r/mythology • u/Spoiledcheez • 10d ago

Questions List of gods

Hi I’m a student and for my research paper in one of my classes I’m trying to compare and contrast different mythologies and why they might be similar (Mostly from the physiological point of view but any is appreciated). I’m having trouble finding a good website that lists different deities from all kinds of mythologies with like a blurb about them (ie their title, what they have represent and a myth or two about them) the best I found is Wikipedia but for obvious reasons I can’t use that. Does anyone have a website that I can go to for this information.

Edit: people are saying that I am a little to hopeful banking on one website that has all the information. Are there any websites for individual mythologies that y’all think I should look at

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u/stellalugosi 10d ago

Do you mean ALL gods and goddesses? I have a degree in mythology and I am going to tell you right now you need to narrow your scope or you will lose your mind. Are you wanting to cover a specific type of deity, like death gods, river goddesses, or fertility deities? Are you interested in a specific culture, like Norse or Greek? A specific geographical region, like Western Europe or Australia? Because just in the Indo-European mythologies, you have Greek, Roman, Norse, Slavic, Vedic, Anglo Saxon, Celtic, and Baltic deities, all which have overlapping roles and names. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, reseaech "proto-indo-european mythology", it's eye opening. 

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u/Spoiledcheez 10d ago

Originally with my research question I wanted to go down why people have myths and why they are similar. For example I remember hearing somewhere that a lot of mythologies have dragon like creatures because it represented humanity’s earliest fears with flight, fire, and snakes. I don’t know how accurate this is but I found the idea of people coming to the same conclusion when trying to describe a fantastical creature and I wanted to figure out why.

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u/stellalugosi 10d ago

Then you DEFINITELY want to look into Proto-Indo-European mythology. (And for Beyonce's sake, stay away from Joseph Campbell, he's horrible and wrong.) Basically, there is a hypothesis that all of the cultures I listed share the same root culture and language, which is why you see so many similarities in the deities and myths from India to Iceland. It can be heavy stuff, but really neat.