A GOTHIC ANCESTOR

 I'm still working, perhaps just for my own amusement, on my book re: the superhero idiom, and decided to elide this example of what I'm currently calling "the supermundane."

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Since Sumerian literature remains fairly obscure, I can better contrast the two supermundane modes with examples taken from the better-known culture of archaic Greece. For most persons, Greek mythology is a major source of the Greater Supermundane, thanks to the Greeks’ adaptation of even their most obscure myths into drama and poetry. The exploits of figures like Heracles, Jason and Odysseus hardly need to be outlined here. But a few stories anticipate later developments in the Lesser Supermundane. In Gothic fiction, one major trope is that of deceivers who use devices to fake ghosts or demon-hounds, and this trope is loosely prefigured by the tale of King Salmoneus. The monarch conceives that he is the earthly avatar of Zeus, and he tries to emulate the Thunder-God by flourishing torches for “lightning” and using noisemakers to simulate “thunder.” The story doesn’t mention whether Salmoneus fools any of his subjects. In any case, the real Zeus disapproves of the imposture and wipes out both the king and his city.