Myth

Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in

society, such as foundational tales. The main characters in myths are usually gods,
demigods or supernatural humans.[1][2][3] Myths are often endorsed by rulers and
priests and are closely linked to religion or spirituality.[1] In fact, many societies
group their myths, legends and history together, considering myths to be true
accounts of their remote past.[1][2][4][5] Creation myths particularly, take place in a
primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form.[1][6][7] Other myths
explain how a society's customs, institutions and taboos were established and
sanctified.[1][7] There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and
enactment of rituals.

The study of myth began in ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by
Most cultures across the globe have
Euhemerus, Plato and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists and later
some form of mythology.
revived by Renaissance mythographers. Today, the study of myth continues in a
wide variety of academic fields, including folklore studies, philology, and
psychology. The term mythology may either refer to the study of myths in general, or a body of myths regarding a particular subject.
The academic comparisons of bodies of myth is known ascomparative mythology.

Contents
Definitions
Myth
Mythology
Mythography
Mythos
Mythopoeia
Origins of the terms myth and mythology
Meanings in Ancient Greece
Interpreting myths
Comparative mythology
Functionalism
Euhemerism
Allegory
Personification
Myth-ritual theory
History of the academic discipline
Ancient Greece
European Renaissance
Nineteenth century
Twentieth century
Twenty-first century
Modern mythology
See also
Notes
References
 External links

Definitions

Myth
Definitions of myth to some extent vary by scholar. Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko
offers a widely cited definition:

Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the

world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the
gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created Ballads of bravery (1877) part of
Arthurian mythology
together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still
obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values
and norms, it provides a pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies
to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the
sanctity of cult.[8]

Scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways.[9][10][11] In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional
story,[12][13][14] popular misconceptionor imaginary entity.[15]

However, while myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale
in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives.[16][17] Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories, are not considered true by
anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason.[18][19][20] Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or
supernatural humans,[1][2][3] while legends generally feature humans as their main characters.[1] However, many exceptions or
combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.[21][22] Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change,
myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants, elves and
faeries.[2][23][24] Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter
of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table)[25]
and the Matter of France, seem distantly to originate in historical events of the fifth and eighth-centuries respectively, and became
mythologised over the following centuries.

In colloquial use, the word myth can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story.[26] This
usage, which is often pejorative,[27] arose from labeling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has
spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well.[28] However, as commonly used by folklorists and academics in other relevant fields,
[29]
such as anthropology, the term myth has no implication whether the narrative may be understood as true or otherwise.

Since the term myth is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be
highly political: many adherents of religions view their religion's stories as true and therefore object to the stories being characterised
as myths. Nevertheless, scholars now routinely speak of Christian mythology, Jewish mythology, Islamic mythology, Hindu
mythology, and so forth. Traditionally, Western scholarship, with its Judaeo-Christian heritage, has viewed narratives in the
Abrahamic religions as being the province of theology rather than mythology; meanwhile, identifying religious stories of colonised
cultures, such as stories in Hinduism, as myths enabled Western scholars to imply that they were of lower truth-value than the stories
of Christianity. Labelling all religious narratives asmyths can be thought of as treating different traditions with parity.[30]

Mythology
In present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths.[31]
For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures.
Folklorist Alan Dundes defines myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present form.
Dundes classified a sacred narrative as "a story that serves to define the fundamental worldview of a culture by explaining aspects of
the natural world and delineating the psychological and social practices and ideals of a society".[32] Anthropologist Bruce Lincoln
defines myth as "ideology in narrative form."[33][34]

Mythography
The compilation or description of myths is sometimes known asmythography, a term which can also be used of a scholarly anthology
of myths (or, confusingly, of the study of myths generally).[35] Key mythographers in the Classical tradition include Ovid (43 BCE–
17/18 CE), whose tellings of myths have been profoundingly influential; Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, a Latin writer of the late fifth
to early sixth centuries, whose Mythologies (Latin: Mitologiarum libri III) gathered and gave moralistic interpretations of a wide
range of myths; the anonymous medieval Vatican Mythographers, who developed anthologies of Classical myths that remained
influential to the end of the Middle Ages; and the Renaissance scholar Natalis Comes, whose ten-book Mythologiae became a
standard source for classical mythology in later Renaissance Europe.[36] Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-
century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the
Middle Ages.

Mythos
Because myth is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted to use the term mythos instead.[32] However, mythos
now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to 'a body of interconnected myths or stories, esp[ecially]
those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition'.[37] It is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies,
such as the world building of H.P. Lovecraft.

