INTRODUCTIONMEN CREATE THE GODS
IN THEIR OWN IMAGE.
The Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570 –480 bc)
However, the most familiar European myths
have come down to us through literature.
Myths originating in ancient Greece – of the
gods of Mount Olympus, of heroes, and of
many semi-divine beings – were given long
life by the Greeks’ later poets and dramatists.
Fascinating in their own right, stories of gods
such as Zeus and Apollo, and of heroes such
as Heracles and Perseus, have been made still
more enduring and popular because they
became the subject matter for, among other
Greek writers, Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus,
and Euripides. When the Romans adopted
the myths of the Greeks, a new generation
of writers, such as Ovid and Virgil, developed
these stories even further. Another example ofa rich literary culture embracing mythology
that had roots in a much earlier period is found
in the works of the poets and writers of the
Middle Ages, who retold stories of King Arthur
and his knights, as well as other tales of chivalry.
The literary retellings of European myth
remind us of the sophistication of the societies
that produced them, from ancient Greece to
medieval Christendom. Yet this sophistication is
only one side of the myths, because the world
of European mythology is often very far from
sophisticated. Extraordinarily bloody battles,
bodies torn limb from limb, gods who behave
with little or no concern at all for morality – all
of these are regular features of Classical Greek
and Roman myth, for example. And the witches,
ogres, water sprites, werewolves, and other dark
beings that loom large in many of the stories
from Central Europe can be just as violent and
fearsome. For all of its great age and apparent
sophistication, then, the mythology of Europe
remains as ambiguous and edgy as it ever was.15