TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES

(SPECIAL MENTION: COMPLETE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS RANKINGS)

 

 

No, not a repetition of ranking mythologies by their apocalypses but more metaphorically in terms of their decline in actual or active belief in them.

These essentially fall on a sliding cultural-religious scale – from those that have declined to cultural impact or influence with diminished, if any, belief in them, to those that remain as the subject of active or actual belief at the religious end of the scale.

Surprisingly, my special mentions increase the number of mythologies that rank in the religious end of the scale, albeit not necessarily as the subject of religions rather than other forms of active or actual belief, such that somewhat over half my top ten mythologies and twenty special mentions (five of my top ten mythologies and thirteen of my twenty special mentions) rank in the religious end of the scale.

 

CULTURAL

 

(1) FAIRIES

 

Fairies rank in top spot for twilight of the gods – or is that twilight of the godlings (a la the book title by Francis Young)?

That is, at the far cultural end of the scale, enduring in cultural influence but not in actual belief. That’s because believing in fairies (at the bottom of the garden) has become proverbial for gullibility (and calling something a fairy tale as the proverbial expression of disparaging belief in it).

 

(2) DRAGONS

 

Here were dragons?

Dragons rank just below fairies at the far cultural end of the scale – that is, enduring in cultural influence but not in actual belief and almost as proverbial as fairies for symbolizing something as a myth or fantasy, now long-gone as the subject of belief.

 

(3) GIANTS

 

“There were giants in the earth in those days”.

Even in the Book of Genesis, giants are almost as proverbial as fairies or dragons for symbolizing something as myth or fantasy, now long gone, arguably reflecting the origin of giants in adults from a child’s perspective – and hence rank close to them at the far cultural end of the scale.

 

(4) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

Similar to dragons and giants, it goes with the adjective legendary – as opposed to cryptids.

 

(5) TAROT

 

I’ve ranked the Tarot high up at the cultural end of the scale for twilight of the gods – just under fairies, dragons, giants and legendary creatures. Even when used for divination, it has always been a novelty rather than the subject of serious belief. Indeed, it started as a game and it is only in its modern form that it has any degree of serious belief as a means of divination.

 

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN)

 

(7) EGYPTIAN

 

(8) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN)

 

(9) NORSE

 

(10) CLASSICAL

 

For the most part, these top ten mythologies have faded away in the twilight of their gods from the realm of any active religion or ritual, except for the small sliver from modern paganism or neo-paganism.

Classical mythology was particularly poignant, with Olympian gods fading away. Or even dying, as was famously reported for Pan – “Pan is dead!”

Although ironically, as the argument does, Pan was the one Olympian god who did not die, being reborn with his goat-hooved and goat-halved form as the guise of the Christian Devil – better to reign in a Christian hell than to serve in an Olympian heaven I suppose. Sadly, it seems that argument is overstated but I prefer to believe it.

However, these mythologies still retain cultural impact or influence – and I’ve ranked them in ascending order, as the more cultural recognition they have, the closer they come to approximating religion or ritual.

 

(11) VAMPIRES

 

I have to rank vampires at the cultural end of the scale, but surprisingly less so than classical, Norse or Egyptian mythology as there are still outliers of active belief in them even in the twenty-first century – with people even being killed as vampires (in Malawi 2002-2003 and 2017). There is of course also their substantial cultural impact and influence, as well as belief in them enduring for a remarkably long period of time.

 

(12) LYCANTHROPES

 

Similar to vampires, with some outliers of belief.

 

RELIGIOUS

 

(13) CRYPTIDS

 

Yes, there’s no cryptid religions as such – although something like the Church of the Mothman would be a hoot to see – but cryptids have to tip the scale into active or actual belief in them. After all, it’s what distinguishes cryptids from legendary creatures – serious belief that they do, in fact, exist out there somewhere.

 

(14) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

Similar to cryptids, Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle just tip the scale into the territory of active or actual belief in them, albeit very limited (I hope). And let’s face it – between the two of them, it’s probably the Bermuda Triangle that’s doing the heavy lifting in terms of people believing in it.

 

(15) URBAN LEGENDS

 

Similar to the preceding entries, urban legends tip the scales into active or actual belief in them – it’s kind of the point of an urban legend that it’s a “true story”, at least in some kernel of belief even if we mostly believe otherwise.

 

(16) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

Pretty much the same as urban legends, although conspiracy theories have more in the way of true believers – it’s again kind of the point of conspiracy theories.

 

(17) UFO

 

Now we’re getting into the territory of actual religion on the religious scale. Yes – there are UFO religions, although I anticipate that they remain a much smaller part of active or actual belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial aliens or something similar.

 

(18) DISCORDIANISM

 

Discordianism was tricky to rank. There’s probably more people with actual or active belief in the few preceding entries – cryptids, Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle, urban legends, conspiracy theories and UFOs – but with the exception of a few weird UFO cults, usually not as part of a religion. Of course, with Discordianism, that may be a religion disguised as a joke or a joke disguised as a religion.

When you throw in parody religions in general, that’s probably enough to bump it up the religious scale, ranking it with UFOs where that scale just tips into actual religions, albeit at the lowest or smallest level.

 

 

(19) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)

 

(20) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC)

 

And now we get to two of my top ten mythologies that persist in active religious belief, albeit on a small scale. There are practitioners of native American religions but their numbers are largely a matter of speculation, although unlikely to exceed a million and indeed estimates go lower than 10,000 or so. Arguably they punch above their religious weight in cultural influence and the preservation of Native American sacred sites.

The persistence of meso-American mythologies in active religious belief is harder to track but I speculate them to have higher numbers than their northern native American counterparts simply due to larger population. As I understand it, “the Aztecs abandoned their rites and merged their own religious beliefs with Catholicism, whereas the relatively autonomous Maya kept their religion as the core of their beliefs and incorporated varying degrees of Catholicism.”

 

(21) PAGANISM

 

Paganism would arguably be the archetype for the twilight of the gods – as the combination of all the pantheons eclipsed by Christianity. And yet, here it is in the religious part of the scale for twilight of the gods, not only because of its enduring cultural persistence – arguably as elements of belief in contemporary religions, particularly Christianity – but even more so its modern revival or reconstruction as religion, which pushes it into the religious side of the scale. The number of practitioners of modern paganism are still relatively small worldwide but would place it among what Wikipedia classifies as medium religions – 1 million or more. Indeed, there are estimates of 1 million adherents of modern paganism in the United States alone.

Given that Discordianism is a tiny (and somewhat obscure) subset of paganism – and one that is hard to tell whether it is a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke – I obviously had to rank paganism further along the religious scale than Discordianism.

 

(22) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

Voodoo, or more broadly, Afro-American diaspora religion in general, which may well rank among major world religions in number of adherents but for the difficulty of estimating with any precision due to “its diverse, decentralized nature and syncretism with other faiths”. Even so, it is estimated at 60 million adherents.

 

(23) SHAMANISM

 

Shamanism might seem up (or down) there with paganism in its twilight of gods, clinging to the residual tribal religions of the world, except that like paganism, shamanism and tribal religions have had their modern revival or reconstruction. As such, you can argue that shamanism effectively incorporates Native American, Meso-American and even Afro-American mythology or religion within it – hence the more religious ranking.

I was tempted to rank it as even more religious, potentially as the most religious, on the argument that there’s the recurring shamanic nature or elements argued for all religions, as by Weston La Barre in The Ghost Dance – but I drew the line here.

 

(24) ZEN

 

Zen outranks most other mythologies for persistence and endurance in cultural influence and religious belief, given that I use it as representative of Buddhism (and Taoism) in general

 

(25) TANTRA

 

There’s not too much information about the number of genuine tantra practitioners out there – that it is an esoteric tradition suggests I might have ranked it too highly in terms of religious belief but because it is a tradition or reflects elements within Hinduism (and Buddhism) to the extent of prolific er0tic temple sculpture, it seemed appropriate to rank it just under the next entry.

Speaking of which…

 

(26) HINDU

 

(27) BIBLICAL

 

‘Nuff said – no surprises here for these entries from my top ten mythologies, except perhaps I rank three other entries as further on the religious end of the scale.

Hindu mythology underlies Hinduism, the third largest religion in the world, while Biblical mythology underlies Christianity as the first largest and arguably Islam as the second (as well as Judaism).

 

(28) WITCHCRAFT

 

Wait – witchcraft as even more religious than Hindu or Biblical mythology?

Am I referring to modern witchcraft or Wicca?

In short, no – or at least almost entirely not. I’m referring to the old witchcraft rather than modern witchcraft or Wicca – that is, the almost universal belief in witchcraft, including in the Bible itself, which not only features religious injunctions against witches but also an actual witch, the Witch of Endor. Hence the ranking above all but two other mythologies, because it features in almost all other mythologies.

You’d think that belief in witchcraft would not persist in the modern world but you’d be wrong. For one thing, it’s sobering to recall that the height of witch hunts and trials was not in the medieval period but the early modern one, not too far removed from the scientific revolution. For another, it persists as a subset of my next special mention entry and almost as prevalent, since it is intertwined. And for a last sobering thought, the persistence of beliefs in witchcraft in the modern world still has very real and fatal consequences, the latter particularly for those accused of it.

 

(29) MAGIC

 

In terms of persistence of belief, magic – and even more so magical thinking – would seem to outrank even the most religious of my top ten mythologies (or special mention entries) as it is almost universal to all of them, such that I rank it second only to one mythology on the religious side of the scale. As I like to quip, religion is just organized magic.

 

(30) GHOSTS

 

And here we are, with ghosts ranking as the most “religious” of all my top ten mythologies or special mentions – as in higher than actual or active belief than Biblical mythology or Hindu mythology with their major world religions, as well as higher than witchcraft or magic.

How so? There may not seem to be any ghost-religions as such but I have ranked it so high in terms of belief because almost all religions would seem to have some belief in ghosts, albeit more in terms of souls and afterlife. Indeed, it’s been argued (by Pascal Boyer in his book “Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought”) that religion itself originated in the nearly universal belief that we persist in some form after our death (at least in the dreams of the living if nowhere else). Hence I have ranked ghosts so that they outrank all other mythologies that persist in actual or active belief.

 

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES

(SPECIAL MENTION: EQUAL RITES RANKINGS – COMPLETE RANKINGS)

 

She is the goddess and this is her mythology – but how do my mythology special mentions rack up against my top ten mythologies when ranking them for their goddesses?

Pretty well, as it turns out, with one special mention taking out the top spot above all other mythologies and five more taking out top ten goddess rankings – so six special mentions swap out for my top ten mythologies when it comes to goddess rankings. That leaves only four of my top ten mythologies in the top ten when ranked by goddesses. One more special mention scores higher than the top ten mythology with the lowest goddess ranking.

 

SCORE:

6 SPECIAL MENTIONS – TOP TEN GODDESS RANKINGS

(7 SPECIAL MENTIONS EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES)

 

Anyway, here’s my complete goddess rankings for my top ten mythologies and special mention entries.

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

(1) PAGANISM – GODDESS

 

She is the goddess and this is her body – o yes!

In my equal rites rankings, paganism is its own goddess-tier of goddess-tier, combining as it does all the divine female figures or goddesses of all pagan mythologies in my top ten – classical, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern. Indeed, arguably all but Biblical mythology – and there’s arguments for paganism even reclaiming goddess figures from Biblical mythology.

As such, it would outrank all other mythologies, particularly in its modern form or neopaganism, which adapts all divine female figures – arguably including those of the other mythologies in my top ten – into an uber-goddess or Goddess, a supreme female divine figure. Almost all versions of modern paganism propose at least equality between female and male divine figures, while some versions go all out for the supremacy or even exclusivity of a divine female figure or Goddess.

Indeed, modern paganism is distinct from the original forms of paganism and arguably unique among modern religion for its supreme divine female figure, with the exception of my next entry – which outranks modern paganism in number of followers but paganism wins out for me with the overarching quality of its goddess movement).

 

(2) HINDU – SHAKTI

 

My highest ranking top ten entry, up five places from seventh place in my general rankings, not surprisingly as the closest rival to modern paganism as goddess movement (and outranking it in number of followers)

 

(3) CLASSICAL – APHRODITE VENUS

 

(4) EGYPTIAN – ISIS

 

(5) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN) – ISHTAR

 

Top ten entries, up or down only slightly from their general rankings – reflecting their iconic and influential divine female figures, particularly the ones nominated for their entries.