Mythopoeia
"Conscious generation" of mythology was termed mythopoeia by, amongst others, J.R.R. Tolkien.[38][39] It was notoriously also
suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

Origins of the terms myth and mythology

The word myth comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος [mȳthos], meaning 'speech,
narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used
in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early
nineteenth century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for 'a traditional
story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and
provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early
[40]
history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon'.

In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία [mythología] ("story," "lore," "legends," "the

Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus'
telling of stories") combines the word mȳthos with the suffix -λογία [-logia]
Song, by Francesco Hayez, 1813–15
("study"), and meant 'romance, fiction, story-telling'.[41] Accordingly, Plato used
mythología as a general term for "fiction" or "story-telling" of any kind.

The Greek term mythología was then borrowed intoLatin. Late Latin mythologia, which occurs in the title of Latin author Fulgentius'
fifth-century Mythologiæ, denoted the explication of Greek and Roman stories about their gods, which we now call classical
mythology. Fulgentius's Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true
events.[42]
The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word
"mythology" in the fifteenth century, at first in the sense 'the exposition of a myth or myths; the interpretation of fables; a book of
such expositions'. The word is first attested inJohn Lydgate's Troy Book of c. 1425.[43][45][46]

From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was used to mean a moral, fable, allegory or a parable, or
collection of traditional stories,[43][48] understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories
among other polytheistic cultures around the world.[43]

Thus the word mythology entered the English language before the word "myth"; Johnson's Dictionary, for example, has an entry for
mythology, but not for myth. [51] Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos[53] (pl. mythoi) and Latinate mythus[55] (pl. mythi) both
appeared in English before the first example ofmyth in 1830.[58]

Meanings in Ancient Greece

The term μῦθος (mythos) appears in the works of Homer and other poets of Homer's era.[59] In these works, the term had several
meanings: conversation, narrative, speech, story
, tale, and word.

Like the related term λόγος (logos), mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words; these can be contrasted with
ἔργον (ergon), a Greek term for action, deed, and work.[59] The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false
narratives.[59]

In the context of the theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a play.[60]
According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable
[60]
falsehoods to stories with religious and symbolic significance.

According to philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos.[60] The term mythos was also used
for the source material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, a body of
"traditional storylines" which concernedgods and heroes.[60] David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can
be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were already familiar with the mythos behind a play, and
could predict the outcome of the play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths
when adapting them for the stage. They were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions.[60] Storytellers like Euripides
(c. 480–406 BCE) relied on suspense to excite their audiences. In one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her son's murderer with
an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of audience reactions to this work,
the audience members were genuinely unsure of whether she would commit filicide or she will be stopped in time. They rose to their
feet in terror and caused an uproar.[60]

David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition. The Greeks of this era
were a literate culture, but produced no sacred texts. There were no definitive or authoritative versions of myths recorded in texts and
preserved forever in an unchanging form.[61] Instead multiple variants of myths were in circulation. These variants were adapted into
songs, dances, poetry, and visual art. Performers of myths could freely reshape their source material for a new work, adapting it to the
[61]
needs of a new audience or in response to a new situation.

Children in Ancient Greece were familiar with traditional myths from an early age. According to the philosopher Plato (c. 428–347
BCE), mothers and nursemaids narrated myths and stories to the children in their charge: David Wiles describes them as a repository
of mythological lore.[61]

Bruce Lincoln has called attention to the apparent meaning of the terms mythos and logos in the works of Hesiod. In Theogony,
Hesiod attributes to the Muses the ability to both proclaim truths and narrate plausible falsehoods (falsehoods which seem like real
things).[62] The verb used for narrating the falsehoods in the text is legein, which is etymologically associated with logos. There are
two variants in the manuscript tradition for the verb used to proclaim truths. One variant uses gerusasthai, the other mythesasthai.
The latter is a form of the verb mytheomai (to speak, to tell), which is etymologically associated with mythos.[62] In the Works and
Days, Hesiod describes his dispute with his brother Perses. He also announces to his readers his intention to tell true things to his
brother. The verb he uses for telling the truth ismythesaimen, another form of mytheomai.[62]

Lincoln draws the conclusion that Hesiod associated the "speech of mythos" (as Lincoln calls it) with telling the truth. While he
associated the "speech of logos" with telling lies, and hiding one's true thoughts (dissimulation).[62] This conclusion is strengthened
by the use of the plural term logoi (the plural form of logos) elsewhere in Hesiod's works. Three times the term is associated with the
term "seductive" and three times with the term "falsehoods".[62] In his genealogy of the gods, Hesiod lists logoi among the children
of Eris, the goddess personifying strife. Eris' children are ominous figures, which personify various physical and verbal forms of
conflict.[62]

