This is the hope that myth and legend sets before us: that we all, if we pursue our
odyssey to the end, will find ourselves and thus be saved: and in saving ourselves we
save the world. It is thus that the world is being constantly redeemed and renewed.
Plato, in The Republic, states that the ultimate goal of education should be to create in
children an active imagination, because imagination, he claims, is the means through
which we recreate the world, and we each rediscover the meaning and significance of life,
experience the joy of being alive. Plato would educate children through myth, through
story and through folklore. Aristotle claims that the friend of wisdom is also the friend of
myth.
In more recent times, Joseph Campbell, the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces
maintains that myths are metaphors or fields of reference to what ordinarily can’t be
known or named. He says that they are guiding signs to a deep, rich, satisfying inner
life, a vivifying spiritual experience. Campbell points out that in medieval times the
tallest building in any city was the tower of the church, temple or mosque whereas today
it is an office block—to which could be added, the television tower. In forsaking myth for
technology and commerce a society runs the risk of being inwardly impoverished. We
can now bring Mount Olympus into close range with our giant telescopes; listen through
our headsets to the music of the spheres; read and print out the pronouncements of the
oracle from the computer screen. Hermes has been replaced by the fax machine.
Yet the awesome wonder of the old tales remains; but only if the versions and
retellings remain true to the spirit of the originals, as far as we can trace them. The
prototypes of many myths and legends, however, have come down to us in fragmented
form and are not accessible or even suitable for use with children.
In ancient days tales of heroes were often sung by minstrels and gathered by poets in
the form of an epic: a long narrative verse cycle clustered around the exploits of a named
hero who embodied the cultural symbols and qualities which the society held dear. The
first known and recorded epic would appear to be the legend of Gilgamesh sung to the
harp by Sumerians and recorded in clay some 3,000 years before Christ. It exalts the
wondrous exploits of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, and celebrates his friendship with
Enkidu. It probes the mysteries of life and whatever is beyond it. The Epic of Gilgamesh:
an English version with an introduction by N.K.Sanders (1980) is a source book for
retellings such as that in Maurice Saxby’s The Great Deeds of Superheroes, the
introduction to which, ‘We all need heroes’ includes a comprehensive table charting the
heroic pattern in myth and legend (Saxby 1989:6–12). (A companion volume, The Great
Deeds of Heroic Women (Saxby 1990) retells stories of goddesses, saints, warrior women
and strong females who became legends in their own time.) The Gilgamesh story has
been used by Ludmila Zeman as the basis for two rich and lavish picture books,
Gilgamesh the King (1992) and The Revenge of Ishtar (1993), illustrated in Sumerian art
style. The text, which is pitched at the newly independent reader, is pared down to an
accessible level without being impoverished.
Myths and legends from ancient Greece used with children today come largely from
Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 850 BC) telling the story of the Trojan
War and its aftermath. After the fall of Troy, between 600 and 700 BC, Hesiod, Homer,
Pindar and other Greek writers collected and wrote down the myths of the gods and the
legendary stories of the heroes. Apollonius of Rhodes (c.305–235 BC) and Apollodorus
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