Adrienne Mayor on Geomyths

Adrienne Mayor on Geomyths

From The World in Time / Lapham’s Quarterly by Lapham’s Quarterly

April 24, 2026 · 56 min

About this episode

Adrienne Mayor discusses her book on geomyths and the natural phenomena behind ancient legends.

“The oarfish is not only extremely long—I think they can be 20 feet long—but they have a very narrow, undulating body. They’re silvery, but they have a red crest all along their back. It really looks exactly like the sea monsters in ancient Greek vase paintings,” says Adrienne Mayor on this week’s episode of The World in Time. “It looks like an oarfish guarding the Golden Fleece. They live in very deep water, and they have fragile bodies. And if there’s an earthquake under the ocean, they’re damaged and they wash up on shore—that’s the only time most people see an oarfish, and it would look like a stereotypical dragon.”   This week on the podcast, