10 best mythological tales from around the world

In an exclusive article for HT Brunch, India’s best-known mythology storyteller narrates his favourite stories from various cultures from around the world

Fact is everybody’s truth. Fiction is nobody’s truth. Myth is somebody’s truth. It’s a cultural truth, a religious truth, a nation’s truth, one that binds a community together by giving them a common worldview to function within.

Equality is not a rational concept, writes Devdutt Pattanaik. It is a subjective truth, a belief that comes to us from Abrahamic mythology. Likewise the idea of justice comes from Greek mythology.

The god of war, earth, sky, wisdom, poetry and magic in Norse mythology, Odin sacrificed his eye for wisdom. (Getty Images/Art Images)

Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens’ depiction of The Judgement of Paris.

(From left to right) Izanami and Izanagi churning out islands from the sea; Inanna depicted on the Ishtar Vase at The Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

In Arabic folklore, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is not an apple but a banana. The Arabs equated India with its silks and spices as the land of Eden.