Re: Books of Magic vs Harry Potter?

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 18:20:26 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>My first-approximation answer to the question, "Did the Greeks believe
>in their myths?" would be, On average, no.  Take your average myth
>and your average Greek and the odds are that that particular Greek
>had never even heard that particular myth, let alone subscribed to
>it with fundamentalist fervor.  But I can imagine that Athenians
>right around 400 B.C. would be likelier to buy some of the stories
>of Theseus, say; and Pausanias records a fair amount of what looks
>like genuine belief in local stories.
>
>Joe Bernstein

Are there certain types of myths that Greeks were more and less likely
to believe?  For example, would more people know and believe the myth
about Persephone and the pomegranite seeds being the cause of winter
than the one about Leda and the swan?

Rebecca