Letter from the Founder | October 2020
Benvenuti! Welcome to Autumn and to the third issue of Guide Collective Magazine!
Leaves across the world are turning colors, temperatures are falling, and we at the Guide Collective are getting cozy and settling in for some storytelling. Put on your fluffiest sweater and join us by the virtual fire to hear some tales. This month, we are exploring the theme of “Fairytales, Myths, and Superstitions” and what traditional stories mean to our cultures.
As a part of the curriculum on my tours, I have often discussed the difference between myths, fables, fairy tales, and legends. The typical distinctions are these: myths are stories made up to describe natural phenomenon, fables teach a moral story, fairy tales involve supernatural creatures, and legends are stories based on an actual event.
Each of these types of stories come from a long tradition of verbal communication, passed down through time. They are a sort of historical document, as each successive generation adds and changes details and interpretations.
Origins of these stories are often lost or forgotten. For example, many myths that we commonly associate with Greece, such as the forges of Hephaestus, didn’t take place in Greece proper, but instead originated in Sicily. As Sicily was a part of Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece, their origin was folded into a wider Greek tradition. Exploring the origins of these myths helps to explain why they became such famous stories. In the case of Hephaestus or Vulcan, the locals developed the story to help explain something much scarier, a natural world that included an unpredictable, constantly erupting volcano in their backyard.
Even if we live in a time when science can explain the eruption of a volcano, human nature doesn’t change, we still crave stories. New myths pop up all the time, though they may utilize new media. My kids, for example, were fascinated by an internet character, Slenderman, that would have been a hit with fireside storytellers in the Black Forest 200 years ago. I remember a myth in my own hometown of Ventura, California, of a man the kids called “Char Man” who lived at the top of a hill in town. The light in the evening reflected off of a cross on the top of this hill which appeared like fire, so the children of the city imagined a man living there who was disfigured by fire. I recall being pretty scared of wandering in the hills in the evenings, a good deterrent to keep kids at home.
We’ve gathered some reflections on myths from our international team of ace storytellers. We’ll start off the month with Reid Coen’s insight into the Indonesian island province of Bali and the weaving of Hindu-Animism into its daily culture, an evocative and sensory poem about the wooded lands of Bristol, England by Charlie Rawson, and Lisa Anderson’s devilish story behind the creation of a 400-year old bridge in a charming town of Cuneo province in Piemonte, Italy. While you read these and even more of our mythical articles throughout the month (and be sure to check out theme-related videos on GCTV), consider the legends, fairytales, fables, and superstitions you’ve heard of, where they come from, and what role they’ve had in your own life.
Andiamo,
Sarah Murdoch