 

(6) TAROT – HIGH PRIESTESS & EMPRESS

 

I’m as surprised as you are by the Tarot’s goddess-tier ranking but the cards don’t lie. The Major Arcana – the 22 major cards of any Tarot deck – isn’t quite evenly balanced between its male and female figures but it comes close with ten of its cards as female figures and arguably they make up that slight deficit in quantity with better quality in positive aspects or meanings (and the female figure of the World card as the supreme or ultimate culmination of the Major Arcana).

The Minor Arcana are also balanced, with two of its suits traditionally seen as female – the suit of Cups (often identified with Hearts in modern decks and associated with the ‘female’ element of water) and the suit of Coins or Pentacles (often identified with Diamonds in modern decks and associated with the ‘female’ element of earth). The court cards are also balanced in some decks, with jacks or pages often converted to princesses or otherwise seen as female to add a second female court card to the queens.

 

(7) MAGIC – FATES

 

Magic ranks in goddess tier for equal rites because it gives opportunity or empowerment for just that – balancing the scales against male mythic figures, particularly those that rely on force, martial prowess, or physical strength. That can be seen by recurring goddesses of magic or other divine female sorceresses – with Hecate, Freya, and Isis particularly notable as goddesses of magic. Charms and enchantment – in the magic sense of those words – tend to have connotations with female magical figures. There’s also the recurring prevalence of female figures, particularly triple female figures, associated with fate or magic – Fates, Norns, and Weird Sisters among others.

 

(8) WITCHCRAFT – GODDESS

 

Where else could witchcraft rank but in goddess-tier?

I’d almost rank witchcraft higher because of its typical connotations as female magic, but those connotations are also typically negative or adverse – virtually by definition as it were. Good magic is male – high magic, ceremonial magic, ritual magic, theurgy and so on – while bad magic is female and witchcraft. And the latter can extend to almost anything by a woman if you so choose, particularly if it’s in rivalry to a male counterpart such as healing or herbalism.

Of course, witchcraft has also been associated with men – but the predominant association tends to be with women, particularly in Europe.

Modern witchcraft (or Wicca) and historians have sought to reclaim witchcraft as positive, female empowerment or even as a goddess religion – or Goddess religion, to rival the supreme divine female figure of modern paganism. Hence witchcraft also came close to a similar ranking as paganism.

 

(9) DISCORDIANISM – ERIS DISCORDIA

 

“How I found Goddess and what I did to Her when I found Her”

Hail Eris! Eris Discordia!

As per the subtitle of the Principia Discordia, Discordianism had to rank in goddess-tier and I might well have ranked it up with modern paganism as effectively a subset of the latter.

The reasons I didn’t were, firstly that Discordianism is very much a fringe religion within even the fringe religion of modern paganism, and secondly that it’s not clear how much the goddess is the punchline in a joke disguised as a religion – or a religion disguised as a joke.

 

(10) TANTRA – SHAKTI KUNDALINI

 

I might well have ranked tantra up there with Hinduism, as I understand that it effectively overlaps to a large degree with Shaktism, but I just felt it didn’t have the same weight and rounded out goddess-tier of goddess rankings with it instead.

 

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(11) NORSE – FREYA

 

(12) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN) – LADY OF THE LAKE & MORGAN LE FAY

 

Even though they still rank in top tier, these two mythologies are outscored by special mention entries for goddess rankings – which sees them drop out of the top ten goddess rankings (all of which are S-tier or goddess tier)

 

(13) FAIRIES – FAIRY QUEEN

 

“O what can ail thee, knight at arms…La Belle Dame Sans Merci hath thee in thrall!”

Once again, fairy folklore ranks close to the Celtic mythology or Arthurian legend it overlaps, particularly when it comes to fairy female figures, foremost among them the Fairy Queen.

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(14) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)

 

(15) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

(16) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC)

 

While they have their goddesses, these top ten mythologies take a big hit from other entries to rank below the top ten goddess rankings.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(17) BIBLICAL

 

Biblical mythology takes out the top spot, but of wild tier rankings as opposed to THE top spot as in my general rankings, sacred space rankings or apocalyptic rankings! I mean, it could only have ranked in wild tier given its masculine monotheism (or Trinity) but its surprisingly prolific and iconic female figures earn it top spot of wild tier – even if they aren’t divine as such, unless you look under the (God)hood…

 

(18) GHOSTS

 

Wait – what? Ghosts rank just under Biblical mythology in wild tier?

Well, yes, because it’s surprising how large female figures loom in ghost lore – from White Ladies to the terrifying female figures of Japanese ghost lore.

 

(19) VAMPIRES

 

Not surprisingly, vampires rank close to ghosts for female figures – arguably they might even have ranked close to witches given the overlap between the two. It is also arguable whether they might outrank ghosts in terms of the prevalence of female figures as vampires, although I believe that prevalence may be more so in vampire fiction from Dracula (and Carmilla) onwards rather than in vampire folklore. There was of course the vampire hunting technique of locating their grave through a (naked) female virgin on horseback – which featured much to my delight in the 2025 Nosferatu film directed by Eggers.

 

 

(20) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

It’s the mermaids.

They pretty much drag up legendary creatures to a ranking close to ghosts and vampires all on their own.

 

(21) SHAMANISM

 

Shamanism isn’t particularly associated with female figures but they’re not absent from it either – it is hard to generalize for equal rites in shamanism but some variants of it, particularly modern ones or neo-shamanism, have female practitioners (labelled as shamanka by Wikipedia) or at least divine female figures as guidance for shamans.

 

(22) ZEN

 

Although zen would seem to tend towards equal rites in principle, it has tended towards male figures in practice, albeit it has had some notable female practitioners.

 

(23) DRAGONS

 

Dragon folklore might not seem to have any distinctive association with female figures, except perhaps for female dragons, but there is indeed at least one such recurring distinctive association – and that is the sacrificial maidens that recur throughout dragon folklore, so much so that they have their own Wikipedia article as “Princess and Dragon”. Andromeda from classical mythology is the archetypal example.

 

(24) GIANTS

 

“Rest well, and dream of large women”

I rank giants similiarly to dragons for distinctive association with female figures. On the one hand, there is not the recurring sacrificial maiden or princess trope as there is with dragons. On the other hand, however, female giants are more distinctive, as in Norse mythology.

 

(25) LYCANTHROPES

 

There are female werewolves, right?

Well, yes – there are, enough for their own Wikipedia article (as werewomen). It’s not so surprising, given the overlap between werewolves and witches.

I suppose seal and swan maidens might also count but they’re more fairy folklore.

 

(26) UFO

 

I mean, there are female aliens, right? Or at least abductees? Science fiction – or pulp science fiction – seems to feature both, particularly s€xy ones.

Yeah, we’re starting to scrape the bottom now.

 

(27) URBAN LEGENDS

 

Well yes, there are female figures in urban legends – some of which even have some prominence in or are the central figures of the legend, such as the Vanishing Hitchhiker (when female) or Bloody Mary.

 

(28) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

Similar to urban legends, there are female figures in conspiracy theories – some of which again have some prominence in or are the central figures of the conspiracy theory, such as the conspiracy theories around the deaths of Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana.

 

(29) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

If I recall correctly, the gods – and goddesses – that feature in Plato’s legend of Atlantis are the Greek ones, so you could argue Atlantis should rank up there with classical mythology but I just don’t think the Greek deities in Plato’s legend get it that far.

You could also argue for topless Atlantean priestesses in similar style to those in the Minoan civilization which is usually seen as the historical inspiration for Plato’s legend.

But again that only gets it so far in equal rites rankings, indeed only one entry short of last place. Well, that and whatever bikini girls the Bermuda Triangle snatches up…

 

(30) CRYPTIDS

 

I got nothing – we’ve hit bedrock for divine or really any sort of female figures, so it comes last. I suppose some of the cryptids must be female for the ongoing survival of the species – female Bigfoot swiping right on Bigfoot Tinder – but that’s about it.

 

 

 

No, not a repetition of ranking mythologies by their apocalypses but more metaphorically in terms of their decline in actual or active belief in them.

These essentially fall on a sliding cultural-religious scale – from those that have declined to cultural impact or influence with diminished, if any, belief in them, to those that remain as the subject of religious belief.

By happy chance, half my top ten mythologies (or five entries) rank in the cultural end of the scale, while the other half rank in the religious end.

.

 

CULTURAL

 

 

(1) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN)

 

My top ten mythology ranked highest for twilight of the gods at the cultural end of the scale, due to the lack of name recognition for all but a few of its deities or figures limiting even its cultural impact or influence – which is mostly filtered through other mythologies in any event.

The epic of Gilgamesh is probably its most enduring cultural impact or influence but even that is limited compared to other mythic epics.

If we expand it to the full extent of Middle Eastern mythology such as Persian Zoroastrianism, then it jumps up the scale to rank just into the religious end of the scale, with a tiny residual population of active religious belief.

 

(2) EGYPTIAN

 

One of the mythologies where divine figures have faded away in the twilight of the gods, apart from their small reconstruction or revival within neo-paganism – and one for which I feel that loss more acutely than most. They remain far more within cultural impact and influence as compared to other ancient Middle Eastern mythologies, mainly due to the enduring fascination with ancient Egypt in popular imagination.

 

(3) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN)

 

The once and future king!

The figures of Arthurian legend rank at the cultural end of the scale for twilight of the gods, since they were not figures of religious belief as such and have waned even in historical belief. However, they remain as vivid presences in Western culture.

 

(4) NORSE

 

Having the days of the week named for its deities (in English) has to count for cultural impact!

The trope namer – since that is what Gotterdammerung literally translates as – but ironically not in the way I’m using it here for ranking mythologies by their decline in belief.

As such, Norse mythology ranks at the cultural end of the scale, as the Norse deities have faded from active religious belief by all but the tiny slither of population that is neo-pagan or “heathen” (and even then I query how much of that is genuine religious belief). However, they continue to loom large in culture and popular imagination, second to none but one other mythology in this top ten list when it comes to European pantheons.

 

(5) CLASSICAL

 

“What ailed us, gods, to desert you?”

Desert yes, but preserve in cultural impact and influence.

Alas, I can’t deny the twilight of the gods of classical mythology – or that it is the one where I feel the loss of its deities most acutely.

Like Norse mythology, the gods of classical mythology have faded from religious belief and ritual by all but a tiny neo-pagan following. However, they loom even larger than those of Norse mythology in cultural impact and influence.

 

 

RELIGIOUS

 

 

(6) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)

 

A mythology in my top ten that persists in religious belief among Native Americans, albeit at the smallest scale among those top ten mythologies. Huston Smith included a chapter on the primal religions among major religions in his book The World’s Religions – with the Lakota religion featuring prominently.

 

(7) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC)

 

I’ve ranked Meso-American mythology just above Native American mythology at the religious end of the scale for persistence in religious belief.

This is based on my understanding that Meso-American religious belief has persisted whether absorbed into Catholicism (in the style of classical or Roman paganism absorbed by the early Church), disguised or hidden within it (in the style of the Afro-American religions), or just existing parallel or juxtaposed to it – although I also understand this may be more apposite to the Maya than the Aztecs.

 

(8) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

Afro-American mythology or voodoo may seem ranked oddly high – third out of my top ten mythologies – for persistence of religious belief, since Afro-American religions are usually omitted from studies of world religion. However, the African diaspora religions may well rank among the major world religions in number of adherents, but it is difficult to tell since those adherents are often disguised or hidden within Christianity.

 

(9) HINDU

 

Now we get to the big guns of my top mythologies going strongest against the twilight of their gods, for persistence in religious belief – with Hinduism as a major world religion by any metric, indeed as the worlds’ third largest religion.

 

(10) BIBLICAL

 

What can I say? The biggest gun of my top ten mythologies for sheer persistence as well as scale for endurance in active religious belief – outranking all others in my top ten, indeed, probably all of them combined in terms of scale.

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (HONORABLE MENTION)

 

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten mythologies – as well as my usual twenty special mentions.

But wait – there’s more! There’s these honorable mentions for entries beyond my top ten or special mentions, because mythology is that prolific. Unlike my top ten or special mentions, they aren’t ranked or arranged in any particular order, except I rank those entries more conventionally considered to be formal mythologies higher than my weirder or wilder entries. Also unlike my top ten or twenty special mentions, I have no numerical limit on entries for honorable mention, so I’ll include an index of entries at the outset.

Speaking of indices – just to remind you, these are my Top 10 Mythologies.

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS TIER?)

