THE GREAT THEMES OF MYTH

1. CREATION: Creation myths set the stage for more particular myths supporting social structures, the
relation of human beings to the natural world and questions of life and death. A creator deity brings
into being the sun, the moon and stars, seas and mountains, and so on, along with deities that
personify them, then plant life, animals, and humans that populate the world.

2. GODS AND GODDESSES: Universally, people believed in ideal beings leading them. Such deities
possess human characteristics, they have parents and offspring, and they belong to some social
grouping. An important role of mythology is to reinforce and justify relations of power and
leadership.

3. HEROIC FIGURES: Heroes and heroines are semi-divine beings: in many mythologies they have
superhuman powers through divine parentage; or they may have acquired divinity through their deeds as
men and women on earth, with the help of a deity, by use of magic weapons, or acquisition of magic
powers through ingenuity or trickery.

4. MONSTERS AND DEMONS: Monsters and demons are most familiar as the beings that a heroic
figure confronts and overcomes. They defy divine order both in their appearance – typically but not
invariably deformed or hideous – and in their actions, such as attacking or capturing a human or divine
victim.

5. ANIMALS: They are featured as wild creatures – predatory beasts or the elusive prey of hunters; or as
helpful beings tamed by humans, or as possessing powers. Deities may disguise themselves as
animals; or they may have heads or other features in token of the characteristics they supposed to
have in common, or of a clan fetish.

6. THE UNDERWORLD: Inevitably, associations with burial prompt tales of gloom and terror of the
unknown yet inevitable. A strong mythic duality: Earth swallows up the dead, but equally it produces
food plants and harbors mineral wealth.

7. JOURNEYS, QUESTS AND TRIALS: Quests and journeys bring mythological features in a number
of situations where they can prove their strength. In numerous myths loyalty to the dead initiates
journeys to the underworld to try to bring loved ones back to life.

8. THE AFTERLIFE: The afterlife, some form of existence after death, takes as many different forms in
mythologies as the culture from which they are drawn. After death comes judgement, a rigorous trial is
conducted, and torture awaits those who fail the trial.

9. WORLDS DESTROYED: Creation may be seen in myth as chance event or something that occurred
despite opposing forces; likewise, an end to the world in its present from may be inevitable or
 threatened, whether by divine will, as a result of attack by forces or evil, or in punishment for human
misdeeds.

THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE WORLD

1. Mesopotamian Mythology: The Assyro-Babylonian tradition had its core of mythology of the
Sumerians. The gods included Annu (sky), Enlil (storm) Enki (water), Ea (wisdom), Ishtar (fertility),
Erishkigal (underworld).
2. Canaanite Mythology: Canaan is here used in its biblical sense: Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. The
divinities included El (the creator), Baal (heavy rains).
3. Egyptian Mythology: The dying and rising vegetation of goods of both Mesopotamia and Canaan have
their counterpart in the Egyptian mythology. Osiris, Isis, and Horus are the deities.
4. Greek Mythology: The major deities were associated with the aspects of nature such as Zeus (sky and
thunder) or Poseidon (sea), and with abstract qualities, such as Athena (wisdom) or Apollo (arts,
healing, prophecy).
5. Roman Mythology: It incorporated those of conquered peoples but was in many respects and
adaptation of the Greeks. Juno, originally an Etruscan deity of the moon, protected the city of Rome.
Quirinus, a Sabine war dog, was assimilated to Romulus, defied mythical founder of Rome.
6. Celtic Mythology: Celtic mythology is preserved in Wales and Ireland which the Romans failed to
subdue. The druids and bards preserved the tradition of the people led by a warrior elite with spectacular
achievements in terms of conquest and plunder but without the organizational skills to consolidate an
empire.
7. Norse Mythology: Norse or Germanic mythology also glorifies battle but against a harsher natural
background: life derives from ice and fire and is ultimately consumed by them. The individual’s self-
sacrifice in the service of Odin (death and magic) who brings the reward of unlimited food and drink –
and more fighting – in Valhalla. Other gods are Thor, Frigg and Balder.
8. Mexican and South American Mythologies: The mythology of the warlike Aztec in Meso-America
also justified, bloodshed, though they adopted the practice of sacrifice for which they are so vilified
from the Toltecs, the first of many older civilizations that they overcame. The empire-builders of South
America, the Incas, like the Aztecs, considered themselves the elect of the gods, their ruler offspring of
the sun. The heavens, with astronomical observations and calendrics, dominated mythology.
9. Persian Mythology: Initially, Persian mythology reflected a life of warriors and of nomadic pastoralists
beginning to turn to agriculture in fertile pockets amid the harsh deserts and mountains. It supported a
cult held in the open air, sometimes on mountaintops, with the deities personifying beneficent and
destructive forces of nature. Later developments stressed this duality of the good and evil, light and dark
in constant battle.
10. Indian Mythology: The Vedic mythology of India, derived from the Aryans, also has Indra, a warrior
sky god, insuring fertilizing rain and dispatching earlier inhabitants of the new homeland and
demonizing them. Sacrifice and cult itself was deified developing an endless conflict of gods and
demons of Hinduism, together with cyclic creation, maintenance of the balance of good and evil, and
destruction to prepare the way for new creation.
 11. Chinese Mythology: Chinese mythology is rooted in its vast land, in veneration of its emperors, whose
good rule brought prosperity and was a mark of heavenly approval, and in reverence for ancestors, the
link between humans and gods. Three philosophies shaped Chinese mythology, (1) Taoism taught
that cosmic energy and all life in mystically compounded of yin (the negative, female principle)
and the yang (the complementary positive, male principle); (2) Confucianism upheld the
leadership of the emperor and aristocracy, with mythology showing the benefits of learning and
discipline; (3) Buddhism brought elements of Indian thought on reincarnation, the conflict of good
and evil, and judgment.
12. Japanese Mythology: Like in China, native mythology centered on land, and the establishment of
imperial dynasties was combined with Buddhist doctrine on death and the afterlife, ultimately from
India and related to Persian traditions, for example, Yama/Yima as first man and king/judge of the dead.

