Don't Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned

609 Pages·2005·2.13 MB·English

by  Kenneth C. Davis

Don’t Know Much About® Mythology

Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in
Human History But Never Learned
Kenneth C. Davis
For my Muse,
Joann
I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to
civilization.
—VOLTAIRE

Throughout the inhabited world, in all times, and under every circumstance,
the myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of
whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and
mind….
—JOSEPH CAMPBELL,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces

We have not met our forgotten ancestors, but we begin to sense their
presence in the dark. We recognize their shadows here and there. They were
once as real as we are. We would not be here if not for them. Our natures and
theirs are indissolubly linked despite the aeons that may separate us. The key to
who we are is waiting in those shadows.
—CARL SAGAN and ANN DRUYAN,
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Contents

Epigraph

Introduction

Chapter 1
All Men Have Need of the Gods

Chapter 2
Gift of the Nile
The Myths of Egypt

Chapter 3
By the Rivers of Babylon
The Myths of Mesopotamia

Chapter 4
The Greek Miracle
The Myths of Greece and Rome

Chapter 5
An Age of Axes, an Age of Swords
The Myths of the Celts and Norse

Bridge to the East
Chapter 6
The Radiance of a Thousand Suns
The Myths of India

Chapter 7
Everywhere Under Heaven
The Myths of China and Japan

Ancient People, New Worlds

Chapter 8
Out of Africa
The Myths of Sub-Saharan Africa

Chapter 9
Sacred Hoops
The Myths of the Americas and Pacific Islands

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Searchable Terms

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by Kenneth C. Davis

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

I
n the olden days”—that seems like a good opening for a book about myths—
when I was about eleven years old, I could not sit still at my fifth-grade desk. I
squirmed. I fidgeted. My mind wandered. Oh, I tried, but I didn’t remember
much of anything I was supposed to learn. Except that at the end of each day, as
the clock on the wall ticked slowly toward three o’clock and freedom, I would
sit like a stone in anticipation of those few minutes before dismissal when our
teacher set aside the math and science to read aloud from the Odyssey.
Magically connected over the vastness of centuries to the people who heard
these tales once sung around campfires, I was captivated. Instead of fighting
fractions and verbs, I was aboard a ship, sailing mythical oceans, battling
witches, demons, and one-eyed monsters—trying to find my way home with
brave Odysseus, the wily hero of Homer’s epic.
Those daily doses of this great Greek story made my day, gave me a taste for
literature and poetry, and certainly whetted my appetite for more mythology.
When I had a chance, I would spend hours in the school library, devouring books
about the myths—and not just the classics of Greece and Rome. I read about
Norse gods such as Thor and the trickster Loki, and the Egyptian gods who
inspired the pyramids. There was Sigurd slaying the mighty dragon Fafnir, and
the fearsome Celtic hero Cuchulainn single-handedly battling hundreds of
enemies in showers of gore that might make Arnold Schwarzenegger wince. I
had discovered a whole new world. It was a world of gods, heroes, monsters, and
legends—and it was a lot more interesting to me than school!
A few years later, my first job was delivering the Daily Argus, the local
newspaper in my hometown of Mount Vernon, New York. By all accounts, I
was a curious boy, so I wanted to know what “argus” meant. I soon discovered
that in Greek mythology, Argus was a monster whose body was covered with
eyes—exactly how many eyes he had depends on the source; some say four,
some say a hundred—but only two of his eyes ever closed at any one time.
Argus played a supporting role in a tale about Zeus, the randy lord of the
gods, and Io, the daughter of a local river god. She was just one of the many
women—mortal and divine—desired by the seemingly insatiable Zeus. To
conceal his dalliance with Io from his jealous wife, Hera, Zeus transformed the
young maiden into a snow-white heifer. But Hera was no dummy when it came
to Zeus and his philandering ways with nubile young women. Like some
Olympian Alice Kramden of The Honeymooners always foiling Ralph’s best-
laid plans, Hera saw through Zeus’s attempted ruse. To get back at her
seemingly sex-addicted, cheating husband, Hera claimed Zeus’s pet heifer for
herself. Hera had Io placed in chains and then set the ever-watchful Argus to
guard over her youthful rival.
Zeus didn’t give up so easily. He struck back by sending the god Hermes to
lull Argus to sleep and free Io. In one version of the story (many Greek myths
have variations), Hermes tried to put Argus to sleep by playing on his magical
pipe, but that didn’t work. So he bored Argus to sleep with a long, tedious story
—then cut off his head. To honor Argus, the grieving Hera placed his many eyes
on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock—and that’s why the peacock’s tail
looks the way it does. Hera, however, wasn’t finished. Poor Io, still in the form
of a heifer, was freed. But Hera just tormented Io with a gadfly that drove her,
itching madly, on a wild gallop across Europe and Asia until she finally dove
into the sea (the Ionian Sea, which is named for her). Io swam to Egypt, where
Zeus returned her to human form and she bore what the tabloids call a “love
child.” But that’s another story. With the Greeks, there’s almost always another
story.
For me, the link between the monstrous Argus and the newspaper I carried
every day was now clear—our local daily was supposed to be the ever-watchful
eyes of the community. I’m not sure how accurate that was, but I did become a
newspaper junkie from about that time—and this connection between a
commonplace, everyday item like a newspaper and ancient myths just made me
love the subject all the more.
Myths continue to fascinate me—and millions of others. Only most of us
don’t call it “mythology.”* We like to call it “going to the movies.” For instance,
on a cold Vermont night a few years ago, I went to see the second installment in
The Lord of the Rings trilogy with my two teenagers and another friend. We
were lucky to get tickets, as they sold out quickly. As we took our seats, people
were scrambling futilely to find places, and I envisioned one of my worst
personal fears: a raucous crowd of kids on Christmas break talking throughout