(1) BIBLICAL

(2) CLASSICAL

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(3) NORSE

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

(5) EGYPTIAN

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

(7) HINDU

(8) AZTEC

(9) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

(10) AFRO-AMERICAN – VOODOO

 

And these are my special mentions:

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) PAGANISM

(2) SHAMANISM

(3) ZEN

(4) TAROT

(5) MAGIC

(6) WITCHCRAFT

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(7) FAIRIES

(8) DRAGONS

(9) GIANTS

(10) GHOSTS

(11) VAMPIRES

(12) LYCANTHROPES

(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES

(14) CRYPTIDS & CRYPTOZOOLOGY

(15) ATLANTIS

(16) BERMUDA TRIANGLE

(17) UFOS & UFOLOGY

(18) URBAN LEGENDS

(19) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(20) TANTRA

 

My honorable mentions so far (as former entries – or topic within entries – in my special mentions).

 

DRUIDRY

DISCORDIANISM

TUNGUSKA EVENT

*

 

 

 

DRUIDRY

 

“A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic culture”. And that’s pretty much as definitive as it gets.

While druids had a number of roles – “legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors” – the focus tends to be on their role as religious leaders. That is as priests, prophets, or most commonly, as quasi-shamanic figures, attuned to the animal or natural world with magic or moral philosophy.

Little is known about them, since they were secretive and didn’t write anything down, possibly because of religious prohibition. Most historical accounts were written by their adversaries, notably the Romans, who actively suppressed them.

The first detailed account was that of Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars, who wrote about them as he conquered them and the rest of Gaul – most famously featuring them shoving human sacrifices into the Wicker Man, to be literally burnt in effigy.

Historians have queried the veracity of druidic human sacrifice in general and the Wicker Man in particular, usually in terms of Roman imperial propaganda against their conquered enemies – which disappoints me, as it depicts the druids at their most metal.

I mean, I came to druidry and classical depictions of it through The Wicker Man, with Lord Summerisle as my model of an evil druid.

However, this was moderated as I came to druidry through three other sources. The first originated when Caesar conquered Gaul…but not entirely, because one small village still held out against the invaders through their druid’s magic potion of superhuman strength.

I am of course talking about Asterix comics, featuring the druid Getafix as his name is usually translated into English versions. Of course, the Wicker Man was distinctively absent from its version of druidry, although that might explain the true fate of all those Roman legionaries behind the scenes…

The second source was also from comics – Slaine by Pat Mills for 2000 AD, in which human sacrifice in general and the Wicker Man in particular loomed large for its version of druidry. Not surprisingly, its druids were somewhat amoral at best, not too distinct from their evil counterparts.

The third source is perhaps the most popular – Dungeons and Dragons, influencing their depiction in other role playing games and popular culture as divine nature-themed magic users, complete with shapechanging (“wild shape”) and animal companions.

All of which are not unlike the modern reconstruction (or reconstructions) of druidry, often styled as neo-druidry in the same manner as neo-paganism or neo-shamanism, originating with Romantic pagan and Celtic revivals as early as the eighteenth century.

 

 

 

DISCORDIANISM

 

Life is the laughter of the gods!

Or the goddess in this case.

Discordianism is the combination of two strands within contemporary mythology (or religion) that appeal to me.

Firstly, the strand of neo-paganism – not so much a mythology of itself, but an eclectic combination, reconstruction or syncretism of earlier mythologies, particularly those of historical pagan or pre-Christian Europe. The most distinctive – and perhaps the most numerous – neo-pagan religion is Wicca, which reconstructs historical witchcraft as a pagan survival or resurgence, typically combining historical mythic female figures within one overarching or universal Goddess, often identified as the Triple Goddess or Great Goddess, either as a monotheistic figure on her own, or with a similar male figure, often identified as the Horned God, as her consort in a duotheistic couple. Or not, since neo-paganism in general and Wicca in particular are extremely eclectic and difficult to pin down.

Of course, Discordianism isn’t the most serious example of neo-paganism – to the extent that it is even accepted as such, something which is often disputed. Which brings me to the second strand – the strand of parody religion, or more broadly, religious comedy, humor and satire. Parody religion or religious comedy is perhaps distinctively modern with many different strands, some notably sourced from popular culture, but also arguably has long roots extending back at least to classical philosophy or literature, even within traditional religions. Some even ascend to distinctly postmodern religions – which appear to have a number of relatively serious followers who embrace the perceived absurdity of these religions as spiritually significant and it is hard to tell whether even these “serious” followers are not just taking part in an even bigger joke.

Sometimes I feel that the world would be a better place if all religions originated in comedy or was told in the form of jokes.

And so Discordianism appeals to me because of its complete playfulness and lack of seriousness in matters of belief, all with a neo-pagan tint. After all, if you’re going to have a universal goddess, metaphorical or otherwise, then who better than the playful goddess of chaos, invoking Eris from Greek mythology or her counterpart Discordia from Roman mythology? Essentially, Discordianism originated as a parody religion, and as far as I’m aware, one of the first parody religions – although is it a joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as a joke? Only Eris knows!

 

 

 

 

TUNGUSKA EVENT

 

And then there’s the third of my holy trinity of so-called Earth mysteries – the Tunguska Event. Although I feel a little trepidation ranking the Tunguska Event with the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis – because unlike those latter two, the Tunguska Event is more grounded, less earthly or mysterious, albeit without the same thematic depth as those entries (hence their retention as entries within my special mentions).

It’s also a less enduring phenomenon – an explosion in Siberia usually reckoned at 10-15 megatons on 30 June 1908. As to what caused the explosion – there’s the mystery, but again it’s usually reckoned to be a meteorite. The only catch is that an impact crater or meteorite has never been found, so the leading hypothesis is that it exploded as an air burst rather than from direct impact.

If so, it was a lucky day for St Petersberg at the same latitude, as a few hours difference might have made it the site rather than a remote and sparsely populated region of Siberia.

However, that doesn’t stop wilder hypotheses, ranging from the still relatively mundane such as a comet or exploding leak of subterranean natural gas, to the bizarre – “a deuterium-rich meteorite causing an all-natural thermonuclear explosion; a chunk of antimatter; a miniature black hole passing through the Earth; an alien spacecraft crashing or discharging some kind of superweapon; psychic experiments or magic rituals gone wrong”.

 

You can return to or find more top tens in my indexed page for top tens of mythology.

 

 

 

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten mythologies – and I have a whole host of special mentions as well. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way. My special mentions are also where I usually have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.

Just to remind you, these are my Top 10 Mythologies.

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS TIER?)

(1) BIBLICAL

(2) CLASSICAL

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(3) NORSE

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

(5) EGYPTIAN

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

(7) HINDU

(8) AZTEC

(9) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

(10) AFRO-AMERICAN – VOODOO

 

And here are my twenty special mentions:

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(1) PAGANISM

 

I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses.

 

The mythos I call home – which I playfully refer to as my pagan catholicism.

Also the ethos I call home – that classical Greek pagan ethos encapsulated by Weston La Barre, “live valiantly, gloriously and joyously in the world”.

Let’s face it – it’s my mythos, ethos, eros and hieros gamos.
For mine is the passion play, grail quest, ghost dance and mojo rising.

And yes – I know paganism is not in itself a mythology or religion, but rather a loose amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, usually identified with ‘pre-Christian’ Europe, prior to the advent of Christianity or their conversion to it.

And not even that to start with –
“It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century, people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised. The notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others…as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense”.

Pagan apparently originated from Latin paganus – essentially to connote rural (as opposed to the more Christianised urban population of the later Roman empire), or civilian by the Roman army and hence adopted by Christians to distinguish themselves as “soldiers of Christ” (although I seem to recall the Roman army was big on Mithras until late in the piece).

“The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church”.

Apparently elsewhere and at other times, “Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan; and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace”.

Which suits me as my paganism is essentially a fusion of Hellenism (alternating with Romanitas) and humanism, with Dionysianism thrown in for the fun of it.

“Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes” – with those of Germanic tribes of course being best known through Norse mythology.

Although I think that overlooks the sphere of Roman Empire beyond Europe, notably in the near East – because I’m determined to get those funky animal-headed Egyptian deities and slinky goddesses in there as well.

“However, modern parlance of folklorists and contemporary pagans in particular has extended the original four millennia scope used by early Christians to include similar religious traditions stretching far into prehistory.”

And some would argue also well beyond Europe, pretty much to all mythologies or religions outside of Christianity, Judaism, Islam or variants of those – with Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, native American and African diaspora religions looming large in such arguments.

I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleopaganism and neopaganism (by neo-pagan Isaac Bonewits), although they are also somewhat amorphous (even more so for his mesopaganism, which largely overlaps with the argument for extending paganism throughout non-Abrahamic mythologies or religions of the world).

Paleopaganism essentially refers to the original ‘paganism’ prior to Christianity – largely unknowable as religious practice, although we come closest with classical Greco-Roman paganism due to the surviving texts.

Neopaganism refers to the modern reconstruction of paganism, which arguably has led to its own distinctive mythology (or synthesis of mythology) – and in the opinion of Ronald Hutton, a distinctively modern religion “and the only religion England has ever given the world” (at least for Wicca or modern ‘witchcraft’, the predominant form of neo-paganism).

I also have a soft spot for polytheism, often asserted as the defining feature of paganism. Monotheism is monopoly! Let the marketplace of gods – and goddesses – decide! A polytheistic view of the world just seems more cheerful and easy-going, where gods can rub shoulders – or other parts – together.

Although paganism is more complex than a straightforward matter of polytheism versus monotheism. Paganism essentially had as many different philosophical variants as Hinduism – including monotheistic or at least henotheistic variants, as well as more outright atheistic, agnostic or humanist variants.

The more popular variants of modern paganism or neopaganism tend more towards either a duotheism of overarching female and male deities, or a goddess monotheism of an overarching sacred feminine or divine female figure. With the emphasis on figure in some cases – but I’m down with that. She is the goddess and this is her body.

I believe in L.A Woman & Mr Mojo Risin’.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS-TIER?)

 

 

(2) SHAMANISM

 

I am a shaman in the tribe of catholicism –
a voice crying for a vision,
animal powers and spirit guides,
true names and song lines,
second sight and third eye.

 

After paganism, the second of my holy trinity of mythic worlds – the mythos that I playfully refer to as my shaman catholicism.

Also like paganism, as much my ethos as mythos – “but then the awesome mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realise that your sure ways were not sure at all”.

And yes – again like paganism, I know shamanism is not so much an individual mythology or religion, but rather an amorphous agglomeration of mythologies or religions, but on on an even potentially larger scale in space and time.

Strictly speaking, shamanism refers to the indigenous religions of Siberia and neighbouring parts of Asia, with the word shaman itself orginating from the language there.

But where’s the fun in speaking strictly? And so shamanism has been used in a very broad sense, arguably the broadest sense of any mythology or religion – ranging through space to tribal religions on every (populated) continent, and even more broadly in time, through so-called deep history to prehistoric or primal religion.

Peter Watson in The Great Divide hypothesizes that the pre-Columbian Americas was essentially shamanic, having remained the most so (since crossing into the Americas from Siberia) and certainly more so than Eurasia, not least because of the high concentration of psychedelic or psychotropic plants.

While Weston La Barre in The Ghost Dance hypothesizes that all religion is essentially shamanic in nature – and all religions are ghost dances at heart.

As for shamanism itself, animism is often asserted as its defining feature – and there is certainly something appealing in an animistic view of the world. Perhaps its primary definitive feature is its focus on states of altered consciousness – archetypally through psychedelic or psychotropic substances – as thresholds to the spirit world or otherworld.

And again, like paganism, I have a soft spot for the nomenclature of paleoshamanism and neoshamanism – with paleoshamanism as the original forms of shamanism, potentially very paleo indeed back to the Paleolithic, and neoshamanism as modern reconstructions.

“When a vision comes into the world…it comes into the world with terror like a thunderstorm…if the vision was true and mighty, I know it is true and mighty yet, for such things are of the spirit and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GREAT SPIRIT TIER?)

 

 

(3) ZEN

 

I believe in the god of doubt –
the sound of one hand clapping,
a tree falling in a forest,
a finger pointing at the moon,
your face before you were born,
the goose in a bottle,
and three pounds of flax.

 

Along with paganism and shamanism, the third of my holy trinity of mythic worlds – the mythos that I playfully refer to as my zen catholicism.

And along with paganism and shamanism, as much my ethos as mythos – “you wake up in the morning and the world is so beautiful you can hardly stand it”

And yes, again like paganism and shamanism, I know zen is not a mythology as such. One could even argue for it as non-mythic or anti-mythic, particularly given its non-theistic nature. (I say non-theistic – it might be described as atheistic, but zen has always struck me as having an agnostic and complete lack of concern as to the existence or effect of gods in our lives).

And yes I know it is an active contemporary religion – or more precisely a ‘school’ or sect within the contemporary (and historical) religion of Buddhism.

