Legends and Stories

1. Legends and Stories

2. A Parable from the Book Lieh Tzu Book V of the Book of Lieh-Tzü A book of Taoist teachings from the 3rd century B.C. Book V of the Book of Lieh-Tzü A book of Taoist teachings from the 3rd century B.C.

3. Khwai Shuh In ancient China: The bringing of a statue to life so that it can serve its master.

4. Ganesha

5. Durga

6. Egyptian Shabtis

7. Egyptian Shabtis Spell 6 of: 'The Book Of The Dead' instructs the Shabti as follows... O Shabti, If ‘the deceased’ be summoned to do any work which has to be done in the realm of the dead, to make arable the fields, to irrigate the land or to convey sand from East to West; "Here I Am", you shall say, "I Shall Do It".

8. Mokkerkalfe A clay giant in Norse mythology. He was built to help the giants defend themselves against Thor. They could find no heart big enough, so he had just a mare’s heart. He crumbled in battle. http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=mabie&book=norse&story=giant

9. Vulcan Hephaestus Blacksmith of the Gods The Forge of Hephaestus Gaetano Gondolfi 1734-1802 Vulcan Peter Paul Rubens

10. Vulcan Hephaestus Hephaestus created automata, including tripods that walked back and forth to Mount Olympus. He also created …

11. Vulcan Hephaestus Hephaestus created automata, including tripods that walked back and forth to Mount Olympus. He also created the first woman: Pandora, whose dowry was a bag of evils, thus attaining revenge upon the Titans. Pandora & Hephaestus, Athenian red-figureamphora C5th B.C., Ashmolean Museum

12. Talos - Τάλως One version of the Talos myth: Talos was forged of bronze by Hephaestus, but he had one vein that ran from his neck down to his ankle where it was closed by a single nail. His job was to guard Crete. He patrolled the island three times a day. He pelted invaders with stones. He attacked the Argonauts in this way. But Medea saw the nail and pulled it out. The lifeblood of Talos ran out and he died.

13. Talos - Τάλως Talos & the Argonauts, Athenian red-figure krater C4th B.C., Jatta Museum, Ruvo

14. Talos - Τάλως http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4187095321/

15. Golden Female Automata There were golden handmaids also who worked for him [Hephaestus], and were like real young women, with sense and reason, voice also and strength, and all the learning of the immortals; these busied themselves as the king bade them, while he drew near to Thesis … Homer (8th c BC), The Iliad, Book 18.

16. Autonomous Ships Therefore, Sir, do you on your part affect no more concealment nor reserve in the matter about which I shall ask you; it will be more polite in you to give me a plain answer; tell me the name by which your father and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you were known among your neighbours and fellow-citizens. There is no one, neither rich nor poor, who is absolutely without any name whatever, for people's fathers and mothers give them names as soon as they are born. Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm Homer, The Odyssey, Book 8

17. The 2007 Urban Grand Challenge How Realistic Is That? A crash in the DARPA Urban Challenge (Nov, 2007)

18. Moving Statues Some say that a soul moves the body in which it dwells just as it moves itself; as did Democritus, who spoke like Philip the comic poet; for the latter relates that Daedalus (whose name means “cunning worker”) made a wooden Venus mobile by pouring quicksilver into it. Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.), de Anima, Chapter 3 http://www.answers.com/topic/moving-statues

19. Aristotle Wondered So any piece of property can be regarded as a tool enabling a man to live, and his property is an assemblage of such tools; a slave is a sort of living piece of property; and like any other servant is a tool in charge of other tools. For suppose that every tool we had could perform its task, either at our bidding or itself perceiving the need, and if – like the statues made by Daedalus or the tripods of Hephaestus, of which the poet says that ‘self-moved they enter the assembly of the gods’ – shuttles in a loom could fly to and fro and a plucker play a lyre of their own accord, then master craftsmen would have no need of servants nor masters of slaves. Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, Chapter 4 (1253b) (C 350 BCE)

20. Pygmalion and Galatea Recounted by Ovid in about 5 CE Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune(Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide, Paris 1806).

21. The Mabinogion A collection of 11 stories taken from Welsh manuscripts. The first manuscripts are dated between 1350 and 1410, but the stories are earlier, probably first appearing sometime between 1060 and 1200.

22. The Mabinogion Math said, ‘Let us use our magic and enchantments to conjure up a woman out of flowers.’ By then Lleu had the stature of a man and was the handsomest lad anyone had ever seen. Math and Gwydion took the flowers of oak and broom and meadowsweet and from these conjured up the loveliest and most beautiful girl anyone had seen; they baptized her with the form of baptism that was used then, and named her Blodeuedd. —The Mabinogion (“Math the Son of Mathonwy”)

23. Rabbi Eleazar of Worms c. 1160 - 1230 http://emol.org/kabbalah/seferyetzirah/commentaryeleazar.html How to create a Golem: http://emol.org/kabbalah/golem/index.html

24. Albertus Magnus 1193/1209 – 1280 Bavarian philosopher, theologian, Catholic saint, Dominican friar, scientist, astrologer Advocated the peacefulcoexistence of science and religion. Albertus Magnus Joos van Gent, c.1475 A story from the New York Times, April 29, 1883

25. The Automaton of Albertus Magnus? Albertus is said to have manufactured a life-size animated servant.  In one version of the tale, Thomas Aquinas destroyed the automaton when he encountered it in the street, believing it to be the work of the devil.  The creature - made of metal, wood, glass, wax and leather - is said to have been able to talk and open the door for visitors and to serve dinner to guests. A story from the New York Times, April 29, 1883

26. Albertus Magnus Albertus in later literature: • Shelly, Frankenstein, where Albertus is referred to as one of Victor Frankenstein's chosen readings. • Hawthorne: The Birth-mark • Melville, The Bell Tower. • Heinlein, Glory Road, in which the hero, Scar Gordon, reads a book of magic by Albertus.

