Where do Myths and Legends come from?

[CulixCupric]

Where do Myths and Legends come from?

Mainly I'm speaking of mythical monsters, like lycanthropes (Latin Fun fact: lycan = wolf, anthro = humanoid), vampires, etc. but other myths and legends too. Did people believe these creatures to be real? Were they children's tales to scare them into behaving, as is my understanding of trolls and the baba yaga, or something else? Did adults believe in any of these creatures too? Were some, besides Adam a.k.a. Frankenstein's monster, just works of fiction? How were these creatures thought up? Is it possible any of them were/are real? We did think that giant pandas and komodo dragons were myths. How come vampires and dragons appear in the mythology of many lands that never communicated with each other at that time? Were these creatures just part of the human imagination, or were they actually in existence, and vanished? How come people still look for the sasquatch/ yeti/ wendigo/ bigfoot, and if it exist, how come we haven't found it yet? How come goblins, redcaps, brownies, and imps are so similar, when they come from different lands? How do legends and myths effect us today? what's your opinion on myths and cryptozoology? what is fact, and what is fiction?

TL;DR: Nice Try.

NOTE: I am a cynic, a skeptic, and have a mild interest in the paranormal. I like history, and how history is effected by legend, myth, and the beliefs of the cultures at that point in time. some of my favorite legends are Vlad the impaler, springheel jack, werewolves, bogeyman/slenderman, and dragons. i understand the differences between fact and fiction, although because of peoples' viewpoints, that line between fact and fiction does blur. i believe truth is stranger than fiction, but i take everything with a grain of salt.

List of mythical creatures:
http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/List+of+Mythical+Creatures

 

[Jonluw]

A lot of them were believed to be real, or so I hear.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about how people in the 1700s classified mermaids. Complete with illustrations from an old taxonomy book.

I figure most were believed to exist until fairly recently, except the ones that were blatently intended to scare children, like the bogeyman.

As for my opinion on cryptozoology: I give it slightly more credit than creationist "science".

 

[Handbag1992]

A surprising amount of these mythical creatures are the result of people catching a quick glimpse of an animal and misinterperating the image.

For example, the dugong was spotted by sailors and thought to be a mermaid, the unicorn is thought to have been a form of horned goat seen from the side so that one horn covered the other.

 

[Jamash]

Most of them are just primitive man's best way of explaining real things without the benefit of scientific knowledge.

For example, the Native American myth of the Wendigo is just their best attempt at explaining the massive physiological and psychological changes that affect someone who eats human flesh.

Science knows the prion diseases degrades their mind and the lack of nutrition from Human flesh ravishes their body, but without that knowledge it's easy to understand how Native Americans could believe eating Human flesh turns a person into a demonic monster.

After all, a psychopath running around with human mad cow disease, eating corpses and (because of malnutrition) displaying receded bleeding gums, sharp broken teeth and finger nails, with pallid, gaunt discoloured skin stretched over their skeletal frame is pretty scary and would seem like a monster or a person possessed by evil spirits.

I also think Humans have a subconscious desire to anthropomorphise everything they encounter and can't understand, or at least explain it by attributing it's cause to a creature. For example, without understanding Chemistry, perhaps they attributed methane gas fires to Dragons (dinosaur fossils) and swamp gasses to be a Will'o'Wisp.

Also, everyone loves a good story and a mystery and before writing, history was passed down verbally through stories, myths and legends.

 

[Batou667]

I don't know about legends, but I have it on good authority that a myth is an unmarried woman with a lisp.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Dead religions. Any religion that people once believed was the gospel truth that is now dead likely contains the source of many myths and legends. Sad way of the world but its part of the religion lifecycle.

Cult -> Religion -> Organisation -> Overthrown by next religion -> myth

All religions move through it.

Very old paganism answers a lot of what youre talking about.

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

Because at one point someone saw something, they couldnt explain. Because people told stories to explain away things that happened that they didnt have the understanding to explain.

Things happened, those things became stories, those stories became legends, and those legends became myths. At some point i believe they all had some basis in truth, whether it was mistaken identity, or they couldnt explain it.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Some of them were believed at some points - usually the stories morph and change over generations and as they cross cultural lines though, so what was believed is likely nothing at all like what is described in the stories. You have to remember that most of the tradition of stories was (and in some cases still is actually) orally communicated from one generation to the next as part of a set of knowledge that mostly related to cultural values, societal rules, norms, and prohibitions, and certain taboos. Symbolism is the key to most myths, fairy tales, and legends - although some legends are very obviously constructed towards specific purposes. Take Virgil's Aeneid for example: it was written to glorify the reigning Emperor's line and rule and attempt to resurrect "traditional" Roman values. Things didn't start getting written down for a long time, and when they did they were written by hand and lots of things were lost and rediscovered/reinterpreted multiple times, translations, dead languages, all sorts of filters and fumbles.

