Scientists Disclose Which Myths And Legends Are Actually Real
Myths and legends have been around for hundreds of years, and there have always been people who speculate how many of these myths and legends are based on facts. Some Redditors have asked experts for their opinions.
Lucky for us, some archaeologists, marine biologists, and more experts in their respective fields have come forward on Reddit and given their opinion on the legends that they think might have more truth than meets the eye.
Ancient Egypt
Archaeologist here. There’s a really interesting ancient Egyptian story called the Shipwrecked Sailor in which a man has washed ashore on a beautiful island and is apprehended briefly by an enormous serpent.
In the story, the serpent tells him that there used to be hundreds of others like him, but a falling star wiped them all out.
I think it’s unlikely that the Egyptians had knowledge of dinosaurs, but there’s a site called Wadi Hitan that has thousands of ancient whale skeletons from the Eocene.
I think it’s possible they could have seen these skeletons and mistaken them for giant snakes. Herodotus actually tells similar tales of giant flying snakes in Egypt, and I suppose if you saw these skeletons but no trails, you might think they were capable of flight.
Old English
Beowulf, who is featured in one of the most important texts written in Old English, may very well have been real.
The epic details what people Beowulf belonged to (the Geats, who resided in modern Götaland), and IIRC, battles which have taken place according to historians (particularly between the Geats and the Swedes).
Most intriguing to me are the facts that the location of Beowulf’s burial mound is included in the epic – and that there is what looks like a hill at that location in modern Sweden that has never been excavated.
Legendary Side Of Things
From the legendary side of things, King Arthur was certainly someone who actually existed, albeit in a much different form than modern audiences would be familiar with.
The earliest mentions of him are as a historical British king who lived during the 5th Century – he’s in a king list, he’s mentioned as winning a series of decisive battles against the Saxons, and his excellent swordsmanship is referenced once.
And that’s about it.
During the Middle Ages, Arthur’s tale was romanticized and then conflated with other myths & folklore – several of his knights, such as Lancelot, were originally heroes of their own legends before being added to his – until we finally ended up with our present version that has all the Medieval knights and magic and the Round Table and the Holy Grail business.
It’s entirely possible that the name of Arthur itself was part of this later conflation, as his victories against the Saxons were also credited in some sources to a general named Ambrosius Aurelianus.
Those sources may be wrong, or they may have been two different leaders who were mistakenly combined by later writers (a king and his general, perhaps).
Trojan War
The Trojan War is another legendary event that was certainly based on something real. We know Troy was a real city that was actually razed around 1190 BC, and we have a lot of evidence that says the Mycenaean Greeks and the Hittite Empire fought several conflicts over the city (which was a powerful city-state and vassal of the Hittites at the time).
The Trojan War from The Iliad is either a legendary account of the most glorious Mycenaean victory in these wars or perhaps a dramatization of the entire series of wars distilled into one mythical conflict.
As for the people mentioned in the stories, though? No telling. Many were likely based on actual nobles from the conflicts, but Greek mythos has a habit of adding later heroes to famous stories.
Combined with the massive time gap before we inherit our earliest surviving copy of the story, at least some of the characters were probably added later.
Serious scholarship tries to identify which parts of The Iliad are most guilty of this and which parts most resemble its Bronze Age origins.