Original subtitles

(suspenseful music) (warrior groaning)

(lightening crackling)

(snakes hissing)

(animals growling)

- The tales have been told since man

first gathered around the fires of prehistory.

Tales of the strange and wondrous things hidden

in the vast unknown shadows of the world.

(thrilling music)

Tales of creatures divine

and beasts demonic,

of gods and kings,

(animal hisses deeply) of myths and monsters.

From dark forests to the lands of ice,

from desert wastes to the storm-thrashed seas,

every corner of the earth has its legends to tell.

Stories of heroes and the villains they encounter,

of the wilderness and the dangers within.

Stores of battles, of love, of order,

and of chaos.

(dogs barking)

But what are the roots of these fantastic tales,

and why have they endured so long?

In this series,

we'll explore the history behind these legends

and reveal the hidden influences that shaped them.

(swords clanking) War and disease,

religious and social upheaval,

the untameable ferocity of the natural world,

(waves crashing)

and above all,

the monsters lurking within ourselves.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

"Ivan was alone in the castle.

(horse whinnying)

"His wife, the fair and fierce princess,

"had gone to war with her armies.

"She had left Ivan just one instruction.

"He was not to climb the tallest turret

"of the tallest tower.

"Weeks passed and Ivan grew bored.

"He remembered his wife's command,

"but his curiosity conquered all.

"Ivan climbed the tallest turret of the tallest tower.

(footsteps tapping)

"At the top he found a chamber,

"and within a starving prisoner.

(chains rattling)

'Please, water.'

"Ivan was moved by the sight

"and fetched a cup of water.

"The prisoner drank it all,

"but then he suddenly transformed.

"For the prisoner was none other

"than the dreaded Koschei the Deathless.

'You fool,' he cried!

'Now you will never see your wife again.'

"With that he bounded through the open window

"and swept like a whirlwind into the sky,

"and soon he would have the princess in his grasp.

"If he was ever to rescue his beloved wife,

"a long and dangerous adventure lay ahead."

Ivan's quest had begun.

(dramatic music)

(somber music)

The story of Ivan

and Koschei the Deathless

is an old Slavic tale.

But all human beings are storytellers.

Throughout history and across civilizations,

humans have told one another stories.

Stories of good and evil,

of great deeds and lost causes.

Stories of our past, our futures,

and who we are now.

Stories are a way we explore

what it means to be human.

We live today in a culture

saturated with narrative and story.

But in the days before mass media,

the internet, film camera,

even the printing press,

the need for story was no less.

When the ability to read and write

was given to very few,

tales were spread by word of mouth.

(dramatic music)

With each telling a detail here might change,

or something there might be forgotten

and replaced with something new,

and in this process of mutation,

these stories became something else.

Something not stemming from one mind or one pen,

but something instead that was the product of a collective,

of a particular people

and a particular place and time.

They became myth.

(thunder crashing) (suspenseful music)

(monster roaring)

- Myths tell us who we are.

We use stories to explain to ourselves

why we do things in certain ways.

- They tell us about the part of our souls that's emotion.

That's not entirely rational.

(sensational music)

- Things can happen in myths on a much grander scale.

Emotions are heightened.

Drama is heightened.

- Myths tell us an awful lot about our desire for justice,

the desire for truth,

the desire for different sorts of virtues,

and about how and why we go on journeys

and what we actually do on the journey

in order to return home.

(monsters roaring)

- It tells us what our values are.

It tell us how we treat strangers,

how we treat our family,

how we worship the gods,

what happens if we don't.

- They are embedded in our cultural psyche,

whether we realize it or not.

(monster roaring)

(bubbles gurgling)

(gentle music)

- Few myths are more exciting

than tales of great heroes

and the foes they encounter

in their adventures.

Such heroic quests are found

in tales from cultures across the globe

and throughout history.

But there are often striking similarities

between such stories.

The mighty warrior

who's all but invulnerable to harm.

The witches and wizards who help or hinder.

The menacing giants,

the beguiling temptations,

the journeys into dark caves

or into the depths of the underworld.

All are found in tales from different cultures

and different times.

