¿ Who invented the myths and legends? In reality no person invented the myths and legends, but they were transmitted from person to person, thus being created by all the people of civilizations.
For example, the myths of Ancient Greece were created from people who began to give explanations to natural phenomena, telling those stories to other people. Those people passed on those stories to others, passing the decades and passing from generation to generation.
Myths and legends are stories, often traditional, that are transmitted orally from generation to generation. Some of the best known are the myth of Achilles or the legend of King Arthur.
Myths and legends have no inventors, they belong to all the peoples of the world. All peoples and civilizations have a story, as a way to consolidate their origins and establish their identity.
Almost all myths and legends are loaded with great imagination. They are so fascinating that they have been represented by painting, architecture, and today, the cinema shows their fantastic stories.
Myths
They are narratives that have a deep symbolism for a culture. Since they have a supernatural explanation of the origin, existence and development of civilization.
According to the definition of the Royal Academy of Languages, “a myth is a marvelous narrative situated outside of historical time and starring characters of a divine or heroic character. He frequently interprets the origin of the world, or of great events of humanity ”.
Myths appear in all the cultures of the peoples of the world, from the oldest.
From there arises mythical thought, giving to all natural phenomena, a supernatural explanation. Despite the distances, the myths of different cultures share an amazing similarity.
The explanation is that all these peoples faced the same basic problems, asking the same questions.
They want to know where they come from, the why of natural phenomena, and the why of causes and effects.
Religions and myths provide similar explanations, they narrate the "how" and "why" of the universe.
However, myths are not intended to be a guide, they contain an implicit morality, but they are not intended to impose themselves.
The leyends
The legends are oral or written narratives, of historical reminiscences, with a greater or lesser addition of imaginative elements.
They can be of popular extraction, each town or area has one, or scholars, arising from its own culture, or there can be a mixture of both. At first they may have been scholars, and then they became very popular.
A legend always tells a particular theme, which tries to explain a natural phenomenon, whatever it may be, by telling a fantastic story.
It differs from history, because it tells facts that cannot be verified, no one can prove that what a legend tells has really happened.
Being of oral tradition, many legends start from a certain fact, to which, with the passage of time, fantastic attributes are added.
Differences between myths and legends
A myth is a narrative that tries to explain a real mystery, which is almost always linked to the beliefs and rites of a people.
The legend, on the other hand, does not try to explain the supernatural, but is a story that highlights with imagination some characteristic or attribute of a town, place or city, starting from some real fact.
Myths originate from a time when the world did not have its current shape, and were ingrained as absolute truth.
The legends focus on more modern times, in which men already lived in community.
The characters that star in the myths are gods or supernatural beings, while the legends tell stories about men or anthropomorphic beings.
References
- «Myth and Legend» in: Online teacher. Retrieved on September 6, 2017 in Online Professor: profesorenlinea.cl
- "Myth: Function and Meaning." Retrieved on September 6, 2017 in Online Professor: profesorenlinea.cl
- "Myths and Legends" in: Myths and Legends. Recovered on September 6, 2017 in Myths and Legends: mitosyleyendascr.com
- "Myths and Legends of antiquity" in: Know-It-All. Retrieved on September 6, 2017 in Sabelotodo: sabelotodo.org.