This ability to cast their myths in paper in the vernacular, to hand the national memory down the generations, the newfound Christian religion - all coagulated into an emergently distinct culture.
In others, it is a kind of holy grail to be pursued only in myths and narratives.
Then it recoiled and chose the IMF over the KGB, material goods over ideological fervour, the new myths of modernity over the old ones of blood-steeped patriotism.
The situation is shrouded in myths and misconceptions.
Thus, the modern nation-state was a reflection of something more primordial, of human nature itself as it resonated in the national founding myths (most of them fictitious or contrived).
The multiform Ophite Gnosis is in general characterized by fantastic combinations of Syro-Chaldaic myths and Biblical history with Greek mythology, philosophy and mysteriosophy.
In this way myths that were partly immoral and partly fantastic can be rehabilitated as symbolical coverings of speculative ideas.
The partly immoral mythssanctioned or excused by the example of the gods the grossest immoralities.
The influence of Scriptural traditions on the myths of various nations it is probably impossible to unravel satisfactorily.
It is not improbable that several of the heathenmyths have been derived from this source.
Many of these tales are of great interest, for in them we find degenerated forms of some of the most ancient traditions and myths of our own and other races.
Nevertheless, in the regions where Irish myths have been preserved, they have been remarkably well preserved, and bear unmistakable marks of their vast antiquity.
One very noticeable feature in these myths is the definiteness and precision of detail with which the personages and their fields of action are brought before us.
The Egyptian priests from the earliest times must have preserved the annals of their country, though obscured by myths and symbols.
The myths connected with Vishnu refer especially to his incarnations or corporeal apparitions both in men and animals, which he submits to in order to conquer the spirit of evil.
The myths concerning Tlazolteotl are most unsavoury, and consist chiefly of tales concerning her seductive prowess.
The Muellerism of fifteen or twenty years ago would have assigned unhesitatingly the legend of Huitzilopochtli to that class of myths which have their origin in natural phenomena.
Thus, certain parts of Hiawatha are survivals of dramatic myths that were once acted at the spring assembly of the Algonquin Indians.
In purer and less transformed versions the myths and legends of primitive peoples are often scarcely less adapted to the child's mind.
It involved further a syncretism or a combining of various Gods into one, [233] and also an esoteric explanation of the God-myths as symbolical of natural processes, or else of mystical ideas.
But he is further made to boast extravagantly, and in doing so to speak as a believer in myths and deities.
Received myths are forbidden; and the preferred fictions are to be city law.
Myths and not theories, magic and not ethics, were their spiritual food, albeit their peaceful animal lives conformed sufficiently to their code.
Each order of believer accepts the myths of his own creed, and derides others.
Such austerity towards myths can hardly have been compatible with the acceptance of the residuum of Epicurus.
It is worth noting that the common charge against Cranmer, of persuading the young king to sign her death warrant, is false, being one of the myths of Foxe.
Quite a number of writers like Palaiphatos, without going so far as Evêmeros, sought to reduce myths to natural possibilities and events, by way of mediating between the credulous and the incredulous.
It is impossible to deny a place among these mythsof creation to the Hebrew tradition of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Tylor, in a remarkable study of historical traditions and myths of observation,[9] long ago noted that many of the traditions current among mankind were historical in origin.
The myths also show a common impress, "which is probably mainly due to the same savage Malay element" (ii.
It is the function of folklore to correct this error, to restore the Hebrew tradition to its proper place among the myths of the world which have answered the cry of early man for the knowledge of his origin.
Pausanias is the great storehouse of such myths as this, and Mr. Lang has, more than any other scholar, examined and explained the process which has gone on.
He attempts to create out of the myths of a people a mythology which provides gods to be worshipped, faiths to be organised, and beliefs to be the standards of life and conduct.
The folklorist replaces it among the mythsof creation, and then proceeds to analyse and value it.
There is also included in this secondary class of myth, the myths upon which are founded the great systems of mythology.
The American creation myths afford remarkable testimony to this view of the case.
As Mr. Lang says: "all the cosmogonic myths waver between the theory of construction, or rather of reconstruction and the theory of evolution very rudely conceived.
This is what has happened to the Genesis myth of the Hebrews; it has also happened to some of the sacred myths of the Hindus, and perhaps to some of the sacred myths of the Greeks.
