Mythology’s Top Five Badasses

Thesus was a regular prince charming of his time. He was born when his mother had a threesome with her hubby, king of Athens and Poseidon, god of the ocean. Now that’s already quite a claim to fame and most people might be happy just to sit and be comfortably royal. Not Thesus, though. He became one of Greece’s greatest legends, soldiers and heroes.

His real claim to fame is that he killed the Minotaur. Here’s how it went down: King Minos of Crete demanded that Athenians send him seven boys and seven girls every seven years. Well when Thesus grew up and found out what was going on; he decided to put a stop to it. He went aboard the ship for Crete as one of the seven boys to be sacrificed. So he was taken as another prisoner and sailed to Crete where he was locked up.

That night while he was imprisoned, the princess of Crete came to visit him. You see she was totally digging on the studly Theseus and decided she’d help him by giving him a sword and a ball of string. Theseus promised to take her away from Crete and marry her once he was done in Crete.

The next day Thesus went first of all the children to be sacrificed to the Minotaur in the labyrinth. As soon as he was down in the labyrinth, he tied one end of his string to the rock and then let it unwind as he went. Then he went looking for the Minotaur. They found each other and fought. Now some people might have used their sword to kill the minotaur but not Theseus. He grabbed the charging Minotaur by the horns and broke its neck with his bare hands. Wow, how badass can you get?

1. Odin

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We go a little north and find ourselves in the world of the Norse. Their head god was called Odin and he was damned manly too. Norse gods were a little more self controlled than Greeks though so his manliness compared to Zeus might be up for debate. But when it comes to badassery, he’s got no equal.

You see Odin was a politician and a warrior and a leader and an adventurer and a sorcerer but that just wasn’t enough. So first he learned another kind of magic from Freyr, a goddess, and when the other gods laughed because it was a girly kind of magic he told them where to shove it.

Still not happy, Odin went to the base of the world tree and pulled out his own eye to drop in the well of Mirmir to gain the wisdom of the ages. He must be happy now, right? Nope. He then went and used his own spear to pin himself to the world tree and hung himself for nine days in that he would gain wisdom and power of the nine worlds. Evidently this didn’t kill him but I’ll bet it was painful. In fact he did all this to himself voluntarily so he could be wiser and more powerful. Now that’s bad ass.

No doubt about it: From the Middle East to northern Western Europe and everything in between, there’s mythology full of badasses. There’s no doubt the rest of the world has its own badasses too. These five deserve a special mention just for how purely badass they can be, even if it’s only once.