The Indo-European myth reconstruction game goes somewhat like the proto-Indo-European language reconstruction game. In the latter, language experts look at languages descended from the lost PIE language, find common elements, and come up with theoretical PIE words. The vocabulary thus assembled by various experts now comes to several hundred theoretical words... and "theoretical" is key here, because of course none of the words is proven, the actual language is lost and always will be.

When reconstructing PIE mythology, experts do the same. They look at all sorts of myths(Celtic and Norse and Slavic, Roman and Greek and Persian, and Vedic Indian are the usual suspects), find common elements, and come up with proto-myths. The dioscuri thing is a good example here. Dioscuri are divine twins, like Caster and Pollux, Romulus and Remus, and they appear in all sorts of myths, cropping up in cultures very far separate from each other - but all the cultures descend from the Indo-Europeans, so researchers assume a common origin for the myth itself . . . the idea of divine twins. The pattern.

Another pattern that crops up regularly is called "generations in heaven" and is going to be very familiar to anyone who's read Norse and Roman and Greek myth. It's the idea that the kingship of the gods descends through several generations. Ergo, first came the Titans including Kronos, and Kronos was killed by and succeeded by his son Zeus, and from Zeus springs a younger generation of gods who will eventually take over; from Odin springs Thor, and after Thor comes the trio of young gods who will inherit the Earth because they're the sole survivors of Ragnarok. Usually in this pattern the inheriting god (Zeus who hurls thunderbolts, Thor the god of thunder, the Hittite weather-god) is concerned with storms and weather. The old generation perishes, the young gods inherit Heaven.

Anyway. The triple sin of heroes, in the PIE pattern, is this. In several myth cycles, the hero is a warrior. He's the pawn of the gods, who are warring against each other. He commits a triple sin, which parallels the triple division of society into priest/warrior/lover. He suffers a triple punishment for the wrongs he has done.

The triple sin is against the three offices of kingship/priesthood, warrior, and lover. So the hero commits sacrilege of some kind, usually an outrage against his sovereign lord, his king, and comes under the ban of Heaven. Then he has to fail as a warrior - fleeing from battle, showing cowardice when faced by a challenger - and loses his strength of arms. Then he sins as a lover.

This "sinning as a lover" doesn't mean just cheating on his girlfriend, though. It means, sinning against the home, against family, against marriage. Here the division of society is made a little clearer: the three parts of society aren't the priesthood/kingship, the army, and the farming class or those concerned with food and fertility (ie, shepherds and lovers), but things sacred and holy, especially kingship; things pertaining to war and warriors; and things pertaining to the family and home. The three pillars of society. Church and government, the army, and the household.

And the warrior sins against family and marriage by committing adultery with someone else's wife, or somehow breaking up a home via a sexual misdeed.

Uther's seduction of King Arthur's mother, coming to her disguised as her husband and lying with her (and begetting Arthur) could be an example of the third type of sin. Because Uther sinned, his virtue was lost and invested in Arthur, who is then born and takes over as the hero/true king. What the sinner loses, after he sins, are his heroic attributes.

Students of myth see a common pattern in the old story of the hero's journey. There are three low points in the hero's journey, when the hero commits these three sins and, with each sin, loses the things that make him a hero. Then the hero either gives way to other heroes (who inherit the protagonist's role) or else fights and overcomes his loss, and continues the journey.

So: the hero is wounded, but it's a wound of his own making. Then he can either die (the tanist king) or somehow struggle his way back to health and go on as the true king.

Starcathr or Starcatherus (these being the Scandinavian and Latinized versions of the name) appears in two sources: glancing references in Old Icelandic texts, and a full version related by the Christian monk Saxo Grammaticus. The full version gives the hero's whole life. The Icelandic texts are concerned with the stories of other heroes, into which Starcathr enters as a bit player.

There are two origins given for the hero:

1. (Old Icelandic) There were two Starcathrs, and the first was a giant in Norse legend, a hideous monster with six arms. This giant abducted a maiden, and the maiden's father cried out in appeal to Thor the monster-killer; Thor then slew the first Starcathr and rescued the maiden, but the girl came home pregnant with the giant's child. This child, a son, grew up among human beings and begot himself a son of his own, named after the grandfather (according to Norse custom) - Starcathr.

