Myths and Legends

For the first eight (ish) years of my life I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household. The Bible was the be all and end all on everything. Creation was absolute, dinosaurs never existed and were never to be mentioned. There was Bible study over breakfast most mornings as well as weekly attendance at church, Sunday School and a mid-week youth group. Women were second class. The body and sex were the ultimate source of shame.

One of my neighbors was vaguely interested in Greek and Roman mythology but that was considered heresy and I was not allowed to investigate myself. Our other neighbors were Catholic and well, while they were great people and fabulous neighbors, we "knew" that was even worse.

I do recall reading about Tidilick as a child but it was presented as a "pretty story" as opposed to the legends of one of our indigenous peoples. Anything that had witches, fairies or the like, that weren't one of the traditional fairy tales, were definitely off limits.

It came as a shock when I was somewhat older to discover that some people considered this fundamentalist "truth" to be a myth and that there were other trains of thought out there in the big wide world.

Since then I have been trying to catch up on the myths and legends of the world. Not just creation stories, but the whole realm of literature that explain the world around us. I am not an expert, far from it - I still confuse my Greek and Roman gods, but I am loving the journey.

Image: "Creation" by PhunkBlazt