But they can have different kinds of myths:
"'So you don't believe the spirit outlives the body?'
"'How could it?' Enherrian snapped. 'Why should it?'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 122.
"'But the dead don't speak. They are dead!'
"'Of course. It was only a fantasy. Don't you have myths?'
"'Not like that. The dead go into the Night...'"
-The Night Face, III, pp. 575-576.
Poul Anderson understood. New Faith Ythrians and Gwydiona may or may not be right but they are different, alien.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And TRAGICALLY alien, in the case of the Gwydiona!
Ad astra! Sean
Of course, Old Faith Ythrians apparently -did- have a concept of an afterlife and some sort of “soul”.
Myth originally was not separable from history, or from empirical understanding; they were simply pretty much the same thing. The distinctions we make between them require philosophical concepts and tools not developed until well into historic times. They can be lost — which is what happened in much of the post-Roman world.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And too many, even now, still refuse to accept the distinction separating myth from empirical history. Or to accept those philosophical concepts and tools. I have personally seen many "evangelical" Protestants stubbornly insisting on a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation and flood stories. Or that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. They reject arguments from Catholics like me that God spoke to men thousands of years ago in mythical or allegorical terms, in ways that they could understand.
Ad astra! Sean
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