(11) ALLEGORY

“Narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance…symbolic figures, actions, images, or events…personification of abstract concepts.”

Mythology has quite the overlap with allegory – indeed with mythology often being interpreted as allegory.

 

(12) FABLE

Often used synonymously with myth – a literary genre (of folklore) ” defined as a succinct fictional story…that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a “moral”), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying”.

 

(13) PARABLE

Essentially a fable but only with people (or supernatural beings) – a fable that “excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind”.

The archetypal parables of course being those of Jesus

 

(14) STORY & TALE

The heart of mythology – mythology is narrative. One might also say that it’s the heart of humanity as well. Above all, humans are narrative animals – or myth-making ones

 

(15) SUPERSTITION & TABOO

Yes – I like the alliteration of superstition and taboo following from story and tale but there is quite the overlap with mythology (and some would argue that mythology is superstition). Superstition – folk belief or practice invoking fate, fear, luck, magic or supernatural influence – tends to have a mythic origin or mythology of itself.

Taboo of course is a negative superstition – folk belief or practice avoiding or prohibiting something, typically with social sanction. The word itself is borrowed from its usage in Polynesian languages for such beliefs or practices – one of the highest profile such loan words, along with the similar magical or supernatural mana.

 

(16) SYMBOLISM

Mythology is virtually synonymous with symbolism. Mythology might well be described as symbolic narrative – and symbols tend to have their own myths behind them.

 

(17) DREAM

“Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams”.

As Joseph Campbell famously opined, mythology overlaps with dream – “myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths”. Mythology and the mythic world is the dreaming. It is not coincidence that Australian Aboriginal mythology is known by the denomination of the Dreamtime – or that has been borrowed for other mythology (as Jonathan Kirsch does for the Bible prior to King David). Freud arguably made his (sexual) mythology from dreams.

For that matter, it is striking how often dreams themselves recur within mythology. Again to borrow from the Bible – prophetic dreams and their interpretation recur surprisingly frequently in the Bible, from Genesis to the Gospels and arguably to Apocalypse. And when they are not actual dreams, it is striking how often God or angels reveal themselves by night rather than day – in divine dream-like revelations.

It can be argued – and effectively has been by anthropologist Pascal Boyer – that religion and mythology originate in dreams. Among other things, we see dead people in our dreams – prompting us to believe that they live on or have some continuity in a spirit realm or supernatural reality.

 

(18) RIDDLE

Similarly a genre or type of folklore – with a substantial overlap between riddles and mythology. One might say mythology and myths are riddles writ large – “having a double or veiled meaning”, albeit “put forth as a puzzle to be solved”.

“Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundra, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.”

On the other hand “whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries^[ and crossing them for the intellectual pleasure of showing that things are not quite as stable as they seem”.

Not to mention one of the most famous riddles was mythic – the Riddle of the Sphinx.

 

(19) JOKE

Life is the laughter of the gods – but sometimes they have a black sense of humor.

It does not take too much to see mythology – and religion – as divine comedy. And perhaps we should see both that way more often.

 

(20) EROS & HIEROS GAMOS

Mythos is eros – and hieros gamos.

I like to reserve my twentieth special mention for my kinky entry – but mythology is indeed intertwined with ethos. I like to quip that I have a sexual mythology but to a large extent we all do.

Hieros gamos (or hierogamy) is sacred marriage – “a sacred marriage that plays out between gods, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities”. It was particularly notable in Mesopotamian or Near Eastern ritual practice.