The World of Myth

by Leeming, David Adams

• ISBN13: 9780195056013
• ISBN10: 0195056019
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1991-01-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature ofcivilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself. Now, in The World of Myth, Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths, ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We read stories of great floods from the ancient Babylonians, Hebrews, Chinese, and Mayans; tales of apocalypse from India, the Norse,Christianity, and modern science; myths of the mother goddess from Native American Hopi culture and James Lovelock's Gaia. Leeming has culled myths from Aztec, Greek, African, Australian Aboriginal, Japanese, Moslem, Hittite, Celtic, Chinese, and Persian cultures, offering one of the mostwide-ranging collections of what he calls the collective dreams of humanity. More important, he has organized these myths according to a number of themes, comparing and contrasting how various societies have addressed similar concerns, or have told similar stories. In the section on dying gods, for example, both Odin and Jesus sacrifice themselves to renew the world,each dying on a tree. Such traditions, he proposes, may have their roots in societies of the distant past, which would ritually sacrifice their kings to renew the tribe. In The World of Myth, David Leeming takes us on a journey "not through a maze of falsehood but through a marvellous world of metaphor," metaphor for "the story of the relationship between the known and the unknown, both around us and within us." Fantastic, tragic, bizarre, sometimes funny, themyths he presents speak of the most fundamental human experience, a part of what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul's high adventure."

