The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell

  The bardic lore of Wales, like that of Scotland and Ireland, descends from a very old and abundant pagan-Celtic fund of myth. This was transformed and revivified by the Christian missionaries and chroniclers (fifth century a.d.following), who recorded the old stories and sought painstakingly to co-ordinate them with the Bible. During the tenth century, a brilliant period of romance production, centering primarily in Ireland, converted the inheritance into an important contemporary force. Celtic bards went out to the courts of Christian Europe; Celtic themes were rehearsed by the pagan Scandinavian scalds. A great part of our European fairy lore, as well as the foundation of the Arthurian tradition, traces back to this first great creative period of Occidental romance.[3]

  The flight is a favorite episode of the folktale, where it is developed under many lively forms.

  The Buriat of Irkutsk (Siberia), for example, declare that Morgon-Kara, their first shaman, was so competent that he could bring back souls from the dead. And so the Lord of the Dead complained to the High God of Heaven, and God decided to pose the shaman a test. He got possession of the soul of a certain man and slipped it into a bottle, covering the opening with the ball of his thumb. The man grew ill, and his relatives sent for Morgon-Kara. The shaman looked everywhere for the missing soul. He searched the forest, the waters, the mountain gorges, the land of the dead, and at last mounted, “sitting on his drum,” to the world above, where again he was forced to search for a long time. Presently he observed that the High God of Heaven was keeping a bottle covered with the ball of his thumb, and, studying the circumstance, perceived that inside the bottle was the very soul he had come to find. The wily shaman changed himself into a wasp. He flew at God and gave him such a hot sting on the forehead that the thumb jerked from the opening and the captive got away. Then the next thing God knew, there was this shaman, Morgon-Kara, sitting on his drum again, and going down to earth with the recovered soul. The flight in this case, however, was not entirely successful. Becoming terribly angry, God immediately diminished the power of the shaman forever by splitting his drum in two. And so that is why shaman drums, which originally (according to this story of the Buriat) were fitted with two heads of skin, from that day to this have had only one.[4]

  A popular variety of the magic flight is that in which objects are left behind to speak for the fugitive and thus delay pursuit. The New Zealand Maori tell of a fisherman who one day came home to find that his wife had swallowed their two sons. She was lying groaning on the floor. He asked her what the trouble was, and she declared that she was ill. He demanded to know where the two boys were, and she told him they had gone away. But he knew that she was lying. With his magic, he caused her to disgorge them: they came out alive and whole. Then that man was afraid of his wife, and he determined to escape from her as soon as he could, together with the boys.

  When the ogress went to fetch water, the man, by his magic, caused the water to decrease and retreat ahead of her, so that she had to go a considerable way. Then by gestures he instructed the huts, the clumps of trees growing near the village, the filth dump, and the temple on top of the hill to answer for him when his wife should return and call. He made away with the boys to his canoe, and they hoisted sail. The woman came back, and, not finding anyone about, began to call. First the filth pit replied. She moved in that direction and called again. The houses answered; then the trees. One after another, the various objects in the neighborhood responded to her, and she ran, increasingly bewildered, in every direction. She became weak and began to pant and sob and then, at last, realized what had been done to her. She hastened to the temple on the hilltop and peered out to sea, where the canoe was a mere speck on the horizon.[5]

  Another well-known variety of the magic flight is one in which a number of delaying obstacles are tossed behind by the wildly fleeing hero.

  A little brother and sister were playing by a spring, and as they did so suddenly tumbled in. There was a waterhag down there, and this waterhag said, “Now I have you! Now you shall work your heads off for me!” And she carried them away with her. She gave to the little girl a tangle of filthy flax to spin and made her fetch water in a bottomless tub; the boy had to chop a tree with a blunt ax; and all they ever had to eat were stone-hard lumps of dough. So at last the children became so impatient that they waited until one Sunday, when the hag had gone to church, and escaped. When church let out, the hag discovered that her birds had flown, and so made after them with mighty bounds.

