Are Myths Fiction or Non Fiction?

With all the research I've done so far for my first novel, I have made one important observation — in our modern-day world we do not believe the stories that our ancestors gave us. We view the stories that have been passed down to us over thousands of years as fictional; categorizing them as myths, legends and epics.

Is this really true? And is it really fair to label myths as completely fictional? Or to even create a distinction between fact and fiction? I’m determined to break these stories out of the “fictional mythology” box and see what historical and psychological value they have to offer us.

Why do we disbelieve our ancestors?

In our modern world, we have been taught from a very young age that we are the apex of civilization. We are taught that the medieval period was superstitious, that the bronze age people were shortsighted, and that our neolithic ancestors were primitive people who somehow learned to build civilizations. According to the current historical model, we are the most advanced, progressive, and intelligent people to walk the planet.

Yet, when we read the mythology that has been passed down to us, a very different story emerges. Perhaps we aren’t the apex of civilization after all. Classical mythology allows us to see our ancestors as people who were incredibly intelligent and insightful.

We tend to view the past as a less civilized place

As humans, we tend to think that people of past civilizations or times were inherently more stupid than us. We’re always quick to put our own civilization at the top of the pyramid. For ancient civilizations, the opposite was true. The Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Sumerians all put a previous civilization above their own. They saw themselves as inferior to the legendary gods and goddesses of the primordial times.

That’s why the myth of Atlantis troubles so many historians and archaeologists. In our current historical model, there’s no room for an advanced civilization to have existed. Fairy tales like King Arthur, the Lost City of Atlantis, or the Olympian Gods could not have existed as real people -- we were all too busy scratching around in the dirt to have been so advanced.

However, if we were to consider the theory of Atlantis or advanced peoples walking among us, then perhaps we would find evidence and see how it fits into the overall historical model. With an open mind, we could understand the past in a whole new way.

Mythology evolves in an oral tradition first

One of the reasons why mythology is not seen as a viable source is because it is usually always committed to paper hundreds if not thousands of years after the events supposedly took place. This is because most native cultures are based on oral tradition as the invention of writing came much later. How can we trust something that was recorded 500 or 2,000 years after the event?

In many cases, oral tradition in the past was seen as more reliable than recording information in the written form. In the Brythonic druid tradition, druids saw knowledge as being distorted when written down and only the pure essence of knowledge could be transferred through oral understanding.

A more technical view emerges in India. The poetic meter used in epics like the Mahabharata actually ensures that when it is spoken, not a single word can be misused, otherwise there would be no rhythm. This means that we can trust that the Mahabharata has been told intact for the last 2,000 or more years, which is pretty mind-blowing.

Are myths fiction or non-fiction?

Well, it depends on what you define as fiction or non-fiction.

In the late 20th century, Joseph Campbell was the first scholar to record how myths and legends are actually describing psychological states that we all pass through from children to adults. He saw mythology as being integral to the human experience.

Psychologists like Jung saw mythology as being a product of the collective unconscious. All the symbols from Greek myths to Norse mythology actually tell us about the minds of that civilization.

Although, there are people like Graham Hancock who are telling us to look at mythology in a different way. Myths and legends are stories of people, and so if we actually listen to the stories our ancestors are telling us, then maybe we can discover something fascinating. Perhaps, our ancestors were describing natural phenomena in a way they understood, but to us sounds like a cryptic message.

There is already evidence of this today. For instance, the Trojan War was thought to be entirely fictitious until in the 19th-century archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann was determined to prove Troy existed. He was the first archaeologist to rediscover the city of Troy. This begged the question; if the city of Troy is real, then did the Trojan war really happen as it is described in the Iliad? What about all the gods mentioned in the battle? Did Achilles really fight among men? It opens up a pandora’s box questions about the nature of mythology.

If we think about the myth of Atlantis, a Native American story tells that a Great Serpent came from the sky and unleashed the Great Flood on the earth. The people were forced to scurry to the mountains until the water subsided. The people who did survive carried on the story in the hopes that the Great Serpent Nanabozho would never be angered again.

Perhaps the Great Serpent could be a comet since comets could be likened to snakes for a tribe that had no other way to describe it. Perhaps this can help give weight to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis that was said to have happened around the time of Atlantis, 9,600 BC, and would have caused a global catastrophe. These are the questions when it comes to mythology that we should be asking. Instead of obscuring history, mythology can give clues where evidence may be lacking.

As for the gods and goddesses described in myth and ritual; perhaps it’s not as outlandish as it seems. If an advanced civilization did exist, then it would explain why these deities had such vast knowledge compared to the other hunter-gatherer survivors of the stone age. Perhaps deities like Thoth had learned writing before and simply transferred this knowledge to the others. It would certainly make a lot of sense to explain where these gods and goddesses came from instead of the response that they were simply “made-up.”

If mythology was largely real, then it could give more evidence and clues to our past than we ever thought imaginable -- but we won’t ever know if we don’t consider it and look for further evidence.

Should you entertain the idea of non-fiction mythology?

In my opinion, yes. Knowing our mythology better helps us to know ourselves better. Marcus Garvey once said, "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." How are we to grow and become better, if we have no roots?

We face many problems in our world today. Our planet is fading away, we are growing more and more distant from each other, and wars within humanity are raging. By knowing our past, we could begin to see solutions to the problems we face.

We could learn how to be kinder, how to work with our environment, not against it, and learn to be compassionate to everyone around us. We could learn not to make the same mistakes that Plato warns about in his writing of Atlantis. Greek mythology hints that Atlantis failed because of its greed and lust for power. We can already see these themes play out in our world today; so surely if we fail to heed their warning, the same will happen to us.

I also think that it is worth respecting the tales of our ancestors because who knows what valuable insights they hold. There must be a reason that these tales have survived for thousands of years, otherwise, why else would the bronze age people have cared to record their history? If we don't look into these stories of the past, who knows what knowledge we may never learn.

We have to learn the mistakes of the past in order to stop repeating them. We similarly have to remember the wisdom of the past so we can become the best we possibly can. I don't think these stories are stories of entertainment or fallacy, I think when we look close enough we will find the truth to our own origins and, our potential.