The similarities between myths and legends are several. They are short stories, come from the oral tradition and explain fictitious events or stories.
They have their origin in the collective imagination of each people or civilization. They are so rooted in memory that they are part of the culture of each region from which they come.
The myths explain extraordinary events carried out by superior beings, gods or demigods. They explain how the world was created or the origin of the elements in the form of wonderful stories.
The legends are stories of some historical event, more earthly, whose characters are attributed extraordinary events. They always involve humans, who sometimes take anthropomorphic forms.
Main Similarities Between Myths and Legends
Oral tradition
They come from an oral tradition. Both have been transmitted from generation to generation, even before writing, in the form of tradition.
Both myths and legends have had by this oral tradition the power to transform. The imagination was adding"wonders"to the original fact, which ends when it takes written form. The writing took away the power to transform.
Both myths and legends narrate events that occurred in the past. Many times that past is remote, and belongs to the culture of peoples, such as mythology. Other times the past is closer, more recent, but equally untestable.
Both have endured through time, to the point of being so ingrained in people, that they were incorporated into the respective cultures.
For example, the gods of Olympus were spoken of as if they really existed. And the same thing happens with the legends, they spoke of the werewolves, as if they really existed.
In Argentina, a legend says that the seventh son will be a werewolf. For this reason, every seventh son, is sponsored by the president of the republic. This tradition is still in force.
Origin in the attempt to explain phenomena and events
Myths and legends are born of some event to which no other explanation was found.
Both explain extraordinary events giving rise to beings with non-terrestrial or supernatural powers.
The stories tell how natural phenomena were created, in the case of myths, or the story of a knight of the Crusades, in the case of legends.
In both there are stories of beings that undergo a metamorphosis. Such is the myth of Arachne the Weaver, who, having offended the gods, hung herself on a beam to kill herself.
The goddess Athena took pity on her but to punish her, transformed her into a spider, doomed to knit for the rest of time.
Also the legend of Anahí, that fighting by its tribe, the guaraníes, was captured and burned at the stake by the Spaniards. Its body was transformed into the flower of ceibo, national flower of Paraguay and Argentina.
Rooted in popular culture
Both myths and legends are short stories, with a beginning, a development and an end.
These stories are very ingrained in people. It is often difficult to separate them from folklore and popular imagination, because they have become rooted in the culture of peoples.
References
- "Similarities and differences between Myths and Legends"in Academia. Retrieved in October 2017 from Academia in: academia.edu
- "Differences and similarities between myths and legends"in Literary Space (December 2013). Recovered in October 2017 of Literary Space in: espacioliterario6.blogspot.com.ar
- "Similarities and differences between legend and myth"in Latin America-Language (October 2014). Recovered in October 2017 from Latin America-Language in: languageamericalatina.blogspot.com.ar
- "Similarities between myths and legends"in Prezi (October 2014). Retrieved in October 2017 from Prezi at: prezi.com