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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| Conventions Used in This Book | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| Mythology and the Cradle of Civilization | |
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| The Truth About Myths | |
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| How to Spot a Myth a Mile Away | |
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| Which Came First, the People or the Myths? | |
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| Looking at the Different Types of Myths | |
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| A Who's Who of Mythological Players | |
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| Two American Myths | |
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| That's Our Story and We're Sticking to It: The Legacy | |
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| Around the Block and Through the Wringer: The Journey of One Myth | |
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| Pop Culture | |
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| Myths on the Page, on the Wall, and in the Concert Hall | |
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| Learn Your Myths, Earn $461,000,000! | |
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| It Started Here, Folks: Greek Mythology | |
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| Greek Creation Myths and Really Ancient Greek Gods | |
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| Here Comes the Sun (and a Whole Mess of Other Stuff): Creation At Last! | |
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| Gifts of the Stork: The Offspring of Mother Earth and Father Sky | |
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| The Third Generation of Gods: The Olympians | |
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| The Creation of People | |
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| The Love-Hate Triangle: Prometheus, People, and Zeus | |
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| The World People Lived in, Courtesy of the Gods | |
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| A Flood and Rebirth Story | |
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| Taller, Younger, and Better Looking Than You: The Olympian Gods | |
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| Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades: Big Daddy and His Brothers | |
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| The Boys in the Band: Studly Young Gods | |
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| The Fairest and Meanest of Them All: The Greek Goddesses | |
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| Hera, Aphrodite, and Demeter: The Dueling Diva Goddesses | |
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| Look but Don't Touch!: The Virgin Goddesses | |
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| Goddess Gangs: A Motley Crew | |
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| So Fine and Half Divine: Heroes | |
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| Perseus, a Real Prince of a Guy | |
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| Box Office Gold of the Ancients: Heracles | |
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| A Home-Grown Hero: Theseus | |
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| Jason the Jerk | |
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| The Iliad, the End of the Trojan War, and the Odyssey | |
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| Poems of Epic Proportions | |
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| Setting the Stage: Events Leading to the Trojan War | |
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| The Trojan War, Nine Years Later: The Iliad | |
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| The End of the Trojan War | |
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| A Hero Makes His Way Home after the Trojan War: Homer's Odyssey | |
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| Greek Tragedy: The Days of Their Lives | |
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| What's On Today? | |
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| Send in the Clowns (Not!): Tragedy 101 | |
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| Meet the Parents: The House of Cadmus | |
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| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: The House of Atreus | |
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| The Cultural Spoils of an Empire: Roman Mythology | |
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| Will the Real Roman Mythology Please Stand Up? | |
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| The Powers That Were: Before the Empire | |
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| Home-Grown Gods: The Original Italians | |
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| Making Way for Rome with a Very Big "R" | |
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| How It All Got So Darn Mixed Up | |
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| Down on the Farm: Roman Religion | |
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| Begged, Borrowed, and Stolen: Roman Religion | |
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| The Greek-Roman Pantheon | |
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| Special Roman Gods | |
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| A God for Every Taste | |
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| Keeping It Real: The Goddesses | |
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| Virgil's Aeneid and The Founding of Rome | |
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| Why the Romans Needed Another Myth: Down with Carthage! | |
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| Emperor Augustus and Virgil's PR Machine: The Aeneid | |
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| Romulus and Remus and the Founding of Rome | |
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| The Seven Kings of Rome | |
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| Don't Go Changin': Ovid's Metamorphoses | |
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| Surprising Transformations and Heroic Hunters | |
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| Ovid's Lovers | |
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| Cupid and Psyche | |
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| One Big Family Feud: Northern European Mythology | |
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| Snow, Ice, and Not Very Nice: Norse Deities | |
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| Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dwarves: Creation of the World | |
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| The Good, the Bad, and the Mortal: Norse Deities | |
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| A Big Tree House: The World They Lived In | |
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| Ragnarok: The End of the World | |
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| Dragonslayers: The Big Northern European Sagas | |
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| Prime Time Programming: The Saga of the Volsungs | |
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| Something for Everyone: Beowulf | |
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| A Seat at the Round Table: King Arthur and His Court | |
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| Searching for King Arthur | |
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| Who's Who in Camelot | |
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| A Medieval Daytime Drama--Arthur's Beginning | |
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| Sex, Lies, and a Good Jousting | |
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| Everybody's Working for the Weekend: Knightly Heroics | |
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| The Last Days of King Arthur | |
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| Some Sunblock, a Sacrifice, a Monster, and Thou: Non-European Mythology | |
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| Floods, Mud, and Gods: Mesopotamian and Hebrew Mythology | |
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| Gilgamesh: The Sumerian Creation Story | |
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| Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Creation Story | |
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| Mesopotamian Gods: Okay, We Fear You ... You Happy? | |
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| Hebrew Mythology: A is for Apple, B is for Babel | |
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| Common Threads in the Three Creation Myths | |
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| Three Cheers for Egypt: Ra, Ra, Ra! | |
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| Write Me a Really Big River | |
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| Gods and Goddesses of the Sands | |
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| Religion in Egyptian Life | |
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| Death and the Afterlife | |
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| Land of a Thousand Gods: India | |
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| The Vedic Invaders | |
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| Hinduism: Room for Many Gods | |
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| Competing Religions: Buddhism and Jainism | |
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| China: Tao ... Wow! | |
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| How the World Began and Where Folks Came From | |
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| Effortless Effort: The Myths of Taoism | |
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| Confucianism: Myths of devotion | |
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| Buddhism | |
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| Japan: Myths from the Land of the Rising Sun | |
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| The Creation of Stuff and Other Ancient Matters | |
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| Supernatural Beings: Materializing in a Folk Tale Near You | |
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| Japanese Rituals: A Little of Everything | |
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| Latin America: It'll Tear Your Heart Out | |
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| Footprints of a Lost People: The Old Cultures | |
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| Maya | |
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| Aztecs | |
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| Incas | |
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| Coyotes, Thunderbirds, and Bears, Oh My: North American Indian Myths | |
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| The Lush Green Forests of the East | |
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| Big Sky Country: The Great Plains | |
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| Saguaro Cactus Flower in the Southwest | |
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| The Wealthy Pacific Northwest | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten Mythological Monsters | |
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| Gorgons | |
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| Chimera | |
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| The Phoenix | |
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| Cerberus, the Hound of Hell | |
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| Dragons | |
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| Unicorn | |
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| Griffon | |
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| Sphinx | |
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| Ten Mythological Places | |
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| Elysium, or Elysian Fields | |
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| Brigadoon | |
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| Xanadu | |
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| Shangri-La | |
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| Arcadia | |
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| Valhalla | |
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| Atlantis | |
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| The Kingdom of Prester John | |
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| Avalon | |
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| Index | |