Interpreting myths

Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that
are common to the myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between separate
mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common
"protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture.[63]

Functionalism
A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one
of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior[64][65] and that myths may provide a religious experience. By
telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age,
thereby coming closer to the divine.[4][65][66]

Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society reenacts a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age. For
example, it might reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.[8]
Similarly, Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human
morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological
present.[67]

Pattanaik defines mythology as "a subjective truth of people that is communicated through stories, symbols and rituals". He adds,
"unlike fantasy that is nobody’s truth, and history that seeks to be everybody’s truth, mythology is somebody’s truth."[68]

Euhemerism
One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of historical events.[69][70] According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly
elaborate upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gain the status of gods.[69][70] For example, the myth of the
wind-god Aeolus may have evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret the winds.[69]
Herodotus (fifth-century BCE) and Prodicus made claims of this kind.[70] This theory is named euhemerism after mythologist
[70][71]
Euhemerus (c. 320 BCE), who suggested that Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.

Allegory
Some theories propose that myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents the sun, Poseidon represents water,
and so on.[70] According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise
judgment, Aphrodite desire, and so on.[70] Müller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed myths began as allegorical
descriptions of nature and gradually came to be interpreted literally. For example, a poetic description of the sea as "raging" was
[72]
eventually taken literally and the sea was then thought of as a raging god.

Personification
Some thinkers claimed that myths result from the personification of objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients
worshiped natural phenomena, such as fire and air, gradually deifying them.[73] For example, according to this theory, ancients
tended to view things as gods, not as mere objects.[74] Thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, giving rise to
myths.[75]

Myth-ritual theory
According to the myth-ritual theory, myth is tied to ritual.[76] In its most extreme form, this theory claims myths arose to explain
rituals.[77] This claim was first put forward by Smith,[78] who argued that people begin performing rituals for reasons not related to
myth. Forgetting the original reason for a ritual, they account for it by inventing a myth and claiming the ritual commemorates the
events described in that myth.[79] Frazer claimed that humans started out with a belief in magical rituals; later, they began to lose
[80]
faith in magic and invented myths about gods, reinterpreting their rituals as religious rituals intended to appease the gods.

History of the academic discipline

Historically, important approaches to the study of mythology have included those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lévy-
Bruhl, Lévi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and theMyth and Ritual School.[81]

Ancient Greece
The critical interpretation of myth began with the Presocratics.[82] Euhemerus was one of the
most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical
events – distorted over many retellings. Sallustius[83] divided myths into five categories –
theological, physical (or concerning natural laws), animistic (or concerning soul), material,
and mixed. Mixed concerns myths that show the interaction between two or more of the
previous categories and are particularly used in initiations.

Plato famously condemned poetic myth when discussing education in the Republic. His
critique was primarily on the grounds that the uneducated might take the stories of gods and
heroes literally. Nevertheless, he constantly referred to myths throughout his writings. As
Platonism developed in the phases commonly called Middle Platonism and neoplatonism,
writers such as Plutarch, Porphyry, Proclus, Olympiodorus, and Damascius wrote explicitly
[84]
about the symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths.

Mythological themes were consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer. The
resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself becoming part Myths and legends of
of a body of myths (Cupid and Psyche). Medieval romance in particular plays with this Babylonia and Assyria
process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism, as stated earlier, refers to the (1916)
rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into
pragmatic contexts. An example of this would be following a cultural or religious paradigm
shift (notably the re-interpretation ofpagan mythology followingChristianization).

European Renaissance
Interest in polytheistic mythology revived during the Renaissance, with early works of mythography appearing in the sixteenth
century, among them the Theologia Mythologica(1532).
Nineteenth century
The first modern, Western scholarly theories of myth appeared
during the second half of the nineteenth century[82] — at the same
time as the word myth was adopted as a scholarly term in European
languages.[40] They were driven partly by a new interest in Europe's
ancient past and vernacular culture, associated with Romantic
This panel by Bartolomeo di Giovannirelates the
Nationalism and epitomised by the research of Jacob Grimm (1785–
second half of the Metamorphoses. In the upper
1863). This movement drew European scholars' attention not only to left, Jupiter emerges from clouds to order Mercury
Classical myths, but also material now associated with Norse to rescue Io.[85][86]
mythology, Finnish mythology, and so forth. Western theories were
also partly driven by Europeans' efforts to comprehend and control
the cultures, stories and religions they were encountering through colonialism. These encounters included both extremely old texts
such as the Sanskrit Rigveda and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and current oral narratives such as mythologies of the indigenous
peoples of the Americasor stories told in traditional African religions.[87]

