An Introduction to Mythology

How Myths Are Made and Compared

Lewis Spence

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9785486567339
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Social Sciences

What mythology is and how it has been explained - the solar theory, the ghost theory, the ritual theory - set out by a working folklorist for readers who wanted the arguments before the stories. This edition is bound with a gallery of sixty plates of painting, among them works by Frederic Leighton, Odilon Redon and Claude Lorrain, ranging in date from 1537 to 1904.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Preface
• Chapter I. Introductory
• Mythology and Folklore Contrasted
• Myth and Religion
• What Is Religion?
• The ‘Savage’ Element in Myth
• A Peruvian Priest-Myth
• Madness or Mental Childhood?
• Savagery in Greek Myth
• Savagery in the Vedas and Brahmanas
• Myth and Early Science
• Animism: A Fossil Faith
• Pre-Animistic Religion
• From Fetish to Thunder-God
• The Nature of Mythic Law
• From Bird-To Man-God
• The Causes of Mythic Change
• The ‘Editing’ of Myth
• The Classification of Myth
• The Distribution of Myth
• Sophisticated Myths
• Chapter II. The Progress of Mythic Science
• Medieval Mythology
• Eighteenth-Century Mythologers
• The Philological School
• Müller’s Contemporary Critics
• Müllerian Interpretations
• The Anthropological School
• The Anthropological Position
• Importance of Savage Myth
• Tylor’s Animistic Theory
• Herbert Spencer
• William Robertson Smith
• The Conservatism of Childhood
• Cornelius Petrus Tiele
• Andrew Lang
• Lang’s General Thesis
• Diffusion of Identical Myths
• Lang’s Anti-Animistic Hypothesis
• Sir James George Frazer
• Frazer’s Main Contention
• Lang’s Criticism of Frazer’s Thesis
• The Ghastly Priest
• What Is the ‘Golden Bough’?
• Farnell’s Criticism of “The Golden Bough”
• The ‘Adjacent’ Method
• Salomon Reinach
• The Religious Influence of Myth
• The European ‘Sky-God’
• The Grimms
• Mr Sidney Hartland
• Dr Rendel Harris
• Professor Elliot Smith
• Chapter III. The Evolution of the Gods
• Idea of Spirit Conceived Early
• The Development of the Fetish
• Payne on the Fetish
• The ‘Successful’ Fetish
• Totems as Gods
• The Compact with the Gods
• The Corn-Spirit as God
• From Corn-Spirit to God
• Chapter IV. The Various Types of Deity
• The Sun-God
• Marine Deities
• Lunar Gods
• Agricultural Deities
• The Corn-Spirit and Its Abode
• The Burry Man
• Chapter V. The Various Classes of Myth
• Fire Myths
• Fire-Stealing Myths
• Star Myths
• Myths of Death and Taboo
• The Dismemberment Myth
• Comparative Tables of Myths
• Birth of Gods Myths
• Myths of the Origin of Heroes
• Myths of a Place of Punishment
• Chapter VI. The Making of the World and of Man (Cosmogony)
• Indian Creation Stories
• Egyptian Creation Myths
• Osiris as Creator
• Egyptian Ideas Regarding the Sky
• The Babylonian Accounts of Creation
• Chinese World-Making
• The Hebrew Creation Story
• Japanese Origins
• Iranian Cosmogony
• The Celtic Idea of the Origin of Man
• Norse Cosmogony
• Mexican Beginnings
• Creation in Ancient Peru
• American Indian Creation Myths
• Iroquois Indians
• Californian Indians
• Underworld Origins
• Carib Creation Myth
• Tupi-Guarani Creation Myth
• A Tupi-Guarani Legend
• The Relationship of Cosmogonies
• Principal Creation Myths Summarized
• Chapter VII. Paradise and the Place of Punishment
• The Teutonic Realm of Woe
• Valhalla, the Warriors’ Heaven
• The Olympus of Old Egypt
• The Duat
• Assyria’s ‘Land of No Return’
• The Hebrew Hell
• The Hellenic Place of the Dead
• The Elysian Fields
• The Slavonic Place of the Dead
• The Celtic Otherworld
• The Heaven of Ancient Mexico
• The Aztec Abode of the Dead
• The Red Man’s After-Life
• The Chinooks
• African Ideas of the Future Life
• Heaven and the Sky
• Hades and the Underworld
• Chapter VIII. Folklore and Myth
• The Legend of St Triduana
• A Scottish Faust
• The ‘Complementary’ Process
• The Magic of Italy
• Chapter IX. Ritual and Myth
• The Rites of Dionysus
• Chapter X. The Written Sources of Myth
• The Sources of Egyptian Myth
• The Two Brothers
• The Gilgamesh Epic
• Hindu Mythical Literature: The Vedas
• The “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”
• The “Iliad” and “Odyssey”
• Japanese Mythic Literature
• The Eddas
• The “Mabinogion”
• Sources of Mexican Myth
• American Indian Mythic Writings
• Myth in English Poetry
• Chapter XI. The Great Mythic Systems of the World
• Graeco-Roman Myth
• Egyptian Myth
• Babylonian Myth
• Hindu Myth
• Teutonic Myth
• Celtic Myth
• The Children of Danu
• British Gods
• Mexican Mythology
• The Aztec War-God
• Chinook Myth
• Choctaw Myth
• Araucanian Myth
• About the Author