Pure myth is both primitive science and primitive religion. Most modern scholars divide the subject into three principal categories: pure myth, heroic saga, and the folk tale. Every mythology has its obscurities, inconsistencies, and absurdities, but the crucial point is that myths attempt to give form to the cosmos and meaning to human life. The crude mythology of an Australian tribe the priestly mythologies of Egypt, Babylonia, and India the liberating mythology of Greece and Rome and the heroic mythology of Scandinavia - all offer a way of apprehending reality, of making sense of nature and human life, no matter how irrational they might appear to us. It does this through narrative, through memorable stories that deal with matters that perplex and intrigue primitive man. Any body of myths tries to give a comprehensive account of the world and of the people to whom it belongs. In their vital stage, when they are accepted as truth, myths represent the learning of a society, its accumulated knowledge and wisdom. A culture, after all, can never abandon its age-old traditions without undergoing disintegration. And even where reason is predominant, as it was in classical Greece, the imagination still exerts a strong hold on one's beliefs. In a society where reason is poorly developed or nonexistent, the imagination is the only arbiter of truth. However, the primary appeal of myth is to the imagination, to man's intuitive faculty. It would seem to presuppose much ignorance and gullibility. It must seem incredible to us, conditioned as we are by materialism and scientific rationality, that the ancient Greeks for the most part could take seriously a philandering deity like Zeus, an incredible hero like Perseus, or a monster like the Medusa. And when they were regarded skeptically writers reshaped them to make them more probable and humane.įorget for the moment that the myths of other cultures are considerably more bizarre and savage. Even in the sophisticated, intelligent culture of classical Greece myths were frequently viewed as actualities. They are not presented as engaging fictions but as fact. Very often myths are accepted as the literal truth. Usually they have been shaped by the folk imagination. While some may have originated with shamans, priests, or poets, myths belong to a primitive or pre-scientific people as their cultural heritage. Myths are generally stories that have been handed down for generations, popular tales that embody a collective knowledge. Yet, on the whole, myths have a certain dignity and eloquence precisely because they do grapple with important matters. It is easy to forget this in reading about the many absurd, barbaric, comic, grotesque, or sentimental occurrences in various mythologies. In short, myths largely deal with the significant aspects of human and super-human existence. And myths treat the lives of heroes who represent the ideals of a society. They provide a moral code by which to live. They depict the relationships between various gods and between gods and men. Myths often relate the creation of the world and sometimes its future destruction as well. In the broadest terms myths are traditional stories about gods, kings, and heroes. The simplest and most direct way to approach mythology is to look at its subject matter.
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