Raising the mythological characters by animals and mythological creatures (In epics and Iranian and non-Iranian narratives)

Despite their complexities and variations among the mythological archetypes a kind of concordance and closeness is observed in their main theme which renders the comparative study of these narratives possible; the subject of raising certain mythological characters by animals and mythological creatures is of utmost importance. The close study of mythological narratives reveals that in the beginning man and animals lived together and lived in the same manner and no wonder that many of former Gods had dual nature. In many narratives humans and mythological personages were chosen and raised by some animals and due to this upbringing the good or evil nature of those animals were manifested in the material lives of their protected. These narratives are so widespread to the extent that one witnesses their similarity form the Far Eastern myths to Western ones. What is worthy of attention in this regard is the fantastic influence that animals in raising the humans leave behind in forming their characters that place them far beyond the other individuals. The best example of such characteristics are found in the Persian epic myth culture namely in the story of Raising Feraydun by the cow Barmayeh, and the raising of Zal by Simorgh. The subject of this article however limited is reflected in books such as “Dictionary of Greek and Roman myths” under the entry “Paris” and “Romelus”, Shahnameh in the tale of Feraydun and Zal, “Dictionary of the Greek myths” in the story of raising Eskandar and so forth and the role of animals were pointed out in raising these characters. As far as the author of this article is concerned a work which independently deals with all aspects of raising mythological characters by animals in the myths of different nations was not found, thus the present research aware of such necessity and by employing the comparative approach aims to study and discuss these mythological narratives.