2. (Saxo Grammaticus) There was only one Starcatherus, a horrible six-armed giant, but the god Thor came upon him and plucked out four of his arms, leaving Starcatherus fit to become a member of the human community.

Anyway, in both versions, the hero Starcathr was the foster-brother of a king, Vikar. And, though of base birth, Starcathr was as big and strong as any giant; no man dared face him, he was Vikar's own champion. However, Vikar had been marked by Odin, who wanted him as a human sacrifice, and Odin had chosen Starcathr to be the sacrificer.

Now, being offered to Odin was no mean fate. Especially if the victim dies by hanging and spear- thrust, this was as good as any death on the battlefield; one went straight to Valhalla, to be ranked among the warriors of the Einherjar. But neither Vikar or Starcathr knew their fates. As events went, Vikar sailed a-viking and his fleet was becalmed near a small island, and there they were stranded for so long a time that the king and his companions resorted to consulting an oracle about it. And the answer was, that Odin desired a man of the army to be sacrificed to him by hanging.

So all the men of Vikar's army drew lots, but the fatal lot fell upon the king.

At this all the men fell silent and went off to sleep on the horns of dilemma. To sacrifice one's king was no small matter, in fact a deadly sin against piety. Besides, this was Vikar's war. What, should Vikar himself die en route to the battle, to ensure his success on the field? - and if he did, what would be the point in it?

But in the midnight hour, Odin himself came in disguise, woke Starcathr and led him away to the small island, where--by amazing coincidence--an Althing of the gods was being held. And the order of business was nothing less, than to determine the fate of Starcathr. While Starcathr watched (speechless, no doubt) Odin stood forth as the hero's defender, and the god Thor spoke against him. Thor's quarrel with Starcathr? That when he, Thor, had fought the giant who had abducted the girl, that girl had afterward rejected Thor and said she liked the giant better. Ever since, Thor had nursed a grudge, and now the time for payback had come.

The two gods eventually fell to making wishes on Starcathr's behalf.

They imposed fates upon the hero, and for every dire fate spoken by Thor, Odin countered it with a good wish. And vice versa. So Thor proclaimed, "Starcathr will have no children," and Odin replied, "But he will live full three human life-spans." But Thor said, "Then he will commit a terrible sin in each life." Then Odin said Starcathr would always have the best arms and the richest raiments, and Thor countered that he would never then own land nor other property. Odin said, "He will have fine furnishings!" Thor said, "Then he will never feel he has enough!" Odin: "He will be victorious in every combat; he will have the skald's gift of poetry; he will be loved by the noble and the great!" Thor: "Then he will receive a grievous wound in every battle; he will compose great verse, but forget all that he composes; and he will be despised by common folk everywhere!"

Thus the debate ended. Afterward, Odin took Starcathr (now no doubt not just speechless but also reeling from the fates pronounced upon him) back to the Viking fleet. Along the way, the god informed the mortal that he expected repayment for defending him and for all the good wishes he, Odin, had made. "Send me King Vikar," said Odin. "Take this spear, which will appear to all men as a harmless stick. Then follow my command, place the king in a position to be sacrificed, and I will do the rest."

The next morning, King Vikar and his closest companions met to decide what to do, and Starcathr proposed a mock sacrifice. They went to the island, and found a gallows tree. Starcathr made a play-noose from the flimsy cord of a calf's intestine (which he got from the king's cook) and tied it to a branch. The king, laughing, said that he put his life into fate's hands, and then he stepped onto a convenient stump, and put his head into the noose.

Starcathr then thrust the stick he held at Vikar, saying, "Now I give thee to Odin."

At once, the stump flew out from under Vikar's feet, the stick became a spear and pierced his side, and the noose dragged the king upward into the tree; where he died.

This then was Starcathr's first great sin, against his holy duty to his liege-lord. For it, he was exiled, and ever after, he was despised by the common people.

A long time passed. Starcathr or Starcatherus was already a man grown when he betrayed King Vikar, and now the years flew by but the hero did not die, though he aged. He aged, yet kept his strength. No foe could stand against him. Nor could he die till he had fulfilled his fate, till three lifetimes had become his burden, and three times, he had committed a great sin.

