Paul T. Barber

This book provides a methodology for interpreting myths in order to determine the natural historical roots of the myth. Doing so, the authors demonstrate how many myths actually provide a record of what happened thousands of years ago long before there were any written records.

The book begins with the analysis of a story told by American Indians tracing the roots of the story back to a major volcanic eruption. The book then goes on to discuss numerous myths from cultures all over the world including discussions of fire-breathing, treasure-hording dragons, vampires, Prometheus, Noah's flood, and dwarves that forge iron. The book is fascinating and wonderfully readable. It also leaves you with a new way of looking at history and literature.… (mehr)

This book takes a completely different approach to mythology than any I've read before, studying it through cognitive science rather than as literature or archetypal psychology. The Barbers' theory is that many myths describe real events and phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions, the precession of the equinoxes, or the dangers of flammable methane gas trapped in burial mounds. Myths happen when non-literate people pass a description of an event down for generations via an oral tradition, subject to the limitations of human memory, how well the witnesses understood the original event, if the people stayed in the area where the event happened or migrated to somewhere where the myth no longer fit, and so on.

The Barbers came up with about 40 "myth principles" that explain what processes have affected the development of these myths. The sheer number of the principles overwhelmed me, and I lost track of which one was which, but happily they're all summarized in an appendix at the end for further study. Aside from that, I thought the authors' argument was convincing and the book was fascinating.… (mehr)