Creation Myths Compared - This is a camparison of Chinese, Egyptin, and Viking myths about how the world was created.

Essay by 3yugerJunior High, 9th grade January 2004

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There are many myths that exist regarding how the world was created. These myths have several factors in common, but are essentially very different. In the Viking myth "The Birth of the World," the Egyptian story of "The Creation," and Chinese tale "Pan Gu Creates the World," all three storylines contain mystical beings, however, all three differ simply because of cultural differences. All three myths refer to water and each explains their version of how the world started from nothingness.

In all of these myths, Earth was created from very little or nothing. In "Pan Gu Creates the World," everything is created from one egg containing chaos and Pan Gu, which is a mystical giant. Pan Gu split open the egg and from that emerged the Earth. In "The Birth of the World," there was an empty space, which the Vikings called Ginnungagap. There was also supposedly an icy place above Ginnungagap called Niflheim, and a fiery one below it called Muspell.

As Niflheim and Muspell grew closer together, an ice giant and a giant cow formed from the runoff of the melted ice. Eventually, more frost giants were created, and the first gods were licked out of the ice by the giant cow. The gods eventually over throw one of the ice giants, and used his flesh to create the Earth, utilizing the teeth and bones for the mountains and rocks. In "The Creation," it is said that at one time black waters covered everything, out of which rose the Earth. All of these stories claim that the Earth was created from nothing, but at the same time, they all have different ways of explaining how it came to be what it is today. These myths may have set up a theory that is widely known in today's world...