However, I occasionally use mythology in a broader sense, even for a religion in which the focus is practice or experience and insight into the nature of things rather than belief. And for a religion that eschews mythology (or theology), it can resemble a mythology but of Zen masters rather than gods or heroes, the pursuit of enlightenment rather than quests or battles, and parables or the proverbial mind-bending Zen koans rather than epic adventures – from its legendary origin in the Buddha’s flower sermon onwards.

My horns won’t fit through the door!

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT ENLIGHTENMENT TIER?)

 

 

 

(4) TAROT

 

“I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died” – Steve Wright

Ironically, Tarot cards appear to have originated as just that – a more mundane medium for playing card games – but subsequently acquired their mystique as a means for divination, often in popular culture with dire portents Wright played on for his joke.

Of course it helps that they were designed with or evolved such vivid and on occasions violent imagery. It is striking how many cards have death or underworld imagery, such as the generally sorrowful suit of Swords, but of course also in the Major Arcana – above all its well-known Death card. Their rich visual symbolism has been a source of tarot motifs or even themed decks in popular culture. And it has been hugely influential for me personally, comparable to my god-tier mythologies or books of mythology, such if you were to peel back the layers of my psyche you’d find a pack of Tarot cards deep within it, although I don’t believe in it (or anything else) as a source of magic divination.

And yes – I have special mention entries for the Tarot for both my Top 10 Mythology Books and my Top 10 Mythologies. The former is for the various Tarot card decks, the latter is for the mythos of the Tarot itself and its cards. Indeed, I could (and will) do Tarot top tens for both decks and cards.

Not bad for a late medieval or Renaissance version of poker, although the more correct analogy might perhaps be games of trumps such as five hundred (my personal childhood favorite – which may also account for my love of the Tarot at the same time).

And as for the mythos of the Tarot, it arises from its modern esoteric mystique (in turn reconstructed from other European mythic art or symbolism), particularly that of the Major Arcana or “trumps”, which popular culture tends to usually or even exclusively view as the Tarot. Not surprisingly, since the Minor Arcana more closely resemble modern mundane playing cards – similarly four suits of cards numbered from ones (aces) to tens with four court cards, generally with knights as well as the three modern court cards of kings, queens and jacks (or pages or princesses).

Anyway, while the mythos of the Tarot lacks a pantheon of gods as such, it does have the archetypal images or titles of the Major Arcana which substitutes for it, perhaps not unlike the nameless titled deities (or aspects of deity) in the Game of Thrones known as the Seven – the Mother, the Stranger and so on. And in its modern form, the Major Arcana even has its own mythic narrative, essentially a version of the archetypal hero’s journey, with the Fool (traditionally numbered zero) as its hero.

So here goes, by numbered cards of the Arcana (although there are some variations in numbering and titles between decks):

0 – The Fool sets out on his quest, innocence in search of experience, poised to fall or fly. But first, he is initiated by various figures:
1 – The Magician, ‘male’ archetype of magic or knowledge, “the achieve of, the mastery of the thing” (or brother figure)
2 – The High Priestess, ‘female’ archetype of magic or mystery (or sister figure)
3 – The Empress, ‘female’ archetype of power and nature (or mother figure)
4 and 5 – The Emperor and Hierophant, ‘male’ archetypes of worldly and otherworldly power (or father figures)
6 – The Lovers. The Fool encounters or falls in love and faces choices
7 – The Chariot. The Fool goes to war or wins worldly victory
8 – Justice (traditionally, although often swapped with Strength, but each works in either location). The Fool has the first of a number of visions, in this case of the ideal of justice and apex of the Fool’s worldly quest. It is now time for the Fool’s otherworldly – or underworldly – quest
9 – The Hermit. It is time for the Fool to become or encounter The Hermit in a quest for otherworldly visions and voices
10 – The Wheel of Fortune. The Fool sees a mystical vision of the world, the wheel of fortune on which all rise and fall
11 – Strength. The Fool has a vision of strength, in triumph over bestial nature – which will be sorely needed as it is time for the Fool to descend into the underworld
12 – The Hanged Man. “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”. The Fool encounters or becomes the self-sacrificial Hanged Man
13 – Death. And now it is time for the Fool to die and go down into the underworld
14 – Temperance. With the still, small voice and vision of Temperance as guide, Virgil to the Fool’s Dante
15 – The Devil. And now the Fool comes naked to the very heart of hell itself, with its terrible choices and temptations that echo that of the Lovers
16 – The Tower Struck by Lightning. The Fool harrows hell and breaks free, toppling the Tower and rising through ever increasing light to be reborn, at first the illuminating flash of lightning in darkness
17 – The Star. The Fool rises through or the light of the hopeful Star
18 – The Moon. Not quite out of the woods yet, as the Fool rises through the light of the surreal Moon full of madness and wild dreams
19 – The Sun. The Fool finally is reborn into the full blazing light of the Sun (or with it as child of the Sun)
20 – Judgement. The Fool has a vision of cosmic or divine eons or ‘judgement’
21 – The World. And the Fool has a final vision of the World as it truly is, cosmic dance and dancer, before beginning over again as…the Fool

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

 

(5) MAGIC

 

Abracadabra!

Where else to feature magic but in mythology? Although…magic is not so definitive of mythology as it is of, say, fantasy. Yes – you have what might be termed (supernatural) magic throughout mythology, but usually as characteristic of divine or semi-divine beings, as part of their inherent essence or nature. You tend not to have magic in the more narrowly defined sense of functional magic – that is, magic as the human “application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed in the belief that they can manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces”. When mortal humans or heroes tend to use magic in mythology, it is as a gift from the gods – because it was given to them by the gods or other supernatural beings.

Functional magic tends to occupy that eclectic middle ground (or perhaps no-man’s land?) between mythology and more general folklore or ritual. And even more so between religion and science. I like to quip that religion is organized magic. I stand by that quip, but religion tends more to the role of magic in mythology – as something that is given by divine power rather than manipulated by humans, indeed tending to see the latter as…competition at best. (I understand that historian Keith Thomas proposed a similar thesis, albeit in a narrower historical setting, in his Religion and the Decline of Magic).

I tend to see religion more as Sir James George Frazer did – as closer to proto-science, or an effort to create a system of cause and effect, albeit without science’s rigor to exclude personal beliefs from the results of observation. Indeed, beliefs are kind of the point of magic. Frazer coined the term sympathetic magic, dividing it further into magical principles of similarity (like affects like) and contagion (things that have been in contact continue to affect each other)

However, the classifications or types of magic could very well be the subject of their own top ten. White, grey and black magic. High and low magic. Modern magic (often styled as magick) – ceremonial and chaos magic. And of course stage magic – or illusion. Apotropaic magic. Blood magic. Elemental and natural magic. Wild magic. Alchemy – elixirs and potions. Incantations. Thaumaturgy. Theurgy. Magical objects – amulets and talismans. Magical symbols – runes and sigils. Curses. Grimoires. Runes. True names.

And of course the schools of magic popularized by Dungeons and Dragons – abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, necromancy and transmutation.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

 

(6) WITCHCRAFT

 

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Just a girl and her goat. Or in the case of European witch folklore, of many girls and their great goat

Witchcraft – traditionally defined as the malevolent “use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others” – is something that seems well-nigh universal in mythologies or beliefs throughout the world. Perhaps not surprisingly, as cultures that saw the world in terms of magical or supernatural forces would then see harm or misfortune in terms of such forces malevolently used by some individuals against others.

Nor are beliefs in witchcraft confined to pre-modern history – or more precisely, early modern history, as trials for witchcraft declined in Europe in the late eighteenth century. They persist even today, and even in the form of active witch hunts, apparently with body counts far exceeding those of the European witch hunts, most notably in Africa and India.

Arguably however, witch folklore reached its highest or most definitive form (indeed, giving us the word for witch) in European witch folklore, particularly that of the early modern witch hunts and trials – and it certainly is the witch folklore that is the source of endless fascination for me.

The witchcraft attributed to witches in or by the hunts and trials evolved into a mythos with remarkable complexity and depth. There were the witches themselves, predominantly but not exclusively female (with men as the primary targets of accusations of witchcraft in some areas), with all the various features attributed to them or protections against them – magic and spells of course, the evil eye, flying ointment, necromancy (as with the Biblical Witch of Endor), animal familiars, imps, witch’s marks (to be distinguished from witch marks to ward off witches), witch’s teats, witch’s ladders, and witch balls or bottles (again to ward off witches).

And then there was the witchcraft ‘religion’ itself, usually styled as an anti-religion of service to the Devil in exchange for magic or supernatural power, with its ritual of the Witches Sabbath or Sabbat and all its various elements, not least the great goat himself, the Devil in caprine form, referenced as the Sabbath Goat (as in Goya’s famous paintings) or Baphomet – or Black Phillip to his friends. And of course all the lurid sexual details that went with it – with the osculam infame being particularly hard to dislodge from one’s mind after reading about it.

The historiography of the origins of these elements of witchcraft has evolved into almost as much a mythos as that of witchcraft itself. The standard historical explanation tends towards the various elements of witchcraft being projections from the lurid fantasies of those conducting the witch hunts or trials, which they confirmed by “confessions” extracted under torture (aided by circulation of those same lurid fantasies in popular belief).

Interestingly, the medieval Catholic Church had disdainfully dismissed belief in the existence of witches or witchcraft as pagan superstition (although heresy was another matter) – and it was the advent of Protestantism, and the religious warfare that went with it, that saw the height of the witch hunts and trials.

And then there are the more exotic historical explanations that become something of a mythology of themselves – with the foremost as the witch-cult hypothesis, that saw the elements of witchcraft as the survival of a pagan cult, distorted and persecuted by Christianity. The witch-cult hypothesis reached its sensational height with Margarat Murray in the early twentieth century – possibly influencing modern neo-pagan witchcraft or Wicca, but has since largely been discredited – although some scholars such as Carlo Ginzburg contend that “surviving elements of pre-Christian religion in European folk culture influenced early modern stereotypes of witchcraft”.

And on the topic of Ginzburg, I have a soft spot for his and others’ conjecture of witchcraft including surviving shamanic elements, most notably the use of hallucinatory or psychedelic substances to essentially conjure the Witches Sabbath out of dreams or drug hallucinations – flying ointment as getting high, or tripping witch balls.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT GOAT TIER?)

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(7) FAIRIES

 

Fairy, faery, fay, fey, fae – the stuff of folklore, most distinctively in British and Irish folklore, but also throughout wider European folklore. And perhaps beyond, as some historians argue for their origin from the peris of Persian mythology – and there are analogous beings (or ‘godlings’) elsewhere.

Of course, the term fairies now conjures up images of cute little gossamer-winged pixies like Tinkerbell.

In folklore – particularly British and Irish folklore – fairies were much different, most aptly styled as the Fair Folk, itself a euphemism for things that would flay you and walk around in your skin, because you sure as hell didn’t want to draw their attention or conjure them up by using names more true to their nature, or worse yet, their true names. In fairness (heh), they weren’t always as extreme as to literally flay you and walk around in your skin, only on occasion and only some of them. Some of them were more neutral or even nice, although even the nice ones were usually weird or had weird alien morality. Indeed, alien is an apt description, as in a manner of speaking, the fairies of European folklore have been replaced with the aliens of modern folklore, which uncannily resemble their fairy predecessors in many ways. Hence a whole array of apotropaic magic or protective charms to ward them off.

Their origins are myriad, both those attributed to them by folklore or folk belief, and the historical origins of that same folklore or belief . “The unworthy dead, the children of Eve, a kind of demon, a species independent of humans, an older race of humans”. Demoted or semi-fallen angels. Demoted pagan deities or ancestors. Spirits of the dead. Hidden people. Elementals.

As for the classification or types of fairies themselves, that could be the subject of its own top ten – even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Scottish folklore. The classification of trooping and solitary fairies proposed by William Butler Yeats (to which Katherine Briggs added domesticated faires). Heroic faires. Diminuitive faries. Irish Tuatha de Danaan and sidhe. Scandanavian elves. Changelings. Goblins.  Pixies (lending themselves to one of my favorite fairy expressions – pixy-led)

And then there’s all the various fairy objects. Fairy animals – fairy cats and fairy dogs (or black dogs). Fairy trees. Fairy godmothers. Fairy gold. Fairy hills and forts. Fairy paths. Fairy riding (or elfshot). Fairy time. And of course the Fairy Queen and Fairyland (or Otherworld).

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(8) DRAGONS

 

Here be dragons!

