In 9th grade, part of our English class included Greek/Roman mythology. Brutal, brutal stories! Three-headed dogs and ladies with snakes for hair! Goddesses changing young girls into spiders and men into grasshoppers! Gods throwing temper tantrums and flinging lightning bolts into the earth. Kings killing off their daughters' suitors. Jealousy, infidelity, and revenge around every corner. I felt deeply grateful that this was mythology, way far back in an unlikely past, and that nothing that powerful and capricious was in our realm of experience.

But now sometimes I wonder.