In the complex mythology

William Blake's mythology

The prophetic books of the English poet and artist William Blake contain a rich invented mythology , in which Blake worked to encode his revolutionary spiritual and political ideas into a prophecy for a new age. This desire to recreate the cosmos is the heart of his work and his psychology...

 of William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

, Albion is the primeval man whose fall and division results in the Four Zoas: Urizen

Urizen

In the complex mythology of William Blake, Urizen is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional culture...

, Tharmas

Tharmas

In the mythological writings of William Blake, Tharmas is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents sensation, and his female counterpart is Enion, who represents sexual urges. He is connected to the God the Father aspect of the...

, Luvah

Luvah

In the mythological writings of William Blake, Luvah is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents love, passion, and rebellious energy. His Emanation is Vala; his fallen form is Orc. Throughout Blake's mythological system, he is...

/Orc

Orc (Blake)

Orc is a proper name for one of the characters in the complex mythology of William Blake. Unlike the medieval sea beast, or Tolkien's humanoid monster, his Orc is a positive figure, the embodiment of creative passion and energy, and stands opposed to Urizen, the embodiment of tradition.In Blake's...

, and Urthona

Urthona

In the mythological writings of William Blake, Urthona is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. Specifically, he is the Zoa of inspiration and creativity, and he is a blacksmith god. His female counterpart is Enitharmon...

/Los

Los (Blake)

In the mythological writings of William Blake, Los is the fallen form of Urthona, one of the four Zoas. He is referred to as the "eternal prophet" and creates the visionary city of Golgonooza. Los is regularly described as a smith, beating with his hammer on a forge, which is metaphorically...

. The name derives from the ancient and mythological name of Britain, Albion

Albion

Albion is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island or England in particular. It is also the basis of the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba...

.

Sources

In the mythical story of the founding of Britain

Prehistoric Britain

For the purposes of this article, Prehistoric Britain is that period of time between the first arrival of humans on the land mass now known as Great Britain and the start of recorded British history...

, Albion

Alebion

In Greek mythology, Alebion or Albion was a son of Poseidon and brother of Bergion who attacked Heracles with Dercynus when he passed through their country, Liguria in North-Western Italy, on his way back to Mycenae from Iberia having obtained the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour.The battle...

 was a Giant

Gigantes

In Greek mythology, the Giants were the children of Gaia, who was fertilized by the blood of Uranus, after Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus...

 son of Poseidon

Poseidon

Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

, the Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 god of the sea. He was a contemporary of Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

, who killed him. Albion founded a country on the island and ruled there. Britain, then called Albion after its founder, was inhabited by his Giant descendants until about 1100 years before Julius Cæsar's invasion of Britain, when Brutus of Troy

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

 came and defeated the small number of Giants that remained (as a group of the Giants had killed all the others).

According to another myth, Noah

Noah

Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...

's son Japhet had a son named Histion, who had four sons. Their names were Francus

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Romanus

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Brittos

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

, and Alemannus

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and the French, Roman, British, and German people are descended from them. Brittos

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

 divided Britain into three kingdoms and gave each to one of his sons. They were Loegria (a Latinization of the Welsh Lloegr, "England"), Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, and Cambria

Cambria

Cambria is the classical name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name Cymru . The etymology of Cymry "the Welsh", Cimbri, and Cwmry "Cumbria", improbably connected to the Biblical Gomer and the "Cimmerians" by 17th-century celticists, is now known to come from Old Welsh combrog...

.

The division of the primordial man is found in many mythic and mystic systems throughout the world, including Adam Kadmon

Adam Kadmon

In the religious writings of Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon is a phrase meaning "Primal Man". The oldest rabbinical source for the term "Adam ha-Ḳadmoni" is Num. R. x., where Adam is styled, not as usually, "Ha-Rishon" , "Ha-Kadmoni" ....

 in cabalism

Cabala

Cabala may refer to one of several systems of Mysticism:* Kabbalah, the religious mystical system of Judaism...

 and Prajapati

Prajapati

In Hinduism, Prajapati "lord of creatures" is a Hindu deity presiding over procreation, and protector of life. He appears as a creator deity or supreme God Viswakarma Vedic deities in RV 10 and in Brahmana literature...

 in the Rig-Veda.

Usage

The long, unfinished poem properly called Vala, or The Four Zoas

Vala, or The Four Zoas

Vala, or The Four Zoas refers to one of the incompleted prophetic books by English poet William Blake, begun in 1797. The titular main characters of the book are The Four Zoas: , who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology. It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights"...

expands the significance of the Zoas, but they are integral to all of Blake's prophetic books.

Blake's painting of a naked figure raising his arms, loosely based on Vitruvian Man

Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and...

, is now identified as a portrayal of Albion, following the discovery of a printed version with an inscription identifying the figure. It was formerly known as "Glad Day", since it was assumed by Alexander Gilchrist

Alexander Gilchrist

Alexander Gilchrist was the biographer of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography is still a standard reference work on the poet....

 to illustrate a quotation from Shakespeare.

Blake also uses the name Albion

Albion

Albion is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island or England in particular. It is also the basis of the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba...

 in its traditional meaning, as an ancient synonym for Britain, in his poem "A Little Boy Lost" in Songs of Experience. The poem tells about a young boy who, using reason, realizes that humans are selfish, and that "naught loves another as itself." He asks the priest, "father, how can I love you/ or any of my brothers more?/ I love you like the bird that picks up crumbs around the door." The priest accuses the boy of blasphemy, and burns him "in a holy place/ where many had been burned before." Blake concludes the poem by asking, "Are such things done on Albion's shore?"

Children

The Sons of Albion feature in the poem Jerusalem. They are 12, and are named as Hand, Hyle, Coban, Guantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd, Hutton, Scofield, Kox, Kotope, Bowen. These names are mostly drawn from figures from Blake's 1803 sedition trial.

The Daughters of Albion feature in Visions of the Daughters of Albion

Visions of the Daughters of Albion

Visions of the Daughters of Albion is a 1793 poem by William Blake, produced as a book with his own illustrations. It is a short and early example of his prophetic books, and a sequel of sorts to The Book of Thel....

, and other prophetic books

William Blake's prophetic books

The prophetic books of the English poet and artist William Blake are a series of difficult and obscure poetic works. While Blake worked as a commercial illustrator, these books were ones that he produced, with his own engravings, as an extended and largely private project...

. They are named, not consistently though, in The Four Zoas and in Jerusalem; they are mostly drawn from Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

.