Many of us are familiar with concepts such as luck and fate. These have been accepted in society today, but many people fail to see how these concepts are derived from mythology. For sure, mythology did not fundamentally construct the various ideas, but what they did very well was to give these concepts physical embodiments. It is seen when people pray for luck today, or blame everything on fate. These involve some imperceptible yet omnipresent force, making them accessible to the imagination of society.

There are two major ways in which these concepts were manifested in mythology. The first way was in which the ideas took the idea of gods and goddesses who held the ability to manipulate these ideas. The second way was in having a god or goddess who was attributed to the concept.

The actual word 'Fate' in the English language is derived from the Greek goddesses, the fates. They were Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Clotho spun the thread of life, whilst Lachesis took the thread and assigned it destiny and luck, and Atropos would cut the threads at any time. The Fates were powerful goddesses, feared even by Zeus himself. The ancient Greeks used to pray to these goddesses especially in times such as weddings, for a bright future. The Norse had a similar set of gods who controlled fate. They were the Norns, and were Urd, Verthandi and Skuld, which meant past, present and future respectively.

Other Greek creatures include that of the Hours, which is the divine embodiment of time. There was also Justice, who provided justice and fairness all around. There was Death, who took the life of people. There was Sleep and Dreams, goddesses that graced the night world.

Chinese mythology is an example of the patron goddess to various concepts. In the Chinese pantheon, there were goddesses to virtues such as mercy, with the Goddess of Mercy, an important figure in Chinese mythology. There was also the God of Fortune, to which many Chinese prayed throughout the ages, for good luck and prosperity especially at the start of each year. Sleep is often embodied in the form of a god whom the people paid a visit each night. Death was embodied in the form of the book of records kept in the underworld, marking the life span of each mortal and creature in the world.

Ideas such as love are also cherished very much in mythology. The most famous character would be out of Roman mythology, that of Cupid, the winged boy who shot arrows of love. The Greek equivalent of Cupid was Eros, who performed similar tasks.

People in the modern world seldom look up to such gods and goddesses anymore, but the ideas live on very much, today. For example, the Tarot deck is a famous tool for divination, and it is famous for its deck of usually seventy-eight cards, each of which represents different abstract concepts in life.

The inheritance of these concepts from mythology has led us, more often than not, to talk not of hoping to be lucky, but rather, to be praying for Luck; to be in Love, rather than to be loving each other; to be afraid of Death, rather than to be afraid of dying.

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