His second sin was against courage and his warrior's honor, when he was fighting for a Swedish king. This king fell in battle and his whole army was shaken by it, and Starcathr's heart failed him so that he fled shamefully from the field.

His third sin was the most vile. He was very old by then - as old as any three men together - all but blind, and had to get about propped on two canes; still he was so strong that no man dared offer to fight him. And since for every battle he had ever fought, he had taken some grievous wound or other, he was marked all over with great scars, for every one of which he bore the ache three-fold. He was serving at the court of a Danish king, time having wiped away the blemish of his previous dishonors, but the king's enemies approached him and offered him money to kill his new liege-lord. Now this king was a dangerous tyrant, an unjust man, and Starcathr agreed with the conspirators and accepted the bribe . . . and killed the king. Then he turned on the conspirators and slew them all too, paying them for their sins.

Three great sins he had committed, the fate pronounced by Odin was fulfilled. Starcathr knew the time had come, for him to lay down the burden of his years. Besides, he had just betrayed his king for money, and deserved to die.

He took the purse of coins, two swords, and his two canes, and hobbled out on the highway, with no destination. A vagabond saw him, came close and (thinking that two swords were too many in the hands of such an old man) demanded one of his swords. Starcathr pretended to be frightened, waited till the wastrel came within reach, and then swung his fist, and the man died, his skull shattered in a thousand pieces.

Now, a party of hunters saw all this from a distance. Their leader was a young man of noble birth, named Hatherus. Seeing the promise of sport in the old man on crutches, this Hatherus sent two of his companions charging on horseback toward Starcathr. They met two great swings of the crutches, were knocked right off their steeds, and died. Then the huntsmen, Hatherus at their head, were intrigued and rode closer. Hatherus bowed to Starcathr, and offered a respectable trade: one of Starcathr's swords in exchange for a wagon, something certainly more useful to a cripple.

The two men know each other; as much becomes clear from their conversation. Starcathr breaks into poetry. In fifty-eight hexameters of verse, he laments the ailments of his extreme old age, and recites all the exploits of his past. In between, he lights upon Hatherus' good character, his loyalty and affection. And what else? This worthy youth Hatherus is none other than the son of Lenno, one of the conspirators Starcathr had just slain! And Starcathr has been longing to meet Hatherus, in fact pining for a meeting with him.

Now Starcathr proposes this to Hatherus: let Hatherus avenge his dead father, let him cut Starcathr's head off and end his long career. Then Hatherus can have all the money which Starcathr still carries, the forty coins of betrayal. More, if Hatherus is nimble enough to leap between Starcathr's severed head and toppling body before either body or head falls to earth, then the young hero will be rendered proof against any weapon. Invulnerable.

This last promise was ambiguous. Hatherus eyed Starcathr, accepted the killer's fee eagerly and drew his sword; but he did not plan to try to leap between the neck and the head.

He was wise not to! He drew his blade, struck strong and clean, and the old hero's head leaped straight off his shoulders; the young hero did not attempt the leap. But as it hit the earth, the head snapped its teeth at the grass, ripping and rending out a huge clod. Such was Starcathr's savage temper, here seen for the last time. And if Hatherus had tried the leap, Starcathr's immense body would have come crashing down on him and crushed his life out; Hatherus would have paid for the old man's murder with his own death.

But Hatherus burned the body on the field of Roling, and here the story ends.

Bres was the successor of Nuadu of the Silver Hand, when that worthy was deposed as king of the Tuatha De Danann on account of his imperfection of body. For when Nuadu lost his right arm during the First Battle of Mag Tuired, he was forced afterward to renounce his kingship because the law stated a king must be whole in body.

Bres, now, was a foreigner - the bastard of a woman of the Tuatha De Danann with a Fomoire man, and he was thus unworthily born, a stranger among the Tuatha De and no intimate of that people. Unwelcome. However the women wanted him for their king, and king he became in the end. They argued that if he ruled them, they would have better relations with the Fomoire. Also, they were in favor of matriarchy . . . He was a woman's son after all.