The intellectual context for nineteenth-century scholars was profoundly shaped by emerging ideas about evolution. These ideas
included the recognition that many Eurasian languages—and therefore, conceivably
, stories—were all descended from a lost common
ancestor (the Indo-European language) which could rationally be reconstructed through the comparison of its descendant languages.
They also included the idea that cultures might evolve in ways comparable to species.[87] In general, nineteenth-century theories
framed myth as a failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science
within a unilineal framework that imagined that human cultures are travelling, at different speeds, along a linear path of cultural
development.[88]

One of the dominant mythological theories of the later nineteenth century was "nature mythology", whose foremost exponents
included Max Müller and Edward Burnett Tylor. This theory posited that "primitive man" was primarily concerned with the natural
world. It tended to interpret myths that seemed distasteful European Victorians—for example tales about sex, incest, or cannibalism
—as being metaphors for natural phenomena like agricultural fertility.[89] Unable to conceive impersonal natural laws, early humans
tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, giving rise to animism. According to Tylor, human
thought evolved through stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas.[90] Müller also saw
myth arising from language, even calling myth a "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract
nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages. Anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually
taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were in actuality conscious beings or gods.[72] Not all scholars, not even all
nineteenth-century scholars, accepted this view. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed "the primitive mentality is a condition of the human
mind, and not a stage in its historical development."[91] Recent scholarship, noting the fundamental lack of evidence for "nature
mythology" interpretations among people who actually circulated myths, has likewise abandoned the key ideas of "nature
mythology".[92][93]

James George Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural
law: this idea was central to the "myth and ritual" school of thought.[94] According to Frazer, humans begin with an unfounded belief
in impersonal magical laws. When they realize applications of these laws do not work, they give up their belief in natural law in favor
of a belief in personal gods controlling nature, thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, humans continue practicing formerly
magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally humans come to realize nature
follows natural laws, and they discover their true nature through science. Here again, science makes myth obsolete as humans
[80]
progress "from magic through religion to science."

Segal asserted that by pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories imply modern humans must abandon
myth.[95]

Twentieth century
The earlier twentieth century saw major work developing psychoanalytical approaches to
interpreting myth, led by Sigmund Freud, who, drawing inspiration from Classical myth,
began developing the concept of the Oedipus complex in his 1899 The Interpretation of
Dreams. Jung likwise tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung asserted
that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called
archetypes. He believed similarities between the myths of different cultures reveals the
existence of these universal archetypes.[96]

The mid-twentieth century saw the influential development of a structuralist theory of

mythology, led by Lévi-Strauss. Strauss argued that myths reflect patterns in the mind and
interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites
(good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than unconscious feelings or urges.[97] Meanwhile,
Bronislaw Malinowski developed analyses of myths focusing on their social functions in the
real world. He is associated with the idea that myths such as origin stories might provide a
"mythic charter"—a legitimisation—for cultural norms and social institutions.[98] Thus,
Prometheus (1868) by
following the Structuralist Era (roughly the 1960s to 1980s), the predominant anthropological
Gustave Moreau. In the
and sociological approaches to myth increasingly treated myth as a form of narrative that can
mythos of Hesiodus and
be studied, interpreted and analyzed like ideology, history and culture. In other words, myth is possibly Aeschylus (the
a form of understanding and telling stories that is connected to power, political structures, and Greek trilogy Prometheus
political and economic interests. These approaches contrast with approaches such as those of Bound, Prometheus
Joseph Campbell and Eliade that hold that myth has some type of essential connection to Unbound and Prometheus
Pyrphoros), Prometheus is
ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics. In particular, myth was studied in
bound and tortured for
relation to history from diverse social sciences. Most of these studies share the assumption
giving fire to humanity
that history and myth are not distinct in the sense that history is factual, real, accurate, and
truth, while myth is the opposite.

In the 1950s, Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies,
which stood as an early work in the emerging post-structuralist approach to mythology, which recognised myths' existence in the
modern world and in popular culture.[99]

The twentieth century saw rapid secularisation in Western culture. This made Western scholars more willing to analyse narratives in
the Abrahamic religions as myths; theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann argued that a modern Christianity needed to
demythologize;[100] and other religious scholars embraced the idea that the mythical status of Abrahamic narratives was a legitimate
feature of their importance.[95] This, in his appendix to Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, and in The Myth of the Eternal Return, Eliade
attributed modern humans’ anxieties to their rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred. The Christian theologian Conrad Hyers
wrote that

