TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF MYTHOLOGY

 

So many topics for top tens, so little time – hence my top tens on the spot, shorter shallow dips as opposed to my longer deep dives.

And what better topic for shallow dip than the Top 10 Subjects of Mythology? Although that prompts the obvious retort that’ll be a shallow dip indeed – it’s mythology, innit? There – done!

Well, yeah nah – as mythology meaningfully overlaps with or includes many other subjects that are interesting in themselves.

So here we go all in one go – my Top 10 Subjects of Mythology.

 

(1) MYTH

 

Well, obviously – and such that it also obviously had to be in the top spot, although defining myth or mythology is less obvious, except perhaps at their core, for example as with the Olympian gods in classical mythology.

Partly that’s because of the extent that myth or mythology overlaps with other subjects – particularly with…

 

(2) LEGEND

 

Legendary!

A subject so intertwined with myth and mythology that it tends to be virtually synonymous with them – although funnily enough calling something a myth often is dismissive in contemporary usage while calling something a legend or legendary usually is a term of acclaim.

That might be because of the usual distinction drawn between myth and legend – that the main characters in myth are usually non-human, such as gods or other supernatural beings, while legends involve everyday humans in historical settings.

“Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.”

So while we’re taking a step down from myths to legends as it were, that brings me to…

 

(3) FOLKLORE

 

In a sense you could say I’ve got this ass-backwards as myth and legend are more properly genres of folklore – and that I really should (or could) be doing a top ten subjects of folklore.

It’s just that folklore is so broad as to encompass the entirety of “the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture” – including oral traditions of myth and legend as well as many more besides.

Also, I tend to see folklore (and legend) in a more ‘low church’ sense involving figures or narratives closer to humans and nature, as opposed to the ‘high church’ sense of myth or mythology involving divine beings or sacred narratives.

 

(4) RELIGION

 

Probably the most obvious overlapping subject with mythology apart from legend or folklore – and perhaps even more obvious than those.

“Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality”.

And while mythologies without a religion tend to come to mind – such as classical mythology, alas! – it is harder to think of a religion without its mythology, even such apparently atheistic religions as Buddhism or Taoism.

The link between mythology and religion brings me to…

 

(5) RITUAL

 

Given how much religion overlaps with or is comprised by ritual, it’s not surprising that mythology does as well.

For one thing, you have the depictions of ritual in mythology, which are then followed by the community that holds that mythology to heart.

For another, there’s the theory of mythology that holds that myth is tied to or even originates in ritual – to the extent “that every myth is derived from a particular ritual”. It even has a school of thought named for it – the “myth and ritual” school or “ritual school of myth”, based in Cambridge (and sometimes styled as the “Cambridge Ritualists”, conjuring up images of lurid secret societies in that university).

For example, animal-headed gods or beings like the Minotaur originate in masks worn by priests or priestesses – and so on

 

(6) HISTORY

 

Wait – what? Isn’t mythology the antithesis of history, as the latter is concerned with verifiable evidence of factual events?

Well yes – but also no.

For one thing, communities that hold mythologies also tend (or tended) to hold them to be true in a historical sense, at least in part – although fortunately for those communities myths also tend or tended to be ahistorical, as occurring in a realm outside historical time or space.

For another, legends as opposed to myths tend to have a historical setting – which have a surprising tendency to turn out to have more historical truth to them than skeptics give them credit. People believed Troy was a myth until they found it.

And for yet another, communities often have historical myths about themselves and their history – origin myths or national myths.

 

(7) POETRY

 

The gods speak in verse.

No, seriously.

From the Iliad and the Odyssey to substantial parts of the Bible, it’s striking how often myths or legends are written (or spoken or sung) in verse. Even when in prose, it often has a lyrical resonance to it.

Speaking of which…

 

(8) EPIC

 

“Do you have it in you to make it epic?”

Closely resembling legend in popular usage, originating from its origin in long poetic narratives, “typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures of the past history of a nation”.

Obviously overlapping with poetry, it’s striking how much poetic epic is at the core or origin of myths and mythology. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Iliad and the Odyssey. The Hindu epics. Much or even most of the Bible.

Speaking of poetry and epic, particularly in classical Greek literature, brings us to…

 

(9) DRAMA

 

Particularly that originating in classical Greece – most strikingly with tragedy, a name that literally translates from the original Greek as “goat song” and seems to originate in or overlap with religious festivals, especially for Dionysus, hence the goats (or satyrs). Don’t dismiss comedy however, which also originated in or overlapped with the same religious festivals, translating as (drunken) “revel song”. Funnily enough that prompts to mind something I always recall reading (in some sort of dictionary of Christian thought) that the gospels of Christianity are ultimately comedy, effectively reversing tragedy into a happy ending – further prompting to mind the Christian passion play, yet more mythic drama (albeit Greek drama might also be described as pagan passion plays – Euripide’s Bacchae for example).

It’s striking how much classical drama (or the passion play) reenacts mythology – to the extent that it might be regarded as similar to ritual as the reenactment of myth (or vice versa).

 

(10) FANTASY

 

On the one hand, the term that perhaps best reflects the pejorative contemporary usage of myth – dismissing myths as fantasy or fantastical.

On the other, the modern genre of fantasy comes closest to being like our original mythologies or their literal and figurative enchantment of original mythology – deliberately so with founding figures of literary fantasy such as Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of The Rings as a modern mythology for England.