Disastrous, though, was his reign. His failings were beyond number, but three were the cardinal sins. He took beyond what a king should take - extracting tribute and permitting the Fomoire to do the same. He degraded the warrior champions of the Tuatha De, and forced them to do menial work. He did not give as a king should give, but showed no generosity, hosted no banquets, welcomed no guests at his board and was in general a mean niggardly bastard indeed at the dinner table. Never throwing so much as a bone to the dog, before he had cracked it thrice and sucked out every taste of the marrow.

That last was his downfall, for when Bres received the poet Coirpre in his hall and entertained the man in his customary skinflint manner, so outraged was the latter that he went straight out and composed Ireland's very first satire. And so devastating was it, that the blast of it went across the length and breadth of all Eire, and directly afterward the men of the Tuatha De deposed Bres, put Nuadu back in his place (and Nuadu's hand had grown back in the meantime, so no wonder) all of which led to the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, between the Fomoire who wanted their boy back on the throne, and the Tuatha De Danann who held by their choice, Nuadu.

According to the Mahabharata:

Sisupala was born a monster, four-armed, three-eyed, uttering wild cries like an animal. These oddities, and his name, marked him as the avatar of a god, or perhaps simply as the follower of one - whichever meaning pertains, he was marked by a god. The god in question was Rudra- Siva.

And yet he was also born a prince, in the ruling family of the Cedi kingdom. His parents were, naturally, distraught.

In fact they were on the brink of exposing him (and forgetting they ever had such a son) when a Voice spoke to them from nowhere, saying, "Do not be afraid, but guard your child, for you are not to be his death nor has that time come. His death, his slayer by the sword, has been born, lord of men ... He who holds your child upon whose lap and your child's unwanted arms fall away; he who looks into your child's third eye and that unwanted eye sinks away - he who cures him, he will kill him. He will be his death."

So all the kings of the earth came to the kingdom of Cedi, and Sisupala's father placed his son on the lap of each and every king. But none of them could cure him, till two young princes from aboard came visiting. They were the nephews of Sisupala's mother and greeted her tenderly. One was a true lord of men, called Krsna - who was the avatar of, or the follower of, or in any case marked by the god Visnu. And Visnu and Siva were rivals, and always would be. They were much the same as Odin and Thor. Anyway, Krsna (who was Visnu) took the small monster on his lap and laid a hand over his third eye, upon which the extra eye shut and the unwanted third and fourth arms withered away, dropped off . . . and the infant smiled, as perfect as any other human child.

Thus Krsna made himself the agent of Sisupala's doom.

Knowing this, Krsna reflected and said, "If I am the little boy's executioner, then I promise this. I consent to let pass unpunished one hundred great sins by Sisupala, each sin grave enough to merit death. A hundred times over, he can offend and escape judgement. A hundred times, he will be safe. Only upon the hundred-and-first sin will I give him what he deserves."

This then was Sisupala's destiny.

The boy grew up, and became a young man, and the young man became a king. The king of Cedi! Eventually, too, he went into the service of Jarasandha, the conquering king, whose armies subdue the world; he who worshiped Siva, who offered kings to Siva as sacrifices. And Sisupala was a good servant. He commanded Janasandha's armies; many cities were given to the conquering king, served up at the point of Sisupala's sword. This was all to the greater glory of Siva.

But meantime the boy Sisupala had sinned sins as if no earthly law could touch him - many great sins went to his ledger. And the young man Sisupala sinned just as many. No punishment ever came. His destiny protected him; he had a charmed life.

He sinned against his mother's family especially, and against his kinsman Krsna.

He sinned so often and so rapidly that even he lost count of his errors.

A hundred great sins.

Then one day . . .

Krsna, no king (even though the avatar of a god) was in the service of a king, Yudhisthira (who also happened to be the avatar of Dharma, but then this is the Mahabharata and everyone is probably the avatar of a god). Krsna was a faithful and good counselor, the most noble of men who are not kings. Yudhisthira had just disposed of a counter-claimant to the throne, and had invited all the kings in the world to a royal fete, a celebration of his position and power. All the kings in the world had come to honor him. Among them were Jarasandha, and Sisupala. They were all together in the royal hall, dining, and it was the time to award the portions of the meal. By custom, the hero's portion must go to the most worthy soul in the hall; it went to Krsna. Whereupon, Sisupala the king of Cedi leaped up and began to shout. "This is a conclave of kings!" he roared. "Give the honors to a king, or shame us all! But give nothing to Krsna, for Krsna is no king!"

