Myths of the Dark Ages

Abstract

Myths, like history, deal with the past, but they deal with it in a very different way. The historian’s first aim is to understand the past for its own sake. But the basic function of myth is to give meaning and order to the present. Historians try to be rational and objective. But myths operate at a non-rational level, and are not bound by the evidence of historical reality, even if they often have some historical basis. Every society has its myths and they are part of the education of every child born into it. Modern educators put history, not myths, on the school curriculum. But for most of us, the history we learn in school has quite a lot of myth mixed up with it; there is no harm in this, provided that history teachers are aware of where history ends and myth begins.¹