Public Domain Artifact: Difference between revisions

Stonehenge is a real place (and it's not the only such circle in Britain, either), but it gets ascribed all sorts of mystic powers in fiction<ref>Of the many theories of its purpose, on of the most widely believed is that it was used to tell what time of year it is. That's right, it's a ''calendar''! To be honest, keeping track of the seasons was incredibly important in the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones.</ref>. Nor is it the only one in the world. There's one, also of unknown origin, in Michigan. [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_circle:Stone circle#Distribution |Stone circles]] seem to have been popular with [http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/carahunge.htm everybody's] ancestors. This isn't just a British/Irish trope.

* In the first part of the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' season 5 finale, [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 E12 The Pandorica Opens|The Pandorica Opens]], Stonehenge is {{spoiler|the location of the Pandorica}}. It also mentioned much earlier in [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S2 E9 The Time Meddler|The Time Meddler]], where a Time Lord, the Monk, claims to have used anti-grav machines to help the construction of it.

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Petaja:Emil Petaja|Emil Petaja]] wrote a series of stories based on the ''Kalevala''. I believe ''The Star Mill'' relates to the Sampo.

* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' had several depictions of Atlantis over the years: one was in the Second Doctor serial ''The Underwater Menace'', and the other was the Third Doctor serial ''The Time Monster''.

* Pandora's Box also showed up in a last season episode of ''[[Charmed]]'', with a superpowered Guardian ([[Viewers are Morons|named "Hope"]]) who was to protect it so that demons (or anyone really) would not be able to open it and release the ills within. Naturally said Guardian knew nothing about all this and had to go through a (relatively short) [[How Do I Shot Web?]] bit before she could save the world. Interestingly, since the Box had already been opened long ago to originally release its contents, doing so now merely intensified the bad traits of humanity--which, aside from the obvious negative consequences, helped to tilt the balance of power toward evil.

* In ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', the Pandorica plays with the general concept of the trope; the device itself is based upon the ''legend'' of Pandora's Box (Amy's favorite story). It was made to hold the worst nightmare the Universe has ever seen (the Doctor), [[Subverted Trope|but, in its own strange way, it ended up containing Hope as well]].

In [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter:The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter|Kaguya-Hime, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter]] the title character is approached by princely suitors and she provides them with five [[Impossible Task|Impossible Tasks]], the recovery of certain mystical treasures. The five artifacts were the stone begging bowl of Buddha of India, a jeweled branch from the island of Hourai, the pelt of the fire-rat from China, a colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Cowrie |cowrie]] which was born from swallows. Though some of the more clever suitors attempt to pass-off normal items as the fantastic ones in question, all of the suitors are rebuffed.

The Shroud of Turin, unsurprisingly, has also appeared at least a time or two in fiction of recent years, usually with the implication that it has enormous mystical power. Test results that date it to the late [[Middle Ages]] are [[Rule of Cool|generally ignored]]. Similarly, there's Veronica's Veil -- a cloth that the eponymous Veronica wiped Jesus' brow with as he was marched to Golgotha, and which was imprinted with his image. Some scholars believe the Veil may have been the Shroud of Turin, just folded so only the image of the face appeared. There's been recent evidence to suggest that the original results from 1988 were either the results of bias or poor data sampling. [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin:Shroud of Turin|See the "chemical properties of the sample site" under the "Analysis of the Shroud"]]

* ''[[Digimon Tamers (Anime)|Digimon Tamers]]'': Most of Dukemon's arsenal consists of weapons named after legendary weapons of Norse mythology. In his base form he wields a lance called Gram, and as [[Eleventh -Hour Superpower|Crimson Mode]] he wields dual [[Energy Weapon|energy weapons]] named Blutgang and Gungnir. In [[All There in the Manual|expanded universe material]], his [[Evil Counterpart]] [[Palette Swap]] ChaosDukemon instead calls his lance Balmung.

* This appears in ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'', but changed in the English translation to "[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Mega_Therion:To Mega Therion|Tomegathericon]]".