It was the hundred-and-first great sin.

Krsna then stood forth before the assembly of kings, and told the tale of Sisupala's offenses. Greatest among them were five; all the rest were of the same measure.

When the kings in the hall had been absent from their cities, Sisupala had sallied against those cities and burned them.

When Krsna's royal father had been about to make the Horse Sacrifice, Sisupala had malevolently stolen the stallion that was set free at the ceremony; he had fought his way through the stallion's guards, and abducted it.

When the princes of Krsna's family were frolicking on Mount Raivataka, Sisupala had trapped and captured them unarmed, and then killed them.

When one king's bride-to-be was on her wedding journey, Sisupala had kidnapped and dishonored her.

When another king's bride-to-be caught his eye, Sisupala by black arts made himself look like the girl's intended, waylaid her and stole her in the disguise of a husband.

So Sisupala had behaved treacherously in war, disrupted a holy sacrifice, and kept stealing other men's women. All these, moreover, were sins against kingship itself. Every king in the hall, as Krsna (his patience gone at last) counted over these crimes, turned and gazed with narrowed eyes at Sisupala. The sinner began to shrink back. Krsna, his count fully told, drew himself up and was understood by all to be in the right. He drew his cakra (the word used is cakram; in Sanskrit, "kakra" means wheel, and Krsna's cakra was a discus, a god's weapon which kills demons). Instantly that he threw it, Sisupala's head leaped from his body.

At that instant, a sublime radiance rose from the corpse of the sinner, and that radiance greeted Krsna and entered into him. In a cloudless sky, heaven rained forth, blazing lightning struck and the earth trembled. Not one of the watching kings said a word. When the divine light had gone from Sisupala into Krsna, they all turned back to their dining. And the celebrations concluded without a single further hitch.

(From the summation by Diodorus Siculus)

1. For having tried to avoid the divine command which sent him into the service of King Eurystheus (a man clearer his inferior) Herakles is seized by madness and kills his own children; then, overcome by his ill-deeds, goes to Delphi and is made to atone by performing the twelve labors which Eurystheus dreams up for him.

So this is the first sin: rebelling against the edicts of his gods.

2. After completing these labors, Herakles kills - by a shameful trick, and not in a fair trial of arms - one of his enemies. He is then stricken with a physical ailment, which he only rids himself of after consulting the Pythia and taking her advice ... thereby delivering himself into service again. This time, he becomes the slave of Omphale, queen of Lydia.

This is the second sin: transgressing against the code of the warrior.

3. Herakles then performs another series of tasks, but after this he forgets that he has just formally and legally married Deianeria. He commits adultery with Iole. But Deianeria hears about this, and remembers something, something told to her by the dying centaur Nessos (whom Herakles killed, shooting him with a poisoned arrow). If her husband's love waned, Nessos had told her, she could rekindle his passion by dressing him in a cloth rubbed in Nessos' blood.

This is the third sin: adultery, outraging the marriage bed.

So Deianeria dips Herakles' cloak in the blood of Nessos, and sends the garment to her husband. But the blood was tainted by the poison of Herakles' own arrow, and when the hero put it on, his body-heat warmed the poison to life and it began to devour him. Gripped by intolerable pain, Herakles sends one last time to the oracle at Delphi. The word comes back: Apollo says, "Let Herakles be taken up to Mount Oeta in all his warrior gear, and let a pyre be erected next to him. For the rest, Zeus will provide."

Now, when Iolaus had carried out these orders and withdrawn to a distance, Herakles despaired and himself mounted the funeral pyre. He asked each one who came up to him to put a torch to the pyre. And when no one else had the courage to do this, Philoktetes alone was prevailed on - in return for the gift of the hero's bow and arrows. He lit the pyre, lightning fell from heaven, and Herakles and pyre alike were consumed so totally that not even a single bone was left on the ground.

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