The life cycle of a myth.

Dear Reader,

I will not be doing a video post today because my living room still looks like a disaster because of how many projects I am working on. I really should have started last January on making things for last Yule. But I had to be foolish and wait until November. Lesson learned, I am not doing that again.

If I were to make a video, it would be discussing today's topic: the life cycle of a myth. There are going to be some who are going to be highly annoyed with me for the views pointed out here. I apologize in advance for any distress I may cause with this post. It is the fruit of literally three decades of study in mythology and religious literature. Some of this study was formally academic, most of it was almost obsessive reading and note taking. 

All myths began as stories to explain the world we live in and how it operates. They became popular with a cultural group because it made sense to them to interpret the world that way. Over time, due to cultural drift (also known as cultural cross-fertilization), these myths grow and change. If we look at Norse mythology we can see an example of that cultural drift in the role that Tyr and Odin play in the most recent record from antiquity. 

During the Migration period, studies of Norse mythology points to Tyr as being the leader of the Aesir. His epithet of Sky-Father suggests that he was originally in the position that Odin is in. Once the Settlement period began and raiding became an important part of their culture, Odin arises as the All-Father. Tyr is referred to as an adopted son of Odin, which is a large reduction in stature from one who was once chieftain of this tribe of gods. It is reasonable to argue that Tyr's loss of stature came from him sacrificing his right hand to the Wolf. Because he is no longer whole, he cannot hold the status of chieftain.

This concept is heavily borrowed from the Celtic peoples, where their mythology has a similar story of the king of the gods loses his arm and can no longer lead. Odin's loss of his eye would presumably make for an argument that he is no longer fit to be ruler. That story, however, presents later in the mythology than Tyr's loss of his right hand. As such, Odin is well entrenched as the head of the Aesir and is during the cultural period where the Nordic and Germanic people are struggling to keep their cultural identity in the face of encroaching Christian influences.

As cultures change, the original stories are forgotten or regulated to fireside fiction. With the arrival of Christianity among these peoples, laws are enacted to prohibit worship of the old gods. This happens regularly with the conquering of one culture by another. Sometimes, a culture gets lucky and aside from folktales and folk magic, there is some kind of documentation of the previous iteration of the mythos. This, however, must be read through the lens of the changed culture that wrote it and the recognition that significant portions are missing due to the passage of time.