THEORIES RELATED TO THE STUDY OF MYTHOLOGY

ANCIENT THEORIES
1. Rationalism: According to this theory, myths represent an early form of logical thinking: they all, have
a logical base. For example, the myth of Pegasus, the flying horse can be best explained by
imagining the reaction of the first Greek to see a horse. Compared to other animals they know, the
horse has seemed to fly as it gallops fast and leap over high obstacles.
2. Etymological Theory: This theory states that all myths derived from and can be traced back to certain
words in the language. Sources of most mythological characters have their origins from the languages of
the world. Hades, for example, originally meant “unseen” but came to be eventually the name for
the god of the dead.
3. Allegorical Theory: In the allegorical explanation, all myths contain hidden meanings which the
narrative deliberately conceals or encodes. Examples: story of King Midas and his golden touch.
Allegorists offered this simple reason why stories were used in the first place rather than a simple
statement of the ideas they represented: the interested people who might not listen to emotionless
concepts but who could be attracted by imaginative narratives.
4. Euhemerism: Euhemerus, a Greek who lived from 325-275 BC, maintained that all myths arise from
historical events which were merely exaggerated.

MODERN THEORIES
1. Naturalism: In this hypothesis, all myths are thought to arise from an attempt to explain natural
phenomena. People who believe in this theory narrow the source of myths by tracing their origins from
the worship of the sun or the moon.
2. Ritualism: According to this theory, all myths are invented to accompany and explain religious ritual;
they describe the significant events which have resulted in a particular economy.
3. Diffusionism: The diffusionists maintain that all myths arose from a few major cultural centers and
spread throughout the world.
4. Evolutionism: Myth making occurs at a certain stage in the evolution of the human mind. Myths, are
thereof an essential part of all developing societies and the similarities from one culture to the next can
be explained by the relatively limited number of experiences open to such communities when myths
arise.
5. Freudianism: When Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, interpreted the dreams of his
parents, he found great similarities between them and the ancient myths. Freud believes that certain
infantiles are repressed, i.e. they are eliminated from the conscious mind but continues to exist
within the individual in some other form. Sometimes these feelings emerge into consciousness
under various disguises, one of which is the myth.
6. Jungian archetypes: Carl Jung was a prominent psychologist who, while he accepted Freud’s theory
about the origin of myths, did not believe that it went far in explaining the striking similarities between
the motifs found in ancient stories and those of his patients. He postulated that each of us possesses a
“collective unconscious” which we inherit genetically. It contains very general ideas, themes or
motifs which are passed along from one generation to another and are retained as part of our
human inheritance.
7. Structuralism: This theory is fairly recent development and is closely allied with the research of
linguists. According to this theory, all the human behavior, the way we eat, dress, speak, is patterned
into codes which have the characteristics of language. To understand the real meaning of myth,
therefore, we must analyze it linguistically.
8. Historical-critical theory: This theory maintains that there are a multitude of factors which influence
the origin and development of myths and that no single explanation will suffice. We must examine
each story individually to see how it began and evolved.