Big history and big data in mythology and folklore

Abstract

The volume and value of information on the past that millions of published folkloric and mythological texts contain are comparable with the data provided by other historical disciplines. The source of this information is not the narratives’ content but the data on the area spread of ca. 3000 motifs that are selected at the moment. Analysis of these data is outside of the research interests of folklore studies sensu stricto, and the corresponding historic discipline has not yet acquired a recognized designation. The historic process depends on the development of ideas and on routes of information exchange between groups of people. Statistical processing of tens of thousands of narrative episodes and mythopoeic concepts helps to reveal interaction spheres that existed in different epochs and only partly overlapped with the spread of language families, empires and religions. Applying factor analysis, three models of transcontinental information exchange in Eurasia (with North Africa) are described. The first one is West vs. East, with the Caucasus and the Trans Caspian region being similar to Europe (cosmological and etiological motifs computed; the Roman time and earlier). The second model selects North vs. South (tales of magic and animal tales; Eastern Europe is similar to Siberia, transmission of stories also through literary texts in the South, A. D. 500-900 as terminus ante quem). The third model divides Eurasia along the line between the Christian and the Islamic plus the Great Steppe interaction spheres; tales of magic, realistic tales, anecdotes; the Caucasus is similar to Mongolia and the Near East; such a division fits best the cultural situation at ca. A. D. 1500.