...myth today has come to have negative connotations which are the complete opposite of its meaning in a religious
context... In a religious context, however, myths are storied vehicles of supreme truth, the most basic and important
truths of all. By them people regulate and interpret their lives and find worth and purpose in their existence. Myths
put one in touch with sacred realities, the fundamental sources of being, power, and truth. They are seen not only as
being the opposite of error but also as being clearly distinguishable from stories told for entertainment and from the
workaday, domestic, practical language of a people. They provide answers to the mysteries of being and becoming,
mysteries which, as mysteries, are hidden, yet mysteries which are revealed through story and ritual. Myths deal not
only with truth but with ultimate truth.[101]

Twenty-first century
Both in nineteenth-century research that tended to see existing records of stories and folklore as imperfect fragments of partially lost
myths, and in twentieth-century structuralist work that sought to identify underlying patterns and structures in often diverse versions
of a given myth, there had been a tendency to synthesise sources to attempt to reconstruct what scholars supposed to be more perfect
or underlying forms of myths. From the late twentieth century, however, researchers influenced by postmodernism tended instead to
argue that each account of a given myth has its own cultural significance and meaning, and argued that rather than representing
degradation from a once more perfect form, myths are inherently plastic and variable.[102] There is, consequently, no such thing as
the 'original version' or 'original form' of a myth. One prominent example of this movement was A.K. Ramanujan's essay Three
Hundred Ramayanas.[103]

Correspondingly, scholars challenged the precedence that had once been given to texts as a medium for mythology, arguing that other
[104]
media, such as the visual arts or even landscape and place-naming, could be as or more important.

Modern mythology
In modern society, myth is often regarded as a collection of stories. Scholars in the
field of cultural studies research how myth has worked itself into modern discourses.
Mythological discourse can reach greater audiences than ever before via digital
media. Various mythic elements appear intelevision, cinema and video games.[105]

Although myth was traditionally transmitted through the oral tradition on a small
scale, the film industry has enabled filmmakers to transmit myths to large audiences
1929 Belgian banknote, depicting via film.[106] In Jungian psychology myths are the expression of a culture or
Ceres, Neptune and caduceus society’s goals, fears, ambitions and dreams.[107]

The basis of modern visual storytelling is rooted in the mythological tradition. Many
contemporary films rely on ancient myths to construct narratives. The Walt Disney Company is well-known among cultural study
scholars for "reinventing" traditional childhood myths.[108] While many films are not as obvious as Disney fairy tales, the plots of
many films are based on the rough structure of myths. Mythological archetypes, such as the cautionary tale regarding the abuse of
technology, battles between gods and creation stories, are often the subject of major film productions. These films are often created
under the guise of cyberpunk action films, fantasy, dramas and apocalyptic tales.[109]

21st-century films such as Clash of the Titans, Immortals and Thor continue the trend of mining traditional mythology to frame
modern plots. Authors use mythology as a basis for their books, such as Rick Riordan, whose Percy Jackson and the Olympians
series is situated in a modern-day world where theGreek deities are manifest.[110]

See also
Basque mythology
Bengali mythology
Buddhist mythology
Celtic mythology
Chinese mythology
Christian mythology
Egyptian mythology
Greek mythology
Hindu mythology
Hittite mythology
Inca mythology
Irish mythology
Islamic mythology
Japanese mythology
Jewish mythology
Korean mythology
 Magic and mythology
Maya mythology
Norse mythology
Religion and mythology
Roman mythology
Slavic mythology
Tahiti and Society Islands mythology

Mythopoeia, artificially constructed mythology, mainly for the purpose of storytelling

