Mythology

Compare and Contrast

Nayara A. Morales
What is mythology?
Mythology is a collection or the study of myths. They usually belong to a
specific religion or culture. Myths are traditional stories concerning the early
history or even natural phenomenons. Typically, these involve supernatural
beings or circumstances.
Celtic
Mythology
Celtic Mythology and the start of
the World
Some Celtic creation myths say Druids created the sun,
moon, stars and earth through their magical control of the
elements. Other Celtic Irish creation folk stories claim the
world was created from the blood, flesh or sweat of fairies or
gods, or by the use of godlike magical items.
In the Senchus Mór, a set of Celtic Irish religious laws, we
learn that the Druids, as Celtic masters of magic and spells
over the elements, claimed to have made the sun, moon,
earth, and sea. This is a boast in keeping with their supposed
powers over the elements.

https://atlasmythica.com/creation-apocalypse-myth-in-celti
c-mythology/#:~:text=Some%20Celtic%20creation%20myths%
20say,use%20of%20godlike%20magical%20items.
The Irish Celtic
Druids creating the
sun and
Illuminating the
world
 The creation of Nature: Celtic
Certain folk-beliefs, regarding the origin of different parts of nature, bear a close resemblance to
primitive cosmogenic myths, and they may be taken as a scattered fragment of similar myths held by the
Celts and perhaps taught by the Druids. The sea, rivers, or springs arose either from the urination of a
giant or fairy, or from their sweat or blood. Islands are rocks cast by giants, and mountains are the
material thrown up by them as they were working on the earth. Wells sprang up from the blood of a
martyr or from the touch of a saint’s or a fairy’s staff. In other variations, lakes are formed from the tears of
a god, usually Manannan, whose tears at the death of his son formed three lochs in Ireland. The sea
originated from a magic cask given by God to a woman. The magical cask, when opened, could not be
closed again, and the cask never ceased running until the waters covered the earth. In all these cases, a
giant, saint, or fairy has doubtless taken the place of a god, since the stories have a very primitive form.
The giant is frequently Gargantua, probably himself once a divinity.
Manannan Gargantua
The creation of Man: Celtic
In Celtic belief, men were not so much created by gods as descended from them.

According to Caesar:

“All the Gauls assert that they are descended from Dispater (main Celtic Gaulish
divinity) , and this, they say, has been handed down to them by the Druids”

Dispater was a Celtic underworld god of fertility, and the statement implies the existence of a
forgotten myth telling how men once lived underground and from there came to the surface
of the earth. However, it also points to their descent from the god of the underworld. As such,
the Celtic dead returned to him, who was ancestor of the living as well as lord of the dead. On
the other hand, if the earth had originally been thought of as a female, then she as
Earth-mother would be ancestress of men. In other cases, clans, families, or individuals often
traced their descent to gods or divine animals or plants. Classical writers occasionally speak of
the origin of branches of the Celtic race from famous divine founders.
 Celtic: Compare and Contrast
The creation of the Celtic mythology is very Something they have in common is that both of
different from the Iroquois. The Iroquois talks them had their humans living somewhere else
about how this woman fell from the “sky” onto but the earth. They either lived in the sky or the
the earth. It tells she was pregnant, gave birth, underworld. And in some way they came up to
and then her daughter was also pregnant. Her the earth.
daughter gave birth to twins and from there
nature was created. In The Celtic mythology, as
stated, man descended from the gods. It also
tells men lived underworld and then came up
to the earth.
 Mayan
Mythology
Mayan Mythology: The Creation
The Popol Vuh, or Popol Wuj in the K’iche’ language, is the story of creation of the Maya.
Members of the royal K’iche’ lineages that had once ruled the highlands of Guatemala
recorded the story in the 16th century to preserve it under the Spanish colonial rule. The
Popol Vuh, meaning “Book of the Community,” narrates the Maya creation account, the tales
of the Hero Twins, and the K’iche’ genealogies and land rights. In this story, the Creators,
Heart of Sky and six other deities including the Feathered Serpent, wanted to create human
beings with hearts and minds who could “keep the days.” But their first attempts failed.
When these deities finally created humans out of yellow and white corn who could talk, they
were satisfied. In another epic cycle of the story, the Death Lords of the Underworld
summon the Hero Twins to play a momentous ball game where the Twins defeat their
opponents. The Twins rose into the heavens, and became the Sun and the Moon. Through
their actions, the Hero Twins prepared the way for the planting of corn, for human beings to
live on Earth, and for the Fourth Creation of the Maya.

https://maya.nmai.si.edu/the-maya/creation-story-maya
Mayan: Compare and contrast
The Mayan and Iroquois Mythology have some things is
common. Like the twins. In the Mayan we have the hero twins
who fought their enemies, won and ascended to heaven and
became Sun and Moon. The Iroquois have the twin brothers, but
these don't like each other. They both also have the mention of
corn. The Mayan gods created man out of white and yellow
corn, and afterward the Hero Twins prepared the way for the
planting of corn. As we know in the Iroquois, corn came from the
twin's mother head.
Hypothesis
Honestly I don't know how most mythologies are connected, I would like to think that it's
because of a canon event.