Story Week 15- Arachne

For my final story for this class, I wanted to share a story about the myth of Arachne. I've recently been reading a lot of these myths or folklore stories and I actually really enjoy them. So I might consider taking Laura's other class that focuses on myths.

Ahhhhh... The story of Arachne. We have heard of lots of instances in the mythological world where Gods can transform into other things such as animals or another life form. This is common within their world and most of the time provides them an advantage. Within that there are still mortals that can undergo contortions but they are often unwanted and cursed upon them.

Arachne was a young beautiful lady who had a great talent of weaving the most divine threads. People from her town always come to watch her spin her thread and create glorious pieces of art. She was so good, it almost seemed like the thread was just coming from her fingers. After a while of people always praising her work, she became so prideful and claimed to be the best that ever lived amoung the morals and Gods. This statement was overheard by the powerful Goddess Athena, who was the goddess of wisdom and crafts, and she was not happy. She talked down to Arachne saying she was ungrateful for the gifts the god her blessed her with. She challenged Arachne to duel to see who could spin the best cloth. As people watched around them to decide who was prevailing, they both spun unique yet representative pieces. Athenas cloth showed the power of gods and goddess and all their glory. On the other hand, Arachnes piece showed the gods and goddess abusing the power they were gifted with. Although her piece did not show them in their best light, it was by far better than Athenas and almost life-like. 

Athena was filled with anger and broke into a craze. She cursed Arachne, she started to shrink and become the world's first spider. She was left with a spool of thread coming from her stomach. This is how spiders were created.


Authors Notes: I changed the story a little, but not much. I didn't mention anything about Arachne's family. I also left out that Athena morphed into a little old woman to confront Arachne. I didn't go into as much detail about the tapestry art. I did include my own perspective on the story such as interpretations through the video.

Arachne transforming- source: TedEd

Source- Youtube, TedEd, The Myth of Arachne