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Motifs In Creation Myths

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A motif is a reoccurring subject, image, or theme in stories. In the many creation myths all around the world, there are some motifs found in the stories being told. With these creation myths, there are three main motifs that I find most important: the idea of the creator bringing humans to life by air, the idea of second attempts on the creation of humans, and the idea of materials being used to create the earth.
The idea of the creator bringing humans to life by air.
The first motif that recurs in several creation myths is the creator bringing humans to life by air. I found four creation myths that had this motif: the Norse, the Hebrew/Christian, the Inuit, and the Yoruban. These myths come from all over the world and I think the myths …show more content…

The Golden Age was the first set of humans. These humans did not grow old, but they had died tranquilly. The Silver Age was the second set of humans. These humans were very immature and refused to worship the gods. Zeus was not pleased about how the humans behaved, so he killed them. The Bronze Age was the third set of humans. These humans were very violent which caused for them to kill themselves off. The Age of Heros is the fourth set of humans. These were the demigods, part god and part human. The Iron Age is the fifth set of humans. These are the humans of …show more content…

Marduk splits Tiamat’s body in two. Half of her body is used as the sky, while the other half was used as the land. Like the Babylonian creation myth, the Norse creation myth had a bloody struggle as well. The Norse creator was Odin. Odin was the king of all the gods. Within the gods, there was a giant named Ymir. Ymir was so cruel and brutal that the gods could no longer put up with him, together the gods slew Ymir. Ymir’s enormous body was used to form the earth. The blood of Ymir was used to create the sea, and his flesh was used to create land. Ymir’s bones were used as mountains and his hair was used for trees. The gods made the sky with Ymir’s skull. Odin named his creation Midgard and was

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