Notes
1. Bascom 1965, p. 9.
2. "myths", A Dictionary of English Folklore
3. Doniger O'Flaherty, Wendy (1975). Hindu Myths (https://books.google.com/books?id=Af7TFlN5hmsC&lpg=PP1&pg=
PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false). Penguin. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-14-044306-6. "I think it can be well argued as a matter of
principle that, just as 'biography is about chaps', so mythology is about gods.
"
4. Eliade 1998, p. 23.
5. Pettazzoni 1984, p. 102.
6. Dundes 1984, p. 1.
7. Eliade 1998, p. 6.
8. Honko, Lauri (1984). "The Problem of Defining Myth"(https://books.google.com/books?id=l5Om2ALAFbEC&lpg=PP
1&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q&f=false). In Dundes, Alan. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth
. University
of California Press. p. 49.
9. Dundes 1984, p. 147.
10. Doty 2004, pp. 11–12.
11. Segal 2015, p. 5.
12. Kirk 1984, p. 57.
13. Kirk 1973, p. 74.
14. Apollodorus 1976, p. 3.
15. "myth". Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary(10th ed.). Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1993.
p. 770.
16. Salamon, Hagar; Goldberg, Harvey E. (2012)."Myth-Ritual-Symbol" (https://books.google.com/books?id=qhsdhM9tI
3EC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA125#v=onepage&q&f=false). In Bendix, Regina F.; Hasan-Rokem, Galit.A Companion to
Folklore. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 125.
17. Bascom 1965, p. 7.
18. Bascom 1965, pp. 9, 17.
19. Eliade 1998, pp. 10–11.
20. Pettazzoni 1984, pp. 99–101.
21. Kirk 1973, pp. 22, 32.
22. Kirk 1984, p. 55.
23. Doty 2004, p. 114.
24. Bascom 1965, p. 13.
25. "romance | literature and performance"(https://www.britannica.com/art/romance-literature-and-performance#toc5095
1). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
26. "myth, n., §2" OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www
.oed.com/view/Entry/124670. Accessed 23
August 2018.
27. Howells, Richard (1999).The Myth of the Titanic (https://books.google.com/?id=34BdSTbnSKUC&pg=P
A37&lpg=PA
37&dq=myth+pejorative). Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-22148-5.
28. Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, 1967, pp. 23, 162.
29. Winzeler, Robert L. (2012) Anthropology and Religion: What We Know, Think, and Question Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 105–106.
30. David Leeming (2005)."Preface" (https://books.google.com/books?id=kQFtlva3HaYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PR7). The
Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford University Press. p. vii.ISBN 978-0-19-515669-0..
31. Kirk 1973, p. 8.
32. Grassie, William (March 1998). "Science as Epic? Can the modern evolutionary cosmology be a mythic story for our
time?". Science & Spirit. 9 (1). "The word 'myth' is popularly understood to mean idle fancy
, fiction, or falsehood; but
there is another meaning of the word in academic discourse .... Using the original Greek term mythos is perhaps a
better way to distinguish this more positive and all-encompassing definition of the word.
"
33. Lincoln, Bruce (2006). "An Early Moment in the Discourse of "T errorism": Reflections on a Tale from Marco Polo".
Comparative Studies in Society and History. 48 (2): 242–259. doi:10.1017/s0010417506000107(https://doi.org/10.1
017%2Fs0010417506000107). JSTOR 3879351 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3879351). "More precisely, mythic
discourse deals in master categories that have multiple referents: levels of the cosmos, terrestrial geographies, plant
and animal species, logical categories, and the like. Their plots serve to organize the relations among these
categories and to justify a hierarchy among them, establishing the rightness (or at least the necessity) of a world in
which heaven is above earth, the lion the king of beasts, the cooked more pleasing than the raw ."
34. Patxi Xabier Lezama Perier (2018).Basque Mythology: History of the myths and deities of the Basque mythology
(htt
ps://books.google.com/?id=vlpZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=patxi+xabier+lezama+perier#v=onepage&q=Ba
sque%20Mythology&f=false)– via books.google.
35. "mythography, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018,https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124691.
Accessed 12 September 2018.
36. Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography, 2 vols (Gainesville, 1994–2000).
37. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "mythos, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2003.
38. "mythopoeia, n. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/235084)" OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018.
Accessed 12 September 2018.
39. See Mythopoeia (poem); cf. J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf; Mythopoeia; The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
Beorhthelm's Son (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JW-cQ-cypwwC) (London: HarperCollins, 2001) [first
published 1964] ISBN 978-0-00-710504-5.
40. "myth, n. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124670)", "mythos, n. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124705)" OED
Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018. Accessed 12 September 2018.
41. Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "-logy, comb. form". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1903.
42. Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades (1971).Fulgentius the Mythographer(https://books.google.com/books?id=73mJIuYfm
zEC). Ohio State University Press.ISBN 978-0-8142-0162-6.
43. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "mythology, n. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/124702)" 2003. Accessed 20 Aug
2014.
44. Lydgate, John. Troyyes Book, Vol. II, ll. 2487. (in Middle English) Reprinted in Henry Bergen'sLydgate's Troy Book,
Vol. I, p. 216 (https://archive.org/stream/lydgatestroybono9701lydguoft#page/n241/mode/2up) . Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner, & Co. (London), 1906. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
45. "...I [ Paris ] was ravisched in-to paradys.
"And Þus Þis god [sc. Mercury], diuers of liknes,
"More wonderful Þan I can expresse,
"Schewed hym silf in his appearance,
"Liche as he is discriued in Fulgence,
"In Þe book of his methologies..."[44]
46. "mythology" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mythology). Online Etymology Dictionary
47. Browne, Thomas. Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed
Truths, Vol. I, Ch. VIII. (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo18.html)Edward Dod (London), 1646.
Reprinted 1672.
48. All which [sc. John Mandevil's support of Ctesias's claims] may still be received in some acceptions of morality
, and
to a pregnant invention, may afford commendable mythologie; but in a natural and proper exposition, it containeth
[47]
impossibilities, and things inconsistent with truth.
49. Johnson, Samuel. "Mythology" in A Dictionary of the English Language: in which the Words are Deduced from their
Originals, and Illustrated in their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers to which are Prefixed a
History of the Language and an English Grammar , p. 1345. (http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?p=19456)W.
Strahan (London), 1755.
50. Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language, p. 1345 (http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?page_id=707
0&i=1345). W. Strahan (London), 1755. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
,[49] mythologist, mythologize, mythological, and
51. Johnson's Dictionary, for example, has entries for mythology
mythologically [50]