27. Roger Bacon 1214 – 1294 English philosopher, scientist, Franciscan friar, alchemist, and astrologist

28. The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay A comedy, written c. 1589 by Robert Greene. One plot element in the play: In collaboration with another magician, Friar Bungay, Bacon labors toward his greatest achievement: the creation of an artificial head made of brass, animated by demonic influence, that can surround England with a protective wall of the same metal. The brazen head speaks three times, saying "Time is," "Time was," and Time is past" Then there is a flash of lightning and a hand appears, which breaks the Head  with a hammer.    But Bacon sleeps through this because his servant Miles doesn't have the wit to wake his master in time.

29. Medieval Talking Bronze Heads Among the people reputed to have a brazen head were: • Roger Bacon • Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert) • Albertus Magnus • Virgil • Robert Grosseteste • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius • Faust • Enrique de Villena • Arnaldus de Villa Nova

30. And the Legend Lives On Quoth he, “My head’s not made of brassas Friar Bacon’s noddle was”. - Samuel Butler, Hudibras, ii, 2 (1660-1680) Bacon trembling for his brazen head. - Alexander Pope, Dunciad, iii, 104 (1728) Like Friar Bacon’s brazen head, I’ve spoken,Time is, time was, time’s past. - Lord Byron, Don Juan, I, 217-18 (1819 -1824)

31. Homunculi Paracelsus (1493 – 1541) A scientist and alchemist who wrote that he could create a miniature human: A man’s semen must be put into a hermetically - sealed retort, buried in horse manure for 40 days, and ‘magnetized’. During this time, it begins to live and move, and at the end of the 40 days it resembles a human form, but is transparent and without a body. It must now be fed daily with the arcanum (hidden mystery) of human blood (arcanum sanguinis hominis), and be maintained at the constant temperature of a mare’s womb, for a period of 40 weeks, and it will grow into a human child, with all its limbs developed, as normal as any child born of a woman, except that it will be much smaller. It may be raised and educated like any other child, until he grows older and obtains reason and intellect, and is able to take care of himself.

32. Homunculi Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust (1806 -1829)

33. Rabbi Loew and the Golem The Golem legend from 16th century Prague

34. Der Golem und die Tanzerin A 1917 film by Paul Wehener

35. The Golem in Prague Today A children’s book

36. The Golem in Prague Today A t-shirt

37. The Golem in Prague Today

38. Rabbi Loew’s Tomb in Prague

39. Der Golem, Gustav Meyrink 1915 (German), 1928 (English) A Review: http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/thegolem.html

40. Avram Davidson – The Golem A modern story in LA. http://www.art-anima.com/forumi/index.php?topic=397.0

41. Another People From Earth/Clay Story In Chapter 3 of Songs of Chu (Qu Tuan, c. 340 - 278 BC), it is said that Nüwa molded figures from the yellow earth, giving them life and the ability to bear children. After demons fought and broke the pillars of the heavens, Nüwa worked unceasingly to repair the damage, melting down the five-coloured stones to mend the heavens The Chinese goddess Nüwa (女娲)

42. René Descartes The story goes that Descartes, who had lost his real daughter when she was 5, created the automaton daughter, Ma Fille Francine in around 1640. Francine could do somersaults on a tightrope. All went well until Descartes took it with him on a sea voyage, where it was thrown overboard by either the captain or the sailors, terrified that it was the work of the devil. Descartes was a dualist: he believed that the body operated like a machine but that humans (and only humans) have a mind (soul) that is nonmaterial.

43. Missing from Our List?

44. Aniconism

45. Islam Narrated Aisha: Allah's Apostle returned from a journey when I had placed a curtain of mine having pictures over (the door of) a chamber of mine. When Allah's Apostle saw it, he tore it and said, "The people who will receive the severest punishment on the Day of Resurrection will be those who try to make the like of Allah's creations." So we turned it (i.e., the curtain) into one or two cushions. —Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:72:838 A hadith is a saying or an act of tacit approval or disapproval ascribed either validly or invalidly to the prophet Muhammad.

46. So, Is the Idea Important? • Does a lack of examples of human-created creatures mean that, in this culture: • The idea didn’t occur • No one took it seriously?

47. The Sandman A Story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1817.

48. The Sandman The Sandman visits. Nathaniel (a small child) is terrified.

49. The Sandman Nathaniel believes that the Sandman is the lawyer Coppelius, who engages in alchemy with Nathaniel’s father. One night, an experiment explodes and Nathaniel’s father is killed.

50. The Sandman Years later, Nathaniel is engaged to Clara. He is away at school and is visited by Coppola, a barometer salesman.