  But the children espied her from afar, and the little girl threw back a hairbrush, which immediately turned into a big brush-mountain with thousands and thousands of bristles over which the hag found it very difficult to climb; nevertheless, she finally appeared. As soon as the children saw her, the boy threw back a comb, which immediately turned into a big comb-mountain with a thousand times a thousand spikes; but the hag knew how to catch hold of these, and at last she made her way through. Then the little girl threw back a mirror, and this turned into a mirror-mountain, which was so smooth that the hag was unable to get over. Thought she: “I shall hurry back home and get my ax and chop the mirror-mountain in two.” But by the time she got back and demolished the glass, the children were long since far away, and the waterhag had to trudge back again to her spring.[6]

  The powers of the abyss are not to be challenged lightly. In the Orient, a great point is made of the danger of undertaking the psychologically disturbing practices of yoga without competent supervision. The meditations of the postulant have to be adjusted to his progress, so that the imagination may be defended at every step by devatas (envisioned, adequate deities) until the moment comes for the prepared spirit to step alone beyond. As Dr. Jung has very wisely observed:

  The incomparably useful function of the dogmatic symbol [is that] it protects a person from a direct experience of God as long as he does not mischievously expose himself. But if...he leaves home and family, lives too long alone, and gazes too deeply into the dark mirror, then the awful event of the meeting may befall him. Yet even then the traditional symbol, come to full flower through the centuries, may operate like a healing draught and divert the fatal incursion of the living godhead into the hallowed spaces of the church.[7]

  The magic objects tossed behind by the panic-ridden hero — protective interpretations, principles, symbols, rationalizations, anything — delay and absorb the power of the started Hound of Heaven, permitting the adventurer to come back into his fold safe and with perhaps a boon. But the toll required is not always slight.

  One of the most shocking of the obstacle flights is that of the Greek hero Jason. He had set forth to win the Golden Fleece. Putting to sea in the magnificent Argo with a great company of warriors, he had sailed in the direction of the Black Sea, and, though delayed by many fabulous dangers, arrived, at last, miles beyond the Bosporus, at the city and palace of King Aeëtes. Behind the palace was the grove and tree of the dragon-guarded prize.

  Now the daughter of the king, Medea, conceived an overpowering passion for the illustrious foreign visitor and, when her father imposed an impossible task as the price of the Golden Fleece, compounded charms that enabled him to succeed. The task was to plough a certain field, employing bulls of flaming breath and brazen feet, then to sow the field with dragon’s teeth and slay the armed men who should immediately spring into being. But with his body and armor anointed with Medea’s charm, Jason mastered the bulls; and when the army sprang from the dragon seed, he tossed a stone into their midst, which turned them face to face, and they slew each other to the man.

  The infatuated young woman conducted Jason to the oak from which hung the Fleece. The guarding dragon was distinguished by a crest, a three-forked tongue, and nastily hooked fangs; but with the juice of a certain herb the couple put the formidable monster to sleep. Then Jason snatched the prize. Medea ran with him, and the Argo put to sea. But the king was soon in swift pursuit. And when Medea perceived that his sails were cutting down their lead, she persuaded Jason to kill Apsyrtos, her
younger brother whom she had carried off, and toss the pieces of the dismembered body into the sea. This forced King Aeëtes, her father, to put about, rescue the fragments, and go ashore to give them decent burial. Meanwhile the Argo ran with the wind and passed from his ken.[8]

  In the Japanese “Records of Ancient Matters” appears another harrowing tale, but of very different import: that of the descent to the underworld of the primeval all-father Izanagi, to recover from the land of the Yellow Stream his deceased sister-spouse Izanami. She met him at the door to the lower world, and he said to her: “Thine Augustness, my lovely younger sister! The lands that I and thou made are not yet finished making; so come back!” She replied: “Lamentable indeed that thou camest not sooner! I have eaten of the food of the Land of the Yellow Stream. Nevertheless, as I am overpowered by the honor of the entry here of Thine Augustness, my lovely elder brother, I wish to return. Moreover, I will discuss the matter particularly with the deities of the Yellow Stream. Be careful, do not look at me!”

