History NewerThanTheyThink / Mythology

* The [[OurPerytonsAreDifferent peryton]], a monstrous bird with the head of a carnivorous deer that cast a human shadow, is popularly said to have originated from Myth/ClassicalMythology. In reality, the creature was invented by Argentine author Creator/JorgeLuisBorges in his mid-1900s book ''Literature/BookOfImaginaryBeings'' as a joke. It's generally believed ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' is responsible for further perpetuating this one, due to Creator/GaryGygax including them in the original ''Monster Manual'' since he had used Borges' book as one of his sources of monsters for the game.

* Abrahamic monotheism, instrumental to all of their faiths, is substantially newer than their own tradition claims. Hebrews always favored their own tribal god, as every tribe did at the time, but they didn't deny the existence of other tribes' gods, and it was only around that they broke away from Canaanite custom and developed what historians call "monolatry" by mandating that they should worship ''only'' their own god, Yahweh (which at this point might still include a consort goddess, Asherah). Belief in the existence of a single god, period, might have only developed around the ending of the Babylonian exile, not sooner than 539 BC, perhaps by the influence of the Zoroastrian Persians that freed the Hebrews from their captors (it was, coincidentally or not, also around the time of early Pre-Socratic philosophy, which was also postulating about ''arche'', a single divine principle pervading everything). It is also around this time that the Biblical character of {{Satan}} becomes a truly rebel FallenAngel instead of a servant of God tasked with destroying sinners, maybe again due to the influence of Zoroastrians, who believed in an evil spirit independent from their god Ahura Mazda.

* While most people think of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as long predating the New Testament, ''early'' estimates of its compilation into its recognizable final form are around 100 BCE. Some estimate that it wasn't finalised until ''after'' Jesus' death. That said, some of the individual books ''within'' the Old Testament might date back as far as the 8th century B.C.
* Although the Golem has been an element of Jewish folklore for multiple centuries (if not as in the finished legend, at least in some capacity), one of the most famous elements of the story, that of the Golem rescuing Jews from a blood libel in 16th century Prague, was [[http://www.traditiononline.org/news/originals/Volume%2036/No.%201/The%20Adventure%20of%20the.pdf more or less created]] in a 1909 novel by a Rabbi Yudl Rosenberg. Rosenberg basically use a DirectLineToTheAuthor in which he claimed he was editing a much older work found in a (nonexistent) library and skillfully mixed in actual sources/traditions with elements of his own invention. While the novel is little known today, it was really influential and pretty much all subsequent tellings of the Golem legend contain facets original to Rosenberg.

* The current depiction of angels as winged, haloed humanoids didn't originate in either Jewish or Christian scriptures. Classical biblical angels were either not physically described or looked terrifying -- there's a reason why they introduced themselves with "Fear not!" In reality, the wings are believed to have been inspired by late Roman and Zoroastrian artworks. Accordingly, the earliest winged angel yet found was in a sarcophagus dated to the 4th century AD.

* The idea of {{Satan}} being the [[TheAntiGod evil opposite]] of {{God}} did exist early on in some [[UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} Gnostic]] sects, but these groups were generally small and didn't have much influence. For most time in Christianity, he was generally portrayed in that even though he ''represented'' opposition to God, he was far less powerful, and in fact, any human with enough faith and wisdom could fend him off (granted, having those in turn was obviously considered not as easy as it sounds). The idea that Satan has an irresistible power over common man, unless through witchcraft or the like, didn't become truly mainstream until about the late 19th century.

** Herne's name, which means "horn", comes from the horn that he blows, not any on his head. Arawn, who appears in the story of Pwyll in the Mabinogi, doesn't wear a deer-skull mask there, although he does appear at a deer hunt. The description of him as wearing a deer-skull mask is a modern one.
** This may be a conflation with "the Horned God" {{Cernunnos}}, a man with [[HornedHumanoid a deer's/ram's head or just animal horns]], who ''does'' appear prominently in Celtic materials -- albeit specifically in Roman-era Gaulish and Celtiberian art and inscriptions, and not from anywhere on the Isles.

