Conclusion

From the Paleolithic period’s myth of the hunter to the 21st century’s urban legend YouTube videos, humans have been living their lives and learning their lessons from their culture’s mythology for thousands of years. We have intertwined it with our religious teachings, used it to understand elements of nature, and studied certain characters as they have come up time and time again in different forms.

The main element that differentiates mythology from other types of storytelling is that the listener is supposed to come away from a myth having learned something. Sometimes, as in the Axial Age when religion began to creep back into human consciousness after a sabbatical when new technologies were at the forefront, these lessons are moral. Other times, even if the listener knows it is not scientific fact, the lesson is how an element of nature came to be, such as Demeter, the goddess of fertility, refusing to allow crops to grow during the part of the year when her daughter lived in the underworld with Hades, therefore causing harsh winters and the changing of the seasons. Whatever the lesson may be, and however seriously the lesson is taken by the listener, mythology has existed for thousands of years in order to teach. Across cultures and civilizations, humans have passed down their myths to future generations—first orally, later in text, and later still in movies and videos—in order to teach the next generation. We learn from our culture’s mythology, we live according to its philosophy, and later on we pass it down to our children so that they may do the same.