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mamtc

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thor/Thrym and Krishna/Koothandavar - Guys disguised and offered as brides.





Thor - Thor's hammer got lost. When they investigated it came to light that king of  the giants Thrym had stolen it. He agreed to trade the hammer for Freyjha as his bride.
She obviously declined to be the bride of the biggest, stupidest, ugliest giant on the earth.
Without much options with Loki's help Thor was disguised as bride and his face was covered with veil and was presented before the giant. For every suspicion, Loki had some readymade not so convincing answers yet Thrym bought those answers.
In the excitement before exchanging vows he placed the hammer near "bride in disguise" knees and Thor immediately grabbed it and hit Thrym hard on his head and the giant fell dead
Krishna - Mohini is more like Kirsten Wiig of SNL. Whenever there was trouble, hindu gods always dressed up Lord Vishnu as Mohini.
To win Mahabharatha war, a perfect sacrifice had to be offered to Goddess Kali. The potenial suitors were Krishna, Arjuna and Aravan- Son of Arjuna. Since the former two were irreplacable, Aravan/Koothandavar was chosen.
As per hindu mythology, married souls alone get moksha(redemption) so Aravan wished to get married before his sacrifice.

Just not Freyja, no women was ready to marry the guy who had been chosen to be offered as sacrifice nextday.

So, they did the next best thing, dress up a male as female and send him as bride to marry the rejected soul.
So, Mohini -  One of chief gods of Hinduism -Vishnu's female avatar offered to marry him. So Mohini and Aravan got married the before day and completed all formalities and next day he was killed as sacrifice.
In India, in Koovagam in Tamilnadu, this event is celebrated as major festival by all eunuchs around month of April/May. All the eunuchs gather together on that particular day and every eunuch considers itself as Mohini and the priest pretends to be Aravan and marries each eunuch by tying the knot and they celebrate the wedding and next day mourn for the death of their husband(?!) Aravan.

Moral of the story : "India isn't just land of snake charmers " is the right moral  and  not "only option for all dumped/rejected men is to choose another man in disguise as bride".

Check more comparison mythology stories here