Myth Beginnings
Humankind has made myths from the dawn of history. The oldest living mythology is that of Australia Aborigines, whose stories of the sacred eternal dreamtime, or dreaming , stretch back 40,000 years. The myths of diverse cultures are often linked by similar themes. This timeline shows the approximate dates that individual societies began recording or shaping their myths.
Mythology
What is Mythology?
The word "Myth" comes from the Greek "mythos" , meaning a word or a story. Sometimes it is used to mean something that people believe is not true: " It's a myth that carrots help you to see in the dark." But mythology is not a collection of lies; it is a collection of thruths. Each human culture makes stories about the creation of the world, the origins of humankind, and the meaning of life. These stories are myths. In one sense, mythology is religion in story form. But while the essence of religious belief is usually very simple, mythology can be highly complex. This is because myths are stories that explore rather than explain. They show the human mind searching to balance the forces of creation and destruction, of life and death.
Stories about mythical creatures are found all over the world. Native Americans say that many monsters peopled the world at the beginning of time, until great heroes defeated them. Some people believe that mythical beasts are based on garbled accounts of real creatures - that unicorns, for instance, are really rhinoceroses. But mythical creatures seem to be more focus for fear, awe, and wonder than simply mistaken natural history. Monsters are sometimes combinations of various animals, such as the griffin, which was half eagle and half lion. Just giving an ordinary animal a special feature, such as the ability of the Greek horse Pegasus to fly, transports it from the ordinary world to a realm of wonder
Mythology has always been a huge fascination of mine, the creepy stories my parents used to read to me when I was a child before bed, and let's not forget the books with all the old fairytales , to witches to fairies, to dragons to unicorns, the list goes on. The fasicination behind it is, do they even exist?, do Aliens exist? it's all about the unknown which is why myths and legends are interesting.
There are many different creatures that are associated under the term " Mythology ". A well known character, The centaur, a half man, half horse. One of the best known centaurs is Chiron or Cheiron, a wise centaur. Although mostcentaurs were depicted as lustful and wild, Chiron was a notable exception; modest and civilised, he was known for his medicinal skills and teaching abilities. He lived on Mount Pelion in Thessaly and was the tutor of a number of Greek mythical characters such as Achilles and Aesculapius.
This would benefit my project/final outcome because in order to know what your character is mean't to look like, thorough background research is essential to back up the concept. The best starting point was to look into mythology, and then divert from there.