But what if there was more to these echoes

than mere coincidence?

That was the belief of an American mythologist

named Joseph Campbell.

(gentle music)

Form an early age,

Campbell was obsessed with mythology.

As a young man in the 1930s,

he spent years examining ancient texts

from around the world.

It was in this period of intense study

that a theory formed in his mind.

It was a theory that would make him famous.

In the countless stories

that he read and analyzed,

Campbell thought he spotted something,

a pattern.

(dramatic music)

- [Diane] Campbell was trying to make a claim

for a sort of universal human nature

that can be appealed to by a certain kind of story.

He laid out what he thought was the story that's common

to all hero myths everywhere in the world.

- [Miles] Campbell believed that you could read this kind

of mythological quest or the hero's journey

throughout all of Western mythology.

- [Paul] As he engages with non-Western cultures,

he develops this idea further

until we get the book,

"The Hero with a Thousand Faces."

- [Nicolas] "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"

was published in 1949.

Drawing on the pioneering works

of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and others,

Campbell outlined the recurring stages

he had identified in story after story,

from culture after culture.

He dubbed it the Hero's Journey.

"The Hero with a Thousand Faces"

became an unlikely bestseller,

with a particular impact on the big screen.

George Lucas, the creator of "Star Wars",

has credited the book with shaping

his thoughts about the saga.

Luke's thrilling adventures follow almost every stage

laid out by the hero's journey.

(dramatic music)

- [Diane] All hero's journeys begin

with the hero at rest in their home culture.

So one particular stage is the call to adventure.

An outsider figure comes and calls them to adventure.

Says, "Come on, Luke,

"you've got to go and do something now

"and help this girl."

He embarks on a journey into the unknown,

a realm that's usually much more

crowded with the supernatural.

- [Liz] The hero is tested in these strange surroundings

and has to pass various trials in order to continue.

- [Diane] Within that realm he meets various mentors

and also various companion figures,

who became part of a sort of entourage

that he travels around with.

Typically, he then has

a near-death experience type adventure,

where he plunges down into some kind of abyss.

- [Liz] But the hero survives this darkest moment,

and then achieves perhaps new knowledge

or a treasure as a reward.

And then he flees,

pursued by the enemy.

- [Diane] From which he arises transformed,

capable of fulfilling the quest on which he started out.

- [Liz] There's one final test,

and that is often a moment of life or death.

The hero has to use all the knowledge

that he's gained up until this far

to come through that and succeed.

The end result is a new world,

a new status quo that comes into being.

(dramatic music)

- "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"

became one of the most influential books

in the 20th century.

(wind howling) (horses thundering)

But how did Campbell's ideas

apply away from the cinema screen?

Does Ivan's battle with Koschei the Deathless fit the model?

What about the other great adventures of mythology?

Is every hero truly on the same journey,

or is Joseph Campbell's theory just another myth?

We begin with Arthur,

legendary King of the Britons,

and the tale of greatest quest

his knights embarked upon,

the quest for the Holy Grail.

(choir vocalizing)

(dramatic music)

(gentle music) (water rushing)

Stories of King Arthur have been told

and retold for centuries.

The legendary monarch

was raised in obscurity far from court,

but he proved his birthright

by drawing the sword from the stone,

and from his castle at Camelot,

he went on to rule Britain with wisdom and justice.

- King Arthur, for us, is a mythical figure.

Possibly based on a real life figure

from the 6th or 8th century.

- Well, the very earliest reference to Arthur is

in a 7th century Welsh poem.

It's quite a fun one,

where a great warrior is described,

and then it adds, sort of ruefully,

"But he wasn't Arthur."

It's that he seems just to be known as the warrior.

He's not really being referenced as a king.

But in the 11th century,

a guy called Geoffrey of Monmouth,

obviously also from Wales,

produces the first really

sustained narrative about Arthur and the Round Table.

(gentle music)

- [Nicolas] "The History of the Kings of Britain"

is a pseudo historical account of British history,

chronicling the lives of its kings

over the course of 2,000 years,

until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control

of much of the island around the 7th century.

- The problem with "The History of Britain",

is that it's not completely factual.