Dragons, drakes, worms or wyrms. Serpents – feathered, horned, winged. Amphipteres, lindworms and wyverns. Basilisk, cockatrice, hydra or ouroboros – and of course the tarrasque.

Dragons or draconic creatures are nearly universal in myth and folklore

“Nearly every culture has myths about something called a ‘dragon’, despite the fact none of them can agree on exactly what dragons are. How big are they? What do they look like? How many heads do they have? Do they breathe fire? Or ice?” (Or something else altogether?)”

“Do they fly (and if so, with or without wings)? How many legs do they have? Are they dumb as planks, or superintelligent? Are they low scaly pests, or ultra-rare Uber-serpents ancient and powerful as the Earth itself? Are they benevolent? Malevolent or even outright demonic? Are they divine entities or spirits, or just really cool animals?”

As such, dragons in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of that most important human interaction with them, dragon-slaying and dragon-slayers.

Very broadly speaking, there are two predominant traditions of dragons (in Eurasia) – ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ dragons, with the former tending towards malevolence or demonic entities, and the latter towards benevolence or divine entities. It is of course more complex than that – with many other distinctions between them (and variations within them).

Even their theories for their origin and ubiquitous presence in myth and folklore are fascinating and diverse.

The most obvious source is of analogous reptilian creatures, whether extant or extinct – crocodiles and Komodo dragons being examples of the former, dinosaurs of the latter. Of course, the dinosaurs themselves can’t have influenced human myths or folklore of dragons, but their fossils could have – apparently some attribute Chinese dragon worship to the prevalence of dinosaur fossils in China. There could even be a combination of extant or extinct reptiles, with some scholars believing “huge extinct or migrating crocodiles bear the closest resemblance, especially when encountered in forested or swampy areas, and are most likely the template of modern Oriental dragon imagery”.

Of course, it’s not just reptilian features – dragons “are often a hybridization of feline, avian and reptilian features”, as noted by anthropologist David E. Jones in his book “An Instinct for Dragons” where he suggested humans, like monkeys, have inherited instinctive reactions to large cats, snakes and birds of prey.

A less obvious source is of the symbolism of natural or elemental forces, as in Robert Blust’s The Origin of Dragons – with particular attention paid to the phenomenon of the rainbow.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(9) GIANTS

 

“There were giants on the earth in those days” – Genesis 6:4

Giants, titans or cyclopes, oni or Fomorians. The archetypal fire and frost giants of Norse mythology – to which Dungeons and Dragons added hill, stone, cloud and storm giants. The Biblical Nephilim as well as Goliath. Overlapping with ogres and trolls.

If you’re picking up a parallel with my special mention for dragons, that’s because giants and ‘giant-kin’ (a term borrowed from Dungeons and Dragons) are similarly ubiquitous or near universal in myth and folklore, typically as monstrous antagonists to humanity or even the gods themselves. Indeed, giants loom larger (heh) as the latter than dragons – hence the Gigantomachy or Gigantomachia or war between the giants and the gods in classical mythology, escalating to giants as apocalyptic beings in Norse mythology.

“Legendary creatures that resemble human beings but super-sized and often incredibly strong…these creatures may range in size from around 7 feet (the average size of the tallest real life humans), to truly colossal proportions.”

Similarly to dragons, giants in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of those important divine and human interactions with them, divine gigantomachy and human giant-killers.

However, giants differ somewhat from dragons, with the latter’s broad dichotomy between ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ dragons, with the former tending towards malevolence or demonic entities, and the latter towards benevolence or divine entities. For giants, the dichotomy between benevolent and malevolent giants occurs within ‘western’ giants (and indeed I only have superficial knowledge of giants in non-western or eastern myth or folklore), albeit leaning heavily towards the latter.

And again as with dragons, even their theories for their origin and ubiquitous presence in myth and folklore are fascinating and diverse.

The usual psychological theory is that “the profusion of Giants in mythology is usually attributed to memories of childhood (when adults tower over you), to the rivalry between young men and old men, and to medical conditions like gigantism that cause unusually tall stature”.

The more mundane archaeological or paleontological theory is tracing their origins to explaining (or mistaking) the bones of extinct megafauna or dinosaurs as those of giant humanoids. Along those lines, there’s the Gigantopithecus, “an extinct cousin of the orangutan” and “the largest primate to ever exist” standing at three meters tall on its hind legs, which did actually coexist with early humans.

Perhaps related to the above, “it wasn’t uncommon for cultures to describe the imposing ruins of older civilizations as having been built by bygone giants” – as with monumental or megalithic structures, as with the legends of the Giant’s Dance for Stonehenge. And of course monumental structures were often sculpted or drawn as giant figures. Sometimes the same legendary logic was used for natural structures as shaped by or originating from giants.

Yet again like dragons, a less obvious source for giants is that of the symbolism of natural or elemental forces – “gigantic peoples often feature as primeval creatures associated with chaos and the wild”.

Of course, truly gigantic humanoids in real life “would fall victim to the Square-Cube Law”.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(10) GHOSTS

 

Boo!

Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology. I aways recall Pascal Boyer in his Religion Explained proposing the origin of such beliefs (and in part religion itself) to the persistence of dead people in our dreams. In which case I am haunted by the ghosts of people who are still alive – not to mention haunting the world as a ghost in turn.

There are many more rational explanations for ghosts and haunts, essentially most involving brain states or phenomena conducive to ghost-like hallucinations – once again including toxic and hallucinogenic plants or substances, some of which associated with necromancy and the underworld. Ah yes, hallucinogenic plants – is there nothing they can’t do?

Although I’ve always wondered that ghosts seem remarkably narrow-minded, apparently moping around where they died or other familiar haunts, when they are literally without any corporeal limitation, and could be anywhere or do anything. I’d at least want to haunt the space station for a bit. Not that it stops me, like most other people, being fascinated by ghosts and ghost stories.

Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.

I mean – how do objects have ghosts, or be ghosts? For that matter, how do ghosts have clothing or any other objects? Shouldn’t all ghosts be naked? Although that starts to get towards spectrophilia. And yes – that is an actual thing, an attraction to or arousal by ghosts. Hello, White Ladies and Ladies in Red…

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(11) VAMPIRES & VAMPIRISM

 

And now we get to the hungrier folklore of the dead, albeit not so much in archetypal ghostly incorporeal form, but back from the dead as revenants. They came back wrong. Not much good comes out of coming back from the dead as a rule. It usually involves preying upon life to sustain one’s unnatural, undead being – treading water, but in blood, as it were.

There is a whole host of vampiric or ‘vampire adjacent’ beings or creatures in folklore and mythology, worthy of their own top ten, going all around the world and back to the dawn of history or beyond.

But when it comes to vampire folklore, despite all the vampiric predecessors and variants, we’re talking “the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire” that “originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe” – and its progeny in modern fantasy or horror, mostly from the archetype of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which arguably overshadow their precessors in folklore.

And the elements of vampires in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten. There are many variants, lacking a single definitive type, although there are a elements common to a number of European vampire folklore legends. Like witchcraft, which to some degree it overlaps and resembles, vampirism evolved into a mythos with remarkable complexity and depth – even down to a similar frenzy of vampire sightings (and stakings) in the eighteenth century.

There are the various attributes or traits of vampires, although a surprising number of those identified with vampires in modern popular culture originate not from traditional folklore but modern fantasy – as they do for the creation or origin of vampires, which tends to be more haphazard in folklore (such as by a cat jumping over a corpse) than the viral version of vampirism in modern fantasy.

There’s also the various means of preventing vampires (as in the various means of preventing a corpse from becoming a vampire, or at least causing too much trouble as one), identifying vampire, and most importantly of all, protecting against or destroying them. A personal favorite from folklore you don’t see too much (if at all) in modern fantasy is their weird obsessive-compulsion – if you left a bag or sack of grain or seeds in its path, it had to count every single grain or seed, usually detaining it all night. Except perhaps the Count in Sesame Street, which I’d like to think is an esoteric survival of this element of folklore.

And then there are the historical explanations for vampires and vampirism – anomalies in the natural process of decomposition (for elements identifying corpses as vampires), premature burial or grave robbery, various diseases (with porphyria and rabies being the most notable), and psychological or political explanations.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(12) LYCANTHROPES

 

“You hear him howling around your kitchen door.

You better not let him in.

Little old lady got mutilated late last night.

Werewolves of London again.

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London!”

 

Not just London, as werewolves are a widespread concept in European folklore.

And not just werewolves either, as I’m opening up this special mention entry to the concept of werebeasts throughout the world. Technically that would be therianthropy, as the better-known term lycanthropy is specifically for werewolves (literally from the Greek for wolf and man). Although werewolfism and werebeastliness would be more amusing to use.

You all know the basic concept – a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, or some sort of wolf-human hybrid, either on purpose or involuntarily by some sort of curse or affliction (often spread by the bite or scratch of a werewolf), with such transformations typically (but not always) by the light of the full moon.

The concept has a long history. Personally, I think it has one of the longest in human history – or prehistory – originating with animal powers, totemism or transformation in shamanism.

As the use of the Greek term lycanthropy might signify, the more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated in classical history, with references to men transforming or being transformed into wolves in Greek literature or mythology. One of the most famous was the myth of Lycaon, whom Zeus – styled as Zeus Lycaeus, translated by Robert Graves as Zeus of the she-wolf – transformed into a wolf (as divine punishment).

However, while the term lycanthropy itself was used by the Greeks in classical literature, it was apparently only in later classical history, used rarely, and in a clinical sense for a particular form of insanity rather than transformation.

The term werewolf was more recognizably used for the concept. And as that term might signify, the even more recognizable predecessors of the concept originated with the role and totemism of the wolf in pre-Christian or Iron Age Germanic paganism, itself often traced further back to proto-Indo-European mythology – where lycanthropy is apparently reconstructed as an aspect of the initiation of the warrior class.

This heady mix clashed head on with Christianity, leading to the concept of the werewolf in medieval Europe – although that concept reached its definitive height in the early modern period, hopelessly intertwined with the overlapping concepts of vampires and witchcraft, so much so for the latter that there were werewolf trials among witch trials.

And like vampires, the elements of werewolves in folklore are also worthy of their own top ten, from the underlying causes of lycanthropy, the nature of their transformation, and other characteristics – including, most crucially for those European peasants up to their necks in fangs, their weaknesses or possible cures.

And as for wider therianthropy or werebeasts – “Until the 20th century, wolf attacks on humans were an occasional, but still widespread feature of life in Europe. Some scholars have suggested that it was inevitable that wolves, being the most feared predators in Europe, were projected into the folklore of evil shapeshifters. This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche; werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India, as well as werepumas (“runa uturuncu”) and werejaguars (“yaguaraté-abá” or “tigre-capiango”) in southern South America.”

Although I think that overlooks bears in Europe. There’s also the plethora of werebeasts in the modern fantasy genre, most notably in Dungeons and Dragons, where basically were-anything goes.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

Except, you know, more like minotaurs and sphinxes and chimeras, oh my!

This special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts – my love for one of the most fascinating aspects of mythology, its plethora of fabulous beasts or monsters, as reflected in the Wikipedia article for Legendary Creature (a title I obviously also used for this special mention) or the TV Tropes Index for Fictional Creatures and Our Monsters are Different (as well as its feature for Stock Monster Symbolism).

Obviously, I’ve already included a number of legendary creatures in previous special mention entries – notably Fairies, Dragons, Giants, Ghosts, Vampires and Lycanthropes, but arguably also Magic (extending to creatures created or summoned by magic) and Witchcraft (as for Magic but also extending to things like familiars, imps or even the witches themselves). They are arguably also encompassed by two special mentions subsequent to this one. This special mention is effectively for all the other legendary creatures (albeit some substantial overlap), including the really bizarre or weird ones (as encapsulated in the TV Tropes feature Our Monsters are Weird).

“A legendary creature is a type of extraordinary or supernatural being that is described in folklore (including myths and legends) and may be featured in historical accounts before modernity”.

Indeed, legendary creatures are so prolific that they exceed the capacity of any single top ten (although I’ll give it a try). The origins and classification or types of legendary creatures themselves could be the subject of their own top ten lists – as for fairies, even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types.

For origins, there’s legendary creatures as monstrous antagonists for heroes (in turn reflecting wild or chaotic forces in nature or other sources) and legendary creatures claimed in accounts of natural history as real animals – or alternatively (and my personal favorite), real animals thought to be mythical before they were confirmed or discovered as real such as the platypus. There’s legendary creatures as hybrid beasts, legendary creatures “based on real encounters or garbled accounts of travellers’ tales”, and legendary creatures as art or allegory.

