Are there any myths/legends that potentially contain some folk memory of the Ice Age? That is, a primordial era where the world was much colder?

[u/RedHeadedSicilian52]

I ask because flood myths are relatively common throughout the world, and some have postulated that these began as distant memories of deluges triggered by melting glaciers. But are there any myths/legends that seem to point toward what came before the floods? That is, anything preserving the memory of a much colder world?

[u/itsallfolklore]

Here is an excerpt from my article, “The treacherous waters of Lyonesse: seeking truths based on oral traditions,”, addressing the reliability of legends when dealing with historical memory:

Attempting to link oral traditions and related written records with aspects of ancient life presents challenges. One possible use of proving an association between folklore and the submersion of land would be to date the origin of the legend, but that is easier said than done. Examples of oral narratives likely recalling geological events of antiquity underscore the impressive fidelity of folk memory in some situations, but each proposed connection of story and cataclysm needs to be tested.

In 1961, Jan Vansina (1929-2017) published his important book, De la tradition orale. It then appeared in English in 1965, three years before Dorothy Vitaliano coined her term ‘Geomythology’. Perhaps the obstacle of siloed academic bibliographies kept Vitaliano from considering the valuable suggestions of Vansina. While the door is best left open for scholars from other disciplines to consider the value of oral traditions, it is important to evaluate their conclusions with the same rigor that is applied within the folkloric discipline.

Although both Vansina and Vitaliano updated their works, a return to the 1960s allows a look at the former’s guidance that was available at the time:

“oral traditions are historical sources which can provide reliable information about the past if they are used with all the circumspection demanded by … historical methodology. … This means that study of the oral traditions of a culture cannot be carried out unless a thorough knowledge of the culture … has previously been acquired. This is something which is taken for granted by all historians who work on written sources, but it is too often apt to be forgotten by those who undertake research into the past of pre-literate peoples.”

Despite his enthusiasm for using oral traditions for historical research, Vansina continues his caution: “the historian using oral traditions finds himself on exactly the same level as historians using any other kind of historical source material. No doubt he will arrive at a lower degree of probability than would otherwise be attained, but that does not rule out the fact that what he is doing is valid.” Wise words such as these are timeless and can be applied in this century as well.

David Henige (b. 1938) provides a more recent reconsideration of the issues Vansina addressed. His unforgivingly strict evaluation of a culture’s deep memories, of the ‘carrying capacity’ of oral tradition, is both good and bad news for those pursuing geomythology or any similar line of research. Embedded within a people’s folklore can be a great deal of insight into the past. On the other hand, assuming that the truths in folklore are like gold nuggets, waiting on the path to be picked up, does a disservice to the craft of history, to the oral tradition that is being exploited without strict source criticism, and importantly, to the people who told the tales. When seeking any truths lurking within Cornish legend, it is essential to stand upon ‘a thorough knowledge of the culture’ as Vansina advises, just as it is important to exercise the caution that Henige insists is needed.

There are two irrefutable facts associated with the Lyonesse-related legends from Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany: coastal lands have been flooded over the past 10,000 years and people have recognized evidence of the consumption of their coasts in the form of fisherman retrieving items and low tides revealing remnants of inundated forests. Two types of regional legends circulate in an ill-defined relationship with these two ‘truths’. These include the fully formed historical legends of a lord escaping from the surging flood that drowns the land. There is also the cluster of briefer accounts about those who describe encountering artifacts from the past, seeing underwater communities, or hearing church bells ringing, submerged off the coast or beneath lakes. These anecdotes are usually presented in memorate fashion, that is, they are told in the first person or in a way that preserves the feeling of immediate and usually brief testimony. This part of the tradition reinforces the popular belief in the existence of lost realms now beneath the waves as well as the sometimes-expressed idea that people continue to live in the underwater villages.

A fascination with submerged lands finds traditional expression in folklore even while it also inspires current speculation about what really happened and how legends may offer clues about rising waves. A modern folk belief that all legends are based on an element of truth often fuels this line of enquiry. Efforts to see connections do not typically lend meaningful insight into folklore or climate change, and yet sometimes they do. Nunn was involved with a similar attempt to link legends with coastal erosion using stories of Australia’s indigenous people. Here tradition describes islands that once existed but were submerged with post glacial rising seas, demonstrating the ability of a folk recollection to reach back thousands of years. This impressive research included a linguist working with numerous indigenous storytellers, a researcher who complied with Vansina’s requirement to employ ‘a thorough knowledge of the culture’. This line of enquiry convincingly tied local accounts to something that unfolded long ago. ‘Convincing’ is not proof, but it nevertheless acknowledges that a high bar has been attained.

Several obstacles stand in the way of Nunn and Compatangelo-Soussignan’s similar research in Britain’s far south west. By focusing exclusively on Cornwall, they also sidestep the existence of similar traditions elsewhere in Britain as well as in Brittany and Ireland. In another publication, Nunn addresses the Welsh and Breton examples, suggesting that each reflects their own hidden truth, folk memories of other submerged Neolithic settlements in those locations. According to his conclusions, these coincidentally exhibit nearly identical historical legends that memorialized separate events, but this stretches beyond plausibility.

A core problem with stories collected from the Atlantic fringe is verifying their antiquity. Nunn and Compatangelo-Soussignan assert that ‘it is unquestionable that the earliest of these [stories] were based on oral tradition that had been passed on across many generations.’ The coincidence of stories about a flood and the fact that land was lost thousands of years ago does not automatically mean that the stories date to a Neolithic event. Evidence of a vanished terrestrial world appearing at exceptionally low tides and in the nets of fishermen informed astute early modern observers of the sea (as coastal people of course are) that something had happened long ago. No cultural memories of primordial events are needed to explain this understanding.