

Seems like most love goddess were cut of the same mold. The orse goddess gave out with some sex to the drawfs for a necklace. Bast, the Egyptian goddess of Love, was a little free with her favors too.

Bast is my favorite goddess of them all. Cat Goddess. she is shown with the amazing body of a human woman and the head of a Cat. I hve a reproduction of her in my bedroom.

Sb

[WarpGirl]

In order.... Yes, don't know much about Norse mythology, according to the Egyptian pantheon most Goddesses were extremely faithful. Case in point Isis.

[Ulva]

I suppose you're thinking about Freya and Brísingamen, a necklace forged by 4 dwarfs who wouldn't sell it to her, but negotiated a night each with her. Freya as a goddess was Vanir, a different kind of people than the well known Thor and Odin, and she is believed to be a quite old figure in Scandinavian mythology, probably older than Odin. She and her brother Frey were very important fertility gods in this part of the world. Up until the 18th century these gods had a grip on rural areas in Scandinavia actually (though wooden statues of them weren't carried around during spring smeared in blood and semen after the end of the Middle Ages) and the church were struggling with ordinary peoples' unwillingness to conform to the Christian ideas concerning sexuality (among other things).

[Silverbullet]

Christian conversioon at the point of a Cannon or gun. First thing they did was to erase all written tales of the other gods. Runes wre incised from walls, stela, posts, anywhere. Only the Icelandic Eddas preserved some of the old Norse Mysthology. There there isa certain bishop whose soul should burn in Hell forever he had as many of the Myan Bark books destroyed as he could. Missed only a few. What those books could have revealed about one of the great civilizations.

No wonder I don't hold with an organized religion.

Sb