It's a real patchwork of various historical facts,

certainly some fiction mixed in.

So it's a real melting pot of influences

that Geoffrey of Monmouth put into "The History of Britain."

The Arthur of mythology and the wonderful towers of Camelot,

stand very much, I think,

for a vision of Britain that never existed,

but perhaps one that a lot of people wished did exist.

- It has all the hallmarks

of the great epic.

Boy born in obscurity,

magical figures, battles.

It has knights.

It has romance.

It has tragedy as well, of course.

And then it has this notion at the end

that the King will return.

That I think is comforting on some level

that in England's greatest need,

this epic warrior will return.

- So whatever you think

a perfect king is that's Arthur.

What he's become is a British

personification of the ideal king,

and therefore that varies across different periods,

because people's idea of what they want from a king

and what they want from a leader

is historically quite variable.

(dramatic music)

- Arthur was a great king,

but even great kings sometimes need help.

So too would Ivan

in his quest to defeat Koschei the Deathless.

(tense music)

"Ivan journeyed on

"through forests and valleys.

"Until one day, he came upon

"a wondrous palace hidden among the trees.

"As he neared its gates,

"he was watched from the branch of a lofty oak tree,

"For this was the home of the falcon wizard.

"Ivan explained his quest to him.

"The wizard knew of Koschei

"and the danger Ivan faced.

"He promised to help if ever it was needed.

"Ivan continued on his quest.

"In the days that followed,

"he met an eagle wizard,

"then a raven wizard, too.

(bird cawing)

"Both made the same promise to Ivan.

"He would need all their help to succeed in his quest

"and rescue the lost princess."

Heroes cannot do it all alone.

Sometimes they will have to rely on their wisdom

and aid of others to triumph,

and sometimes these helpers are in disguise.

Sometimes they possess magical powers,

and sometimes they go on to become

as famous as the heroes themselves.

(dramatic music)

At King Arthur's side, through many of the stories,

is a mysterious figure with magical powers,

the wizard known as Merlin.

He was the one who planted the sword in the stone,

and it was he who brought Arthur

from obscurity to claim the British crown.

In popular culture today,

Merlin is as renowned as Arthur himself.

He is the archetypal wizard,

the ancestor and inspiration for Gandalf

in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"

and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films.

(dramatic music)

But magical helpers, such as Merlin,

are found throughout myth and legend.

Joseph Campbell recognized this.

The supernatural aid is usually an older character.

Their wisdom and guidance

are needed for the adventure ahead.

Often too, they must give the hero the final push necessary

to leave the ordinary behind

and enter the special world.

King Arthur and the wizard Merlin

were once thought real historical figures.

Over time such beliefs faded.

However, the stories themselves never went away.

The development of the legend in the medieval era

culminated in 1485.

That year saw the publication of "Le Morte d'Arthur,"

"The Death of Arthur."

Eight stories of the King and his knights,

complied from sources in France and in England.

Here was the Arthurian legend complete.

The author of the book

was a man named Sir Thomas Malory.

- Historical documentation tells us

Thomas Malory was a thief, a brigands,

perhaps even a sexual predator and a rapist,

and that ultimately he was incarcerated

in Newgate Prison in London.

- We tend to associate "Le Morte d'Arthur"

with chivalry and with a particular interest

in the Knights of the Round Table as defenders of women.

So at first we might go,

"Well, wait, why would a rapist write that?"

- It's this criminal aspect which has made critics weary

of suggesting that this the Malory

who writes "Morte d'Arthur"

because they see a clear disconnection

between his criminal behavior

and a text that seems to be about chivalry.

- [Nicolas] The Arthurian legends

may have roots in more ancient folklore,

but Malory's work is distinctly Christian.

Religious symbolism saturates the text,

and supernatural elements common in earlier versions

are all but eliminated.

In Malory's Christian Camelot,

there is little room for the wizard, Merlin,

and the pagan magic he represents.

Even Arthur himself seems tainted by the association.

For the holiest and most famous adventure

of "Le Morte d'Arthur" centers neither on Merlin

nor on the King he mentored.

