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THE BIRTH OF MYTHS
Myths and their Meanings
If one goes back in imagination to the dark beginnings of
time, when true religion had not yet enlightened man, nor had
science explained to him the causes and origins of things, one
may watch the birth of what we call myths.
In the brooding darkness of forests—on plains where
the sun shone blazingly—in cave-homes that barely protected
the people against the ravages of saber-toothed tigers or
gigantic bears—in houses perched insecurely over the waters
of lakes—in the damp depths of rank jungles—on mountain
sides and by the seashore, everywhere man looked out upon a
mysterious and dangerous world.
He asked himself, “Where does the sun come from, and
what is it?” He answered his question by saying, “The sun is a
boat (or a chariot), and in it sits a dazzling god who guides it
over the sky.” Puzzled by the moon, early man explained that
bluish white globe by thinking of it as another boat or chariot,
in which sat the sister of the sun god.
“What lurks behind the terror of thunder and lightning?”
he inquired; and to solve his puzzle came the image of a great
god enthroned in the skies, whose voice was the thunder and
whose messenger was the lightning. When the sea broke forth
in disastrous storms, it was because the blue-haired deity of
the waves was enraged. When the grain and the trees bore
seed in due season, the Earth-Mother was gracious; when
famine came, she had been angered, and must be appeased
with sacrifices and prayers.
Many other questions puzzled these primitive dwellers
on the earth—the origin of fire; the reasons for one man’s
riches and another man’s troubles; the nature of death and the
problem of an afterworld.
To answer questions such as these the men of ancient
days created myths—the myths in this book, and many others.
For long ages these myths were not written down. They were
handed down by word of mouth from father to son, from one
generation to the next. Often they were greatly changed by
those that received them; and a clever storyteller or a poet
with fine imagination would add touches here and there that
others in their neighborhood would at once accept. So it
usually happened that the versions of the same myth, as told
in different localities, would differ from one another.
Sometimes a great poet, like Homer, would take a myth and
tell it in his own way, and thereafter his form of the story
would be the one that everybody accepted. With such great
poets one soon reaches the stage where the myths were finally
written down.
All nations have had their myths. Although
resemblances may be traced among these myths, in details
they are so different that as a whole they form the world’s
most wonderful collection of stories. Nor has the process of
creating myths stopped among the primitive tribes of the
earth, and many myths have not yet been written down.
Students of myths are, for example, living among our own
Native Americans in order that they may write down from the
lips of their wise men and poets the stories by means of which
the Native American explains the world around him.
WHY MYTHS ARE STUDIED
Why do we study myths? For at least four reasons.
These stories are still studied because they have had
such a deep influence on all great literatures. It is especially
true that the myths of the Greeks and Romans have
profoundly affected English and American literature. The great
writers in our language have been fascinated by the stories
that these ancient peoples told. We can hardly understand
Shakespeare or Milton or Keats or Lowell without being
familiar with the myths of Greece and Rome.
The gods, the demigods (half human and half god), and
the heroes of myth play, too, their part in music. The very
word music pays tribute to the Four Muses who brought the
arts to the people. Numerous pieces of music for instrumental
or vocal performance have been inspired by the ancient figures
whose stories whose stories are told in this book.
Moreover, myths have had a great influence on the
other arts. The great painters and sculptors of all ages, like the
great musicians, have found in these ancient legends
inspiration for their finest achievements.
Then, these stories are in themselves often both
beautiful and entertaining. They are fables such as still appeal
to our imagination today. Often there may be found a kernel
of truth in them , but they may be read for amusement just for
their striking plots and remarkable characters.
Finally, they are an important link with the past. They
are often our only source of knowledge as to how our distant
forefathers regarded the world around them and how they
explained its endless phenomena. Often, too, we may be
surprised to find that because the ancients used a certain idea
to explain some puzzle in nature, we today may still have a
word that preserves that idea. Our language is full of terms
that go back to these old myths, and that can be explained
only by learning the myths. For example, the common word
janitor goes back to Janus, the two-headed god of gates whom
the Romans worshiped. The name of June is derived from
Juno, queen of the gods among the Romans; while Thursday
comes from Thor, god of war among old Germanic tribes. We
praise food by saying it “tastes like ambrosia,” which was the
food of the deities on Mount Olympus; and our ideas of the
underworld are very much like those of Homer and Virgil. We
are bound to the past in innumerable ways, and it is well to
know the old myths in order that we may understand our own
times.
WHERE MYTHS MAY BE FOUND
Myths are found in many kinds of writings.
There are, first, the ancient documents in which they
first occur. In reading the ancient poets, Homer, Virgil or Ovid,
one may see the myths in the form in which they crystallized
among the peoples that created them. Similarly, the Eddas of
the Scandinavians, the Sacred Books of the East, and similar
productions give the myths of other nations and races.
In later times scholars have often collected old stories.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, an English writer of the twelfth
century, told some of the legends which the Celts related
concerning their ruler, King Arthur, and his famous knights. At
the present time scholars are collecting stories of the Native
Americas, the African tribes, and of the aborigines of Australia.
Poets and storytellers of all nations use myths for many
purposes. They retell them in their own language – in prose
and verse, in short story and epic and play. Dante has Ulysses,
the Greek hero, tell part of his story in the Inferno.
Shakespeare reworks certain episodes of the Trojan War in
Troilus and Cressida. Goethe tells the story of Iphigenia in
Tauris and Racine that of Andromache. William Morris
recounts in a long poem the adventures of Jason in search of
the Golden Fleece, and several novels have been written about
Helen of Troy and about the adventures of King Arthur’s
knights.
But the poets make even greater use of myths in their
references and allusions, in their similes other figures of
speech. Hundreds of lines are quoted in the course of these
pages to make clear this fact, but one can prove it by turning
to almost any of the English poets or prose writer. Their pages
are starred with the names of characters in Greek and Roman
myths.
In everyday life, as has already been suggested, we
employ a great many words based on these same myths. Later
on we shall study such words as martial, volcano, cereal,
mercurial, Wednesday, Saturday, museum, labyrinth, and
many others. Two other points may be made here. Rather
oddly some persons still swear by the Greek and Roman gods.
For we still hear people say, “By Jove!” – and Jove, or Jupiter,
was the chief god of the Romans; and we occasionally hear
someone say “Gemini!” – the Latin words for twins, referring
to the twin gods, Castor and Pollux, rulers of boxing and
wrestling.
In advertising, there is also frequent reference to
mythology. An automobile may be named after a Roman
goddess, or the figure of a swift runner in Greek myth may be
placed on the radiator. A cement may take its name from an
ancient giant, a pencil from the graceful goddess of love, a
process for treating a tire from the god of the forge. It is
interesting to observe in how many different ways the writers
of advertisements recall these old stories. Look at your shoes.
How many of you are wearing Nikes?
Moreover, mythmaking still fascinates modern writers.
They may not believe, as the ancient myth makers did, in the
tales they tell, but they are delighted with their creations, and
their readers are often delighted too. Sir James M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan is familiar to everybody-the name recalling Pan, the
Greek god of nature.