As for classifications or types of legendary creatures, an interesting framework is that of the Wikipedia’s various lists of legendary creatures, particularly its list of legendary creatures by type – the various animal types (such as reptiles, serpents and worms overlapping with dragons) or plant types, artificial creatures, associations with body parts or abstract concepts, natural elements or time, natural or supernatural habitats, astronomical objects or even the Earth, humanoids, hybrids, shapeshifters, and undead.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(14) CRYPTIDS & CRYPTOZOOLOGY

 

As “the biological equivalent of UFO sightings”, cryptids and cryptozoology are the other modern mythology par excellence, albeit without the same depth or grand unification theories of UFOs and ufology.

You could say cryptids have been part of mythology from its prehistoric origins, since mythology has always featured fabulous beasts or monsters.

However, the modern mythology of cryptids and cryptozoology is somewhat different. Typically, it does look at creatures of legend, folklore or rumor – not in any magical or supernatural sense, but as biological possibilities “in the wild”, in isolation or in hiding, yet unrecognized or regarded as implausible by more mainstream biology.

“Some may be relict survivors of species believed to be extinct, or known organisms displaced into inappropriate habitats; others are unlike any known species.”

And yes – there’s enough cryptids for their own top ten. Indeed, many top tens – you could even categorise them, as Wikipedia’s list of cryptids does, by aquatic or semi-aquatic, terrestrial or winged.

There are the big stars of cryptozoology. The Yeti and Bigfoot or Sasquatch (with similar creatures elsewhere, such as the Yowie in Australia). The Loch Ness Monster – standing in for all the various monsters of lakes or lochs around the world, which again could be their own top ten, again with Wikipedia having a list of lake monsters as well as an Australian representative in the bunyip.

As for other star cryptids – the Jersey Devil and Mothman, sea serpents (and mermaids, particularly thanks to that Animal Planet ‘mockumentary’), various living dinosaurs (such as Mokele-Mbembe), living megalodon, various misplaced big cats, and my personal favorite, the chupacabra, because I love that goat-sucking beastie.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(15) ATLANTIS

 

“The time when the oceans drank Atlantis”

Atlantis – myth, allegory, Egyptian priestly gossip…?

Similarly to my special mention for legendary creatures (and A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts), this special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for The Dictionary of Imaginary Places – Atlantis earns special mention not just for its own mythos but as representative of all imaginary places or mythic lost or sunken continents, lands, and kingdoms, including phantom islands and even hollow earth or subterranean realms.

All of which could readily round out their own top ten – Lemuria or Mu, Hyperborea or Thule, Ys or Lyonesse, Agartha, Avalon or Tir Nan Og, Eldorado, Hy-Brasil, Shambhala or Shangri-La.

And they’re just the big names, although the biggest name of all in lost lands is course Atlantis itself, thanks to Plato. Ironically, Plato used Atlantis as a minor allegory (and counterpoint to Athens), set 9000 years or so before his time, one which concludes with “Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean”, but it subsequently assumed a mythic significance after him.

“Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction”. To its mythic archetype of lost continent or land, one might also add its fantasy role as sunken, submerged or submarine kingdom – with the Atlanteans adapting to their new marine habitat.

Foremost in Atlantean mythology, at least as my personal favorites, are the so-called “location hypotheses” – the historical (or pseudohistorical) speculations as to the location of Atlantis, if only as possible sources of inspiration for Plato’s allegory.

Although not as wild as they used to be – with modern understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics putting paid to any actual lost continent (foremost among them Ignatius Donelly’s nineteenth century revival of the Atlantis myth) – there are still some wild theories proposed for America or even Antarctica as Atlantis.

Personally, I’d like to see more speculation for the United States as Atlantis – not as an allegory by Plato but a premonition (or both, the United States kinda fits the Atlantis allegory as well). Not to mention the Atlantean cold war against Lemuria-Mu.

Seriously, however, I lean more towards Plato creating a mostly fictional account, from more plausible sources of inspiration from the Mediterranean – my favorite being the volcanic eruption on Thera and the fall of Minoan civilization on Crete, although close runner-up is more contemporary (and personal) events to Plato in Sicily.

And then there are the more literary influences or interpretations – from utopias (or dystopias), including the definitive Utopia of Thomas More, to the lost land of Atlantis as metaphor for something no longer obtainable

Or again, personally I’d like to see more speculation for Atlantis as premonition by Plato, not to the future but as deep atavistic memory to the distant prehistoric past, when we were all happy little trilobites in Pangaea, or Gondawana, or whatever prehistoric supercontinent it was back then

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(16) BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

“We can’t tell where we are… everything is… can’t make out anything…It looks like we are entering white water… We’re completely lost.”

The Bermuda Triangle is one of my personal favorite modern myths despite it being, you know, complete crap.

Firstly, it’s a pretty loose triangle, often more of a Bermuda Trapezoid, even extending as far as Ireland in some variations – although it usually includes the Sargasso Sea, which I find almost as fascinating.

Secondly, the idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances is only recent, arising in the mid-20th century, albeit with a bang with my favorite myth within the myth, the disappearance of Flight 19 quoted above. (It happened, but not as part of any larger triangular mystery).

Thirdly and most fundamentally, there’s no mystery. “The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionately speaking, than in any other part of the ocean” – and “the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious”.

Also the claims of writers who contributed to the Bermuda Triangle legend, Charles Berlitz foremost among them for me, “were exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable” – including just straight out misreporting accounts of meteorological conditions or omitting the belated return to port of ships reported missing.

But who cares about all that – it’s just fun, particularly in fantasy, where the underlying reason for the mystery usually “will turn out that something really weird is involved with the area, such as aliens, paranormal activity, Eldritch Abominations, Atlantis, or something even weirder”. Perhaps Cthulhu or other dimensions. Even if human activity is involved, it’s some ancient conspiracy or cult.

Also this entry is intended to be representative of mysterious disappearances and “vile vortices” in general. There’s the similar Devil’s Sea (or Dragon’s Triangle) near Japan, as well as a few other triangles. The lost colony of Roanoke. The Mary Celeste. Ambrose Bierce. Amelia Earhart

And there’s also my personal Bermuda Triangle, because whenever I lose things, they vanish completely from the face of the earth – perhaps into Charles Fort’s Super-Sargasso Sea.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(17) UFOS & UFOLOGY

 

Close encounters of the third kind.

The modern mythology par excellence, a mythos of extraordinary depth and complexity – one that has even absorbed former fairy folklore, angelic visitations, and divine encounters into itself, as well as forming part of new religions.

Technically, there is nothing mythic about UFOs in their purest sense – as unidentified flying objects. Observations or sightings of aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects have been a prosaic matter of fact, both since human flight and previously throughout history.

And there is nothing mythic about any number of prosaic explanations for them, which could well be the subject of their own top ten – setting aside human error (often of known or subsequently identified objects), delusion, hoax or psychological effects, there are a number of ordinary objects or phenomena.

Aircraft or balloons. Astronomical objects. Atmospheric objects and light phenomena, including my personal favorite I yearn to see for myself, ball lightning.

Of course, what is mythic is the hypothesis that has become synonymous with UFOs – the extraterrestrial hypothesis, essentially UFOs as alien spacecraft or visitation. Although arguably that is one strand, albeit the predominant one, of various overlapping hypotheses, which propose exotic explanations other than ordinary phenomena.

Timecraft rather than spacecraft (and future humans or posthumans rather than aliens). The cryptoterrestrial hyphothesis. The interdimensional hypothesis. Space Nazis or communists.  Or some sort of government conspiracy to manipulate perception.

UFOs and ufology have a number of layered elements. There are the UFOs themselves – ranging from the foo fighters and ghost rockers of WW2 (or their predecessors as mystery airships) to more contemporary black triangles, flying saucers and green fireballs.

Then there’s the aliens, most predominantly the aliens known as the Greys, or their predecessors Little Green Men – the former being suspiciously humanoid and nude – as well as their predilections for cattle mutilation (presumably as bowsers they pump as fuel for their spacecraft), crop circles, abduction, and the omnipresent probing (or lurid sexual fantasies to rival those of witchcraft).

That last always throws in a skeptical note for me. It’s hard to imagine that aliens are so advanced as to cross light years of space or different dimensions just to give some hick an enema. I mean, I would, but I’m not particularly advanced and that’s just my sense of humor.

Also – why is it never the sexy aliens? Although there is (or was) a strand of aliens in UFO mythology as Nordic aliens.

And then there’s the deeper levels of UFO mythology revolving around human interaction – or conspiracy – with aliens. Roswell and Area 51. Men in black. Majestic 12. And my personal favorite, the endless ancient alien hypotheses, with Eric von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods foremost among them for me – aliens built the pyramids!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(18) URBAN LEGENDS

 

The modern folklore par excellence – “a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a ‘friend of a friend'”. And yes – worthy of their own top ten.

Apparently the term urban legend as used by folklorists has been in print since the 1960s, but is best known – particularly to me – through their most prolific popularizer, Jan Harold Brunvand, in a series of books from The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings onwards.

“Many urban legends are framed as complete stories with plot and characters. The compelling appeal of a typical urban legend is its elements of mystery, horror, fear, or humor. Often they serve as cautionary tales. Some urban legends are morality tales that depict someone acting in a disagreeable manner, only to wind up in trouble, hurt, or dead.”

“Urban legends will often try to invoke a feeling of disgust in the reader which tends to make these stories more memorable and potent. Elements of shock value can be found in almost every form of urban legend and are partially what makes these tales so impactful. An urban legend may include elements of the supernatural or paranormal”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(19) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

The other modern folklore par excellence – where history meets mythology. Of course, there are conspiracies in history and some of these may be the subject of theories with some documented or factual basis.

It is however important to distinguish between regular theories about conspiracies – and conspiracy theories, that might well be capitalized as Conspiracy Theory for their mythic stature or mythos.

And particularly prone to proliferation by the internet – “conspiracy theories mutate and interbreed almost too fast for humans to track. Any of the theories and sub-theories…can be, and in all likelihood has been, combined with any or all of the others by at least one person. Don’t be surprised if the theory raises more questions than the original incident in the first place. The only thing such theories prove, if anything, is that we’re all too human”.

“Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth”

The definitive conspiracy theory is a theory that proposes that an event or situation “is not as we understand them but really the work of secret cabals of cunning conspirators acting for malicious ends, from merely getting rich to propagating an ideology up to and including world domination”.

Of course, it is when they get to the soaring heights of world domination, or some overarching grand unifying theory of conspiracies, that they are most fascinating to me – with the Illuminati as my favorite.

There are of course a plethora of conspiracy theories – it seems at least one for every significant contemporary event at this point. Enough for their own top ten – in some cases for particular events (hello 9/11 and JFK), or just a number of times over in general, as in my favorite compilation of conspiracy theories, the Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, which went from 50 in its original edition to 80 in its last edition.

One could even have a top ten classifications of conspiracy theories, by broader type – such as conspiracy theories involving aliens, disasters, disinformation, famous people, guns (and shootings), health, history (including ancient history and monuments), law or enforcement, media, new world orders or secret societies, religion, science or technology, wars, and even weather. Hell – one could even just have a top ten parodies of conspiracy theories.

Or a top ten classifications by thematic type, most evocatively those by Jesse Walker – who classifies conspiracy theories as “Enemy Outside”, “Enemy Within”, “Enemy Above”, “Enemy Below”, and “Benevolent Conspiracies”. Or Michael Barkun’s event conspiracy theories, systemic conspiracy theories, and super conspiracy theories.

Or Murray Rothbard – of all people – with his model contrasting deep conspiracy theories to shallow ones, with the latter observing an event and asking cui bono or who benefits, “jumping to the conclusion that a posited beneficiary is responsible for covertly influencing events”.

As Vankin and Whalen lament in their books, conspiracy theories have become pretty lazy these days. Previously, conspiracy theories involved the meticulous, even obsessive, compilation of facts or evidence. Now, it’s mostly along the lines of Rothbard’s shallow conspiracy theories – simply proposing a beneficiary or motive behind any event, which is pretty easy to do, and asserting that as a conspiracy.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

 

(20) TANTRA

 

The jewel in the lotus!

Two words – s€x magic. Or s€x zen as I like to call it.

Well at least in the popular perception of tantra (originating in Hinduism and Buddhism), including my own – that’s pretty much what most people see or know it as, although that perception would be more accurate to the reconstruction of it by modern western writers often styled as neo-tantra.

