In which Mike Rugnetta teaches you about the hero of The Congo, Mwindo! Mike will tell you the stories of Mwindo's birth, his many deaths, and his evolution from a braggy superhuman baby to a wise, superhuman leader of his people. Along the way, we'll learn about the Wiki game, and when you should and shouldn't drink banana beer.

This week, Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about mythical gardens and caves, which appear in cultures all over the world. Caves and gardens can stand for different things, but in the two stories we're talking about today, they tie into the creation of the world in general, and the origins of humans in particular.

Horses have been human companions for thousands of years, and have been essential companions and tools for the development of human culture. So, it makes sense that horses would make their way into our most important stories. Today, we're looking at horses in myth, and we'll talk about noble steeds from all over the world, including Svadlfari, Sleipneir, Pegasus, Qilin, Bucephalus, Al Baraq, and Unicorns! Let's get to the horsing around.

It's the end of the world, everybody. Well, it's the end of our mythology series, anyway. This week, we're talking about how mythological themes have made their way into the English language. We're taking on the Herculean task of tracking down phrases that have made their way into language from mythical stories.

Our mythical places series continues, and this week Mike Rugnetta is talking about some stories that revolve around mountains. Mountains loom large in human stories, not least because mountains are, well, large. So ascend with us to the lofty peaks of The Ten Thousand Treasure Mountain in China, and Mount Fuji in Japan.

This week on CC Myth, Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about mythical trees. There are lots of trees in myth, and we've touched on some of them before, but today we're going to focus on three trees from three different traditions. We'll talk about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from the biblical tradition, Yggdrasil from the Norse Tradition, and Ashvattha, which is important in both Hindu and Buddhist tradition.

This week on Crash Course mythology, Mike is talking to you about floods. You may have heard the story of Noah and the Ark from the Bible, but that is not the only flood story humans tell. Turns out, it's a common thing across cultures`. You could say the study of mythology is...flooded with them. Sorry. We'll be looking at floods from Mesopotamia from the Epic of Gilgamesh, and a flood story from the Zoroastrian tradition. And we'll look at a Roman flood story from Ovid's metamorphosis. It's a deluge of flood stories!

Most of the stories and quotations in this episode are adapted from David Leeming's Mythology textbook, "The World of Myth."

This week, we're headed north. To check out the gods of the Northmen. Or the Norse. That's right, we're talking Thor, Loki, Freyr, Freya, Odin, Frigg, Baldr, and Tyr. And Fenrir. And the Frost Giants. There's a lot to cover here, and it's going to be fun. Watch this prior to Ragnarok, as this video probably won't be available after the end of the universe.

In which Mike Rugnetta begins our unit on pantheons, which are families of gods. We further define pantheons and talk about why they're important. Then, we discuss pantheons from the myths of the ancient Mediterranean, starting with ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia. The Egyptian pantheon brings us the story of Osiris and his envious brother Seth. We learn what these two pantheons suggest about the cultures where they originated.

Ragnarok! It's the end of the world, Norse style. It's got everything you want in an apocalypse. Earthquakes, destruction, armies of the dead, a giant evil wolf, giants with flaming swords, and a kind of happy ending. It's got it all. But is it really Norse? It wasn't written down until after Christianity had arrived in Europe. So how much influence is there?

This week, Mike is teaching you about the most mythic of mythological creatures: Dragons. Cultures across the world (and across Westeros) tell stories of dragons, and their power to destroy, their power to prop up kings, and their power to cause a nice, refreshing rain shower.

In which Mike Rugnetta sits you down for a little talk about myth as a way to construct or reinforce social orders. Specifically, we’re going to look today at stories from around the world that establish or amplify the idea that the errors of women have brought bad things into the world. We’re talking about the idea that death and disease and pain came into the world as a result of human (specifically woman human) action, and that men should therefore be considered superior to women. This idea, which on its face may sound a little out there to our modern ears, is persistent and pernicious. We’re interested in looking at the ways that stories make social orders. We’ll look at Abrahamic, Greek, and Japanese creation stories that have, over the millennia, served to push something of a social order agenda.

This week, we're talking about theories of Myth. We'll look at the different ways mythology has been studied in the last couple of millenia, and talk about the diffeent ways people have interpreted myth, academically.

This week, Mike introduces you to Tricksters, starting with Anansi, the West African trickster god who is also sometimes a spider. Tricksters are, well, tricky. They're wise and foolish, they're promiscuous and amoral, but in a lot of ways, they're good guys. We'll also talk about the occasionally tricky Hercules and Atlas, and touch on more recent tricksters like B'rer Rabbit.

Welcome to Crash Course World Mythology, our latest adventure (and this series may be literally adventurous) in education. Over the next 40 episodes or so, we and Mike Rugnetta are going to learn about the world by looking at the foundational stories of a bunch of different cultural traditions. We’re going to look at the ways that people’s stories define them, and the ways they shape their culture. We’re going to learn about gods, goddesses, heroes, and tricksters, and a lot more. We’re going to walk the blurry line between myth and religion, and we’re going to like it.

On this Crash Course in World Mythology, Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about floods and deluges, specifically in China. In Chinese myth, flood stories pretty much all revolve around a guy named Yu the Great, or Yu the Engineer. In the distant past, he was tasked with stopping the flooding on the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and he did it. After working on the job for 13 years. Yu also founded the legendary Xia Dynasty. Yu exists as a sort of model for future emperors. He works tirelessly on behalf of his people, and always does the right thing. He's a good emperor, and a model for rulers to emulate. He's also super cool, and can turn into a bear when he needs to dig really fast.