Misunderstood Myths
This is a personal project to re-examine female mythical personas and depict them as they were originally portrayed not as many movies and tv shows depict them in popular culture.

Banshee
A banshee (BAN-shee; Modern Irish bean (pronounced 'ban') means woman and 'sí' comes from sidhe (fairy)) is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by wailing, shrieking, or keening. She is often depicted combing her long hair near flowing water.

She is not a spirit that kills but appears so that family members have time to say their last goodbyes before they pass. The message is to live each night as though it were your last.

Cassandra
Cassandra  was a Trojan priestess of Apollo in Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed. Often depicted as being the prophet or bringer of doom in popular culture and shows like Supernatural her actual story is quite different.

The older and most common versions state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her with the gift to see the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favors, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word and refused the god. The enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, so he added to it the curse that though she would see the future, nobody would believe her prophecies. 

She warned of the destruction of Troy. In various accounts of the war, she warned the Trojans about the Greeks hiding inside the Trojan Horse as well as many other things. At the fall of Troy, Cassandra sought shelter in the temple of Athena. There she embraced the wooden statue of Athena in supplication for her protection, but was abducted and brutally raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra clung so tightly to the statue of the goddess that Ajax knocked it from its stand as he dragged her away.

Lilith, evolved from the Babylonian Lilitu and migrated to Jewish tradition via the mystical Zohar as Adam's first wife. Lilith would not be submissive to Adam and had powerful magical abilities, strong enough to defy God's angels who were sent into the garden of Eden to get her under control. 

Lilith lays a curse upon Adam "and all his seed for all time" as she leaves Eden to become the "mother of all demons." Over time Lilith was rationalized as the source of still births in Judaism. Also, the Jewish wedding tradition of Circling the Groom emerged over time to ward of Lilith's curse, something I wrote about when I studied anthropology.

Hypatia
Hypatia (born circa 350–370; died 415 AD) was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. During the tumultuous era when the Roman Empire was converting to Christianity Hypatia steadfastly refused to convert. 

During a period of political turmoil in Alexandria she was grabbed by a Christian mob and dragged into the nearest church, stripped naked and brutally murdered for not giving up her pagan ways.

The misunderstood mythical part is that, ironically, Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue during the Middle Ages. Scholars now believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (images below) who refused to give up Christianity.

St Catherine was condemned to death by the Roman Emperor Maxentius on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it allegedly shattered. Instead she was beheaded with a sword, hence both items appear in depictions of her.