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The study of myths and legends has been a major source of insight into the psychological patterning of the minds of our forebears. While recorded accounts of primitive man are largely lacking, the persistence of myths that were transmitted verbally and incorporated into songs and rituals provides one kind of history of our ancestors. As dreams often convey the personal psychodynamics of the dreamer, so myths express the cultural dynamics of early tribes and civilizations. Many mythologists influenced by Freud seek to discover the oedipal theme and its various combinations and permutations in these legends; recent anthropological, historical and sociological data suggest that myths and legends also represented the prevailing views on life, the universe and the patterns of adapting and functioning in primitive societies. Consequently some myths reflect the ignorance of man and nature and the multitude of false notions and prejudices which were prevalent at a particular time. To properly evaluate the psychological validity of myths as representations of the racial unconscious, it is necessary to distinguish between myths which arise from the necessity of special groups to promulgate belief in their respective selfish interests, and those which truly represent the products of the intrinsic and innate genotypal psychological drama.
Myths universally deal with the vagaries of existence in the fact of profound and omnipresent natural forces and cataclysms that are beyond man's capacity to comprehend or influence. They represent the accidental and unpredictable catastrophes which leave man feeling helpless in the hands of superior forces or agents