Questions About Ancient Myths -- Myths That Travel

In the treasure trove of myth and fairy lore there are many tales that have been told in all lands and in all ages. There are the stories of the knight that slays the dragon and rescues the maiden; of the phoenix that, Ovid tells us, lives on frankincense and other fragrant gums; the roc -- the giant bird that carried Sindbad the Sailor to the Valley of the Diamonds; the well-frog that swallowed all the water in the world; and a host of other stories. In one form or another, such tales are familiar in many countries throughout the world.

One of the most widely told of these stories is familiar to us from the ancient Green version -- the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Ophreus was the ideal poet and musician of the Golden Age. So sweet was the music of his lyre that it charmed men and beasts and even the trees and rivers. His bride, Eurydice, was the loveliest of the nymphs. they lived in a world of beauty and happiness, but, Alas! One day Eurydice trod on a snake and died of its poisonous bite.

Then Orpheus sought her in the world of the dead, Hades. Passing through crowds of ghosts, he played his lyre and sang of his deep sorrow to the rulers of the realm of shades, Pluto and Proserpine. They were moved by his grief and devotion, and told him that he could take Eurydice back again to the world on one condition. She would walk behind him through the shadowy corridors; and he must not turn to look at her until they reached the upper world.

As the two approached the great portals of Hades, Orpheus disobeyed and glanced behind him. And so he lost his beloved bride, for Eurydice vanished, to dwell among the shades forever. Unhappy Orpheus lived very little longer. Some beautiful nymphs called maenads tried to win his affections, but they found that he had no thought for anyone but Eurydice. This made the maenads so jealous that they slew him.

That ancient tale of enduring love has a simple theme that you can recognize even when you meet it with different characters and many variations in detail. In every country where it is told, you will see that the pattern is the same. Someone journeys to the realms where the spirits dwell and tries to bring back a beloved spirit to the land of the living. Like a chameleon, however, the story takes on the color of its surroundings.

For instance, let us see how they tell this story in Japan. There, it is the goddess Izanami who dies. Then here husband, Isanagi, journeys to the Land of Gloom (Yomotsukuni) to find her spirit and bring her back to the world of the living.

The goddess begs her husband not to look at her while they are still in the nether world. Yet, like Orhpeus, he disobeys, and loses his beloved again and for always.

The Hawaiians had much the same story, but they gave it a happy ending -- which is quite unusual in the folklore of any people.

In a Hawaiian tale of Polynesia, Hiku, the grieving husband disguises himself as a butterfly. He captures the ghost of his wife and succeeds in bringing her safely back to life in spite of the difficulties in his path.

Some of the important variations that are found in this tale of two lovers arise out of the beliefs and legends of different peoples about the world of ghosts and shadows. In some places in North America, among the Native Americans, the native hero makes a perilous and difficult journey into the sky, instead of journeying into the nether world. Among the seacoast Indian tribes of the far north, as among the Eskimos, it is believed that souls after death dwell under the ocean.

The Tahltans of the northern Rocky Mountains believe that souls travel to the sky on snowshoes, and then follow the Milky Way westward.

Among the Tsimsyans of the northwestern coast, the home of the dead is in the killer-whale center at Kwawk, far out to sea.

Sometimes the Native Americans would tell their myths to the missionaries and other white men who visited them. Sometimes they would write them down. In this way, many Indian tales and beliefs have become a part of our historical records. The Ne earliest written account of this legend among the North American Indians was made by Father Brebeuf, who established the first mission to the Hurons of Georgian Bay in the early 1600s.

In the story as told to Father Brebeuf, the hero makes a journey to the Village of souls to look for his lost sister. He finds her, but is unable to touch her. Her soul is so small that he can put it inside a pumpkin. This he does, and is allowed to embark in the "white stone canoe" and carry it home, on one condition -- that "no one raises an eye to observe." On the homeward journey, when the soul is on the point of coming to life, a curious witness looks and the soul shrivels up and is lost forever.

As previously mentioned above, to the seacoast tribes of the northwest, the home of the dead is the undersea abode of the killer whales. In their version of the story, the hero has the harsh-sounding name of Gunarhnesemgyet. This name has a lovely and lyrical meaning: "Listen, and you fall under a spell!"