Instead, it is the Knights of Camelot

who embark on this great adventure,

the quest for the Holy Grail.

(dramatic music)

- The Holy Grail in most mythologies

is the cup Jesus Christ used at the Last Supper,

in which he consecrated the wine

and turned it into His blood.

Later in legend,

Joseph of Arimathea is supposed

to have come along with this same cup

and caught the blood from the wound in Christ's side.

- [Miles] That cup, then, will give immortality

to those who then drink from it.

Of course immortality not just in a physical sense,

but much more in the spiritual sense.

- [Paul] It becomes this holy relic

with this really heightened significance

where it becomes something

to be possessed at all costs,

but something which only

a few people can actually approach.

(dramatic music)

- The Knights were called to adventure

in the most direct way.

During a dinner at Camelot,

the castle shook,

and a holy light filled the chamber.

Then the Grail itself appeared

before Arthur and his knights.

After the miraculous appearance

of the Grail at Camelot,

the Knights, Lancelot, Galahad, Percival,

and Bors set out to retrieve it.

(dramatic music)

Arthur mourned their departure.

He knew the quest his knights embarked upon

would change them forever,

and that the fellowship at Camelot

would never be the same.

His knights left the ordinary world of the castle behind.

Crossing the threshold,

they entered the special world of adventure.

(wind howling)

(dramatic music)

"Ivan had found his captive wife at last.

(tense music) (wind howling)

"But the demon holding her was too fast.

"Try as he might,

"Ivan could never catch them.

"Koshei the Deathless had a magical steed,

"whose legs outpaced the wind.

(horses galloping)

"The exhausted Ivan finally gave up the chase.

"It was then that Koshei attacked.

"Ivan was no match for the strength of the giant.

"Koshei chopped him into pieces,

(blades clanking)

"bound him in a barrel,

"and pitched him into the sea.

(bubbles gurgling)

"Far away, Ivan's wizard friends sensed his plight.

"They rescued the barrel

"and put Ivan back together again.

'He could never outpace Koshei,' they said.

"Not without a magical horse,

"and those could only be found

"beyond thrice-nine lands and a river of fire,

"at the home of the Baba Yaga.

"His quest was far from over.

"But at last,

"he knew how he could save his beloved wife

"and defeat the demonic giant."

For a hero like Ivan to succeed,

he must overcome a series of often dangerous tests.

Joseph Campbell called this stage

the Road of Trials.

Here these perilous, for an audience,

exciting encounters challenge the hero,

who is often aided by magical helpers

or thwarted by new enemies.

But with every victory and setback, our hero is learning

and preparing for greater tests to come.

(dramatic music)

(waves crashing)

No road of trials was longer

or more arduous than that faced

by the hero of the ancient Greek epic, "The Odyssey."

Attributed to an author

known only by the name Homer,

it tells the story of the journey home of Odysseus

after the Trojan War.

He had been fighting at Troy

with his fellow Greek kings for 10 years.

(soldiers shouting)

Meanwhile, on his home island of Ithaca,

the son he had left behind

was growing up without him.

Other men were eyeing his empty throne

and Penelope his unaccompanied wife.

(solemn music)

- [Liz] Odysseus was the king of Ithaca,

and he was known as being a very important hero

during the Trojan War.

He was the person who came up with the plot

to get inside the walls of Troy with the Trojan horse

and was mainly known for his intellectual skill.

- [Diane] Odysseus is best described

by Homer's opening line on him,

"The man of many minds.

"The man with the really rich, inventive brain."

(solemn music)

- Odysseus was at war for a decade.

Getting home however would take just as long.

Such an extended journey

was not Odysseus intention of course.

He had planned to sail

straight back home across the sea,

to join his wife and son in Ithaca.

But as was often the case in

the tales of ancient Greece,

the plans of mortal men were at the mercy

of unpredictable and often vengeful gods.

(foreboding music)

(waves crashing)

- [Diane] The Greeks had managed to alienate

some very powerful deities

by their incessant pursuit of Troy,

and as a result of that,

they've particularly angered the god Poseidon.

And the god, Poseidon,

pretty much ensures that Odysseus

and his men aren't going to have

a straightforward journey back to Ithaca.

