Portal:Myths

The Myths Portal

Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is totally different from the ordinary sense of the term myth, meaning a belief that is not true, as the veracity of a piece of folklore is entirely irrelevant to determining whether it constitutes a myth.

Myths are often endorsed by religious and secular authorities, and may be natural or supernatural in character. Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. Origin myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified. National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals. (Full article...)

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The Ludovisi Cnidian Aphrodite, Roman marble copy (torso and thighs) with restored head, arms, legs and drapery support

Aphrodite (/ˌæfrəˈdaɪtiː/ ^ⓘ, AF-rə-DY-tee) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretised Roman counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite may have been derived from the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.

A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature. According to many sources, like Homer's Iliad and Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In Hesiod's Theogony, however, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam (ἀφρός, aphrós) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. In his Symposium, Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite, who "partakes not of the female but only of the male", with Plato describing her as inspiring love between men, but having nothing to do with the love of women) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people" who Plato described as "wanton", to contrast her with the virginal Aphrodite Urania, who did not engage in sexual acts at all. Pandemos inspired love between men and women, unlike her older counterpart). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion. Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete. (Full article...)

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... that the self-decapitated Hindu goddess Chhinnamasta (pictured) standing on a copulating couple signifies that life, death and sex are interdependent?

... that in Inuit mythology, an Angakkuq, or shaman, is told to be able to fly with the assistance of a spirit companion, or tuurngaq?

... that the cult of Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya feathered serpent deity, was the first Mesoamerican religion to transcend earlier linguistic and ethnic divisions?

... that Xiuhcoatl was a mythological Aztec fire-serpent, viewed as the spirit form of Xiuhtecuhtli, the fire god, and was the lightning-like weapon of the god Huitzilopochtli?

