THE STORY INDEX
A growing collection of myths and legends, with their origins, variations, and sources.
Everything in the world swore never to harm Baldr except a sprig of mistletoe, and everything wept for him except one giantess: that is Snorri's telling. A Danish historian of the same age tells another story entirely, of two rivals, one woman and a magic sword.
Read story 11 min readThe buffalo demon Mahiṣa drove the gods out of heaven. Their anger became a mountain of light, and the light became a goddess. Images of her victory are older than the text that tells it, and every autumn Kolkata shapes her again from river clay.
Read story 9 min readJapan's oldest book does not begin with a king but with brine: two gods stir the sea with a jewelled spear, circle a pillar, get it wrong once, and give birth to the islands.
Read story 5 min readA god came down from heaven, and a bear kept to a dark cave until she became a woman. Their son Dangun founded Joseon. The oldest text that tells it was written in the 1280s, and it quotes two books no one has ever found.
Read story 6 min readShe shaped people from yellow earth and patched the broken sky with five-coloured stones. But was Nüwa really half serpent? The oldest texts, the tomb art and the later novels give three different answers.
Read story 7 min readJason sailed to the far end of the Black Sea for a fleece of gold, and Medea, the king's daughter, helped him take it. The Odyssey already calls his ship "famed of all", and later tellers kept changing it, down to who killed Medea's children.
Read story 11 min readHow Vietnam tells its own beginning: a dragon lord from the water, a fairy from the mountains, one sac of a hundred eggs, and a parting that founded the realm of Văn Lang.
Read story 6 min read