Beow Therefore, until some further evidence be discovered, we must regard the belief that the Grendel and the dragon stories were originally myths of Beow, as a theory for which sufficient evidence is not forthcoming.
That therefore we can allegorize Grendel and the dragon into culture-myths connected with the "god Beow.
Frazer did not conceal the difficulties of this explanation from himself[161], nor did he dare to indicate in what way the habit of marrying within the totem, which the myths of the Aruntas proclaimed, was converted into exogamy.
It is also evident that myths are based upon animistic foundations, but the detailed relation ofmyths to animism seem unexplained in some essential points.
In myths the god is frequently transformed into an animal, often into the animal that is sacred to him.
Myths in which the god himself kills the animal that is sacred to him, which he himself really is, belong to this phase.
But, if the primal groups were not exogamous they would become so as soon as totemic myths and taboos were developed out of the animal, vegetable, and other names of small local groups.
Christian myths are said to have been still influenced by the after-effects of this evolution of kings.
In the first place the existence of certain myths which assert that the ancestors of the Aruntas always lived on their totem animal, and that they married no other women except those of their own totem.
The myths of all countries contain allusions to sacred or supernatural plants.
It's surprising how these humbugging old myths survive in the country, and the further away from Town you get, the more you find of them.
Modern rationalists deny the existence of devils, and relegate them to the category of myths and to personified ideas.
As an illustration of this we have the following from an eminent philologist of recent times, a writer whose able efforts in unravelling religious myths bear testimony to his mental strength and literary ability.
In the poetical myths of the ancients the sun is yearly overpowered by cold or by the destructive agencies in Nature.
But whatever may have been its form, as soon as the myths of former religious worship began to attach themselves to his history, he became the symbolical dead man on a cross, the original sacrifice to Mahadeva.
There has been much speculation concerning this holy woman Bega, but it is probable that the writer of her life combined myths which seem to be Keltic with accounts of two historical persons whom Bede keeps quite distinct.
The late Professor Robertson Smith has insisted that myths are latter-day inventions which profess to explain surviving peculiarities of ritual.
Buried cities have been explored and forced to reveal their secrets; lost modes of writing have been deciphered, and olden myths placed upon historic foundations.
Figures which appear only incidentally in the myths as recounted are elaborated almost infinitely in what might best be termed folk fantasy.
Although the myths do not describe him, my informants generally picture him as a colossus who hops on a single leg from the top of one mountain to another.
Both Lowie and Dangberg report myths in which a giant, Hangawuiwui, is the principal figure.
As the myths about earth-bearers prevail in the regions of earthquakes, so do those about subterranean beings in the neighbourhood of volcanoes.
Cox, and Professor de Gubernatis, as interpreters of themyths of the Indo-European peoples, and Dr.
The widespread myths which account for death have as their underlying idea the infraction of some law or custom, for which the offender pays the extreme penalty.
The cogency of the evidence concerning the development of belief in Satan out of light-and-darkness myths is generally admitted, but it is of a kind that must not be pushed too far.
These are the less refined forms of myths which have held their ground from pre-scientific times till now, and the rude analogies of which are justified by the appearances of things as presented by the senses.
In the spontaneous utterances of thoughts awakened by outward phenomena, we have the source of myths which must be regarded as primary.
In like manner we may speak of myths as fossil ethics and fossil theology, but, with more appositeness, as embryonic ethics and theology, since they contain potentially all the philosophies and theologies "that man did ever find.
Nevertheless there lurk within these sacred writings survivals of the lower culture, traces of coarse rites, bloody sacrifices, of repulsive myths of the gods, and of cosmogonies familiar to the student of barbaric myth and legend.
But it is obvious that such myths would be produced only so long as the words employed were used in their original meaning.
Whilst the primary causes determining the production of myths are uniform, the secondary causes, due in the main to different physical surroundings, vary, bringing about unlikeness in subject and detail.
The first and fourth mythswere recorded in Kibungan, the second in Kapangan, the third in Legleg.
Mr. Ralston introduced the volume with some remarks which dealt too much with sun-myths for present-day taste.
Jones' Negro Mythsof the Georgia Coast (Uncle Remus is from S.
Under the head of "Hero Myths of the British Race" have been included outlines of the stories of Beowulf, Cuchulain, Hereward the Wake, and Robin Hood.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "myths" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
