Nature of Mythology

• MYTHOLOGY • It is the study of myths and the myths themselves,

which are stories told as symbols of fundamental truths within
societies having a strong oral traditions.

• FOLKLORE • This includes the traditional elements of the way of life of

a group of people and creative expressions developing naturally as
part of this culture.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTH
• 1. Mythos
• - authoritative speech
• a traditional story
• A STORY is a narrative with plot – It has beginning, middle, and end.
• – It contains characters having certain mental imprints.
• – It describes conflict, resolution and within a setting.
• with collective importance
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTH
• – Myths are “traditional” tales from Lat. trado, “hand over.”
• – Handed over orally and transmit a culture’s sense of itself: past
wisdom, memories, and models
• – Oral transmission will create constant changes in the myth.
• – Various ways of emphasizing motives and meaning for the group.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYTH
• 2. A myth has no identifiable author.
• 3. A myth that is written down in a literary
form uses a story that preceded it.
• 4. Sometimes the myths are even different in
detail.
• 5. One version is not more true than another.
TYPES OF MYTHS by Morford and
Lenardon
1.Pure Myth or True Myth or Myth Proper or Divine Myth
2.Primitive Science or Religion
• – natural phenomena or the origin of things
• – how individuals should behave toward the gods
3. Saga or Legend
4 Primitive History – historical fact
5. Folk-tale or Fairy-tale
6.Primitive Fiction – for pleasure and amusement
 TYPES OF MYTHS by ELIOT
1.Primitive myths - stories about nature as told by shamans
2.Pagan myths - Greek and Roman’s tales of the interplay
between deities and humans
3. Sacred myths - stories from current eastern and western
religions such as Christianity and Hinduism
4.Scientific myths - considered as the most solemn and
revered creeds of science
Types of Myths by Leeming
1.Cosmic myths - including narratives of the
creation and end of the world
2. Theistic myths - portray the deities
3.Hero myths - with accounts of individuals
4.Place and object myths -describe places and
objects
Types of Myths in The New Encyclopedia
Britannica
1. Cosmological myths (concerned with the creation of
cosmos).
2. Life-crisis myths (deal with the crucial events in human
life; birth, puberty, marriage and death).
3. Hunting and agricultural myths (revolve around animals
and hunt).
4. Myths about extra ordinary individuals (focus on extra
ordinary individuals such as culture hero, trickster, god-
king, and savior).
Purposes:
• Mythology serves many purposes.
• Myths grant continuity and stability to a
culture.
• Myths present guidelines for living.
• Myths justify a culture's activities.
• Myths give meaning to life.
• Myths explain the unexplainable.
• Myths offer role models.
Classification of Myths
• 1. Ritual myths – explain the performance of certain religious practices or
patterns and are associated with temples or center of worship.
• 2. Origin myths – describe the beginnings of a custom, name, or object.
• 3. Cult myths – often seen as an explanations for elaborate festivals that
magnify the power of deity.
• 4. Prestige myths – associated with divinely chosen hero, city, or people.
• 5. Chthonic myths – involves death and rebirth motifs, typically characterized
by a journey to and return from underworld.
• 6. Eschatological myths – stories that describes catastrophic ends to the
present world order of the writers. These extend beyond any potential
historical scope.
Classification of Myths
• 7. Social myths – reinforce or defend current social
values or practices.
• 8. Creation myths – describe how a culture believes
the universe was created.
• 9. Trickster myths – concerned with the pranks or
tricks played gods or heroes.
 Theories in Understanding Myths
• 1.Naturalism –in this hypothesis, all myths are thought to arise from an attempt to
explain natural phenomena. People who believe in this theory narrow the source
of myths by tracing their origins from the worship of the sun or the moon.
• 2. Ritualism According to this theory, all myths are invented to accompany and
explain religious ritual; they describe the significant events which have resulted in
a particular ceremony.
• 3. Diffusionism The diffusionists maintain that all myths arose from a few major
cultural centers and spread throughout the world.
• 4. Evolutionism Myth making occurs at a certain stage in the evolution of the
human mind. Myths, are therefore, an essential part of all developing societies
and the similarities from one culture to the next can be explained by the relatively
limited number of experiences open to such communities when myths arise.
Theories in Understanding Myths
• 5. Freudianism -When Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, interpreted the dreams
of his patients, he found great similarities between them and the ancient myths. Freud believes that
certain infantile are repressed, i.e. they are eliminated from the conscious mind but continues to
exist within the individual in some other form. Sometimes these feelings emerge into consciousness
under various disguises, one of which is the myth. 6. Jungian archetypes Carl Jung was a prominent
psychologist who, while he accepted Freud’s theory about the origin of myths , did not believe that
it went far in explaining the striking similarities between the motifs found in ancient stories and
those of his patients. He postulated that each of us possesses a “collective unconscious” which we
inherit genetically. It contains very general ideas, themes, or motifs which are passed along from
one generation to another and are retained as part of our human inheritance.
• 7. Structuralism This theory is a fairly recent development and is closely allied with the research of
linguists. According to this theory, all human behaviour, the way we eat, dress, speak, is patterned
into codes which have the characteristics of language. To understand the real meaning of myth,
therefore, we must analyze it linguistically.
•
Theories in Understanding Myths
• 8. Historical-critical theory This theory maintains that there are a
multitude of factors which influence the origin and development of
myths and that no single explanation will suffice. We must examine
each story individually to see how it began and evolved.