Schlafes Bruder Schlafes Bruder Schlafes Bruder is a novel by the Austrian Robert Schneider. The book was first published in German in 1992. It was an international success and was adapted to a film and an opera, among others. The plot is set in an Austrian mountain village in the 19th century. The protagonists (Elias, Peter and Elsbeth) face hardship and fate that they cannot understand nor prevent. The title is derived from Greek mythology, where Hypnos, god of sleep, is the brother of Thanatos, god of death. A chorale which Bach set to conclude his cantata "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne
Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons play a significant role in Greek mythology. The word dragon derives from the Greek δράκων (drakōn) and its Latin cognate draco. Ancient Greeks applied the term to large, constricting snakes. Daniel Ogden speaks of three ways to explain the origins of Greek dragon myths: as "vertical" evolution from (reconstructed) Proto-Indo-European mythology, as "horizontal" adaptation from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, or as sitting within "the cloud of international folktale". Regarding theories of vertical transmission, Ogden argues that they carry "an unspoken assumption that prior to such a transfer the Greeks' own myth-world was a "tabula rasa"",