"Myth
is as fluid as water: without forfeiting its character, it assumes and
vivifies whatever shape the conditions of time and space may require.
Gentle as the blossoming of flowers, it flourishes in the gardens of the
planting folk of the Sudan. Hard and strong as flint, it flies with the
arrow of the Cheyenne hunter. Terrible as fire, it rides fiercely over
the steppes with the Hun. Slow, magnificent
in its towering as the growth of a giant tree, it burgeons
multifariously and mightily in the great cultures of the Nile, the
Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Ganges, the Yang-tze and
Huang-po, Peru, Yucatan and the isles of Greece ..."
Joseph
Campbell, "How to Read a Myth" (an unpublished manuscript, circa 1943,
that evolved into "The Hero with a Thousand Faces")
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