A hero cursed to be trapped in the underworld forever. A horse born from a trick played by Loki.
Twelve stories from Ayatoki's Mythology genre.
Greek Mythology
Capaneus
A hero struck down for his arrogance
One of the Seven Against Thebes. As he scaled the city walls boasting that "not even the gods could stop him," an enraged Zeus struck him dead with a thunderbolt. He became a cautionary tale about hubris for generations afterward.
Selene
The goddess who drives the moon across the night sky
The Titan goddess of the moon, said to cross the sky each night in a silver chariot pulled by white horses. She's best known for falling in love with the beautiful shepherd Endymion and asking the gods to let him sleep forever so he'd stay eternally young. She was later identified with Artemis.
Pirithous
The hero left behind in the underworld forever
Best friend of Theseus, king of Athens. The two tried to kidnap Persephone, queen of the underworld, but Hades tricked them into sitting on the "Chair of Forgetfulness," binding them in place. Heracles managed to free Theseus later on — but Pirithous was left behind for eternity.
Jason
Leader of the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece
The hero who gathered over fifty champions aboard the ship Argo and sailed to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece — one of Greek mythology's great adventure stories. His name has stayed in continuous use ever since, all the way down to the modern English name "Jason."
Styx
The river the gods swear unbreakable oaths on
A river that winds seven times around the underworld, and also the goddess who personifies it. When gods swore an oath on the waters of the Styx, breaking it carried a brutal price: a year in a death-like coma, followed by nine years of banishment from Olympus.
Phorcys
Father of Medusa and much of the Greek monster roster
Son of the earth goddess Gaia and the sea god Pontus. With his wife Ceto, he fathered a whole lineage of Greek mythology's most famous monsters: the three Gorgon sisters (including Medusa, whose gaze turned people to stone), the Graeae — three gray-haired sisters who shared a single eye and a single tooth between them — and, in some accounts, the hundred-headed dragon Ladon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides.
Boötes
A winemaker murdered by his own drunk, grieving friends
In one version of the myth behind this constellation's name, King Icarius was taught the secret of winemaking by the god Dionysus and shared the wine with local shepherds. Having never tasted alcohol before, the shepherds got so violently drunk they became convinced Icarius had poisoned them — and killed him in his sleep. A grief-stricken Dionysus placed Icarius among the stars as Boötes ("the Herdsman"), while his daughter Erigone became the constellation Virgo and his loyal dog became Canis Major.
Norse Mythology
Sleipnir
Odin's eight-legged horse, born from a trick by Loki
A giant builder promised to finish Asgard's walls on an impossible deadline in exchange for the goddess Freya's hand — and his stallion was doing the work so fast the gods panicked. Loki shapeshifted into a mare to lure the stallion away and sabotage the deal, and ended up giving birth to the result: Sleipnir, the fastest horse in existence, able to gallop through the sky and even into the realm of the dead.
Hamingja
A guardian spirit of luck passed down through a family
A concept from Norse and Germanic tradition — a kind of luck-spirit believed to dwell in a person or family line. Someone with strong hamingja was thought destined for success in battle and in life, with that power passing on to descendants after death.
Sigmund
The hero who pulled the sword no one else could
Eldest son of the Volsung family. He's remembered for being the only one able to pull a sword out of a great tree in his father's hall — a sword no one else present could budge. He later became the father of the legendary hero Sigurd (known in German legend as Siegfried).
Bifröst
The rainbow bridge linking gods and humans
The burning rainbow bridge connecting Asgard, home of the gods, to Midgard, the realm of humans. Made of red, blue, and green, its red band is said to be permanently burning fire — which is exactly what keeps giants from being able to cross it.
Slíðr
The river oath-breakers and murderers are forced to wade
According to the Poetic Edda's Völuspá, oath-breakers, murderers, and those who seduced others' spouses were made to wade through this river, choked with swords and knives, as punishment. Their souls were said to wash up on the "Corpse Shore," where the dragon Níðhöggr fed on the dead.
The Best Stories Are Often in the Supporting Cast
It's not just Zeus and Odin who have specific, memorable stories behind them — so do the supporting heroes, monsters, and even the names of rivers and bridges. Every one of these came from a round of Ayatoki's Mythology genre puzzle.
💡 The Mythology genre tends to be a bit harder than others, since the katakana names are less familiar. Reading the trivia after each round makes the names stick a lot better.