  She retired into the palace; but as she tarried there very long, he could not wait. He broke off one of the end-teeth of the comb that was stuck in the august left bunch of his hair, and, lighting it as a little torch, he went in and looked. What he saw were maggots swarming, and Izanami rotting.

  Aghast at the sight, Izanagi fled back. Izanami said: “Thou hast put me to shame.”

  Izanami sent the Ugly Female of the nether world in pursuit. Izanagi in full flight took the black headdress from his head and cast it down. Instantly it turned into grapes, and, while his pursuer paused to eat them, he continued on his rapid way. But she resumed the pursuit and gained on him. He took and broke the multitudinous and close-toothed comb in the right bunch of his hair and cast it down. Instantly it turned into bamboo sprouts, and, while she pulled them up and ate them, he fled.

  Then his younger sister sent in pursuit of him the eight thunder deities with a thousand and five hundred warriors of the Yellow Stream. Drawing the ten-grasp saber that was augustly girded on him, he fled, brandishing this behind him. But the warriors still pursued. Reaching the frontier pass between the world of the living and the land of the Yellow Stream, he took three peaches that were growing there, waited, and when the army came against him, hurled them. The peaches from the world of the living smote the warriors of the land of the Yellow Stream, who turned and fled.

  Her Augustness Izanami, last of all, came out herself. So he drew up a rock which it would take a thousand men to lift, and with it blocked up the pass. And with the rock between them, they stood opposite to one another and exchanged leave-takings. Izanami said: “My lovely elder brother, Thine Augustness! If thou dost behave like this, henceforth I shall cause to die every day one thousand of thy people in thy realm.” Izanagi answered: “My lovely younger sister, Thine Augustness! If thou dost so, then I will cause every day one thousand and five hundred women to give birth.”[9]

  Having moved a step beyond the creative sphere of all-father Izanagi into the field of dissolution, Izanami had sought to protect her brother-husband. When he had seen more than he could bear, he lost his innocence of death but, with his august will to live, drew up as a mighty rock that protecting veil which we all have held, ever since, between our eyes and the grave.

  The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and hundreds of analogous tales throughout the world, suggest, as does this ancient legend of the farthest East, that in spite of the failure recorded, a possibility exists of a return of the lover with his lost love from beyond the terrible threshold. It is always some little fault, some slight yet critical symptom of human frailty, that makes impossible the open interrelationship between the worlds; so that one is tempted to believe, almost, that if the small, marring accident could be avoided, all would be well. In the Polynesian versions of the romance, however, where the fleeing couple usually escape, and in the Greek satyr-play of Alcestis, where we also have a happy return, the effect is not reassuring, but only superhuman. The myths of failure touch us with the tragedy of life, but those of success only with their own incredibility. And yet, if the monomyth is to fulfill its promise, not human failure or superhuman success but human success is what we shall have to be shown. That is the problem of the crisis of the threshold of the return. We shall first consider it in the superhuman symbols and then seek the practical teaching for historic man.

  Figure 47. The Resurrection of Osiris (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. 282–145 b.c.)

  3. Rescue from Without

  The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without. That is to say, the world may have to come and get him. For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state. “Who having cast off the world,” we read, “would desire to return again? He would be only there.”[10] And yet, in so far as one is alive, life will call. Society is jealous of those who remain away from it, and will come knocking at the door. If the hero — like Muchukunda — is unwilling, the disturber suffers an ugly shock; but on the other hand, if the summoned one is only delayed — sealed in by the beatitude of the state of perfect being (which resembles death) — an apparent rescue is effected, and the adventurer returns.

  When Raven of the Eskimo tale had darted with his fire sticks into the belly of the whale-cow, he discovered himself at the entrance of a handsome room, at the farther end of which burned a lamp. He was surprised to see sitting there a beautiful girl. The room was dry and clean, the whale’s spine supporting the ceiling and the ribs forming the walls. From a tube that ran along the backbone, oil dripped slowly into the lamp.