Authentic tantra would appear to be much deeper than that – “the creation and history of the world; the names and functions of a great variety of male and female deities and other higher beings; the types of ritual worship (especially of goddesses); magic, sorcery, and divination; esoteric “physiology” (the mapping of the subtle or psychic body); the awakening of the mysterious serpent power (kundalinî-shakti); techniques of bodily and mental purification; the nature of enlightenment; and not least, sacred sexuality.” And of course such popularized concepts as chakra, mantra and mandala.

However, this entry is intended to be representative of s€x magic or s€xuality in mythology and religion in general – for which I sometimes use tantra in a much broader (and wildly inaccurate) sense. It’s also intended as the kinkier entry I aim for as my twentieth (and final) special mention!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (SPECIAL MENTION): TIER LIST

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) PAGANISM

(2) SHAMANISM

(3) ZEN

(4) TAROT

(5) MAGIC

(6) WITCHCRAFT

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(7) FAIRIES

(8) DRAGONS

(9) GIANTS

(10) GHOSTS

(11) VAMPIRES

(12) LYCANTHROPES

(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES

(14) CRYPTIDS & CRYPTOZOOLOGY

(15) ATLANTIS

(16) BERMUDA TRIANGLE

(17) UFOS & UFOLOGY

(18) URBAN LEGENDS

(19) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(20) TANTRA

 

You can return to or find more top tens in my indexed page for top tens of mythology.

 

 

(15) ATLANTIS

 

“The time when the oceans drank Atlantis”

Atlantis – myth, allegory, Egyptian priestly gossip…?

Similarly to my special mention for legendary creatures (and A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts, this special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for The Dictionary of Imaginary Places – Atlantis earns special mention not just for its own mythos but as representative of all imaginary places or mythic lost or sunken continents, lands, and kingdoms, including phantom islands and even hollow earth or subterranean realms.

All of which could readily round out their own top ten – Lemuria or Mu, Hyperborea or Thule, Ys or Lyonesse, Agartha, Avalon or Tir Nan Og, Eldorado, Hy-Brasil, Shambhala or Shangri-La.

And they’re just the big names, although the biggest name of all in lost lands is course Atlantis itself, thanks to Plato. Ironically, Plato used Atlantis as a minor allegory (and counterpoint to Athens), set 9000 years or so before his time, one which concludes with “Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean”, but it subsequently assumed a mythic significance after him.

“Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction”. To its mythic archetype of lost continent or land, one might also add its fantasy role as sunken, submerged or submarine kingdom – with the Atlanteans adapting to their new marine habitat.

Foremost in Atlantean mythology, at least as my personal favorites, are the so-called “location hypotheses” – the historical (or pseudohistorical) speculations as to the location of Atlantis, if only as possible sources of inspiration for Plato’s allegory.

Although not as wild as they used to be – with modern understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics putting paid to any actual lost continent (foremost among them Ignatius Donelly’s nineteenth century revival of the Atlantis myth) – there are still some wild theories proposed for America or even Antarctica as Atlantis.

Personally, I’d like to see more speculation for the United States as Atlantis – not as an allegory by Plato but a premonition (or both, the United States kinda fits the Atlantis allegory as well). Not to mention the Atlantean cold war against Lemuria-Mu.

Seriously, however, I lean more towards Plato creating a mostly fictional account, from more plausible sources of inspiration from the Mediterranean – my favorite being the volcanic eruption on Thera and the fall of Minoan civilization on Crete, although close runner-up is more contemporary (and personal) events to Plato in Sicily.

And then there are the more literary influences or interpretations – from utopias (or dystopias), including the definitive Utopia of Thomas More, to the lost land of Atlantis as metaphor for something no longer obtainable

Or again, personally I’d like to see more speculation for Atlantis as premonition by Plato, not to the future but as deep atavistic memory to the distant prehistoric past, when we were all happy little trilobites in Pangaea, or Gondawana, or whatever prehistoric supercontinent it was back then.

 

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

Except, you know, more like minotaurs and sphinxes and chimeras, oh my!

This special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts – my love for one of the most fascinating aspects of mythology, its plethora of fabulous beasts or monsters, as reflected in the Wikipedia article for Legendary Creature (a title I obviously also used for this special mention) or the TV Tropes Index for Fictional Creatures and Our Monsters are Different (as well as its feature for Stock Monster Symbolism).

Obviously, I’ve already included a number of legendary creatures in previous special mention entries – notably Fairies, Dragons, Giants, Ghosts, Vampires and Lycanthropes, but arguably also Magic (extending to creatures created or summoned by magic) and Witchcraft (as for Magic but also extending to things like familiars, imps or even the witches themselves). They are arguably also encompassed by two special mentions subsequent to this one. This special mention is effectively for all the other legendary creatures (albeit some substantial overlap), including the really bizarre or weird ones (as encapsulated in the TV Tropes feature Our Monsters are Weird).

“A legendary creature is a type of extraordinary or supernatural being that is described in folklore (including myths and legends) and may be featured in historical accounts before modernity”.

Indeed, legendary creatures are so prolific that they exceed the capacity of any single top ten (although I’ll give it a try). The origins and classification or types of legendary creatures themselves could be the subject of their own top ten lists – as for fairies, even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types.

For origins, there’s legendary creatures as monstrous antagonists for heroes (in turn reflecting wild or chaotic forces in nature or other sources) and legendary creatures claimed in accounts of natural history as real animals – or alternatively (and my personal favorite), real animals thought to be mythical before they were confirmed or discovered as real such as the platypus. There’s legendary creatures as hybrid beasts, legendary creatures “based on real encounters or garbled accounts of travellers’ tales”, and legendary creatures as art or allegory.

As for classifications or types of legendary creatures, an interesting framework is that of the Wikipedia’s various lists of legendary creatures, particularly its list of legendary creatures by type – the various animal types (such as reptiles, serpents and worms overlapping with dragons) or plant types, artificial creatures, associations with body parts or abstract concepts, natural elements or time, natural or supernatural habitats, astronomical objects or even the Earth, humanoids, hybrids, shapeshifters, and undead.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(9) GIANTS

 

“There were giants on the earth in those days” – Genesis 6:4

Giants, titans or cyclopes, oni or Fomorians. The archetypal fire and frost giants of Norse mythology – to which Dungeons and Dragons added hill, stone, cloud and storm giants. The Biblical Nephilim as well as Goliath. Overlapping with ogres and trolls.

If you’re picking up a parallel with my special mention for dragons, that’s because giants and ‘giant-kin’ (a term borrowed from Dungeons and Dragons) are similarly ubiquitous or near universal in myth and folklore, typically as monstrous antagonists to humanity or even the gods themselves. Indeed, giants loom larger (heh) as the latter than dragons – hence the Gigantomachy or Gigantomachia or war between the giants and the gods in classical mythology, escalating to giants as apocalyptic beings in Norse mythology.

“Legendary creatures that resemble human beings but super-sized and often incredibly strong…these creatures may range in size from around 7 feet (the average size of the tallest real life humans), to truly colossal proportions.”

Similarly to dragons, giants in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of those important divine and human interactions with them, divine gigantomachy and human giant-killers.

However, giants differ somewhat from dragons, with the latter’s broad dichotomy between ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ dragons, with the former tending towards malevolence or demonic entities, and the latter towards benevolence or divine entities. For giants, the dichotomy between benevolent and malevolent giants occurs within ‘western’ giants (and indeed I only have superficial knowledge of giants in non-western or eastern myth or folklore), albeit leaning heavily towards the latter.

And again as with dragons, even their theories for their origin and ubiquitous presence in myth and folklore are fascinating and diverse.

The usual psychological theory is that “the profusion of Giants in mythology is usually attributed to memories of childhood (when adults tower over you), to the rivalry between young men and old men, and to medical conditions like gigantism that cause unusually tall stature”.

The more mundane archaeological or paleontological theory is tracing their origins to explaining (or mistaking) the bones of extinct megafauna or dinosaurs as those of giant humanoids. Along those lines, there’s the Gigantopithecus, “an extinct cousin of the orangutan” and “the largest primate to ever exist” standing at three meters tall on its hind legs, which did actually coexist with early humans.

Perhaps related to the above, “it wasn’t uncommon for cultures to describe the imposing ruins of older civilizations as having been built by bygone giants” – as with monumental or megalithic structures, as with the legends of the Giant’s Dance for Stonehenge. And of course monumental structures were often sculpted or drawn as giant figures. Sometimes the same legendary logic was used for natural structures as shaped by or originating from giants.

Yet again like dragons, a less obvious source for giants is that of the symbolism of natural or elemental forces – “gigantic peoples often feature as primeval creatures associated with chaos and the wild”.

Of course, truly gigantic humanoids in real life “would fall victim to the Square-Cube Law”.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them. As much as I enjoy mythology, not all mythologies are equal. Arguably not even the same mythology, as like the proverbial river of Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same mythology twice, as it is constantly evolving, with many variants, often inconsistent with each other. Some mythologies just resonate better with me than others.

Hence this is my top ten ranking of mythology – or perhaps top ten mythologies? Mythos – or mythoi? My myths and sacred mysteries? Whatever. They are not ranked by the extent to which they still form part of an active religion, their duration or number of adherents, or by their cultural impact or influence, but by my personal interest in them – although this tends to overlap with one or more of the previous criteria, particularly my top two entries, which are the standouts both to me and for Western culture in general.

So here are my Top 10 Mythologies – all in the one post compiled from individual entries (and also in their own page).

 

 

 

(10) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA

 

“The Great Spirit has given to you a red day and a red road” – Black Elk

A mythology that is part of an active religion – or mythologies and religions, as native American mythology at its broadest can be very broad indeed. The description of native American mythology can extend to mythology throughout the pre-Columbian Americas. Even if we confine ourselves to the geographic northern continent, that still is incredibly diverse – including the more lurid central American or meso-American mythologies.

This entry is intended to be representative of the native American mythologies in the area of the present United States. Of course, this remains as diverse as the people themselves in this area, but if I have to nominate any in particular, it would be those of the Great Plains in general or the Lakota (or Sioux) in particular.

This is because of my familiarity with Lakota ‘holy man’ Black Elk, through his own words as narrated in Black Elk Speaks (narrated to John Neihardt) and through the apparent focus his work gave to Huston Smith in the latter’s study of primal religions. I have a particular soft spot for Wakan Tanka, the overarching Great Mysterious that resides in everything.

Also the ghost dance – and in the words of American Gods, “I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(9) AFRO-AMERICAN – VOODOO

 

One of the newest entries in my top ten, as well as a mythology that is part of an active religion – or more broadly the family of Afro-American or African diaspora religions.

While I find it fascinating, it is a mythology or mythologies of which I only have superficial knowledge – and perhaps like popular culture, I am most familiar with the Louisiana variant actually titled voodoo and the Haitian variant that is titled vodou.

For Louisiana voodoo, it is primarily the ritual or magical practices that are associated with voodoo in popular culture or ‘Hollywood voodoo’ – charms or amulets such as voodoo dolls, ‘gris gris’ bags and of course mojo. O yes – and voodoo queens, such as Marie Laveau. I also find it intriguing how early followers of voodoo as slaves disguised their traditional gods as Catholic saints in a form of subversive syncretism.

For Haitian vodou, it is the divine entities, the loa or ‘divine horsemen’ that possess their followers – particularly the distinctive trinity of Papa Legba, Erzulie, and of course Baron Samedi, not least from his cinematic incarnation in the James Bond film, Live and Let Die. Again, I find it intriguing that the loa go by many names, which represent different personalities or traits – with the two most significant being the more positive ‘Rada’ form and the darker ‘Petro’ form, the latter representing the angry dark side of the loa, usually linked to the dark side of slavery in the Afro-American historical experience.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(8) AZTEC

 

I only have the usual superficial knowledge of Aztec mythology characteristic of its lurid image in popular culture – that is to say, the closest mythology comes to a horror film or the Cthulhu mythos, both of itself and of its ritual practice of human sacrifice. Yes – I know that is unfair to the nuances of Aztec mythology, particularly in the context of just how horrific other mythologies can be. I mean – have you read the Bible? Some of that stuff’s straight out of slasher horror.

However, it is hard to resist seeing Aztec mythology as horror film mythology. For one thing, there’s its deities with their tongue-twisting Scrabble-winning names. The messianic plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl might be one of the few good guys (and I have always have a soft spot for love goddesses like Xochiquetzal) but then you have gods like Xipe Totec, the flayed god – whose priests would flay the skin from a sacrificial victim and dance around for days wearing it. Although admittedly I’d go to church to see that.

For another thing, you have its ritual practice, infamous for human sacrifice on a grand scale – with the archetypal image of hearts being torn beating from the chests of thousands of victims on stepped pyramids slippery with blood on sacrificial days.