- [Liz] One of the people he met on his journey

was the Cyclops, Polyphemus,

and this is where the trouble starts.

- He and his men are captured by the Cyclops,

who's a big scary giant with one eye

in the middle of his forehead.

He starts eating Odysseus's men one by one,

and eventually lets them go by mistake

because Odysseus tricks him.

But then it turns out that

the Cyclops is the son of Poseidon.

- [Liz] Poseidon, essentially,

is very offended at the outrage that's been done to his son

and dogs Odysseus's steps all the way home.

(dramatic music)

- Odysseus' journey became a lot more difficult.

On his road of trials

he encountered hideous monsters,

ravenous cannibals,

a deceitful witch,

together with all the wild and strange furies of the sea.

Among them, of course,

the beguiling but deadly sirens.

(mystical music)

These mysterious creatures

lived in a meadow on a tiny island.

Singing out to the ships that passed,

they lured countless men to their shores,

never to leave again.

Odysseus knew all this,

but wanted to hear their song all the same.

He ordered his men to stop up their ears with wax

and tie him to the mast.

No matter how he pleaded,

the men were not to release him,

and they were not to stop rowing.

(mystical music)

- Homer doesn't tell us

what the sirens looked like.

There's no physical description in Homer at all.

Until you hit some point

in the medieval period,

where suddenly you start getting

many more illustrations of sirens as half woman half fish.

- When we think about how it is to live a life

that's dominated by the ocean, and by voyaging,

and by the physical apprehension

of just how alien the ocean is,

we want to put some flesh on that

to tell a story about that.

To tell a story about our fear and our longing,

and to do that we create something

that's part ocean and part us,

and that's the mermaid.

(choir vocalizing)

- [Nicolas] Mermaids date back

to the Assyrian cultures of 1000 B.C.,

but are common to folklore around the world.

They are usually depicted as young and beautiful.

However, much like the sea itself,

mermaids can help or hinder.

"The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen

is a story of the kinder sort.

Published in 1836,

the book tells of a young mermaid

who saves a human prince from drowning.

Falling in love,

she trades her beautiful voice to a sea witch for a potion

which transforms her into a human.

But winning the Prince's heart proves far from easy.

Andersen's kind heroine

is unlike many other mermaids however.

In British folklore,

the creatures brought bad luck

and were said to taunt sailors in doomed ships.

Slavic mermaids were also dangerous.

They were called rusalkas

and were the spirits of the unhappy dead.

Beautiful and damned,

they lured young men into the waters to drown beside them.

(solemn music)

- [Diane] Worth remembering at this point

that hardly anyone could swim in the pre-industrial world.

Therefore all cultures produced this phenomenon

of terrifying emanations that represent death at sea.

(waves crashing)

People tend to imagine sailors loving the sea.

Actually they don't,

and all the folklore shows they don't.

They distrust it,

and they find it terrifying

and unpredictable and scary.

- [Liz] This is way before

we've got electronic navigation.

This is in the early days of ship faring,

where you have to stay close to the shore

because if you get too far out, you're in trouble.

(solemn music)

- It's well worth remembering how horribly,

physically impossible long voyages were in the past.

So, if you were at sea for more than three or four weeks

scurvy would have started to set in,

and scurvy affects your mental processes.

It makes you hallucinate.

It makes you see things that aren't there.

Makes you interpret what you see

in frightening hallucinogenic type terms.

(mystical music)

- Could these hallucinations

be the cause of such visions

of sirens and mermaids?

We will never know for sure.

(mystical music)

Odysseus sailed on unharmed

from his encounter with the sirens.

But they were far from the only female threat

he faced on his journey home.

To reach his wife, Penelope,

Odysseus had to outfox the witch, Circe,

who had transformed his men into pigs.

And he had to flee imprisonment

by the nymph Calypso,

who desired him for her husband.

- The threat from a lot of the female antagonists

that Odysseus encounters

is they set up rival places to dwell.

The fact it takes him so long

to wrench himself away from Circe,

the fact he has to endure staying with Calypso,

all reinforces just how much that nostos,

that return home is so important.

