Mythic Tales, Lensography of Legends

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How Myths and Legends are Made

Myths are metaphors. If you read a myth literally you will miss the point. You will miss its higher truth.

Mythological narratives may or may not be based in fact. But is that really important? Tales of gods and monsters may seem as fairy tale to us, but they shaped the world of our ancestors and they shape the world we live in today.

Over the long, long years since we first sat round the campfire telling our stories to the young , countless tales have been told. Some of them have lasted.

Myths that fail to resonate with us, to inspire us, will just die out over time. The ones which last are those which persevere and project a timeless truth on our own journey .. for the journey of the mythic hero is the one we all make.

What is a Myth? 

Myth doesn't mean falsehood. We use the word 'myth' sometimes in modern speech when we really mean a lie, but that's not the real meaning.

Myths are considered true sacred stories that occurred in the remote past with gods and monsters as the principal characters.

People regarded them as truthful accounts of what happened in long ago times.

Myths explain aspects of the natural world and lay out rules for the customs and ideals of society.

What is a legend? 

Legends are stories based on human heroes who lived in the (relatively) recent past. To earlier people these stories were regarded as true but set in a different period of time than myths, a time less remote, in an historical world.

But legends are told by storytellers, generation after generation of storytellers. People who elaborated, decorated, devised side characters and sub-plots, added intricate detail and generally made the tale more thrilling, and more glorious.

An example of a Legendary Hero 

Herakles is better known as Hercules


Mostly we speak these days of Hercules, the Roman name for the son of Alcmene. He is a legend of course. A human hero, though it was said his father was Zeus.

Many stories grew up around Herakles. As an infant, he killed a serpent in his cradle. He shares this feat with the much later Alexander, Conqueror of the known world, indeed a number of legendary heroes manage to kill some serpent while they are still in swaddling clothes.

By the time Herakles was an adult, he had already killed a lion.

Unfortunately for Herakles, he lost his sanity and murdered his wife and three children. It was even more unfortunate for his wife and children but the story of the murders explains why the Hero had to consult with the Delphic Oracle on the correct procedure to regain his honour.

The Oracle, most wisely, told him to go elsewhere for tasks to complete in reparation, to Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, and serve him for twelve years.

And this where the tasks became known as the Twelve Labours of Herakles.

In the course of these labours, Herakles killed a number of savage beasts who were stealing livestock, stole some cattle himself, fought off neighbouring marauders and caused some natural formations which are still called by his name today.

Beowulf the Hero 

Beowulf defeated the monsters of the night

featured lens Beowulf, Ancient Hero

In the face of danger and adversity they display impressive courage for the greater good of all. They are Heroes. We have always had heroes and Beowulf, great Scandinavian warrior of the sixth century, is the ultimate hero. He is not just any hero,...

Kupe The Hero 

Kupe carved the landscape

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Five thousand years ago, the first voyagers set out from Southeast Asia into the most forbidding ocean of all. They crossed a vastness greater than all the seas combined, an endless expanse larger than the whole land area of our planet - the awesome...

Legendary Lovers 

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The tale of the Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne is an epic story of wilful love, broken trust, relentless passion and ultimate tragedy. Like all such stories which live a long life,and this story is at least seventeen centuries old, it concerns a lo...

featured lens Pyramus and Thisbe : Legendary Love Stories

Two, by themselves, each other, love and fear, Slain, cruel friends, by parting have join'd here. Pyramus and Thisbe is the oldest love story in the world - and it's a tragedy. This is a familiar tale to all of us although we may not instantly reco...

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While we're on the subject of love ... 

featured lens Zeus the Thunderer : Tales of the Ancient Greeks

Zeus was the supreme god and ruler of Olympus with titles like Lord of the Sky, Cloud- gatherer, Rain-god and Zeus the Thunderer. He was mighty, glorious, awesome, wise and mythology's most well-known philanderer. Through this less than noble behavi...

Another dysfunctial god 

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Poseidon was the second most powerful god of the Olympians and yet another example of the dysfunctional male divinities who plagued Greece with their childish and boorish behaviour. Despite his lamentable ways (or perhaps because of them), Poseidon...

Joseph Campbell 

Mythology is more than just the tales we have inherited from Homer, or the brilliant Sagas of the Norsemen. It is even something more than "other people's religion," as Joseph Campbell used to joke..

"A whole mythology is an organization of symbolic images and narratives, metaphorical of the possibilities of human experience and the fulfillment of a given culture at a given time" Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Myths speak to somewhere deep in our unconscious mind and, if we are lucky, they will instinctively guide our development.

Favourite mythology books 

The Man of the Woods 

featured lens The Green Man

He is the Green Man, Cernunnos, the Horned One, Jack in the Green, Green George and the Old Man of the Woods. He is the archetypal male essence, the thrusting life force, the potent initiator whose body is wild nature itself, the vitality of the for...

 

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Eve is reported to have bitten into one, or perhaps it was a quince. Hera gave some to her husband for a wedding gift, or maybe they were lemons. Golden Apples are a familiar element in legends and folk tales. Usually, a hero has to retrieve them to...

From the North 

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The Gods of the Norse pantheon are red-blooded and unbending. They didn't waste their time lying around on silken couches in the balmy air of Mt Olympus with their Greek counterparts. They traveled far from their icy shores and snow-shrouded woods t...

How Mythology Shifts to Reflect Society 

It's not so much that society will follow its mythology, the opposite can be seen in that most well known of Western Myth - the Greek.

The Greeks changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture, we see this in their mythology.

The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human shape and entered the local mythology as gods and goddesses.

When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Stories of murder and rape are now common, symbolic of the overthrow of the earlier peoples... the older deities died, or were fused with those of the more powerful invaders.

Mythological and Legendary Tales 

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Mythological Menagerie 

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Bast 

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Mars 

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Best Books on Myths and Legends 

featured lens Best Books on the Legend of King Arthur

From the faraway days of Britain come the stories rooted in ancient Celtic and Germanic imagination, stories of the strongest, the bravest and the best. Tales that have been told and endlessly retold, tales of a chivalrous knight, a powerful warrior...

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The Norse myths are peopled with all sorts of fantastic beings - gods and giants, elves, dwarves and dragons! Like all mythology, if we pay close attention to what the stories are saying, we learn a great deal about what our ancestors thought was im...

 

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10% of my income goes to continue the work of Fred Hollows in treating avoidable blindness and improving indigenous health.

Photo : Khim Rath, who can now see after a successful cataract operation, Kampong Chhnang province, Cambodia.

Blindness is a significant public health issue in Cambodia. Over 160,000 people are blind and an additional 20,000 become blind each year. The main cause of blindness is cataract, which can be treated by a simple 15 minute operation at an average cost of $25 (AUD$35).

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Thanks very much for dropping by to read about Myths and Legends. You're more than welcome to leave a note in the guest book above and, if you're a member of Squidoo, you can also rate this lens :)

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About Susanna Duffy 

Lensmaster susannaduffy has been a member since September 25 2006, has rated 4,111 lenses, favorited 159, and has created 211 lenses from scratch. This member's top-ranked page is "Christmas in Australia". See all my lenses

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