Gloom Girls Project: Saint Olga

This is a project about demonic ladies, iron maidens and evil queens. It's the opposite to my "Golden Girl Project" series that I made years ago on this blog. Golden Girls is all about ladies of light. The Gloom Girls Project is about ladies of darkness. Obsidiously evil and dangerous by nature, they're cold blooded as they're so vicious, tainted and cruel. Each post will focus on one such lady of gloom. 
 
Saint Olga

A woman has never been so vicious and yet revered by the Church like an angel as Olga of Kiev. When a person that lived in her time heard her name, they fled to the hills. But given a sainthood that she was but she was far from being a sweet angelic saint. She was a demon.
Olga was born in Pskov, Russia, sometime during the late 9th Century CE. Her family were Varangians, a Viking people living in Russia. Little else is known of her childhood. As a teenager, she married Igor I of Kiev, son of Rurik. Olga and Igor had children togaether. Igor was butchered by the Derevlians, a Slavic tribe, and his son, Sviatoslav I of Kiev, became his successor. Sviatoslav was very young and his mother, Olga, was regent until her son was turned of a certain age. Olga wanted revenge.
She pretended to look for a new husband and requested that Derevlian men show up.These men would be treated with much dazzling kindness, they would be given food and rich clothes, and arrive to the castle in splendid little boats for each man. Olga had her own people dig a deep trench in the main square of the city. After the Derevlian men arrived sailed into Kiev, they were met by people who carried them in their boats across the streets. Then the Derevlian men were flung into the deep trench, and were buried there alive.
Olga needed to visit Dereva and requested an escort. She wanted the Derevlian Prince Mal to send some of his best warriors to escort her. After the Derevlian warriors arrived, Olga insisted that they bathe themselves before meeting her. The men were escorted to the bath house. Then they were locked inside and Olga had the bath house torched and burned. All the men inside were killed.
Olga needed to pay her respects to her late husband so she went to Dereva's city Iskoresten. Upon her visit, a party was held in her honour with a great banquet. She gave out the finest of alcoholic drinks. Those at the banquet were Derevlian warriors and they all became extremely drunk. So drunk were they that Olga had them all slain.
Olga made war with the Derevlians. Her forces were powerful and the citizens of Derevlia were suffering far too much hunger. Olga wanted each household to send three sparrows and three pidgeons to her, so the Derevlian people agreed. They were wanting to end their pain and misery and succumb to Olga, wanting to please her so that she would be their queen regent. What Olga did next was have her armies attach sulfur dipped rags onto each bird, and have each one lit. The birds returned to the houses where they had nests. By then, the birds were on fire and every house burned to the ground, killing people inside. The next thing she did was visit Constantinople and there she converted to Christianity.
Olga is now a saint.     
    

