The School of Human Inquiry · philosophy, history & belief
Mythology & Folklore
Gods, tricksters, and tales told by firelight — and what they reveal about the people who told them.
Olympians, heroes, and the Trojan War — the stories underneath Western literature.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — The Olympians
Creation from Chaos · The twelve gods and their domains · Titans and giants
Unit II — Heroes
Heracles' labors · Theseus and the Minotaur · Perseus and Medusa · Atalanta's race
Unit III — The Trojan Cycle
The judgment of Paris · The Iliad's wrath · The long way home in the Odyssey
Unit IV — Myth at Work
Metamorphoses and explanation · Myths on temples and vases · Rome borrows the pantheon
One-eyed Odin, doomed gods, and the settlers' sagas — the North's stern imagination.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — The Nine Worlds
Creation from Ginnungagap · Yggdrasil's map · Aesir and Vanir
Unit II — The Gods' Stories
Odin's price for wisdom · Thor among the giants · Loki's escalations · The death of Baldr
Unit III — Ragnarok and the Record
The end, foretold · The Eddas and how we have them · Sagas of settlers and feuds · The Christian scribes' fingerprints
Creation, tricksters, and floods from six continents, compared with care.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~18 hours
Unit I — Beginnings
Creation by word, by egg, by earth-diver · Emergence stories of the Southwest · Why cosmogonies differ
Unit II — Gods and Order
Egypt's ennead and ma'at · Mesopotamia's flood · The Devi and the buffalo demon · Amaterasu and the cave
Unit III — Tricksters and Heroes
Anansi the spider · Coyote and Raven · Maui fishes up the islands · Monkey's journey west
Unit IV — Comparing with Care
Motifs and the folklore index · Diffusion versus independent invention · Myth, ritual, and the limits of grand theories
Where the tales came from, how the Grimms changed them, and why they persist.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — What a Tale Is
Oral telling and variation · Tale types and motifs · The teller and the audience
Unit II — The Collectors
Perrault at court · The Grimms' project, and their edits · Andersen's inventions
Unit III — Reading the Tales
Cinderella in a hundred coats · Bluebeard's door · What the woods stand for
Unit IV — Afterlives
Tales on screen · Retellings that talk back · Why the tales keep working
Folklore is not the past — urban legends, holidays, and the customs you already practice.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Folklore Around You
Definitions that actually work · Jokes, chain letters, and memes · The folk group
Unit II — Legend
Urban legends and how they travel · Ostension: acting the legend out · Ghosts and the places that keep them
Unit III — Custom and Calendar
Rites of passage · Holidays and their layers · Foodways
Unit IV — Fieldwork
Collecting ethically · The interview · Archives and the public record