We are literal, scientific, rational, surface-oriented, and fast-paced. Yet without imagination, the world becomes arid. Mythopoetic language is magical; it brings worlds into being. Stories of warriors hunting the windswept plains, gods who trick and deceive, maidens transformed into sea monsters, and spiders that weave the web of life have long

... See more

These stories were passed from storyteller to storyteller; no one claimed entire authorship of the tale. Everyone handled the non-changing bones of the narrative and then brought it to life by adding the beating heart of their own imagination. In this way, great myth-telling was a combination of both tradition and innovation.

This suite of mnemonic devices and formalized bodily movements stabilized epics as rhythmic, visceral performance, while limiting the ways one telling might vary from another. These were the original technologies for outsourcing memory. Gif Horse: Gifs reiterate an oral tradition as old as The Odyssey Britney Gil 9.7.2016