Intro Blog Post
When I was in high school, we spent a lot of time studying Greek Mythology. I learned all the stories and legends about the gods and the myths. I found out how these stories changed language and art for centuries to come. There are still sayings that we have today that are based on these stories.
The part that just fascinates me is knowing that most of these stories weren’t originally written down. Most of them were told in an oral tradition from one poet to another. People would gather around the fire and listen to these tales of heroes, gods, and monsters.
I always used to wonder, did the Greeks really believe that these tales were true? Did they actually believe that their Gods resided high on Mount Olympus or that there was a serpentine woman who was so ugly, just one look from her would turn any man to stone? I used to think that they probably thought it was just a story. Maybe like a fairytale. Until I recently took a trip to Alaska. My husband and I traveled by train from Talkeetna to Fairbanks. We went straight through Denali National Park. There were so many high mountain peaks, but there was also cloudy weather obscuring the tops of all the mountains. We knew they were there, but we couldn’t see them.
Is that why the Greeks believed the gods resided at the tops of the mountains? In ancient times, they didn’t have the protective gear to do high altitude climbs. Even today, people get killed trying to climb to the highest peaks of the mountains. The Greeks didn’t know what was up there. It was possible to believe that the gods resided on the peaks of the highest mountains among the clouds.
If the Greeks could believe something like that back in ancient times spread through oral tradition, could that same phenomenon still exist today? Do our stories sometimes spread through our society as truth just because they could possibly be true?
When I was a kid, the phenomenon was called an urban legend. It was spread by word of mouth. They were studied by sociologists to see how these legends expressed our fears, our repressions, and ourselves. With the advent of the information age, I believe the urban legend is morphing into something completely different. Now these legends that spread so quickly by word of mouth are finding new life as conspiracies and lies on the internet and social media.
As an author, I believe that no matter what the age, ancient times, mid-century America, or even now, these stories give me a glimpse into the global human psyche. Through these stories I try to find what really scares us all, what are our primal fears, and what symbols convey those fears. Then, I write about them. I hope to hear from my readers and learn what really scares you as I continue to learn about the stories that define us.
