Lethe in Folklore | The Faeries and Folklore Podcast

Episode 204: Irascible Immortals: Lethe

The folklore of Lethe in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Irascible Immortals series, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/my-books/the-irascible-immortals-series for more.

We’re continuing our exploration of the Immortals.

Today’s immortal: Lethe

Folklore in a Nutshell by Ronel

Lethe is the personified spirit, or minor goddess, of forgetfulness and oblivion. She is connected to the underworld river Lethe. According to Virgil, the shades of the dead were required to drink from it to forget their mortal lives, especially if they sought reincarnation. The river Lethe lies between Hades and Elysium. Lethe is one of the five rivers of the Underworld.

Lethe’s powerful waters treat all memories the same: painful or cherished, they get erased.

According to the ancient Roman poet Ovid, this river flows through the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep, and the murmuring of the water induces drowsiness.

Lethe only had a mother: Eris, whose name means “strife”. She has a boatload of siblings with names ranging from Limos (“Starvation”) to Dysnomia (“Anarchy”).

There were ancient Greek cults, though, that believed that one should rather drink from Mnemosyne – the pool of memory – to retain one’s memories to be a better person in the next life. According to this cult, Lethe was located beneath a cypress tree, while Mnemosyne was located beneath a poplar tree. There’s even an Orphic inscription dating from around the second century BC warning people to avoid the river Lethe.

Though not connected to many myths, this river goddess has a mighty grip on the hopes and fears of mortals since the beginning of time.

Origin of the Fae: Lethe

Lethe is the goddess of forgetfulness. She is also sometimes a river. She can take a human form to mingle with other gods and with humans. A few drops from her is enough to make a couple of hours’ memory disappear. Quenching your thirst on the water of the river Lethe can give you a clean slate – if you so dare. She is sometimes blamed for everything from forgetting where one had put one’s keys to dementia. She’s not very sociable because of these accusations, instead favouring the company of her fellow infernal rivers.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.

Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!

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