Nekyia

Nekyia ( ancient Greek νέκυια , sacrifice for the dead ) describes the myth according to which a deity, a hero or a person descends into the world of the dead to obtain information about the future or to break the power of death.

The name goes back to the 11th song of the Odyssey , in which Odysseus lingers in Hades during his odyssey . Other visitors to Hades are the heroes Theseus , Heracles and Aeneas , the mortals Orpheus and Alcestis .

Occurrence in literary works

• Faust's walk to the mothers and the classic Walpurgis Night ( Faust II ) allude to the Nekyia myth.
• In Der Zauberberg , Thomas Mann paraphrases the Nekyia myth with Hans Castorp's Snow Dream.
• In Kalevala (Finnish Epic), Song Sixteenth: Väinämöinen wants to build a boat with the power of magical words. Since he lacks three words to complete the boat, he searches in vain for an answer in the realm of the dead.

literature

• Uvo Hölscher : The Odyssey. Epic between fairy tale and novel. Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33390-7 .

Web links

Commons : Nekyia  - collection of images, videos and audio files