‘Unpromising’ Heroes and Heroes as Helpers in Greek Myth

Abstract

The comparative method is used to establish the existence in folk-tales of a pattern by which an unpromising individual of lowly status surprisingly achieves great success (Cinderella, David in the Old Testament etc.). This pattern is then investigated in such Greek myths as those of Telephus, Philoctetes etc. and shown to coexist with another pattern, namely an individual angrily quittting the company of his peers and then lured back .