52. Shuckford, Samuel. The Creation and Fall of Man. A Supplemental Discourse to the Preface of the Firstolume
V of
the Sacred and Profane History of the World Connected , pp. xx–xxi. (http://www.classicapologetics.com/s/shuckcre.p
df) J. & R. Tonson & S. Draper (London), 1753. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
53. "That Mythology came in upon this Alteration of their[Egyptians' Theology, is obviouſly evident: for the mingling the
Hiſtory of theſe Men when Mortals, with what came to be aſcribed to them when Gods, would naturally occaſion it.
And of this Sort we generally find theMythoi told of them..."[52]
54. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "On the Prometheus of Æschylus: An Essay, preparatory to a series of disquisitions
respecting the Egyptian, in connection with the sacerdotal, theology
, and in contrast with the mysteries of ancient
Greece." Royal Society of Literature (London), 18 May 1825. Reprinted in Coleridge, Henry Nelson (1836).The
Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Shakespeare, with introductory matter on poetry , the drama, and the
stage. Notes on Ben Jonson; Beaumont and Fletcher; On the Prometheus of Æschylus [and others (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=IA8LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA335). W. Pickering. pp. 335–.
55. "Long before the entire separation of metaphysics from poetry , that is, while yet poesy, in all its several species of
verse, music, statuary, &c. continued mythic;—while yet poetry remained the union of the sensuous and the
philosophic mind;—the efficient presence of the latter in the synthesis of the two, had manifested itself in the sublime
mythus περὶ γενέσεως τοῦ νοῦ ἐν ἀνθρωποῖς concerning the genesis, or birth of the νοῦς or reason in man."[54]
56. Abraham of Hekel (1651). "Historia Arabum(History of the Arabs)"(https://books.google.com/books?id=APDxSjZkO
S8C&pg=PA175). Chronicon orientale, nunc primum Latinitate donatum ab Abrahamo Ecchellensi Syro Maronita e
Libano, linguarum Syriacae, ... cui accessit eiusdem Supplementum historiae orientalis (The Oriental Chronicles.e
Typographia regia. pp. 175–.(in Latin) Translated in paraphrase inBlackwell, Thomas (1748)."Letter Seventeenth"
(https://books.google.com/books?id=QdNbAAAAQAAJ&pg=P A269). Letters Concerning Mythology. printed in the
year. pp. 269–.
57. Anonymous review of Upham, Edward (1829).The History and Doctrine of Budhism: Popularly Illustrated: with
Notices of the Kappooism, Or Demon Worship, and of the Bali, Or Planetary Incantations, of Ceylon
(https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=BoJEAAAAcAAJ). R. Ackermann. In the Westminster Review, No. XXIII, Art. III, p. 44 (https://ar
chive.org/stream/westminsterrevi09wasogoog#page/n56/mode/2up) . Rob't Heward (London), 1829. Accessed 20
Aug 2014.
58. "According to the rabbiMoses Ben Maimon, Enos, discoursing on the splendor of the heavenly bodies, insisted that,
since God had thus exalted them above the other parts of creation, it was but reasonable that we should praise,
extol, and honour them. The consequence of this exhortation, says the rabbi, was the building of temples to the
stars, and the establishment of idolatry throughout the world. By the Arabian divines however , the imputation is laid
upon the patriarch Abraham; who, they say, on coming out from the darkcave in which he had been brought up, was
so astonished at the sight of the stars, that he worshipped Hesperus, the Moon, and the Sun successively as they
rose.[56] These two stories are good illustrations of the origin ofmyths, by means of which, even the most natural
sentiment is traced to its cause in the circumstances of fabulous history .[57]
59. Anderson (2004), p. 61
60. Wiles (2000), pp. 5–6
61. Wiles (2000), p. 12
62. Lincoln (1999), pp. 3–5
63. Littleton 1973, p. 32.
64. Eliade 1998, p. 8.
65. Honko 1984, p. 51.
66. Eliade 1998, p. 19.
67. Barthes 1972.
 68. Pattanaik, Devdutt (14 September 2015)."Why I Insist On Calling Myself A Mythologist"(http://swarajyamag.com/cul
ture/why-i-insist-on-calling-myself-a-mythologist)
. Swarajya. Retrieved 24 July 2016.
69. Bulfinch 2004, p. 194.
70. Honko 1984, p. 45.
71. "Euhemerism", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
72. Segal 2015, p. 20.
73. Bulfinch 2004, p. 195.
74. Frankfort et al. 2013, p. 4.
