Mythology For Dummies Book

	Introduction	1
	About This Book	1
	Conventions Used in This Book	1
	How This Book Is Organized	2
	Icons Used in This Book	4
	Where to Go from Here	4
Part I	Mythology and the Cradle of Civilization	5
Chapter 1	The Truth About Myths	7
	How to Spot a Myth a Mile Away	8
	Which Came First, the People or the Myths?	9
	Looking at the Different Types of Myths	11
	A Who's Who of Mythological Players	13
	Two American Myths	15
Chapter 2	That's Our Story and We're Sticking to It: The Legacy	17
	Around the Block and Through the Wringer: The Journey of One Myth	18
	Pop Culture	20
	Myths on the Page, on the Wall, and in the Concert Hall	22
	Learn Your Myths, Earn $461,000,000!	25
Part II	It Started Here, Folks: Greek Mythology	27
Chapter 3	Greek Creation Myths and Really Ancient Greek Gods	29
	Here Comes the Sun (and a Whole Mess of Other Stuff): Creation At Last!	30
	Gifts of the Stork: The Offspring of Mother Earth and Father Sky	31
	The Third Generation of Gods: The Olympians	33
	The Creation of People	35
	The Love-Hate Triangle: Prometheus, People, and Zeus	36
	The World People Lived in, Courtesy of the Gods	37
	A Flood and Rebirth Story	40
Chapter 4	Taller, Younger, and Better Looking Than You: The Olympian Gods	43
	Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades: Big Daddy and His Brothers	43
	The Boys in the Band: Studly Young Gods	49
Chapter 5	The Fairest and Meanest of Them All: The Greek Goddesses	61
	Hera, Aphrodite, and Demeter: The Dueling Diva Goddesses	61
	Look but Don't Touch!: The Virgin Goddesses	68
	Goddess Gangs: A Motley Crew	73
Chapter 6	So Fine and Half Divine: Heroes	77
	Perseus, a Real Prince of a Guy	78
	Box Office Gold of the Ancients: Heracles	82
	A Home-Grown Hero: Theseus	86
	Jason the Jerk	89
Chapter 7	The Iliad, the End of the Trojan War, and the Odyssey	93
	Poems of Epic Proportions	94
	Setting the Stage: Events Leading to the Trojan War	94
	The Trojan War, Nine Years Later: The Iliad	99
	The End of the Trojan War	102
	A Hero Makes His Way Home after the Trojan War: Homer's Odyssey	105
Chapter 8	Greek Tragedy: The Days of Their Lives	113
	What's On Today?	113
	Send in the Clowns (Not!): Tragedy 101	115
	Meet the Parents: The House of Cadmus	118
	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: The House of Atreus	124
Part III	The Cultural Spoils of an Empire: Roman Mythology	129
Chapter 9	Will the Real Roman Mythology Please Stand Up?	131
	The Powers That Were: Before the Empire	131
	Home-Grown Gods: The Original Italians	132
	Making Way for Rome with a Very Big "R"	134
	How It All Got So Darn Mixed Up	137
	Down on the Farm: Roman Religion	140
Chapter 10	Begged, Borrowed, and Stolen: Roman Religion	143
	The Greek-Roman Pantheon	143
	Special Roman Gods	146
	A God for Every Taste	150
	Keeping It Real: The Goddesses	153
Chapter 11	Virgil's Aeneid and The Founding of Rome	159
	Why the Romans Needed Another Myth: Down with Carthage!	159
	Emperor Augustus and Virgil's PR Machine: The Aeneid	163
	Romulus and Remus and the Founding of Rome	168
	The Seven Kings of Rome	170
Chapter 12	Don't Go Changin': Ovid's Metamorphoses	173
	Surprising Transformations and Heroic Hunters	174
	Ovid's Lovers	176
	Cupid and Psyche	182
Part IV	One Big Family Feud: Northern European Mythology	185
Chapter 13	Snow, Ice, and Not Very Nice: Norse Deities	187
	Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dwarves: Creation of the World	188
	The Good, the Bad, and the Mortal: Norse Deities	189
	A Big Tree House: The World They Lived In	197
	Ragnarok: The End of the World	200
Chapter 14	Dragonslayers: The Big Northern European Sagas	203
	Prime Time Programming: The Saga of the Volsungs	204
	Something for Everyone: Beowulf	211
Chapter 15	A Seat at the Round Table: King Arthur and His Court	215
	Searching for King Arthur	215
	Who's Who in Camelot	218
	A Medieval Daytime Drama--Arthur's Beginning	220
	Sex, Lies, and a Good Jousting	223
	Everybody's Working for the Weekend: Knightly Heroics	225
	The Last Days of King Arthur	228
Part V	Some Sunblock, a Sacrifice, a Monster, and Thou: Non-European Mythology	231
Chapter 16	Floods, Mud, and Gods: Mesopotamian and Hebrew Mythology	233
	Gilgamesh: The Sumerian Creation Story	234
	Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Creation Story	236
	Mesopotamian Gods: Okay, We Fear You ... You Happy?	240
	Hebrew Mythology: A is for Apple, B is for Babel	242
	Common Threads in the Three Creation Myths	245
Chapter 17	Three Cheers for Egypt: Ra, Ra, Ra!	247
	Write Me a Really Big River	247
	Gods and Goddesses of the Sands	251
	Religion in Egyptian Life	255
	Death and the Afterlife	258
Chapter 18	Land of a Thousand Gods: India	261
	The Vedic Invaders	261
	Hinduism: Room for Many Gods	264
	Competing Religions: Buddhism and Jainism	272
Chapter 19	China: Tao ... Wow!	275
	How the World Began and Where Folks Came From	275
	Effortless Effort: The Myths of Taoism	278
	Confucianism: Myths of devotion	283
	Buddhism	285
Chapter 20	Japan: Myths from the Land of the Rising Sun	289
	The Creation of Stuff and Other Ancient Matters	289
	Supernatural Beings: Materializing in a Folk Tale Near You	295
	Japanese Rituals: A Little of Everything	297
Chapter 21	Latin America: It'll Tear Your Heart Out	301
	Footprints of a Lost People: The Old Cultures	302
	Maya	305
	Aztecs	309
	Incas	312
Chapter 22	Coyotes, Thunderbirds, and Bears, Oh My: North American Indian Myths	315
	The Lush Green Forests of the East	316
	Big Sky Country: The Great Plains	319
	Saguaro Cactus Flower in the Southwest	323
	The Wealthy Pacific Northwest	326
Part VI	The Part of Tens	329
Chapter 23	Ten Mythological Monsters	331
	Gorgons	331
	Chimera	332
	The Phoenix	332
	Cerberus, the Hound of Hell	332
	Dragons	333
	Unicorn	333
	Griffon	334
	Sphinx	334
Chapter 24	Ten Mythological Places	335
	Elysium, or Elysian Fields	335
	Brigadoon	336
	Xanadu	336
	Shangri-La	337
	Arcadia	337
	Valhalla	338
	Atlantis	338
	The Kingdom of Prester John	339
	Avalon	339
	Index	341