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A vampire is a mythical creature with a human-like appearance that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally, the blood) of humans. In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Vampiric entities have been recorded in cultures around the world, but the term vampire was first popularized in Western Europe following reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria drawing on a pre-existing folk belief in Southeastern and Eastern Europe. This delusion led, in certain cases, not only to individuals being accused of vampirism, but also to the corpses of such suspected vampires being pierced with stakes. Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania, cognate with Italian strega, meaning 'witch'. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various myth-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The third gift — an enormous hammer (1902) by Elmer Boyd Smith and the ring Draupnir is visible among other creations by the Sons of Ivaldi (from List of mythological objects)
Image 2Early Hebrew Conception of the Universe (from List of mythological objects)
Image 3Fig trees often represent talismans with the udumbara (from List of mythological objects)
Image 4The Crown of Immortality, held by the allegorical figure Eterna (Eternity) (from List of mythological objects)
Image 5The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral (from List of mythological objects)
Image 61929 Belgian banknote, depicting Ceres, Neptune and caduceus (from Myth)
Image 7Symbolic power: a dragon in the Imperial City, Huế, Vietnam (from Legendary creature)
Image 8Ahimelech giving the sword of Goliath to David, by Aert de Gelder. (from List of mythological objects)
Image 9Hand of God (from List of mythological objects)
Image 10Edith Hamilton's Mythology has been a major channel for English speakers to learn classical Greek and Roman mythology (from Myth)
Image 11Joan of Arc with her famous sword (from List of mythological objects)
Image 12Riding a Flying Carpet, an 1880 painting by Viktor Vasnetsov (from List of mythological objects)
Image 13Claíomh Solais on an Ireland stamp printed in 1922 (from List of mythological objects)
Image 14Jason returns with Golden fleece (from List of mythological objects)
Image 15Longinus with his famous Spear (from List of mythological objects)
Image 16The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune (c. 1689 or 1706) by René-Antoine Houasse, depicting the founding myth of Athens (from National myth)
Image 17Shiva with his Trishula (from List of mythological objects)
Image 18The fall of Icarus (from List of mythological objects)
Image 19The Argo (c. 1500 – 1530), painting by Lorenzo Costa (from List of mythological objects)
Image 20Jug from Lydian Treasure Usak (from List of mythological objects)
Image 21Azoth, a universal medicine or universal solvent sought in alchemy. (Medieval legend) (from List of mythological objects)
Image 22Achilles wearing his armor (from List of mythological objects)
Image 23Thor's Fight with the Giants (1872) by Mårten Eskil Winge. Thor is the god of thunder in Norse mythology. (from Myth)
Image 24Voodoo doll with pins in it, Museum of Witchcraft (from List of mythological objects)
Image 25Shield of Achilles (illustration) (from List of mythological objects)
Image 26Sampo, a magical artifact of indeterminate type constructed by Ilmarinen that brought riches and good fortune to its holder, in the Finnish epic poetry Kalevala (The Forging of the Sampo, Joseph Alanen, 1911) (from List of mythological objects)
Image 27Dietrich von Bern and Hildebrand fight against dragons (from List of mythological objects)
Image 28Yama with his famous Yama Pasha (from List of mythological objects)
Image 29King Svafrlame Secures the Sword Tyrfing (from List of mythological objects)
Image 30The Giving of the Seven Bowls of Wrath / The First Six Plagues, Revelation 16:1–16. Matthias Gerung, c. 1531 (from List of mythological objects)
Image 31Amenonuhoko (天沼矛 or 天之瓊矛 or 天瓊戈, "heavenly jeweled spear") is the name given to the spear in Shinto used to raise the primordial land-mass, Onogoro-shima, from the sea (from List of mythological objects)
Image 32Image showing the sacred tree to the right of the temple, from Olaus Magnus' Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555). To the right of the tree is a depiction of a man being sacrificed in the spring (from List of mythological objects)
Image 33Pied piper (from List of mythological objects)
Image 34An angel (Camael) expelling Adam and Eve with a flaming sword (from List of mythological objects)
Image 35"Tizona", the sword attributed to El Cid, on exhibit in the Army Museum of Madrid (from List of mythological objects)
Image 36The Celestial Chariot, Pushpaka Vimana from Ramayana (from List of mythological objects)
Image 37The famous sword of Excalibur painted by Howard Pyle (from List of mythological objects)
Image 38Vishnu with his Panchajanya (from List of mythological objects)
Image 39Heracles would use arrows dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill other foes during his Labours, such as Stymphalian birds and the giant (from List of mythological objects)
Image 40The Ash Yggdrasil by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (from List of mythological objects)
Image 41Snake and world egg of the inhabitants of Tyre (from List of mythological objects)
Image 42This panel by Bartolomeo di Giovanni relates the second half of the Metamorphoses. In the upper left, Jupiter emerges from clouds to order Mercury to rescue Io. (from Myth)
Image 43"The Fall of Man" by Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Tree of Knowledge is on the right (from List of mythological objects)
Image 44Several legendary creatures from Bilderbuch für Kinder (lit. 'picture book for children') between 1790 and 1822, by Friedrich Justin Bertuch (from Legendary creature)
Image 45Opening lines of one of the Mabinogi myths from the Red Book of Hergest (written pre-13th century, incorporating pre-Roman myths of Celtic gods):
Gereint vab Erbin. Arthur a deuodes dala llys yg Caerllion ar Wysc...
(Geraint the son of Erbin. Arthur was accustomed to hold his Court at Caerlleon upon Usk...) (from Myth)
Image 46The Deluge, frontispiece to Gustave Doré's illustrated edition of the Bible. Based on the story of Noah's Ark, this engraving shows humans and a tiger doomed by the flood futilely attempting to save their children and cubs. (from Comparative mythology)
Image 47Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus' Song, a mythological painting by Francesco Hayez, 1813–1815 (from Myth)
Image 48Hanuman fetches the herb-bearing mountain, in a print from the Ravi Varma Press, 1910's (from List of mythological objects)
Image 49Thor wearing the magic belt Megingjörð (from List of mythological objects)
Image 50Killing of Ravana Painting by Brahmstra of Arrow of Brahma (from List of mythological objects)