First of all: Thank you Child for pointing me what my point was! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I took an one hour walk and started to question if I had said anything reasonable.
Quote:
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'Creating' a mythology is what its about - creating - its a creative act.
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I would tend to disagree. Think about the previously mentioned examples of mythologies or say
Kalevala. They
weren't consciously created but born during only God knows how long a period. Homer (even if he were a historical figure) didn't create
The Iliad and
The Odyssey, he just put together the puzzle so to say. Even better example of this is
The Kalevala (closest to my heart anyway as I'm a Finn): the Finnish mythology certainly wasn't E. Lönnrot's creation or even his sub-creation (I'm getting tired of this term...), he just put the various existing pieces together in his epic (published as late as 1835). So, the myths arise from a basic human need: the desire to understand "Why?". And the answer to that question is what we refer to as a myth. Notice:
a i.e. one myth not a
mythology. And even the singular myths, tales, faeries or whatever you call them weren't creations as we understand the word. As Child pointed out the men of earlier times were more closely and very differently connected to earth, gods and such than we are; when one of them explained e.g. why the sun was in the sky and moved across it or why it rained/stormed his explanation wouldn't have been conceived as a created tale but as the way things actually were in nature.
Ok, I have to get back to this subject later for this is taking the time from my actual studies (I should be reading for an exam which is tomorrow; how inhuman is that, an exam on Saturday!).