75. Frankfort et al. 2013, p. 15.
76. Segal 2015, p. 61.
77. Graf 1996, p. 40.
78. Meletinsky 2014, pp. 19–20.
79. Segal 2015, p. 63.
80. Frazer 1913, p. 711.
81. Guy Lanoue, Foreword to Meletinsky, p. viii.
82. Segal 2015, p. 1.
83. On the Gods and the World, ch. 5, See Collected Writings on the Gods and the World, The Prometheus Trust,
Frome, 1995
84. Perhaps the most extended passage of philosophic interpretation of myth is to be found in the fifth and sixth essays
of Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic(to be found in The Works of Plato I, trans. Thomas Taylor, The
Prometheus Trust, Frome, 1996); Porphyry’s analysis of the Homeric Cave of the Nymphsis another important work
in this area (Select Works of Porphyry, Thomas Taylor The Prometheus Trust, Frome, 1994). See the external links
below for a full English translation.
85. "The Myth of Io" (http://art.thewalters.org/detail/18298). The Walters Art Museum.
86. For more information on this panel, please see Zeri catalogue number 64, pp. 100–101
87. Tom Shippey, 'A Revolution Reconsidered: Mythography and Mythology in the NineteenthCentury', in The Shadow-
Walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous, ed. by Tom Shippey, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Studies, 291/Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 14 empe,
(T AZ: Arizon Center for Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, 2005), pp. 1–28 (esp. pp. 4–13).
88. Segal 2015, pp. 3–4.
89. John McKinnell, Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend(Cambridge: Brewer, 2005), pp. 14-15.
90. Segal 2015, p. 4.
91. Mâche, Francois-Bernard (1992).Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion(https://books.google.com/book
s?id=YNCVOY423HsC&lpg=PP1&pg=P A8#v=onepage&q&f=false). p. 8. ISBN 978-3-7186-5321-8.
92. Richard M. Dorson, 'The Eclipse of Solar Mythology', inMyth: A Symposium, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), 25–63.
93. John McKinnell, Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend(Cambridge: Brewer, 2005), pp. 14–15.
94. Segal 2015, pp. 67–68.
95. Segal 2015, p. 3.
96. Boeree.
97. Segal 2015, p. 113.
98. Harvey Birenbaum, Myth and Mind (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), pp. 152–153.
99. Barthes, Roland (1972).Mythologies (https://books.google.com/?id=wsGDVdY
oRA4C&dq=Barthes+Mythologies).
Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-09-997220-4.
100. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology(New York: Scribner, 1958).
101. Hyers 1984, p. 107.
102. E.g. John McKinnell, Both One and Many: Essays on Change and V ariety in Late Norse Heathenism, Philologia:
saggi, ricerche, edizioni a cura bi Teresa Pàroli, 1 (Rome, 1994).
103. A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on T ranslation’, in Many
Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia (http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3j49n8h7/), ed. by
Paula Richman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 22–48; reprinted (http://www.trans-techresearch.
net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/three-hundred-Ramayanas-A-K-Ramanujan.pdf) in A.K. Ramanujan, The Collected
Essays of A.K. Ramanujan(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 131–60,ISBN 978-0-19-566896-4.
104. E.g. Ken Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology(London: Routledge, 1992).
105. Ostenson, Jonathan (2013)."Exploring the Boundaries of Narrative: Video Games in the English Classroom"(http://
www.ncte.org/library/nctefiles/resources/journals/ej/1026-jul2013/ej1026exploring.pdf)(PDF). www2.ncte.org/.
106. Singer, Irving (2008). Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film. MIT Press. pp. 3–6.
107. Indick, William (November 18, 2004). "Classical Heroes in Modern Movies: Mythological Patterns of the Superhero".
Journal of Media Psychology.
108. Koven, Michael (2003).Folklore Studies and Popular Film and T
elevision: A Necessary Critical Survey. University of
Illinois Press. pp. 176–195.
109. Corner 1999, pp. 47–59.
110. Mead, Rebecca (2014-10-22)."The Percy Jackson Problem"(https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/p
ercy-jackson-problem). The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0028-792X). Retrieved
2017-11-06.

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