The episodes in this tale of Gunarhnesemgyet show vividly the seacoast background of the storytellers.

Every day a white sea otter passed in front of the village on the seashore. The hunters tried in vain to capture it. At last Gunarh (as we may call him for short), the most skillful of all the hunters, found this beautiful animal asleep on the water. He managed to catch and kill it and give its wonderful pelt to his wife.

While she was working on the otter skin, she broke some rule, or taboo, which aroused the wrath of the sea-dwelling spirits. Breaking a taboo is a dreadful offense, and the offender is always punished. an so it happened in this case. Unnoticed by anyone the magi sea otter started to drift away from the shore, carrying Gunarh's wife with it.

When the people on shore realized what was happening, they saw that the write otter had two dorsal fins, so they knew that it was Gilsadzant, a great spirit of Kwawk, and that he was taking Gunarh's wife to the world under the sea. Gunarh, with some friends, set out at once in a dugout canoe and tried to overtake the swift otter. They were too late. The otter disappeared at the spouting hole that was the entrance to the undersea abode of Kwawk.

Gunarh anchored his canoe at the hole, and climbed down a rope. the Giat Mussel guarding the portal tried to hold him back, but Gunarh killed it by chanting a magic spell and choking it with a handful of snuff.

Next the Giant Clam tried in vain to stop him. Then a crowd of blind women appeared, called out "We smell Gunarh!" The clever Gunarh, however, knew what to do. He rubbed saliva in their eyes, which restored their sight. so grateful were the women that they promised to help Gunarh rescue his wife.

Father down the undersea trail stood the Giant Crane, which was also blind. "I smell Gunarh!" cried the Crane. But Gunarh also restored its sight, thus gaining another friend.

"Your wife is just ahead," warned the Crane. "A Giant Man called Gilsadzant guards her, but he is too fat. If you trip him, he will never be able to get up again."

Soon Gunarh reached the House of the Killer Whales, where a fire was burning and they were making a blackfish cloak for his wife. Stealing softly in, Gunarh quickly put out the fire, seized the soul that he loved so dearly, and fled, swift as lightning, from the ghost house. The giant Gilsadzant would have stopped him, but Gunarh tripped the enormous man who, falling, blocked the narrow trail to those who were pursuing the fugitives.

The Giant crane also helped to block the trail, crying, "Rush on, Brother, you will escape!" The women who had been blind, who were Geese Women in disguise, helped to hold back the vengeful pursuers.

At last, triumphant, Gunarh reached the anchor rope of his canoe, and his friends pulled the hero and his wife aloft to the light of day.

Gunarha's story, you will notice, is next of kin to the tale of Hawaii. Just as Hiku, disguised as a butterfly, brings Kawalu back to life, so Gunarh successfully returns from the depths of the sea with his wife. It is curious to note how often the folk tales of pagan and savage peoples have sorrowful endings. The two stories are among the rare exceptions.

The North American Orphic hero, just like the hero of ancient Greece, has inspired sculptors and painters. In the north country the adventures have been carved and painted on totem poles and tribal symbols for generations. A far greater number of versions of this tale have been traced in North American than have come down to us from the Greeks and Romans.

Another story pattern, called by the name of its Greek version, is that of Cupid and Psyche. Part of the story is repeated in such tales as that of the Scandinavia maiden who married the prince who was enchanted as a polar bear. Both the Norse maiden and Psyche were forbidden to look upon their husbands in their natural form. Both yielded to overwhelming curiosity and were punished by having to undergo great hardships.

The Psyche story has another device that is shared by countless folk and fairy tales. The heroine (in some stories of the hero) is set three impossible tasks as a condition to winning her heart's desire. Wherever this occurs in a folk tale, whether it be those collected by Perrault or the Brothers Grimm, or appear in the Arabian Nights, or the lore of Celt or Norsemen -- the solution is the same. The tasks are successfully accomplished, but with the help of some friendly supernatural power.

These are but a few examples of the amazing way in which the pattern of fancy is repeated in the fabric of folklore and legend. The weaving of the tales may be elaborate or crude, depending upon the art and skill of the weavers, but the themes are the same, in all tiems and in all places.