I'm watching a netflix show Myth's and Monsters, episode 2.
The story of aticus going into the wild and coming across a goddess and her nymphs bathing.
Assuming that gods never existed, how and why did these stories start coming up?
I can understand stories that are meant to explain something, like new land creation, or the "controlling of seasons", giving up a divine like experience that no human could possibly do. Or by governments looking to control the population.
But a story about a random person meeting a goddess and running away doesn't seem like theirs any message or use attached to it, other then just some story that was made up. (The show says Aticus encroached on a god and needed to be punished for that action, turned into a stag and then devoured by his dogs.)
So why did all these crazy mythlogical stories happen? Why are they so fanciful?
Thanks :)
It might be helpful to think of mythology not just as stories made specifically to explain natural phenomena, but just as the collection of stories and legends rooted in a culture's understanding of the world and history. Greek myths weren't simply built to explain nature, but to explain (what they thought was) their history and create nostalgia for their past, although in reality these stories were created, passed on, and modified long before the Greeks really came to be. I think these older answers should be illuminating:
Where did the Greek gods and myths come from? by /u/-Geistzeit, which discusses the linguistics involved in tracing the origins of Greek myths to pre-Greek civilizations.
Which figures from Greek mythology have a basis in reality? (e.g. were Odysseus, Agamemnon, Hercules, Oedipus etc. based on real people?) by /u/itsallfolklore, which doesn't directly address the question, but further demonstrates by way of comparative mythology [or something like that] how legends—in and out of Greek mythology—can be inspired by older stories.
None of these directly address the specific myth you're talking about, but I think they're a good start at getting a broad understanding.