Flannery McNair

Ms. Lynde
Synthesis Essay
March 13, 2019
Synthesis Essay

The most prominent mythologies of history are those of Greek, Egyptian, and
Norse origin. Ideas and characters from these mythologies have been integrated into
everyday life and pop culture, in literature and entertainment. Some notable instances
of this are in the Marvel and DC Comics franchises, and in young readers’ literature,
such as books written by Rick Riordan. Many people today are somewhat familiar with
each of these mythologies, but what do they say about the ancient civilizations
themselves? The myths I read speak of the creation of the world, the struggle for power,
the origin of love, and many other unanswerable questions. All of these beliefs are those
of ancient civilizations, beliefs that were crafted long before Christianity or other
modern day religions came along. Each of these myths tells something about these
civilizations’ core beliefs and values, and how that affected the people of those
civilization’s relationships and ideas about their gods and religion.
Each of these mythologies has many gods, none of them being all powerful. They
have gods that are more powerful than others, such as Zeus, Osiris, and Odin, but they
are still not capable of doing everything. They have each made sacrifices for the power
that they have. For example, in the myth “Mimir’s Head and Odin’s Eye,” he gives up
one of his eyes so he could gain infinite wisdom. In the creation myth from Egyptian
mythology, Re created the world but then ruled for far too long, and ended up being
poisoned and having to give up his real name for the cure to the goddess, Isis. In
Egyptian mythology, the real name of a god carries much of their power, so using his
real name, Isis made him rule in the heavens instead of on Earth. Each of the
mythologies describes struggles for power that was most likely influenced by the power
struggles each of these civilizations were experiencing in their own societies. In Greece
specifically, where the ancient gods are no longer worshipped, the Greeks still have
preserved the temples their ancestors built and keep them as places where anyone can
visit to get a better idea of what the gods meant to the ancient Greeks.
The relationship between the gods and other mythological people and beings is
also a major theme in a lot of the myths. I saw that most of the mortal/god interactions
seemed to happen in Greek mythology, with less direct influence in Egyptian and Norse
mythology. In the myth “Orpheus and Eurydice,” Orpheus not only meets both Apollo
and Dionysus, but goes to the underworld and begs Hades to give him his wife back. In
Egyptian and Norse mythology, there isn’t much talk about demigods, who are sons and
daughters of a mortal and a god, but in Greek mythology they are quite commonplace,
some famous examples being Heracles and Achilles. The gods would have these
demigods carry out their bidding, which contrasts with Norse mythology where the gods
would just go solve their problems themselves, as can be seen in the myth, “Freya’s
Unusual Wedding,” Thor dressed up as a bride to get his hammer back from an ogre.
The interaction between these different entities in these ancient mythologies shows
what kind of relationship the people believed they had with their gods.
Each of these mythologies has something that they can tell about the ancient
civilization they originate from, and to some extent, the civilization today. Greece,
Egypt, and Scandinavia may not have much else in common besides these similar and
famous mythologies. It is important to look at these spiritual parts of history, and how
that changed over time. Why did people end up following religions such as Christianity
and Islam instead of these mythologies? Why was there an overall shift from polytheism
to monotheism? These aren’t questions that can be answered by only reading about
mythology, but it is still relevant to the overall effect a belief has on a society. The
influence gods and the interaction of mortals and gods were both key points in all of the
mythologies and helped illustrate what life was like when these beliefs were prevalent.