** Medusa's story depicting her as a priestess of Athena who was seduced and/or raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athena for defiling her temple is ancient in an absolute sense -- but it only goes back to early Roman times, and has no presence in Greek legends or narratives. Early myths about the Gorgons depict them as always having been monsters and originating as children of the primordial sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, and as such as being siblings of other monstrous being such as the Sirens and Ladon; they were also depicted with several monstrous features, such as wings and large tusks, that are usually absent today. Athena only entered their story by means of being one of four gods who gave aid to Perseus (alongside Zeus, Hermes and Hades); Poseidon doesn't feature at all. The most commonly-known version was penned by the Roman poet Ovid, hundreds of years after the oldest known myths concerning Medusa were recorded; its negative depiction of the gods matches the tone of several of his other poems and is believed to reflect his stance against the recent establishment of monarchic imperial rule. However, in the Middle Ages, Greek texts and knowledge of Greek in general were largely lost while Latin writing remained well-documented, making the Roman version of the myth the more widely-known one.
* Pandora's box was actually a jar. The idea of a box comes down to a [[LostInTranslation mistranslation]] of the original text by Erasmus, who mistook the Greek word for "jar" (pithos) for the word for box (pixys). Additionally, the idea that Pandora was tricked into opening the jar, or opened it out of curiosity, is a later addition: in Hesiod's original telling of the myth, she has no motivation for doing it, and the context implies it was simply ForTheEvulz.

* Likewise, the story of Baucis and Philemon appears in the 1st-century Roman work ''Literature/TheMetamorphoses'' and nowhere else in extant Greco-Roman literature. It ''may'' be older, and it may borrow from or share a common source with the Biblical story of Lot, which it resembles, but at present there's no reason to think the story in the form Ovid presents it is up there with the oldest Greek myths.

* When talking about Egyptian Myths, citing Anubis as the god of the dead would likely be a FandomEnragingMisconception with a reminder that ''Osiris'' had always had the job. Sorry, but that's not the case; Anubis ''was'' the god of death before Osiris, only being replaced in the fifth dynasty after the latter god's cult grew enough to overthrow the former's place (though myths surrounding the takeover have Anubis step aside "out of respect" for Osiris, so there wasn't as much bad blood). Furthermore, another jackal-headed god by the name of Khenti-Amentiu was discovered to be even ''older'' than either god. Guess who Egyptologists consider Khenti having the strongest connection to? Osiris isn't the "top dog" that everyone thinks he is.

* Many {{Youkai}} are believed by both Japanese and foreigners to have originated from ancient myths passed down from thousands of years ago. In reality, like the shinigami, a good chunk of them first appeared during the Edo period, when storytellers began making up their own Youkai to entertain audiences or writers started recording their own inventions down. The {{Karakasa}} is one such example and perhaps the most notable one. \* While [[DemBones skeleton monsters]] have appeared in Japanese art and folklore dating back centuries, the famous Gashadokuro, a giant skeleton formed from the restless spirits of villagers wiped out by wartime famine, was created by a horror novelist in the 1960s, and so is technically younger than Franchise/{{Godzilla}}!

* Pandora's box was actually a jar. The idea of a box comes down to a [[LostInTranslation mistranslation]] of the original text by Erasmus, who mistook the Greek word for "jar" (pithos) for the word for box (pixys).

* Bahamut wasn't a dragon in the original mythology. It wasn't even anything ''close'' -- although exactly what it was varies according to the source you check[[note]]some stated that it was a fish, others a serpent. A lesser-known creature associated with Bahamut is a ox called Kujata, which some scholars postulated to be a corruption of "Leviathan". Since Bahamut is obviously derived from "Behemoth", those scholars theorized that there might be a mix-up between the two creatures' names in Arabian storytelling, since the Bible contains the opposite descriptions, i.e. Behemoth is an ox while Leviathan is a serpent.[[/note]], none of them are anything similar to "dragon". Unlike Tiamat, the blame for this one can be laid solely at the feet of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' -- they just took a name they thought sounded cool and attached it to their dragon god. In 4E, it is written, "of course, in these more enlightened times, we know Bahamut is not really a dragon," and that "Platinum Dragon" is merely an honorific title. They don't say what Bahamut, in fact, ''is''.

* Many {{Youkai}} are believed by both Japanese and foreigners to have originated from ancient myths passed down from thousands of years ago. In reality, like the shinigami, a good chunk of them first appeared during the Edo period, when storytellers began making up their own Youkai to entertain audiences or writers started recording their own inventions down. The {{Karakasa}} is one such example and perhaps the most notable one. And while the kuchisake-onna may have been mentioned before then, the modern interpretation is based on the story of a real mentally ill woman from the 1970s who had a Glasgow grin and surgical mask, and stalked children before being fatally hit by a car.
* While [[DemBones skeleton monsters]] have appeared in Japanese art and folklore dating back centuries, the famous Gashadokuro, a giant skeleton formed from the restless spirits of villagers wiped out by wartime famine, was created by a horror novelist in the 1960s, and so is technically younger than Franchise/{{Godzilla}}!