Myths 神話

Flying horses, men that throw lightning from high up in the clouds and women whose heads are covered in snakes — All these things sound a little too crazy and out of the ordinary to be real. And they probably are. But they are all stories from the mythologies of cultures of the past. At one time, many people knew, told and believed in just these kinds of stories.

Myths aren't supposed to describe ordinary things that could actually happen. In fact, they often tell about deliberately unreal and supernatural characters and events.

But myths are stories worth hearing. More than that, they are usually stories that are told to teach very real, important lessons. The word mythology means the set of stories told for years among a large group of people for certain reasons. The myths are told over and over to teach lessons about the culture and religion of that group to its members. One way to learn about the things that the cultures of the past believed or felt were important is to look at the mythologies.

This is a picture of a horse with wings on its back to make it look like one beautiful mytholigical creature: a flying horse named Pegasus. Even though the culture whose mythology Pegasus comes from may be long gone, people all over the world are familiar with Pegasus today.

(Lynn Steger, Staff Writer)

飛天馬、在雲端拋擲閃電的男子，蛇髮女子︰這些事情聽起來似乎過於瘋狂，超乎常理到不像是真的。或許他們不是真的。不過，這些故事都是來自古老的神話。許多人一度知曉、傳述並相信這些故事。

神話不應是描述可能真正發生的平凡事。事實上，它們通常是描述刻意不真實、超自然的角色與事件。

不過，神話是值得聆聽的故事。不光是如此，它們通常是人們講述來教導人真實又寶貴的道理。「神話集」（mythology）這個字意指一個族群為了特定理由而傳頌多年的故事集。神話再三被人傳述，以教導這個族群的成員其文化與宗教的道理。欲學習這些古老文化所深信或覺得重要的事物的方法之一，就是觀看神話集。

這是一張背上長著翅膀的馬兒照片，看起來宛如神話中的美麗生物︰飛馬「帕格薩斯」。雖然帕格薩斯神話所屬的文化已經消失久遠，現今世界各地的人還是知曉帕格薩斯的故事。 （翻譯︰賴美君）