Albanian Mythology

Myths are the earliest explanations of the world around us and of the universe that stirs within us. Therefore, mythology (the totality of myths) has interested people of all times.

From another perspective, myths mark the beginnings of human intelligence, which is boundless and paradoxically infinite. The messages conveyed through myths are also immeasurable, both for the imagination with which they are imbued and for the poetic associations they create in the listener/reader.

Some myths carry artistic practices that are continuously updated, until they are partially (and temporarily) replaced by the symbolism of newer modernist or postmodernist myths.

Albanian mythology cannot be excluded from these universal laws. All the more so when it is documented in parallel with (if not earlier than) Greco-Roman mythology, which forms the earliest foundations of today's European and broader civilization.

My aim in this book is not to argue for the presence of Albanian mythology among Albanians, nor is it a comparative view with the mythology of neighboring peoples, but the most integrated presentation of this mythology within a theogonic system, bypassing, even if one-sidedly, many issues that remain under discussion, such as Pelasgian mythology itself, in which Albanian, Greek and Roman scholars insist that Albanian mythology originates.

If we adhere to universal principles, then Albanian mythology naturally appears distributed in three layers:

• Pelasgian mythology
• Illyrian mythology
• Arbërian mythology