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Aphrodite was said to be the daughter of Zeus and the nymph Dione, but we believe now, as noted above, that she came to Greece from the east, probably as a version of the fertility goddess Astarte.
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For many psychologists and modern mythologists, myths reveal the inner workings of the human psyche. These thinkers note that when we compare myths from around the world, we discover that many cultures have, for instance, resurrection myths, virgin birth myths, dying god myths, or myths of the hero descending into the underworld. Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and many others have emphasized this archetypal or universal aspect of myth. For these universalist mythologists, myths are at once cultural and universal collective dreams that can tell us much about not only who and what cultures are but who and what we are as a species.
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The term Germanic mythology refers to the gods and heroes of European peoples that include Germans, Scandinavians, and Anglo-Saxons. These are people whose languages—one of which would evolve into Old English and then, with other influences, into Middle and Modern English—derive from the same Indo-European branch. Terms commonly applied to the most northern of the Germanic peoples are Norse and, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, Viking. Germanic mythology has a certain unity of theme and narrative but reflects the conditions of several cultures “contaminated” in various degrees by surrounding realities. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf in Old English contains elements of Germanic mythology, as do the later German epic the Nibelungenlied, the Scandinavian Volsunga Saga, and especially the Eddas of Iceland. But all these works bear the marks and influences of the Christian era in which they took literary form.
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For some, gods have been a literal presence; for others, gods have been metaphors for vague understandings of the mysteries of the universe and the psyche. Perhaps most importantly, humans have needed divinity to make sense of where we came from and of who and what we are. Both as a species and as cultures it is difficult to conceive of mere chance existence. We crave identity. As the one species blessed or cursed by the sense of plot— of beginnings, middles, and ends—we are driven to tell the essential story of where we came from and why. So we have gods who created us. And our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.
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According to the universalist approach, myths might be called the most basic expressions of a defining aspect of the human species—the need and ability to understand and to tell stories to reflect our understanding, whether or not we know the real facts. Humans, unlike other animals, are blessed or cursed with consciousness and specifically with the consciousness of plot—of beginnings, middles, and ends. We wonder individually, culturally, and as a species about our origins, about the significance of our present time, and we think continually of the future. We are always aware of the journey aspect of our existence. So it has always been that adults have told stories to children to describe our journey, and leaders have told their people stories for the same reason.
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