Myths Across Cultures

For this paper I have chose the Navajo people's creation myth and the Norse people's

Creation myth. They have many similarities between the two and I will do my best to describe

them and their similarities. Though these to physically different looking people come from

very different areas of the world they are very similar in legends and myths.

The first myth I will describe is that from the Navajo and there first world was filled with

emptiness and darkness. This world had six beings first man, first woman, salt woman, fire

god, coyote and Begochiddy. Begochiddy was the being that created the mountains and water

to fill the void. Begochiddy has been described as a male figure and the creator of all that fills

the world, he also taught the first man and woman how to live. Begochiddy had moved man

from world to world for various reasons one of them was because of a great flood that filled

the world. Another was because first man and woman had many fights with another being and

Begochiddy knew they would never overcome their differences so he moved his people to

another world.

The second myth is that of the people of the Norse and there myth of how their world

began. Ginnungagap was a great void of any living being that had nothing in it, to the North

there was Niflheim and to the south was Muspell. In Muspell it was so hot that everything was

on fire nothing could grow there in its many lakes and rivers of fire. Niflheim was so cold that

everything was iced over and nothing could grow there. Muspell was so hot its heat eventually

started to melt the ice of Niflheim and the first being a giant called Ymir emerged from the ice.

Two more being emerged from the ice the god Buri and his goddess wife, they had a son

named Bor and Bor later had a son names Odin who would become the King of the Gods.

When Odin and the other gods could no longer stand Ymir the cruel giant they killed him and

his body would fill the void in Ginnungagap forming what is now called Midgard.

These two myths like many across