Why Do Civilizations That Never Met Tell the Same Stories?
I am quite curious about paganism. Not that I want to convert to a pagan religion, but I simply want to understand things better and tie everything together.
Something that has come to mind more recently is how almost every culture has their own telling of dragons, or of mermaids, or of giants. Lots talk about a great flood. Why?
I want to know. I'm not asking to be Socratic, I'm asking because I genuinely want to know. Why?
My reasoning mind tells me that it's because cultures communicated and exchanged, but what about cultures that were incredibly far from each other? I don't know. I wish I knew more about this.
One of the most striking shared folklore is the story of a great flood. Ancient Mesopotamian texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh described a man warned by the gods to build a boat to survive a world-destroying flood.
Thousands of years later, the Bible tells a nearly identical story with Noah and the Ark. Similar flood legends also appear in Greek, Hindu, and Native American traditions.
Whether or not these stories spread through ancient cultural contact or preserve memories of real catastrophic floods, their similarities leave you asking why...