The Titans were the 12 gods who ruled the world before the Olympians | Titans |
Some of their children, like Atlas or Prometheus, are counted as Titans too | |
Cronus, King of the Titans, ate his children so that they would not usurp him | |
The Titans were overthrown by the Olympians after a great war of gods | |
The word "Titan" has come to mean powerful, strong or big | |
"Heaven" for Vikings was Valhalla. It was only for warriors who died in battle | Norse Myth |
Vikings believed that rainbows were bridges between Midgard and Asgard | |
The Christian Hell is named after the Norse Hel which was dark and cold | |
Wednesday is named after Wodan, the Anglo Saxon name for Odin | |
The Norse world will end with Ragnarok, a climactic battle between the gods | |
The Olympians were the most important Greek gods. Their king was Zeus | Olympians |
The Olympians take their name from Mount Olympus where they lived | |
Not all Olympians though. Hades had the underworld and Poseidon the sea | |
Zeus and his brothers drew lots to decide who would rule where | |
Zeus was the father of 7 of the 12 Olympians, mostly with different mothers | |
In Abrahamic myth all humans are descended from Adam and Eve | Abrahamic Myth |
One of the most famous Christian myths is that of St George and the dragon | |
The Tower of Babel myth explains why humans speak different languages | |
Islamic myth has three races besides humans: angels, demons and jinn | |
In the flood myth God killed all humans except for Noah and his family | |
Rome is named after its mythical founder Romulus | Roman Gods |
Romans believed they were descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas | |
Juno was the patron goddess of Rome. She is based on the Greek Hera | |
The Romans believed that their emperors were gods | |
Much of Roman mythology is "borrowed" from the Ancient Greeks | |
In Powhatan myth the world was created by a hare | Amerindian Myth |
The Pima disagree. To them the creator was a butterfly | |
The Aztecs had many different gods, devoted to art, corn and other things | |
Manco Cápac was the mythological founder of Inca civilisation | |
In Mayan myth humans made a deal with rats, to let them eat excess crops | |
The most famous British mythical hero is King Arthur | Heroes |
Väinämöinen is a Finnish hero. He is old and wise with a magical voice | |
The Jewish hero Noah is largely borrowed from Sumerian myth | |
The myth of Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving pieces of Old English | |
The most famous of all heroes has to be Heracles | |
Chang’e is the Chinese moon goddess | Eastern Myth |
In Korean myth the world began when Mireuk split heaven and earth | |
In Hittite myth the mountain Zaliyanu was the god of the weather | |
The Mahabharata is a mythological epic in Hindu culture | |
Ahriman was the Persian god of destruction and evil | |
Endymion became immortal. However, his eternal life is spent forever asleep | Immortals |
Tithonus was also given eternal life, but he was turned into an insect! | |
In Christian myth the Wandering Jew was cursed with eternal life | |
Nicolas Flamel was a scribe who allegedly found the secret to immortality | |
In Hindu myth Mahavatar Babaji is a sage who will never die | |
In Bushmen myth men and animals once lived in harmony underground | African Myth |
Ethiopia's royal family claims descent from the mythical Queen of Sheba | |
In Ashanti myth Anansi is a trickster god who takes the form of a spider | |
Taweret was the Egyptian fertility goddess. She took the form of a hippo | |
Nyami Nyami is the snake-like river god of the Zambezi | |