“Hades is the lord of the dead and ruler of the nether world, which is referred to as the domain of Hades or, by transference, as Hades alone. He is the son of Cronus and Rhea. When the three sons of Cronus divided the world among each other, Hades was given the underworld, while his brothers Zeus and Poseidon took the upperworld and the sea respectively. Hades sits on a throne made of ebony, and carries a scepter. He also has a helmet, given to him by the Cyclopes, which can make him invisible. Hades rules the dead, assisted by various (demonic) helpers, such as Thanatos and Hypnos, the ferryman Charon, and the hound Cerberus. Many heroes from Greek mythology have descended into the underworld, either to question the shades or trying to free them.” Hades@pantheon.org

“One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story – excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot.”

The Boarded Window – Ambrose Bierce@eastoftheweb.com
Ambrose Bierce Bio@Wikipedia

“You’ve just landed in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, hungry and eager to indulge in some traditional Scandinavian fare. You wander into a buffet-style restaurant and stare at a smörgÃ¥sbord that looks disconcertingly similar to the raw seafood section at your local grocery store. Mounds of glistening herring prepared in every imaginable fashion stare back. Where to begin? You need a herring primer. Before writing them off as oily anchovies, know that herring are an integral part of Nordic culture and cuisine. They’re known as sill in Swedish. Chances are you’ll be eating either Atlantic or Baltic herring in Sweden.” herringinsweden@worldhum.com