Folklore

Throughout history, the Loch Ness monster has been a legend among creatures. First, it was called a monster fish, then it was determined to be a dragon before finally claiming the name of Loch Ness Monster. Said to dwell in the lake Loch Ness, the name monster was first applied to it in the early 1900 hundreds. People searched far and wide, looking for the mysterious creature said to live in the Loch Ness. Many sightings of the monster were reported throughout history, going back to even a…

"Widely held but false idea" is one dictionary definition of myth in common usage. For reasons that are still unclear, myths abound in recent American political history. Perhaps the most glaring and consequential was the myth that Iraq under Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. There are other cases in point. For instance, Barack Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya and therefore not an American citizen. Poor people are poor by choice, another commonly heard myth. These are myths,…

Borrowed from the Romans, who called the days after the then known planets which were named originally after their gods, the Scandinavian did the same, and as a Germanic language, the English language inherited these. Sunday and Monday were named after the Sun and moon, Tuesday translates to Týr’s day (the god of war and law and justice), Wednesday means Odin’s day, Thursday is Thor’s day, and Friday represents either the goddess of marriage (who is married to Odin) Frigg or the goddess Freyja.…

Suhani Gupta Dr. Brendan Thornton RELI 144H 8 October 2015 African Trickster Tales The tradition of expressing the invincibility of the powerless through the form of the trickster served a major role in African culture. In John W. Roberts’ From Trickster To Badman, African trickster tales are viewed and discussed from different perspectives. For many years, the Europeans considered Africans to be an uncivilized group of people. In Roberts’ article, Thanet claims that the seemingly small and…

Mythology is best known for creating symbolisms behind the circle and giving human-like qualities to god-like figures. The circle is a symbol with no beginning or ending. Such is true with mythologies that reference the circle and its symbolic meaning. In mythology, the circle can represent anything from the process of being born, breathing your last breath, and being reborn, to the never-ending process of the classical elements of the world; water, fire, earth, and air. These four elements of…

The telling of stories is the original teaching method. Stories were told in order to pass down information from generation to generation. Our ancestors did this by either word of mouth or the use of drawings, such as cave paintings. These were used to tell stories of great hunts, or to help describe certain animals, and to teach their children certain skills and how to survive in the wild. Storytelling has evolved since these simple cave drawings were used. We still tell stories in classrooms…

est WR 121 Ashputtle Analyzed Growing up as a child we are fed stories of happen endings, fairy tales and moralistic tales that teach us right from wrong. Cinderella, Snow White and even Beauty and The Beast all have hidden messages of triumph, sacrifice and true love, but is there possibly more than we can see? Different countries, authors and religions all have different variations of these magical stories. The story I am going to…

Myth is a primeval way through which every culture defines its character and offers a way to understand the world. Humans use myth to describe and understand “archetypal or universal significance” (Cupitt, 1997, p.5) and to establish their perception of cultural experiences. Different cultures have their own myths that systemise their human experience as “one of the functions of myth is to convert numinous indefiniteness into nominal definiteness and to make what is uncanny familiar and…

In the article, "Henry Rodriguez: Preserving the Luiseño Tradition," Rodriguez talks about how oral tradition keep stories "alive and changing over time." Just for example, Rodriguez mentions a story about a "powerful song given" to him by an old man, and it was later on collected as "sets," as more elderly men are willing to share their songs. As a result, it created a bigger content of songs, having a far more interpretation of a subject. Just like in oral tradition, stories accumulate, it…

Myths are an important part of a culture and society. As the article “Myth: Global Dictionary of Theology” states many people so not understand their importance to a society. Many people see it as a “completely fabricated story” (Myth: Global Dictionary of Theology). This article also emphasizes the impossibility of finding a single definition for the term “myth.” I was interested in reading the different ideas on myth, however I agreed that no one person had the correct, all encompassing,…