Author Biography

About the Author
David Adams Leeming is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and is the author of several books on myth and literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Dimensions of Myth	3	(5)
Select Bibliography	8	(3)
PART I COSMIC MYTHS	11	(80)
The Creation	15	(28)
The Creation Stories	17	(1)
Egyptian: The Beginnings	17	(1)
Mesopotamian: Enuma Elish	18	(6)
Hebrew: Genesis	24	(5)
Indian: The Rig Veda and the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad	29	(3)
Greek: Hesiod's Theogony	32	(3)
Christian: John's Gospel	35	(1)
Hopi: Spider Woman	36	(3)
Boshongo (Bantu): Bumba's Creation	39	(2)
Modern: The Big Bang	41	(1)
Bibliography	42	(1)
The Flood	43	(21)
The Flood Stories	44	(1)
Mesopotamian: Utnapishtim	44	(3)
Hebrew: Noah	47	(6)
Chinese: YU	53	(2)
Indian: Manu	55	(1)
Greco-Roman: Deucalion and Pyrrha	56	(4)
Mayan: The Popol-Vuh	60	(2)
Bibliography	62	(2)
The Afterlife	64	(12)
The Afterlife Stories	65	(1)
Egyptian: Osiris	65	(2)
Greco-Christian: Lands of the Dead	67	(1)
Judeo-Christian: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven	68	(1)
Muslim: Hell and Heaven in the Koran	68	(1)
Buddhist: The Pure Land	69	(3)
Hopi: The Kachinas	72	(3)
Bibliography	75	(1)
The Apocalypse	76	(15)
The Apocalypse Stories	77	(1)
Hebrew: The Day of Yahweh	77	(2)
Christian: St. John's Book of Revelation	79	(2)
Indian: The End of the Kali Age	81	(3)
Hopi: Emergence to the Fifth World	84	(1)
Norse: Ragnarok	85	(3)
Modern: Entropy and Heat Death	88	(1)
Bibliography	89	(2)
PART II MYTHS OF THE GODS	91	(124)
The Pantheons	95	(26)
The Pantheonic Stories	95	(1)
Egyptian	95	(3)
The Gods of Heliopolis	96	(1)
The Separation of Geb and Nut	97	(1)
Greek	98	(19)
The Olympians	98	(1)
The Originators	99	(1)
The Children of Kronos and Rhea	100	(3)
The Children of Zeus	103	(14)
Roman: The Renamed Olympians	117	(1)
Norse (Icelandic): The Aesir	118	(3)
Bibliography	121	(2)
The God as Archetype	123	(1)
Stories of Archetypal Gods	124	(1)
The Supreme Being	124	(10)
Indian: Krishna-Vishnu-Brahman	125	(5)
Hebrew: Yahweh	130	(3)
Modern: Immanent Mind	133	(1)
The Great Mother	134	(12)
Mesopotamian: Inanna-Ishtar	136	(9)
Modern: Gaia as Earth	145	(1)
The Dying God	146	(17)
Egyptian: Osiris and Isis	147	(6)
Babylonian-Greco-Roman: Adonis and Aphrodite	153	(2)
Phrygian: Attis	155	(1)
Greek: Dionysos	156	(1)
Aztec/Toltec: Quetzalcoatl	157	(1)
Christian: Jesus	157	(5)
Norse (Icelandic): Odin	162	(1)
The Trickster	163	(12)
Greek: Hermes	163	(2)
Indian: Krishna	165	(4)
Shoshoni: Old Man Coyote	169	(2)
Fon (Dahomey): Legba	171	(1)
Bibliography	172	(3)
Gods, Goddesses, and Lesser Spirits	175	(40)
Stories of Gods, Goddesses, and Lesser Spirits	175	(1)
Greco-Roman	175	(22)
Prometheus	175	(2)
Pandora	177	(1)
Tiresias, Echo, and Narcissus	178	(5)
Hyacinthus	183	(2)
Eros and Psyche	185	(1)
Daphne and Apollo	185	(3)
Pan	188	(4)
The Muses	192	(1)
The Eumenides	192	(1)
Zeus and Io	192	(4)
Zeus and Europa	196	(1)
Non-Greek	197	(1)
Persian: Mithras	197	(2)
Japanese: Amaterasu and Susanowo	199	(3)
Polynesian: Pele and Hiiaka'	202	(5)
Indian: Indra and the Parade of Ants	207	(6)
Bibliography	213	(2)
PART III HERO MYTHS	215	(98)
The Hero Stories	221	(1)
The Conception, Birth, and Childhood of the Hero	221	(14)
Native American (Tewa): Water Jar Boy	221	(3)
Greek: Theseus	224	(1)
Indian: Krishna	225	(1)
Indian: Karna	226	(2)
Greek: Herakles	228	(1)
Indian: The Buddha	229	(4)
Irish: Cuchulainn	233	(1)
Bantu: Lituolone	234	(1)
The Journey Quest of the Hero	235	(63)
French: Joan of Arc	235	(2)
Greek: Oedipus	237	(2)
Greek: Antigone	239	(4)
Celtic: King Arthur	243	(1)
Greek: Theseus	244	(4)
Hebrew: Moses	248	(4)
Celtic: Parcival	252	(3)
Hebrew: Jonah	255	(2)
Greek: Jason	257	(1)
Roman: Aeneas	258	(2)
Hebrew: Samson And Delilah	260	(2)
Indian: The Buddha	262	(5)
Native American: Wunzh, or Hiawatha	267	(7)
Greek: Herakles	274	(7)
African: Wanjiru	281	(2)
Australian Aboriginal: The Pleiades	283	(4)
Hebrew: Abraham and Isaac	287	(1)
Mesopotamian: Gilgamesh	288	(4)
Greek: Orpheus and Eurydice	292	(3)
Greek: Odysseus	295	(3)
The Rebirth, Return, and Apotheosis of the Hero	298	(15)
Blackfoot: Kutoyis	298	(6)
Christian: Jesus	304	(3)
Greek: Herakles	307	(1)
Aztec/Toltec: Quetzalcoatl	307	(1)
Christian: Mary	308	(1)
Greek: Alcestis	309	(2)
Bibliography	311	(2)
PART IV PLACE AND OBJECT MYTHS	313	(36)
Stories of Places and Objects	316	(1)
The Mountain	316	(3)
Hebrew: Mount Sinai	316	(3)
The City	319	(14)
Greek: Troy	319	(11)
Hebrew: Jerusalem	330	(2)
Greek: Delphi	332	(1)
The Temple	333	(3)
Judeo-Christian: The Temple At Jerusalem	333	(2)
European: The Chapel Perilous	335	(1)
The Genitals	336	(2)
Greek: Tiresias	336	(1)
Apache: The Vagina Girls	337	(1)
Greek: The Fig Phallus of Dionysos	338	(1)
The Stone	338	(3)
Phrygian: The Agdos Rock	338	(1)
Australian Aboriginal: Erathipa	339	(1)
Hebrew: The Bethel	340	(1)
The Tree	341	(3)
India: The Cosmic Tree	342	(1)
Norse: Yggdrasil	343	(1)
Hebrew: The Tree of Knowledge	344	(1)
The Garden, the Grove, and the Cave	344	(3)
Muslim: Muhammad's Cave	345	(2)
The Labyrinth	347	(2)
Greek: Daedalus and Icarus	347	(1)
Bibliography	348	(1)
Index	349