- Of course Penelope is being constantly hounded

by different suitors at the court.

So, I think there's a mirroring effect.

When Odysseus is moving through his journey,

of course, he's then got to also be

assailed by these various women.

- One thing that scholars have said

about the song of the sirens

is that the language that's used

and the way it's phrased in the original Greek,

feels much more like it's been

a passage taken out of the "Iliad".

That in a way the sirens are actually trying

to call Odysseus back into the previous poem,

into being a previous sort of hero,

the sort of hero of the battlefield,

and that part of his temptation

is to go back to that form of heroism,

which now the Trojan War has ended,

there's no place for any more.

(dramatic music)

- Once a hero such as Odysseus

has negotiated the trials,

seen off temptations,

and survived it all,

he is ready for one final ordeal.

(dramatic music)

The object of the quest is within reach,

and one more challenge lies ahead.

(monster roaring)

The greatest he must endure.

"Hungry and faint,

"he walked on and on.

"Until at last Ivan came to the house.

"Twelve poles stood in a circle around it.

"On all but one was stuck a human head.

"This was the home of the Baba Yaga.

'You've come for my horses,'

"said the old woman.

'Well, you can take one if you're fast enough.

'I'll give you three days to find them.

'Fail though, and I'll put your head on a spike.'

"Ivan had no choice.

"The Baba Yaga's mares, however,

"were just as fast as promised.

"They hid from Ivan in every corner of the woods.

"It was only with the help of friends made

"and lessons learned on his quest that Ivan succeeded.

(horses whinnying)

"At the end of the three days,

"he left the enraged Baba Yaga

"on the back of a new steed."

(horse whinnying)

Ivan willed the magical creature on

towards a reunion with the princess

and a final confrontation with Koshei the Deathless.

The ordeal is the greatest test of the hero.

The risk of failure or even death hangs over them.

Ivan survives the ordeal and is rewarded.

And in other tales the hero must slay a Minotaur,

journey to the underworld,

or as in the Icelandic saga of the Volsungs,

survive an encounter with a great and terrible dragon.

(suspenseful music)

The "Volsunga Saga" dates back over 1,000 years.

It tells of the rise and fall

of the ill-fated Volsung clan,

their encounters with the gods,

and their triumphs and defeats in love and battle.

(bird cawing)

- Volsung Saga began as a series of separate tales

that told individual high-born families

of their associations with a heroic past.

- [Paul] The earliest evidence for the saga

are from the 7th and 8th century.

- We know these stories are being told

even around the year 1,000

because there are rune stones in Sweden.

- The culture of the states

that produced Volsung Saga,

it's a culture of warriors.

It's a culture of voyagers.

It's a culture that hugely

privileges male adventurousness

and male willingness to take enormous risks,

and therefore it produces a hero

that's also very extreme.

(ominous music)

- [Nicolas] This hero was Sigurd.

His father had been killed in a battle with the god, Odin,

so the young Sigurd was raised

by a dwarf master blacksmith named Regin.

- [Joanne] Sigurd is someone that

a medieval audience could aspire to be like

in terms of his humility and his wisdom.

- He is one of those figures that

like many heroes connects the gods with the human.

But he comes also to represent, very importantly,

not only the interface between humans and the gods,

but also the interface between human beings and wild nature.

As he evolves,

he becomes more and more

about being a kind of wild man.

What would a man be like

if he wasn't ever civilized,

if he wasn't ever subject to being taught

and brought up and taught codes of manners?

(tense dramatic music)

- [Nicolas] The villain facing Sigurd in the "Volsunga Saga"

is a creature named Fafnir.

Fafnir was the brother of the dwarf Regin,

but his lust for gold corrupted him.

He murdered his father

and stole the family treasure.

Obsessively guarding this vast

trove deep in the mountains,

over time he transformed into a dragon.

Dragons are found in stories across the world,

from ancient texts of Greece and China

to the epics of Persia and later tales of Christianity.

But every culture's dragon is different.

(dramatic music)

- [Joanne] The Germanic dragon

seems to be particularly into treasure,

and I think this is an association

with the quintessential idea of the good ruler.

