Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension ― Selected Essays 1944–1968 (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)

In The Flight of the Wild Gander, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell explores the individual and geographical origins of myth, outlining the full range of mythology from Grimm’s fairy tales to Native American legends. Originally published in 1969, this first collection of Campbell’s essays describes the symbolic content of stories: how they are linked to human experience and how they—along with our experiences—have changed over time. Throughout, Campbell explores the function of mythology in everyday life and the forms it may take in the future. Included are two of Campbell’s first groundbreaking essays: “Bios and Mythos” and “Primitive Man As Metaphysician,” both of which examine the biological basis and necessity for story and mythology, and establish mythology as a basic function or fact of human nature. Campbell explores how the myth was born, as well as the personal experiences of the visionary medicine man through whose memory the myth was preserved.