Motifs, tale types and indexes
90 minUse classification to find patterns without mistaking the index for the tradition.
Comparative Myth and Legendary Traditions
Use comparative theories carefully, follow stories across media and understand how landscape, power and performance shape legendary worlds.
Study requirement: complete Foundations of Mythic Worlds before this level opens. You may purchase it in advance or choose the complete pathway.
The syllabus.
Six 90-minute guided modules account for approximately nine hours. Source work, the field notebook capstone, revision and final assessment add approximately three hours.
Structuralism and its critics
90 minTest binary and transformational models against messy stories.
Myth and landscape
90 minStudy how place anchors memory, belonging and contested ownership.
Ritual, performance and efficacy
90 minRelate narrative to action without assuming that text dictates practice.
Power, gender and the making of heroes
90 minAsk whose values a legendary order protects.
Adaptation, ownership and cultural borrowing
90 minCreate with inherited stories while respecting living custodians and modern rights.
Timed project route
Three-hour capstone studio
Turn the six notebook checkpoints into a coherent intermediate-level inquiry. The result should demonstrate how to compare methods, variants and institutions while making uncertainty explicit, not merely repeat lesson summaries.
- 01Frame and plan20 min
Rewrite the capstone as one bounded research question. List the six notebook components you will reuse, identify the intended audience and state what the finished work will not claim.
- 02Audit the evidence40 min
Select at least four authoritative public resources and build a citation ledger. For every source, record the item or page, institution, date, access date, direct evidence, interpretive use and one limitation.
- 03Build the synthesis55 min
Draft the required exhibition, dossier, protocol, atlas or case study. Connect each claim to a source or notebook observation, preserve local terminology and keep observation separate from interpretation.
- 04Challenge the argument30 min
Write the strongest reasonable rival interpretation. Test it against the same evidence, retain one unresolved disagreement and revise any sentence that carries more certainty than its source.
- 05Edit and document25 min
Finish the 200-word evidence-limit statement, standardise citations, add useful headings and check that a reader can distinguish fact, historical claim, interpretation and reflection without assistance.
- 06Revise for assessment10 min
Review the six module explanations and your corrected knowledge checks. Note three reasoning rules you will apply in the final assessment and one area that requires another source check.
Completion checklist
- A bounded question and clearly identified audience
- Evidence from all six notebook checkpoints
- At least four complete public-source citations
- A rival interpretation and unresolved disagreement
- A 200-word evidence-limit statement
- A conclusion that respects this pathway boundary: similar motifs can arise through transmission, shared conditions or coincidence; resemblance alone does not identify the cause
Research foundations.
Lessons are independently written and source-led. These starting collections support the pathway; individual modules explain interpretation limits.
The Met: West African epic and oral tradition
The Met: Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp
The Met: Creatures of Myth and Imagination
One-off access
Comparative Myth and Legendary Traditions
No subscription. Unlimited revision-led assessment retakes.