- The best thing a lord can be is generous,

so if you want to do a good epithet for a good lord,

you'd call him a ring giver.

Obviously the dragon represents

the exact opposite of that.

He's keeping all the treasure for himself.

- Fafnir can be seen to represent

the worst aspects of greed.

He hoards this treasure in a way

that it can't be used by anyone.

It can't be put to use by a good ruler,

who would share it among his men

and ensure that society functioned well.

(suspenseful music) (sword scrapes metal)

- [Nicolas] Sigurd is sent to kill the dragon Fafnir

by his foster father Regin.

Near the dragon's lair,

Sigurd finds a great trench carved in the earth,

for every day Fafnir is leaving his treasure

and slithering down to the river to drink.

Sigurd digs a hole in this trench

and waits for the dragon.

As Fafnir passes above,

Sigurd thrusts his sword up into the serpent's belly.

(suspenseful music) (monster cries out)

(monster hissing)

Fafnir is defeated.

But it is not the treasure alone that Sigurd wins.

(mystical music)

- [Joanne] He tastes some of the dragon's blood,

and as soon as the dragon's blood touches his tongue,

he can understand the speech of birds.

(birds chirping)

- [Diane] That really just brings to the fore

the way that Sigurd is destined

to be a part of the wild.

It enables him to live in the wild

as if it were his society.

(birds chirping) (gentle music)

- The reward quickly proves useful.

Birds are chattering in the trees above.

Sigurd soon realizes that they're talking about him.

'His foster father Regin," the birds say,

'is plotting to betray Sigurd.'

His adventure is not over yet.

(dramatic music)

Sigurd's story and "Volsunga Saga"

do not end with the defeat of Fafnir,

nor does the hero's journey.

Once the object of one's quest has been achieved,

there is the return home.

And coming back can be as adventurous, and as dangerous,

and as thrilling as setting out in the first place.

(horse thundering)

"Ivan and the Princess raced away from Koschei.

"The demon, however,

"was close on their heels.

"But Ivan would not be defeated this time.

"Just as Koschei was closing in,

(club thudding)

"Ivan swung his club high and hard.

(suspenseful music)

"Koschei the Deathless was dead.

"Ivan's quest was at an end.

"His beloved wife was safe at last.

"The giant's body burned on a pyre.

(fire crackling)

"As Koschei's ashes scattered to the winds,

"Ivan and his princess

"returned on their magical steed

"to the castle in the woods.

"There they ruled in peace and happiness forevermore."

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

Successful in returning from the special world,

our hero returns not only with the object of his quest,

but with the newfound wisdom

and self-knowledge required

to build a better life.

A new status quo is born in the ordinary world,

and so the hero's journey comes to an end.

(dramatic music) (birds chirping)

Several decades have passed

since Campbell first outlined his theory.

Storytellers from Hollywood and beyond

continue to be inspired by it,

and it has helped shape modern thinking

about the origin of myth.

But Campbell is not without his critics.

Scholars continue to debate

the merits of his theory,

and there are many other lenses through which

to examine mythology's roots and meaning.

- All these mythologies were developed

by societies for a really wide variety

of different purposes other than simple entertainment.

They were often developed

to teach people very complex, moral lessons

about being members of particular cultures.

(dramatic music)

- [Miles] When we're thinking about myths,

we do have to look at the particular culture

they've grown out of because they do tell us

something about the nationalistic background

or the cultural background

of these particular indigenous peoples.

- If you look underneath

and pay attention to the cultures themselves

and start looking at the context

and the broader world they live in,

they're just far more interesting.

(wind blowing) (dramatic music)

- The idea of a common humanity

reflected in the hero's journey

remains an attractive one in an often divided world.

But as this series will show,

the realm of myths and monsters is far too strange

and fascinating for one model to contain.

In the long history of humanity

and in the deep recesses of our collective imaginations,

there are far more stories for us to explore.

Stories of magic and wonder,

of love and betrayal, (snakes hissing)

of sacrifice and cruelty,

the world we know, (wind blowing)

and the great mysteries that lie beyond.

(uplifting music)

(gentle music)