You can’t really understand ‘mythology’ if you don’t have the culture and the historical context – one of the reasons Western-based “internet mythology” remains an ‘entertainment’ or a false promise of mystic wisdom, rather than actual ‘knowledge’.
When it comes to ‘mythology’, one of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is an enthusiatic and frenzied focus on individual events and records rather than the longer term patterns. It’s a basic scientific principle that nothing makes sense unless it’s repeated (ie. it’s reproducible) and that truth holds just as well for ‘mythology’.
The attached link to a NYT article on an ancient Roman pandemic, gives a good example of this kind of thinking (although its related to defined historical events rather than ‘mythological’ events).
Obviously, you can’t compare apples with oranges but the patterns are clear and there to be found if you know your own culture and look close enough.