As far as creatures go - usually spirit associations from before the time of organized religions is where you end up if you do a long enough trace back. Again - the shifting and shaping across time and telling makes a huge removal from what was then actual belief to what today survives as story figure.

 

[Worgen]

Cracked has an interesting article about this sort of thing, check it out.
http://www.cracked.com/article/177_6-popular-monsters-myths-that-prove-humanity-doomed/

 

[l3awl3ag]

A lot of them were, and still are, believed to be real. Certainly witches, vampires and werewolves.

You'll have at least heard of witch hunts by now right? That went on for quite a long time, up until as recently as the 1700s if I'm not mistaken.

There were also fears of vampirism in the 1700s, mostly in Europe. "Fears" doesn't even cut it to be honest. Like witches, people believed that they 100% DID exist back then. There's records of people having dug up the recently buried dead back then and decapitating them if they were suspected to have been killed by a vampire.

As for werewolves, I have no idea how far back that goes lol. That's old. But again, it definitely started because people believed them to exist. This is still a commonly held belief in some parts of the world, believe it or not.


And for the record, I don't think any of those three monsters I've just mentioned actually exist or have ever existed lol. I'm just telling you what I know.


If you're interested in this stuff, Google it lol. Seriously, the info is all there.

 

[Ragnarok185]

all legends and myths have an origin. people don't make things up on the spot. some could just be misrepresentation of the creature or some could be real.

 

[Hazy992]

Don't most myths and legends come from the unexplained? 'why is that mountain erupting fire? It must be a god and it's angry with us!'

 

[Woodsey]

To scare children, to make certain figures seem more impressive, to entertain people, etc. etc.

Same reason films and books are made and written today; some of the stick.

 

[plugav]

Some of those were meant to explain the world to simple, pre-scientific societies, while others were mere cautionary tales. All were passed down through generations, often deformed and stripped of original meaning in the process, until they were written down.

We still have urban legends today but they're not as grand because we know more about the world. There are no dragons in the sewers, because dragon's don't exist. Albino alligators, on the other hand - who's to say they aren't real? Both alligators and albinism exist, after all, and hardly anyone's actually explored the sewers. And you shouldn't either - there might be alligators.

The best thing about it all is that I can be a sceptic and still have chills running down my spine when I hear or read about this sort of thing. Well, not dragons or albino alligators specifically but... oh, you know what I mean.

 

[DionysusSnoopy]

Many myths and legends have an inkling of truth that gets lost as stories are passed on. I only know some truth about vampires. People can suffer from a lack of iron (haem) in the red blood cells caused by a genetic disorder and are called porphyrias (possibly aka Porphyric Haemophilia) and one of the richest sources of iron that can be digested is blood which then provides the iron for the blood cells. Symptoms like photosensitivity would account for the idea of sunlight harming vampires.
I believe most are generally started due to a person telling another what they may have seen and this rumour spreads around then another person sees a similar event and believes it to be what they were told or religion, now i know the bible and a little of the quran (if i remember correctly) and from both i conclude that at some point there was a bloke called Jesus (apologies if i offend anyone) but beyond that both books were written after the fact so it could be all hearsay. The kraken could also have come from a giant squid leaving the depths of the sea and attackin a ship, at least i believe that to be the most likely foundation of the myth

Edit: I also know that fairy tales have changed quite drastically in tone from the original stories especially the ones associated to the Brothers Grimm as they were quite dark stories meant to scare people.

 

[somonels]

What the **** makes you think Vlad the Impaler was a myth? You been watching ^, haven't you.
The founding fathers, now that's a myth.

 

[CulixCupric]

What the **** makes you think Vlad the Impaler was a myth? You been watching ^, haven't you.
The founding fathers, now that's a myth.

I know Vlad Tepis was real, i meant that the myth of him being a vampire, as he was a human prince.

 

[somonels]

-Not very relevant anymore-

I know Vlad Tepis was real, i meant that the myth of him being a vampire, as he was a human prince.

That isn't a myth, that's a book, popularized by early cinema.