When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth
Titel

When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth

Forfatter
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Paul T. Barber
Beskrivelse

Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? How could anyone think that mortals like Perseus, Beowulf, and St. George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these "myths" did not begin as fiction.

This absorbing audiobook shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Geologists' interpretations of how a volcanic cataclysm long ago created Oregon's Crater Lake, for example, is echoed point for point in the local myth of its origin. The Klamath tribe saw it happen and passed down the story - for nearly 8,000 years.

We, however, have been literate for so long that we've forgotten how myths encode reality. Recent studies of how our brains work, applied to a wide range of data from the Pacific Northwest to ancient Egypt to modern stories reported in newspapers, have helped the Barbers deduce the characteristic principles by which such tales both develop and degrade through time. Myth is in fact a quite reasonable way to convey important messages orally over many generations - although reasoning back to the original events is possible only under rather specific conditions.

Our oldest written records date to 5,200 years ago, but we have been speaking and mythmaking for perhaps 100,000. This groundbreaking audiobook points the way to restoring some of that lost history and teaching us about human storytelling.

Lyt gratis
via Mofibo (45 dage Gratis)
Ingen binding på abonnement, 60 dages gratis prøveperiode, kompatibel med Sonos – Danmarks største udvalg af lyd og e-bøger.
Her kan du streame og lytte til bogen
Lydbogstjenester:
Mofibo
Gratis prøveperiode
45 dage
Abonnement:
129 kr./mdr.
Lydbogsbibliotek:
+ 300.0000
★★★★★
★★★★★
(4/5 baseret på 306 anmeldelser)
45 dage gratis prøveperiode for nye brugere
Nextory
Gratis prøveperiode
45 dage
Abonnement:
fra 99 kr./mdr.
Lydbogsbibliotek:
+ 150.0000
★★★★★
★★★★★
(3.5/5 baseret på 55 anmeldelser)
Ingen binding på abonnement, 45 dages gratis prøveperiode – Stort udvalg af lyd og e-bøger.
Lignende bøger:
FaceOff
Af Ian Rankin, John Lescroart, Douglas Preston, Joseph Finder, James Rollins, Dennis Lehane, Raymond Khoury, Lincoln Child, Steve Martini, T. Jefferson Parker, M.J. Rose, Heather Graham, F. Paul Wilson, Steve Berry, Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Peter James, Linwood Barclay, R.L. Stine, Lee Child, Lisa Gardner, Linda Fairstein, Jeffery Deaver
The Age of Innocence
Af Edith Wharton
Shuggie Bain
Af Douglas Stuart
Lydbogstjenester
Information
Social