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THE CREATION OF MYTH
On Myth and History
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On Myth and History
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Although in common usage 'myth' and 'history' are often regarded today as “contradictories,” myth and history seem to have always been close kin. Both made attempts to explain how things got to be the way they are by telling similar sorts of stories — stories of specific events, held to have come to pass at certain times and in particular places, — events which were witnessed by common ancestors, and remembered ever after by the storytelling descendants of those who had survived.
Our English words ‘story’ and ‘history,’ for instance, both stem from medieval borrowings of the same Latin root historia (itself borrowed earlier by the Romans from the Greek verb <Greek> ‘istorin). Though today they represent different and distinct terms for ‘factual’ and ‘fictional’ narratives, both words originally meant narratives revealing a factual, true relation of historical events. A ‘story’ was simply a narrative, whether oral or written, and had nothing to do with modern ideas of entertainment or fiction. The same holds true for the word ‘myth’ also. Indeed, the closer one looks, the less likely it appears there can be any real distinction made between our modern notion of history, and the myths, fables and sagas recalled nostalgically by masses of people for thousands of years as ‘true stories.’ — “Mythistory” is what we actually find: — not metaphors, not allegories ... not symbols, not psychic archetypes ... not theological or metaphysical assumptions ... not literal, but literarily true narratives from mankind’s preliterate prehistory. — Moreover, the very attempt to draw any fine line between history and myth has often served only to obscure and obfuscate additional observations that are otherwise largely neglected or even entirely omitted from serious discussion. |