Type of
Narrative
Myth
Epic
What it means
The characters
Example
They are prose narratives which, in
the society they are told, are
considered to be truthful accounts of
what happened in the remote past.
They are accepted on faith; they are
taught to be believed; and they can
be cited as authority in answer to
ignorance, doubt, or disbelief. Myths
are the embodiment of dogma
(teachings/ set of principles); they
are usually sacred; and they are often
associated with theology (the study
of the nature of God and religious
belief) and ritual.- Damiana L.
Eugenio UP, Diliman QC
Their main characters
are not usually human
beings, but they often
have human attributes;
they are animals,
deities; culture heroes,
whose actions are set
in an earlier world,
when the world was
different from what it
is today, or in another
world such as the sky
or underworld
Examples:
How the World Was
Made.
The Creation (Igorot).
How the Moon and the
Stars Came to Be
(Bukidnon).
Origin (Bagobo).
The Story of the
Creation (Bilaan).
In the Beginning
(Bilaan).
The Children of the
Limokon (Mandaya).
The Creation Story
(Tagalog).
These refer to stories that also tell
about an explanation of the origin of
things but often involve gods,
goddesses, and other mythological
characters.
These refer to stories that tell about
the exploits and adventures of a hero
and are said to be the most valuable
form of ancient literature.
Legend
The story of Cædmon’s life
According to Bede, Cædmon was one of the greatest poets of his age, but you wouldn’t
have guessed this from his early life. He was so shy about singing or speaking in public
that, according to Bede, when people began singing at parties he would leave ‘as soon
as he saw the harp approaching him’. It was only later in life that he began to write
verse and compose song. Bede describes how one night, when he was sleeping in the
cowshed, Cædmon had a vision. When he woke, he remembered the song he had sung
in his dream, and later performed it, astounding everyone at the Abbey with his beautiful
poetry. Later on, he would impress the monastery’s leaders, including the abbess St
Hilda, with his capacity to compose poetry about difficult theological topics.
Caedmon connects the energy of language with the power of divine spirit,
and his religious poetry of praise inaugurates a tradition. It’s possible, too,
that Bede was promoting that tradition via Caedmon. This way of
connecting language to the divine looks backward to Genesis 1 and forward
to Thomas Traherne, Henry Vaughan, and Christopher Smart, who sings of
the transcendent virtue of praise itself.