> While stories such as Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin were first written down in the 17th and 18th century, the researchers found they originated “si

> While stories such as Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin were first written down in the 17th and 18th century, the researchers found they originated “significantly earlier” There are thematic similarities between the ancient Indo-European religions. In the Germanic branch, there are the Norns, three female beings responsible for the fates of humanity. There are the three Moirai, the Fates, in Greek mythology. There are the three mothers, also responsible for humanity's fate, in Celtic mythology. Fifteen hundred years later, there are three "weird sisters" in Macbeth. These cultures shared substantial mythology. Greek mythology c 500 BC and Norse mythology c 800 AD have some two thousand years of separation between the branches, and yet substantial common elements - themes, story elements if you wish - remain. Of course, some degree of exchange was going on the whole time. It's not like these themes were preserved in isolation. The ancients themselves often noticed these connections - and sometimes made connections where there actually weren't any historically, e.g. between Egyptian and Greek gods. I am reminded of two ancient novels. Apuleius's Metamorphoses, and Lucian's True Story. Both are, essentially, fantasy novels - satirical fantasy novels, highly aware of the existing mythological and fantastical traditions of their time, and they rip them apart. In the Metamorphoses by Apuleius (a reference to Ovid's very serious treatment of Roman mythology in the also-titled Metamorphoses) the protagonist (spoilers!) very much wishes to become a wizard and gets himself accidentally turned into a sentient donkey - who is promptly sold to a disputable cult leader, and then the comical misfortunes really begin. To the modern eye it's almost impossible to not read it as placing a Roman noble in the body of a beast of burden, but with the soul of a man, and interpreting it as a critique of slavery, while telling funny stories, commenting on Roman beliefs, and indeed, making fun of many of the fantastical themes common at the time. Though if the slavery commentary is really what Apuleius intended is controversial; he may not have seen the irony we see and may have just been having fun. Lucian's True Story is just completely over the top, it starts with being lost in the Atlantic ocean and washing up on a tropical magical island, and ends with a war with the inhabitants of the Moon. I bring them up because, having come relatively later to the classics, reading them for the first time as an adult, I remember being constantly surprised with a sense of novelty yet familiarity. Surely these ideas are not so old?