advice to his patron. Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts by Rosenberg is the Nazi ideology incorporated into a mythic form. Communist writers, even today, use quasi-mythic symbols in their writing – ‘the valiant soldiers, sailors and workers’ or ‘capitalist roaders’ and ‘running dogs’. This is not to say that modern political mythology is restricted to the east of the Iron Curtain. The United States system is full of mythic symbols, heroes and folk-legends. The War of Independence and those who were involved in it have achieved a mythic status. The ‘temples’ to the heroes of the Republic, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Washington Monument and Mt Rushmore all take their places in the sacred political history alongside such relics as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy also made their contribution to the ritual political language with phrases such as ‘Communist front’, ‘Communist dupe’ and ‘Are you or have you ever been a member … ?’ Thus, the myth may be a background to a present history or even a part of it.
In the ancient and not so ancient historical writings, mythic backgrounds are used to place a contemporary leader or ruler into a mythic framework. Virgil links Augustus with Aeneas, the two being the embodiment of Roman virtues. Merovingian tradition traces the ancestry of the Franks to Francus the Trojan. Arthurian tradition claims a link with the Trojan Brutus, grandson of Aeneas who established the British in Albion. Henry VII used the Arthurian legend to give his tenuous hold on the throne more legitimacy. He referred to Monmouth’s Chronicles, claiming that ‘The Matter of Britain’ was unfinished and that another Arthur (his son) would return to rid the land of her enemies. Henry, in tracing his ancestry to Cadwallader and thereby to the Trojan Brutus, claimed to be a ‘British’ king ruling Britain. Henry’s granddaughter, Elizabeth I, was the subject of pseudo-myth in her own lifetime in Spenser’s Faerie Queen, William Warner’s Albion England and Drayton’s Heroical Epistles all of which glamorise Gloriana. Shakespeare had cause to refer to ‘mythic history’ in Macbeth. In Act IV Scene 1, Macbeth’s prophetic vision of Banquo as the ancestor of kings points in fact to the legitimacy of the claim of James I to the throne of Scotland and England. It was no accident that the play was written within a few years of James’ accession and creates a form of mythic background to give legitimacy to a present state of affairs.
The use of myth over the last five centuries by European writers has taken on an aspect that was never contemplated by those who developed the proto-myths. Most of the names of the heathen gods are nothing but poetical or ritualistic names which have been allowed to assume a divine personality to an extent never intended by the original inventors. Of course, myth today operates on a number of different levels. Children especially appreciate myth which to them is a make-believe reality. The questions, ‘Tell me about yourself when you were little?’ or ‘Is that what it was like in the old days?’ demand a mythical response because the information and concepts contained in the answer are beyond the child’s concept of reality. Similarly, a child’s view of a parent is that of an all-wise, all-knowing person, capable of almost anything. Growing up and adolescence in particular is that time when the myth of the parent undergoes a gradual destruction, often to the resentment of the child.
Yet myth, dealing as it does with archetypes, still functions on different levels in society today. Advertising especially uses archetypes and attempts to create a situation which, if duplicated by the purchase, wearing, eating or whatever of a certain item, will have consequences beyond our normal existence or expectations. Similarly, archetypal animals have been used to portray qualities or characteristics of nations and Sir John Tenniel in Punch last century was particularly skilful in such archetypal creation. Many of the characters of modern television soap opera dramas and pot-boiler novels are archetypal. The doctor of the soap opera is the modern magician, all-wise, all-knowing, possessed of the power of healing – a twentieth-century Merlin. The aggressive stick-at-nothing businessmen who sweep all before them embody the image of the all-powerful hero Herakles and his successors in the American Dream, Daniel Boone, Paul Bunyan and others. Furthermore, we develop our own mystical mythic attitudes. Science can solve anything, yet the Saviour Science has within it the seeds of its own downfall in the form of the archetypal Mad Scientist whose ancestor is the tragic Victor Frankenstein. For modern audiences, Doctor Strangelove is an instantly recognisable figure.1
Mythic ritual still continues in the religious sense, and is present, alive and well in the form of the Eucharist, the act of recreation. But beyond this, myth provides a richness within the human experience that goes beyond the perpetuation of archetypes or rituals. Myth has had a profound influence in and on literature and the myth in literature is especially important in any discussion of the works of Tolkien.
The first point that must be made is that despite the proliferation of mythologies, tales and names of deities, the types, themes and subject matter of myths are basically the same. The common themes of myth or mythologies are the study of the comparative mythologist who examines the basis of myth, layer by layer, and in doing so finds patterns that express the nature of a society as a whole. An examination of and search for the themes of myth inevitably becomes a search for that which is essential to the human condition and what the symbols embodied in those themes represent. Claude Levi-Strauss has observed that throughout the world there is a great similarity in mythic themes. In such a study one is inevitably drawn to the archetypes of myth. By using the word ‘archetype’ I am not referring to the Jungian psycho-analytical term, but rather in its common sense – an original or model symbol which constantly recurs. Mythologies carry such models of absolute values or paradigms of human activity. The presence of archetypes assures Man that what he is about to do has already been done, and therefore can be done. The heroes – Jason, Herakles, Perseus, Odysseus, Sigurd, Beowulf, Gawain – all ventured beyond the seas into the wastes or vast mountains, to the Perilous Realm in a fabulous time. All that Man can do is follow their example. Their grandiose feats, which took place in a far-distant and glorious past, can be imitated if only to a degree, and the models of behaviour that are revealed in the heroes give meaning to our present endeavours.
The most common theme in mythology is that of The Creation – the cosmogonic origin myth. This myth sets the pattern for everything else in most traditions, and, at the time of origin, irreconcilable opposites arise. The myth explains beginnings from the existing situation. No one can explain in mythological terms how chaos (be it the vast and dark nature of the Greek myths, or the ‘Spirit of God’ moving upon the face of the waters in Genesis) began, or from whence it originated. Always is presupposed the existence of something before. Creation myths explain the creation of the circumstances leading up to a state of affairs from a particular point. In all cases the cosmos is a divine work and the archetype of every creative situation. In many mythologies it is common for a supreme god to create and leave the governing, ordering or completion of his creation to others. In Tierra del Fuego, although there is an omnipotent god or creative force, his creation is completed by the mythical ancestors. In the Slave Coast cosmogonic myth the sky-god Olorum leaves the completion of his creation to Obatala, a subsidiary deity.
Eliade considers that the myths of primitive societies are always concerned with creation. Myths, he says, always relate how something came into existence, or how a pattern of behaviour, an institution or a manner of working was established. By knowing the myth, one knows the origin of things and can control and manipulate them at will. One lives the myth and is grasped by a sacred exalting power of events recollected and re-enacted. Thus, within the context of Eliade’s discussion, the creation myth is a blueprint for everything that follows and is essential for the survival of society. The myth contains vital and essential lore and knowledge.
At the other end of the time-scale is the eschatological myth – the myth of the ending. Of the non-Christian mythologies, the most dramatic eschatological myth, and the most bleak, is the Ragnarok of the Norse myths – or Gotterdamerung as it was called by Wagner. Ragnarok was presaged. All knew that it would come, and certain signs and events evidenced its advent. The year-long winter named Fimbulwinter, which was preceded by a hideous war, was one of the signs. Following Fimbulwinter are mighty earthquakes during which the wolf Fenrir, offspring of Loki the Trickster,
