Mythology Questions

[Matt Larkin (author)]

A post in another thread about the Hecatoncheires made me realize it might be good to have a thread where members can come and post questions about mythology or folklore.

I'll certainly do my best to answer what questions I can, and we've got a great community here, so I'm sure someone can answer almost everything.

If anyone else thinks this is a good idea, feel free to post your questions or ideas.

[beejazz]

Great idea.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

In the spirit of getting things going, I'll link to an old WotC site thread: Where did that come from?.  This thread contains information (in some cases speculation) on the origins of monsters that are now D&D staples and was one of my favorites, though it hasn't had much updating lately.

[Hibou]

Hmmm... anyone have any clue as to where the first manifestation of the walking dead came from, and what it was specifically? If someone dreamed of skeletal creatures walking about, or the like.

[Lmns Crn]

Hmmm... anyone have any clue as to where the first manifestation of the walking dead came from, and what it was specifically? If someone dreamed of skeletal creatures walking about, or the like.

No idea where the first example comes from, or even if it's possible to trace. I expect the idea of "dead that aren't" is near-universal.

I have suspicions that it's related to the tendency for people to be disturbed by things that look almost-but-not-quite like people. There've been studies that suggest there's a certain threshold of detail at which the brain starts trying to recognize things as people, as opposed to, say, cartoons or crude models. So at a certain level of almost-but-not-quite humanlike detail, the brain tries to categorize things as humanlike, but certain details prevent it from doing so. This has been theorized as the source of phobias involving things like mannequins and dolls (the eyes, so dead!), clowns, and the dead. It also presented some serious problems for 3D animators, especially in the early days of the artform, when they were getting to the point where their models were just realistic enough to give people the heebie-jeebies.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I have suspicions that it's related to the tendency for people to be disturbed by things that look almost-but-not-quite like people. There've been studies that suggest there's a certain threshold of detail at which the brain starts trying to recognize things as people, as opposed to, say, cartoons or crude models. So at a certain level of almost-but-not-quite humanlike detail, the brain tries to categorize things as humanlike, but certain details prevent it from doing so. This has been theorized as the source of phobias involving things like mannequins and dolls (the eyes, so dead!), clowns, and the dead. It also presented some serious problems for 3D animators, especially in the early days of the artform, when they were getting to the point where their models were just realistic enough to give people the heebie-jeebies.

That's actually really interesting.  I have not heard that before.

On the subject, I don't know about skeletons, but zombies of one form or another appear in all kinds of myths.  Often their attributed to the Carribean and voodoo, but I also found evidence of similar ideas in Chinese myth, India, the Norse draugr, Polynesia, and Japan.  That's not counting creatures described as ghouls (like the Phillipine's  aswang), vampires, ghosts, and stuff.

I hope that helps.

[Lmns Crn]

I don't know about skeletons, but zombies

Again, I am just hazarding a guess here, but I would guess that most folklore treats them as pretty much equivalent. A walking corpse is a walking corpse, basically, and if your society has fear of walking corpses in its collective consciousness, their state of decomposition is sort of a semantic issue.

The difference between a zombie and a skeleton is how long ago it died, and how much it's rotted since. I'd be a little surprised if anyone before dorky games like ourselves, with our compulsion to assign statistics to everything, really drew a distinction between a walking corpse with flesh still hanging on it, and a walking corpse that had been picked clean.

[SDragon]

i have one question about mythology, and i already have my own personal answer to this, but i would like to have a guild consensus:

can a religious belief structture currently being practiced (IE: christianity) qualify as having a "mythology", knowing the possibility that there might be guild members that follow that religious belief structure? in other words, knowing that christianity is widely followed, and that there is possibly christian guildmembers, would it still be fair to call biblical events "mythological"?

personally, i say that, by definition, cases like that still qualify as mythological. i would imagine that very few, if any, norsemen of yore would ever have called odin or thor or loki "mythology", just as christians wouldnt see goliath or samson or noah as "mythology".

that said, i do realize that strictly defining the word "mythology" may bring up some religious discomfort amongst guildmembers, so i want to make sure we're clear on what constitutes a mythology.

[Hibou]

The difference between a zombie and a skeleton is how long ago it died, and how much it's rotted since. I'd be a little surprised if anyone before dorky games like ourselves, with our compulsion to assign statistics to everything, really drew a distinction between a walking corpse with flesh still hanging on it, and a walking corpse that had been picked clean.

Good point. Thanks for the help guys.

As a pointer for anyone with some interest, looking up the word "demon" on Wikipedia.org brings up some curious information. It's cool, but kind of saddening (to me at least), to see that some ancient cultures saw their versions of demons as spirits that weren't necessarily evil.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

<snip>

That would have been my thinking, as well.  As for the actual word "zombie," I believe it come from the Caribbean.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

<snip>

It is technically correct to refer to any kind of supernatural doctrine as mythology.  Christian Mythology is an actual field of study, though the terminology might offend some that feel as though their faith is being giving no more credit than the faiths of other older cultures.

[Xeviat]

The terminology offends some, but in my Folklore and Mythology class, my teacher gave us an excelent definition.

Mythology is classified in the same sphere as Folklore, History, and Holy History. Imagine a square cut into four other squares, like those windows you always see on "perfect" houses. Now think of it as a graph: one axis is the level of ability to imperically prove it, the other axis is how sacred the information is.

If it is secular and can be proven imperically, it is history. If it's secular but can't be proven, it's folklore. If it's sacred and can be proven, it's Holy History. If it's sacred but can't be proven, it's myth.

Even as a christian, I refer to much of the old testimate as Mythology. So, if my vote matters, I won't be offended by such discussion or such a term. I'm currious to know where certain things came from too.

[CYMRO]

i have one question about mythology, and i already have my own personal answer to this, but i would like to have a guild consensus:

can a religious belief structture currently being practiced (IE: christianity) qualify as having a "mythology", knowing the possibility that there might be guild members that follow that religious belief structure? in other words, knowing that christianity is widely followed, and that there is possibly christian guildmembers, would it still be fair to call biblical events "mythological"?

Well, since the dictionary defines mythology as "a set of widely held but exaggerated or false stories or beliefs" then Christian beliefs are definitely mythology.

[limetom]

Broadly concieved, myth refers to speech about the sacred whether it is articulated in nonstory form (creed, sermon, or treatise) or in story form (myth, legend, or parable).  In this perspective, all religions include mythic conceptions. [Snip]  It is arbitary and artificial to reduce... any... religious tradition to their mythical elements.  However... myths concern what lies beyond the reaches of historical and scientific inquiry; they are not so much true or false as they are stories to live by.

Snippage mine.

[CYMRO]

Broadly concieved, myth refers to speech about the sacred whether it is articulated in nonstory form (creed, sermon, or treatise) or in story form (myth, legend, or parable).  In this perspective, all religions include mythic conceptions. [Snip]  It is arbitary and artificial to reduce... any... religious tradition to their mythical elements.  However... myths concern what lies beyond the reaches of historical and scientific inquiry; they are not so much true or false as they are stories to live by.

My quote came from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Patterns of Religion is not a dictionary.  Is it?  It is merely a single bombastic opinion, whereas an Oxford entry is as close to a universal denotation of a word as is possible in this world.