Myths, Legends, and Fables

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Word Menu > The Human Condition > Faith > Mythology and Folklore > Myths, Legends, and Fables

Aegis - shield of Zeus with head of Medusa at its center, borne by Athena on missions (Greece)
Aesir - pantheon of the gods (Scandinavia)
Aesop’s Fables - collected animal fables attributed to Phrygian slave Aesop
ages of humankind - major, significant eras in mythological history of humankind: golden age, silver age, bronze age, iron age
allegory - narrative with characters and actions having symbolic dimension
amaranth - purple flower that never fades or dies
ambrosia - food of the gods, conferring immortality
amrita - elixir of immortality (India)
animal fable - tale with animals personifying human characteristics to illustrate moral point
anthropomorphism - practice of endowing natural world with human attributes
Arabian Nights - ancient Oriental tales told by Scheherazade
archetype - original or ancestral idea or type
Argonauts - fifty Greek heroes who sailed with Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece
Asgard - city of the gods (Scandinavia)
Atlantis - legendary continental island that disappeared into Atlantic Ocean during ancient or prehistoric times
Bifrost - rainbow bridge between heaven and Earth (Scandinavia)
Book of the Dead - texts placed as protection in tombs of the dead (Egypt)
caduceus - winged staff of Mercury
Camelot - site of King Arthur’s palace and court (Britain)
cautionary tale - traditional story with moral lesson
charm - amulet or object that brings luck or wards off evil
chthonic - (adj) pertaining to the underworld
cosmic egg - mythic image of creation
cosmogony - creation myth
creation myth - mythic explanation of formation of universe; cosmogonic myth
culture hero - mythical or folk hero who personifies cultural development and ideals
Deluge, the - great flood of various legends
Edda - collection of traditional poems on mythological and religious subjects (Iceland)
epic - traditional tale of hero’s adventures or creation
etiological myth - myth explaining creation of the universe
Excaliber - King Arthur’s sword
fable - story with fantastic events and creatures having allegorical meaning; legend
fairyland - home of fairies; enchanted place
fairy tales - universal stories about fairies or other imaginary and magical creatures, esp. for children, usu. based on oral tradition
Flood - universal deluge that is subject of myth and legend in many cultures, including Mesopotamian and Judeo-Christian
folklore - traditional beliefs, narratives, and superstitions of a culture
folkway - pattern common to cultural group, expressed in traditional stories, beliefs, and customs
fountain of youth - legendary spring whose waters restore health and youth to anyone who drinks them
gest - traditional romantic tale of adventure
Gilgamesh - major epic text of Mesopotamia
Gladsheim - great hall in Odin’s palace (Scandinavia)
golden age - mythical earlier, happier, idealized era
golden apples - treasure of Garden of the Hesperides, retrieved by Herakles (Greece)
Golden Fleece - magical treasure retrieved from Colchis by Jason (Greece)
Gordian knot - intricate knot whose untier would rule Asia, supposedly cut by Alexander the Great with sword
Great Turtle - upholder of world (Native American)
Grimm’s fairy tales - folklore collection compiled by the Grimm brothers, including Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Tom Thumb, and Hansel and Gretel
Hesperides - legendary garden at western extremity of world, where golden apples grow (Greece)
Holy Grail - cup that was object of mystical quest by Arthurian knights
Iliad - epic poem of Homer describing siege of Troy by Greeks
land of Nod - mythical land of sleep
legend - traditional story or narration
lore - folk knowledge, body of information
lotus - legendary fruit that induces state of dreamy forgetfulness (Greece)
Mother Goose - fictitious author of a compendium of traditional nursery rhymes written down by Charles Perrault
motif - recurrent theme in myth or legend
myth - tale or traditional narrative that describes adventures of gods and legendary heroes, and reveals human behavior and natural phenomena through its symbolism
mythology - collected body of myths of one people or culture
mythopoeia - mythmaking
nature myth - myth concerning natural phenomena
nectar - wine conferring immortality (Greece)
Nibelungenlied - medieval German epic relating the life and heroic acts of Siegfried
nursery rhyme - simple, traditional, rhymed song or poem for very young children
nursery tale - traditional story for very young children
Odyssey - epic poem of Homer describing return of Odysseus from Trojan War
Olympus - mountain home of the gods, ruled by Zeus (Greece)
Oz - magical or otherworldly land described in Oz books of L. Frank Baum
Palladium - statue of Pallas Athena, believed to provide protection for city of Troy (Greece)
parable - short allegorical story with a moral
pathetic fallacy - attribution of human feeling or motive to natural world or inanimate object
personification - embodiment of human character in inanimate object or abstract idea
proverb - pithy, epigrammatic saying, usu. a kernel of condensed folk wisdom
Ragnarok - end of the world and destruction of the gods and humankind in a final battle with evil powers (Scandinavia)
Ramayana - Hindu epic concerned with the life of Ramachandra
romance - imaginative fiction, esp. describing adventure of a hero
sacrifice - ritual offering of valuable object, human being, or animal to divine powers
saga - legendary narrative about heroic adventures
scarab - representation of a beetle, esp. as symbol of sun or cyclical cosmic pattern (Egypt)
soteriological myth - myth describing hero as bringer of salvation
spell - charm cast over person; bewitchment
sun disk - symbolic representation of sun or sun god, as in Egyptian, Babylonia, and Aztec mythology
tale - legendary, fictitious, traditional story told dramatically
theogony - account of the origin of the gods and their genealogy
theriomorphic - (adj) having form of an animal
Trojan Horse - horse filled with Greek soldiers, used to trick Trojans into opening their city gates, thus losing their war
underworld - regions of the dead; realm of afterlife, esp. for punishment
Valhalla - great hall where Odin received souls of heroes fallen in battle (Scandinavia)
Vanir - race of fertility gods originally in conflict with the Aesir (Scandinavia)
Volsunga - SagaIcelandic saga of late 13th c. concerning the Volsungs, the theft of the treasure of Andvari, and the adventures of the hero Sigurd; basis of theNibelungenlied
Yggdrasil - giant tree that supported the world (Norse)