Curiously, an urban myth does not usually have anything to do with the city: it is simply “a story about an unusual event or occurrence that many people believe is true but that is not true.” An example would be the tale that Elvis Presley is still alive after spending decades in a witness protection program.

The idea that the principal function of a myth is to provide a justification for a ritual was adopted without any great attempt to make a case for it. At the beginning of the 20th century, many scholars thought of myths in their earliest forms as accounts of social customs and values.

Religious stories are “holy scripture” to believers—narratives used to support, explain, or justify a particular system’s rituals, theology, and ethics—and are myths to people of other cultures or belief systems.

There are four basic theories of myth. Those theories are: the rational myth theory, functional myth theory, structural myth theory, and the psychological myth theory. The rational myth theory states that myths were created to explain natural events and forces.

Was Beowulf real? There is no evidence of a historical Beowulf, but other characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. For example, the poem’s Danish King Hrothgar and his nephew Hrothulf are generally believed to have been based on historical figures.

That means they were distinctive, unmatched, superlative, epic, grand, magnificent, praiseworthy, notable, amazing, fantastic, outstanding, overpowering, breathtaking.

According to Hesiod’s Theogony, she was one of three Gorgon sisters born to Keto and Phorkys, primordial sea gods; Medusa was mortal, while the others, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal. The best known myth recounts her fateful encounter with the Greek hero Perseus.

It is unlikely, though, that Medusa was ever an African goddess, since we have no evidence that any goddess resembling Medusa was worshipped in North Africa before the time when Medusa first appears in Greek literature and we have no record of the association of Medusa with North Africa before Herodotos in the fifth …

However, unlike Medusa, the unnamed animal was never kept alive in captivity. Medusa is currently housed at “The Edge of Hell Haunted House” in Kansas City. Her handlers say she can actually tell when it’s “showtime” for patrons, as she will go into what they call performance mode.

Titanoboa cerrejonensis

Amphitrite