And finally for yet another thing, there’s that Aztec mythology is a post-apocalyptic mythology – with the present world being the fifth such world, after the apocalyptic destruction of four previous worlds. Indeed, one might even call it a zombie apocalyptic mythology – with the gods continuously, to the point of constantly dying and returning to life, giving their blood and their hearts to power the sun (fuelled in turn by the literal blood and hearts of human sacrifice), while they literally grew humans from bones smuggled out of the underworld. Or one of many underworlds, since the Aztecs had nine levels of its underworld (and thirteen heavens).

Also, I sometimes like to joke my middle initial Q stands for Quetzalcoatl.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(7) HINDU

 

Another mythology as part of an active religion – indeed, the third largest religion, although it might be more accurately described as mythologies or religions, given the diversity of Hinduism.

It is perhaps the most cheerfully and flamboyantly polytheistic of modern religions, with all its gods and their avatars, although Hinduism itself can be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist – depending on how philosophical one is towards it.

The classifications vary, but modern Hinduism is often classified into four major denominations by primary deity – Vaishnavism by Vishnu (or his avatars, often Krisha or Rama), Shaivism by Shiva, Shaktism by Devi (or manifestations of the supreme goddess) or Smartism by a combination of five deities. Of which I obviously prefer Shaktism for worship of the goddess – she is the goddess and this is her body, o yes!

However, it is a mythology or mythologies of which I have only the most basic knowledge – primarily of their literally colorful deities with all their arms, avatars and trinities. The trinity of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. The supreme goddess Devi or Shakti in all her forms and trinities – most commonly Saraswati, Laskshmi and Parvati, with Kali perhaps as the most distinctive form of Parvati known outside Hinduism. And of course Ganesha, because I have a soft spot for animal-headed deities.

 

RATING 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

 

Dare I say it – the ur-mythology!

The mythology, that is, of the long-standing and predominant civilization in the ancient Middle East that shaped so much of their successors in civilization and mythology – the states of Mesopotamia.

By the states of Mesopotamia, I am referring to the fluctuating city-states or states collectively best known to history as Sumer and Babylon, with the latter’s imperial franchise having at least one reboot as the neo-Babylonian empire. That also includes the other empires that bubbled up from that area such as the Akkadian empire and Assyrian empire (which also rebooted itself as neo-Assyrian empire). The political history is long and messy, although much of the mythology or religion stays the same, albeit with different names – what might be called the classical mythology of the region, which I’ll dub Babylo-Sumerian. Yes I know Sumer preceded Babylon, but Babylo-Sumerian just sounds better.

Indeed, this entry is intended to be representative of ancient Middle Eastern mythologies in general, including the various so-called Canaanite mythologies which we mostly know as the bad guys in the Bible (although the Assyrians and Babylonians also feature prominently as bad guys there, particularly the latter)

But to return to the selection of Sumerian and Babylonian mythology for this entry. Yes – it’s not quite as funky as a certain other neighboring mythology with its animal-headed gods, but it does have some interesting features – two in particular. The first is the epic of Gilgamesh and his quest for eternal life, notable as the first epic of a mythic hero in writing. The second is the slinky goddess to rival other slinky goddesses in mythology – Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of love and war (or her Sumerian counterpart Inanna) and her most famous myth, her epic strip-teasing descent into the underworld.

There are also other features of interest – various other deities (Marduk in our feature image for example), Tiamat the primordial goddess-dragon of chaos (best known to Dungeons and Dragons players as a supreme evil dragon goddess) and various stories recycled in the Bible, notably the Flood (and the Sumerian Noah, Utnapishtim, who features in the epic of Gilgamesh).

Oh – and a certain god who became the demon antagonist of The Exorcist film, which I know better than to name here (or anywhere) because that’s just tempting fate.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(5) EGYPTIAN

 

“I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra…
“Who was that
dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode
from town”…
Go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow
I’m going into town after Set”

If there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. If only the Roman Empire could have gone the way of the ankh instead of the cross. Or if only the Egyptian gods had returned out of the desert, as opposed to Islam and swept Christianity out of Egypt!

What’s not to love about those funky animal-headed gods and those slinky goddesses? Especially the goddesses – lithe and svelte in their form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk. Of course, Egypt was, quite frankly, the sexiest ancient civilization – admittedly perhaps not for its population’s vast majority of peasants who farmed the Nile or worked on those useless tombstones known as pyramids, but certainly for its elite, who pretty much invented style. You know it’s true – just look at the figures in their art!

Or what’s not to love how the gods kept shifting and swapping out with each other as they rose and fell within the pantheon? My personal favorite trinity of Egyptian mythology (well apart from Anubis, one of my favorite dog gods of mythology) – Osiris, Isis and Horus as they square off against their adversary Set. O yes – Isis. Goddess of magic who seduced the secret name from the sun god Ra and lover of Osiris who resurrected him after he was dismembered by his evil adversary Set to conceive the divine hero Horus (who then avenges Osiris)

Or what’s not to love about its different and contradictory creation myths? Particularly the one where the god Atum (who swapped out as supreme god from time to time) created the world by, ahem, mastrbating it into existence. Now that’s creationism! Indeed, Egyptian mythology could get downright kinky. Isis essentially s€xes up all her magic, including that briefly reviving Osiris to conceive Horus. Or how Set and Horus essentially strive to, ahem, out-ejculate each other…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

 

 

 

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

 

For mine is the grail quest –
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast

This entry is essentially for the whole of Celtic mythology in all its diversity, reflecting the diversity of the Celts themselves. The Celts extended through time, from at least the sixth century BCE through various survivals to the present day, and even more substantially through geographical space – from their original homeland in central Europe throughout Europe, most notably to the British isles. The Celts even extended into modern Turkey (where they were known as Galatians) and perhaps most famously as the Gauls threatening Rome in its infancy (before being conquered by Rome in turn).

And I find all Celtic mythology fascinating. The mythology of Gaul – which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! – is mostly from surviving names and images, cited by Roman writers inclined to “transmit any bizarre and negative” information about the people they conquered.

The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses.

Of course, the Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (mostly as recorded by Christian monks) were for those Celts who maintained their identities – in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles. The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and its great hero Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle as well as its great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool) and his Fianna warrior band. And the Cycle of Kings of historical legend. Much of this mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled into the fairy folklore of Europe.

However, if I’m to pick the one strand of Celtic mythology that is foremost in familiarity and fascination for me, it’s that strand that moved through to folklore and above all to historical legend – the legend of King Arthur, as part of the so-called Matter of Britain or legendary history of the Kings of Britain.

Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His father Uther. The wizard Merlin. The Lady in the Lake. The sword in the stone or Excalibur. His queen Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay (often conflated with another character, Morgause, as the mother of usurper Mordred). The knights of the Round Table – most famously Lancelot but also Gawain, Galahad, Perceval and Bedivere. The Holy Grail. Avalon – and so on.

And of course its ongoing adaptations – which essentially started from its very inception with medieval literature – including its cinematic adaptations, of which two films remain my favorite, Excalibur, and Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(3) NORSE

 

“We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming”

And now we come to a mythology that is one of the best known, even outside its European continent of origin, thanks to Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the days of the week still named in English for the Norse gods. It is also arguably one of the most hardcore mythologies, with imagery worthy of a metal album cover.

I mean, what else can you say of a mythology that features a ship made entirely of fingernails and toenails (of the dead)? Or its creation myth, in which the world was created from the corpse of a giant. No fluffy let there be light here. Or that the gods are essentially locked into a perpetual cold war (heh) against the giants – complicated by the trickster Loki in their presence, who alternates between getting them into compromising or difficult situations before getting them out of those situations (until he goes one trick too far). And like the historical cold war, the gods are planning for mutually assured destruction – famously gathering slain warriors in Valhalla – when the war turns hot at the end of the world. Or rather, when it turns ice cold at Ragnarok – or Gotterdamerung, the twilight of the gods (in the Fimbulwinter or endless winter).

Of course, Norse is something of a misnomer, as it was a Germanic mythology that extended throughout much of northern Europe, although it is most identified with Scandinavia and Iceland (and Vikings!), also the source of its surviving texts, so hence the epithet Norse.

“The source texts mention numerous gods, such as the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes; the one-eyed, raven-flanked god Odin, who craftily pursues knowledge throughout the worlds and bestowed among humanity the runic alphabet; the beautiful, seer-working, feathered cloak-clad goddess Freyja who rides to battle to choose among the slain; the vengeful, skiing goddess Skadi, who prefers the wolf howls of the winter mountains to the seashore; the powerful god Njord, who may calm both sea and fire and grant wealth and land; the god Freyr, whose weather and farming associations bring peace and pleasure to humanity; the goddess Idunn who keeps apples that grant eternal youthfulness; the mysterious god Heimdall, who is born of nine mothers, can hear grass grow, has gold teeth, and possesses a resounding horn” and of course “Loki, who brings tragedy to the gods by engineering the death of the goddess Frigg’s beautiful son Baldur”

Norse mythology is distinctive in that its gods are not only fallible (even the wily Odin), but also all mortal. They can and do die. And die aplenty on its version of the apocalypse. No foreordained triumph of the gods here – on this day, all gods die, taking their enemies down with them. Well, not all of them, as there are some key survivors to renew the world, but that phrase just has a good ring to it.

That doesn’t stop the Norse gods from being hardcore – from plucking one’s eye out as Odin did for wisdom, or losing one’s hand as security deposit as Tyr did, putting his hand in the mouth of the Fenris Wolf. Which of course brings me to their fearsome adversaries, not just frost and fire giants, led by Loki, but also his three terrible children – the goddess Hel leading the dishonorable dead, the Fenris Wolf leading other monstrous wolves, and the World-Serpent.

Hardcore.

 

RATING: 4 STARS*****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(2) CLASSICAL

 

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!”

I believe in all the gods – especially the goddesses!

And I’m into classical mythology for the nymphs.

Or pining for them. As I said for Egyptian mythology, if there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. Of course, the other thing – indeed the foremost – is the decline of classical paganism. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue”

If only we continued to follow the gods of classical paganism! If there is any mythology that tempts to me to actual religion within the deepest levels of my psyche, it’s classical mythology. I can see myself as a devotee of Aphrodite or Dionysus.

Classical mythology is of course the combination of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in ancient Greece as well as the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Even as mythology rather than religion, it is one of the major survivals of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that in turn is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization. Of course, many devotees prefer to refer to it simply as Greek mythology, seeing Roman mythology as Greek mythology with the serial numbers filed off. Which is somewhat ironic, as prior to the so-called Greek revival of the nineteenth century, Europeans primarily referred to names from classical mythology in their Latinized form. It is also a little unfair, as Roman mythology was not entirely derivative of Greek mythology – more a continuity reboot in the words of TV Tropes.

Anyway, you know it – or should. The gods and goddesses, primarily the twelve Olympian gods, but all the other deities as well as the demi-semi-hemi-gods that pop up because the gods can’t keep it in their pants. There are the heroes – a concept that in its very name actually comes from Greek mythology – primarily the heroes of the Trojan cycle. And there’s all the other beings, notably the various monsters that represent all the chaotic or chthonic forces in classical mythology.

And of course there’s the nymphs…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

(1) BIBLICAL

 

Or as I like to call it – Babylon and the Beast (featured here in art from a Christian website, which only succeeded in making these two Biblical supervillains look awesome).

This is it. This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Of course, Biblical mythology is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced. Although as one historian quipped, from a historical point of view, Christianity is a Greek hero cult devoted to a Jewish messiah.

However, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion – or as poetry rather than history. That is, as literature for its literary quality. Or in other words, like virtually everyone reads classical mythology or any other mythology shorn of religious belief. And as mythology, it has an enduring resonance – of symbolic narratives that ring true at an emotional level or with the power of story, characters that resonate with us as flawed human protagonists (and that’s including God, who is all too human in his characterization) and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

And when you look at the mythology under the religious hood, that’s when things become much more interesting with layers of subtext, sex and violence as well as hints or insinuations of competing mythologies

Born again in Babylon and torn apart in Jerusalem…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

 

 

MYTHOLOGY – TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

(1) BIBLICAL

(2) CLASSICAL

 

If Biblical mythology is my Old Testament of mythologies, then classical mythology is my New Testament. Yes, yes – I know that in a literal sense Biblical mythology is both Old Testament and New Testament but this is my schtick I do for god tier.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(3) NORSE

(4) CELTIC – ARTHURIAN

(5) EGYPTIAN

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN – BABYLO-SUMERIAN

(7) HINDU

(8) AZTEC

(9) VOODOO

(10) NATIVE AMERICAN – LAKOTA