  When Raven entered the room, the woman looked up and cried: “How did you get here? You are the first man to enter this place.” Raven told what he had done, and she bade him take a seat on the opposite side of the room. This woman was the soul (inua) of the whale. She spread a meal before the visitor, gave him berries and oil, and told him, meanwhile, how she had gathered the berries the year before. Raven remained four days as guest of the inua in the belly of the whale, and during the entire period was trying to ascertain what kind of tube that could be, running along the ceiling. Every time the woman left the room, she forbade him to touch it. But now, when she again went out, he walked over to the lamp, stretched out his claw, and caught on it a big drop, which he licked off with his tongue. It was so sweet that he repeated the act, and then proceeded to catch drop after drop, as fast as they fell. Presently, however, his greed found this too slow, and so he reached up, broke off a piece of the tube, and ate it. Hardly had he done so, when a great gush of oil poured into the room, extinguished the light, and the chamber itself began to roll heavily back and forth. This rolling went on for four days. Raven was almost dead with fatigue and with the terrible noise that stormed around him all the while. But then everything quieted down and the room lay still; for Raven had broken one of the heart-arteries, and the whale-cow had died. The inua never returned. The body of the whale was washed ashore.

  But now Raven was a prisoner. While he pondered what he should do, he heard two men talking, up on the back of the animal, and they decided to summon all the people from the village to help with the whale. Very soon they had cut a hole in the upper part of the great body.* When it was large enough, and all the people had gone off with pieces of meat to carry them high up on the shore, Raven stepped out unnoticed. But no sooner had he reached the ground than he remembered he had left his fire sticks within. He took off his coat and mask, and pretty soon the people saw a small, black man, wrapped up in a queer animal skin approaching them. They looked at him curiously. The man offered to help, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work.

  In a little while, one of the people working in the interior of the whale shouted, “Look what I have found! Fire sticks in the belly of the whale!” Raven said, “My, but this is bad! My daughter once told me that when fire sticks are found inside a whale that people have cut open, many of these people will die! I’m for running!” He
rolled down his sleeves again and made away. The people hurried to follow his example. And so that was how Raven, who then doubled back, had, for a time, the whole feast to himself.[11]

  Shintō, “The Way of the Gods,” the tradition native to the Japanese as distinguished from the imported Butsudō, or “Way of the Buddha,” is a way of devotion to the guardians of life and custom (local spirits, ancestral powers, heroes, the divine king, one’s living parents, and one’s living children) as distinguished from the powers that yield release from the round (Bodhisattvas and Buddhas). The way of worship is primarily that of preserving and cultivating purity of heart: “What is ablution? It is not merely cleansing the body with holy water, but following the Right and Moral Way.”[12] “What pleases the Deity is virtue and sincerity, not any number of material offerings.”[13]

  Amaterasu, ancestress of the Royal House, is the chief divinity of the numerous folk pantheon, yet herself only the highest manifestation of the unseen, transcendent yet immanent, Universal God: “The Eight Hundred Myriads of Gods are but differing manifestations of one unique Deity, Kunitokotachi-no-Kami, The Eternally Standing Divine Being of the Earth, The Great Unity of All Things in the Universe, The Primordial Being of Heaven and Earth, eternally existing from the beginning to the end of the world.”[14] “What deity does Amaterasu worship in abstinence in the Plain of High Heaven? She worships her own Self within as a Deity, endeavoring to cultivate divine virtue in her own person by means of inner purity and thus becoming one with the Deity.”[15]

  Since the Deity is immanent in all things, all things are to be regarded as divine, from the pots and pans of the kitchen to the Emperor: this is Shintō, “The Way of the Gods.” The Emperor being in the highest position receives the greatest reverence, but not reverence different in kind from that bestowed upon all things. “The awe-inspiring Deity manifests Itself, even in the single leaf of a tree or a delicate blade of grass.”[16] The function of reverence in Shintō is to honor that Deity in all things; the function of purity to sustain Its manifestation in oneself — following the august model of the divine self-worship of the goddess Amaterasu. “With the unseen God who seeth all secret things in the silence, the heart of the man sincere communes from the earth below” (from a poem by the Emperor Meiji).[17]