Mythological Origins

It should go without saying that fantasy stories tend to borrow heavily from mythology and folklore. One need only look at the current boom in vampire, werewolf and zombie-related narratives to realise that the superstitions of previous centuries hold a clear fascination for our culture. As a writer and a dyed-in-the-wool mythology geek, I sometimes have trouble separating my love of the fantastic from my love of stories; not just because both qualities have been part of me for so many years, but because the two are intrinsically connected. You cannot have myth without story – it is in the nature of our earliest explanations about the world to take the form of narrative – and, while it is possible to have narrative without myth, the first stories we ever hear in life all begin with Once Upon A Time, the magic invocation of fairytale.

Before the Victorian era saw such fables sanitised into happiness and smiles, a process which Disney and others have cheerfully continued into the present day, their original versions were frequently much darker. In order to fit their oversized feet into Cinderella’s dainty shoe, her wicked stepsisters hacked off their heel and big toe, respectively, after which, at the grand finale, their treacherous eyes were plucked out by birds, rendering them both blind and lame. The Big Bad Wolf originally required Red Riding Hood not only to come closer, but to strip off, climb into bed and kiss him, with the colour of her infamous cape suggesting the start of menstruation and the transition to womanhood. Even Sleeping Beauty was originally linked with sex: once upon a time (or so they say) the Prince had to do a lot more to his virginal bride than kiss her lips, and even then, she didn’t wake up until she was giving birth.

Sanitised fairytales still have a moral, but when restored to their initial format, such warnings are more specific, tied to darker dangers, giving them more in common with their mythological predecessors than simple bedtime stories. Not even the most toned-down version of any mythological system can quite conceal the lashings of sex, death, war and infidelity which form its narrative basis, like Cronos the Titan devouring his own children, or Loki the trickster sleeping with Thor’ wife. The point being, there is a reason why fantasy and its attendant creatures, magics and characters has never gone out of fashion: because those first stories, no matter how impossible they can seem, were always attempting understand human nature. And, though they have since passed from established belief into the land of pure fiction, the hold they have over us remains undiminished.

The most common criticism I’ve ever heard of fantasy literature is that such elaborate new worlds – different names, different continents, new words, vast systems of monarchy and magic – are pure escapism, with no bearing on reality. And yet, the oldest stories we tell ourselves, the fables with which we educate each new generation of children, are all about magic; not just because we think such fables are childish, but because, despite being set in far-off kingdoms populated by knights and dragons, they still retain the power to teach us about choices, consequences and human nature. In recent years, our realisation of this fact has sparked an enthusiasm, not for destroying fantasy, but for rebuilding it. Princesses who rescue the captured prince and have daring adventures are now just as common as the traditional damsel in distress; princes can befriend the dragon rather than slaying him. These are the most transparent of narrative metaphors, but for all that, they are no less effective – perhaps they are more so, because even a child can understand their meaning.

Creating a new world, no matter how closely modelled on the old one, necessitates that we open ourselves to its possibilities. The reader inevitably takes their biases with them, but in a fictitious setting, what we think we know won’t always apply; or, if it does, we might not recognise it. Look past the trappings of magic, the unfamiliar continents and strange kingdoms, and remember how and why human beings first started telling each other stories: to try and understand the world, our desires, and our deeper natures. However much we might want to roll our eyes at the current trends in popular fantasy, it’s always important to look beneath the surface. Real werewolves, zombies and vampires don’t exist – but that doesn’t mean their stories have nothing to teach us.      

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