Mythology is made up of many tales, and many of these stories serve no purpose than as a stage for tales of cosmic proportions. Many others relate stories, which hold important messages to the people who read them. These messages usually pertain to how a person should behave, and what good and bad virtues they should have.

In the discussion of the lessons learned from tales, it would be impossible to comprehensively group all the mythical tales because of the sheer number of them that represent different morals. Instead, we shall look at tales in three main areas. The first area is that of giving encouragement, the second is that of deterrence, whilst the last is of defining social protocol. Each of these will be illustrated with a story, which would hopefully serve its purpose to show the different lessons that can be learned from various mythical tales.

Under the first section, tales that provide encouragement are abundant in mythology. In the story known as Journey to the West, in Chinese mythology, the main character, a Monkey, overcomes many obstacles to travel to the west to obtain Buddhist scriptures with a group of other travelers. However, the important thing to be noted was that Monkey never was a supporter of the cause, and was only compelled by a ring that was placed over his head, and that would contract whenever he was disobedient. His attitude changed slowly throughout the story, and by the end, he had understood the meaning of the work he had undertaken and felt that everything was worthwhile.

The tale is an important cornerstone in Chinese culture, and tells an important lesson that can be applied throughout life, that many things in life are confusing and hard, but what is important is that one perseveres. Only then can one would find meaning and understanding in what they have done. It can especially be applied to that of students, many of which do not hold full appreciation for what they are studying, and who go through the meaningless and painful routine of study.

The next story we shall take a look at, represents lessons that act as deterrence to the reader. It is the story of Narcissus and Echo, from Greek mythology. Echo was a talkative forest nymph. One day, Hera came to confront Zeus about when she had found him in the forest with a nymph. Echo however kept interrupting the goddess, trying to get the last line in. She angered Hera, and as punishment, Hera removed her power of speech, leaving her only to repeat the words of people after they speak. While Echo was in the forest one day, she saw a handsome youth whom she fell in love with, immediately. His name was Narcissus, and he was too proud to give his affections to any of the suitors. Narcissus heard Echo, but she was unable to tell him anything for she he was only able to repeat him. Her voice finally led him to a pool where he saw his reflection. He was infatuated with his reflection, and tried to get at it, but in vain. Eventually, Narcissus killed himself, leaving the poor Echo to cry until she disappeared only leaving her voice behind.

This story contains two important lessons, which can be derived quite simply. The first is of Echo when she tried to rebut Hera while she was talking, and later arguing with her. It makes no good sense in modern society to antagonize people of authority by rebutting them repeatedly, and much less when one has no say in the matter in the first place. As the saying goes, 'Uncalled for comments are best kept to yourself'. The second lesson is in Narcissus' vanity, when he was so self-absorbed he did not bother about anyone who courted him. Finally he paid for his mistake by having his looks kill himself. It shows the effects of his self-centeredness from a third person perspective, except with the effects on himself.

The last theme would be that of social protocol. The lessons that can be learnt from these tales include that of what is right and what is wrong in society, and how members of a family should treat each other, amongst many other ideas which would vary from story to story. Like in the case of Hercules and his twelve tasks, the hero went ahead to perform twelve tasks in order to atone for his sins of killing his wife and children under Hera's curse. This is an example of social protocol, the idea of atonement for one's sins.

A good illustration of this is the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. To make a long story short, it told of the war between two groups of paternal cousins and the eventual outcome of the war. It would be too long to list out the number of themes and lessons that were covered in this long story. Some concepts it dealt with were good and evil, and of the dangers of jealousy and respect between siblings.

It would be impossible to cover all the lessons that are derived from myths, but hopefully the examples given above would be enough to give a good idea of the various lessons that can be gained from myths, and that can even be applied to modern society today.

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