The secrets of Calypso

Calypso was a nymph. Her mother was Pleione, a sea nymph, and her father was called Atlas, who was a titan. She’s been nicknamed “The Hidden One”, “Deceiver” and “to cover up”. She hides on her island, Ogygia. that is shrouded. Interestingly, her island means “Hell” in English as it comes from the Greek καλύπτω word. Why would a nymph live on a hidden island that means “Hell”?
 Before I go into that, I’ll explain that Calypso appears in Greek myth as a character in Homer’s “The Odyssey” saga. She kept Odysseus as her own prisoner play thing, and stopped him from completing his quest. Some accounts say she got pregnant by Odyseus and had a son called Latinus. The gods had to come to Odysseus’ rescue as his mission was important as well as Penelope, his wife, left all alone and missing him. Time went by considerably while he was on that island with Calypso.
I don’t think Calypso meant to deprive Odysseus. She was lonely and fell in love with him. Odeysseus couldn’t stay with her and that hurt her. The island she lived upon as a hermit goddess nymph was said to be almost exotic. It was full of lush plants, trees, flowers, animals, and also a burning fire in the middle. There were caves too. Why was it called “Hell” in ancient times? In etymology, the word hell just originally meant to describe a place of “fire” and “light”. The hearth in the island.
Ogygia was thought to be connected to Atlantis and might’ve been a fragment of the lost continent. Many can’t place where Ogygia is, some say it’s in Egypt, but many believe it’s part of Malta. There is a mythical and real cave called “Calypso Cave” found in the island of Gozo. Also Gozo is termed the “Island of Calypso”. Malta is said to have mysterious structures all possibly linked to Atlantis.  
Much of what we know about Calypso is in Greek myths and legends. I will share some interesting bits of factual details about what I've mentioned so far.
Details of Ogygia
Maltese myths and legends 
Underwater temples
I wanted to add something else too. Calypso seems to be linked here with Malta, Hell, Atlantis and a veiled island. Is it possible, hypethetically, that Calypso was able to create mist herself and cover up her island? Was she a magical being? Does this show any clues to the lost Atlantis island? With all the words involved, Hell/light/fire/hearth, then veiled island/Malta/Gozo/Atlantis, could be more than just a story. Was it an island or was it a very large ship such as an ancient ocean liner? Floating islands themselves are often icy drifts. Was Calypso's island an ice berg? It was said in the Bock Saga that the name Atlantis is a gathering of root words that meant "A Land of Ice". Snow and ice do reflect the sun and moon intensely. The word "Hell" wasn't fire then but ice, and it certainly is full of light. 
Floating green coloured plant rich drifting misty islands often appear in fresh water and bogs. Such islands can be artificially created such as shown HERE in the Biomatrix Water site on floating islands. These islands are small and delicate. They're not the same as Calypso's island where animals and people could live upon for the rest of their days. 
So it's my guess that Calypso did live on an island where she shrouded her palace in mist but also she travelled the sea on a beautiful boat. She was able to mystify and enchant even that. This myth proves to me that Calypso was a travelling nymph. Her incredible island could be Atlantis. Or a link to it. Or was she just a sailor who lived on the island of Malta? Could she also be somewhat connected to the British Isles and it's legends of small islands such as the Isle of Avalon? Avalon is a magical lost island, sometimes a land of spirits, shrouded in mist. It features in Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology. 
Interestingly, Avalon is the Isle of the Blessed, or Isle of Apples. There are myths of the Apples of the Hesperides and the Apples of Idunn. The Greek myth of the Hesperides positions this location in the far north (of Europe). This place is a beautiful garden with special gold apples all protected by a monstrous dragon and a group of nymphs called Hesperides. These Hesperides are daughters of Atlas the titan. Atlas is also father of Calypso. Calypso is a half sister to the Hesperides. They were nicknamed "Daughters of the Evening" and "Nymphs of the West". Goddess Idunn is a protectress of the golden apples in Norse myth. 
Island, mist, apples, spirits, sea, hell, light, fire. Calypso didn't guard the sacred golden apples. She was a queen on her own island and a seductress. She knew magic. She offered Odysseus to become immortal so that he could stay with her on the island but he refused. She kept him as her prisoner for seven years. To make him immortal she would need to have something that would alter him. Her half sisters guard the golden apples. She uses her own love charm s to keep Odysseus under her spell. Is Calypso not just a tale of a nymph but also of nature itself? What keeps a hero from doing his mission and finishing the job to head back home? Either magic or illness. Was Odysseus lured there to be a prisoner of Calypso? Or was he badly wounded and Calypso was just healing him? Calypso is a type of nature goddess and healer. 
Is she the Greek version of the Norse goddess Ran? In Norse myth, Ran is said to capture sailors and take them to her caverns. Ran's domain is said to be an island that is considered bright. She keeps men also like Calypso does. I wonder if perhaps Calypso and Ran are the same goddess? It's not strange to find "migrating" gods and goddess all over the world. Ran is said to be ruler of the watery afterlife and also linked to the lost lands sunken in the sea. There was an island in the North Sea that sunk. It's been called "Atlantis" by some and Doggerland by others. 
Conclusion:
I don't think Calypso meant to harm Odysseus. She was healing him but also she enjoyed his company and fell in love with him. Calypso let him go eventually when the gods had to intervene. Calypso is a nymph and goddess of the sea. She lives on an island shrouded in mist and mysteries. She's got links to Atlantis. If that could be the same Atlantis as told by Plato, then is there more to this? Calypso comes from an older time, long before ancient Greece. She's a relic of the prehistoric past when there were islands that don't exist by the time of Classical Greece. Her Norse counterpart is the goddess Ran. Calypso's sacred animal is a dolphin. She's the embodiment of the feminine ocean and a gentle, smaller being that is closely linked to light, purity, water and healing.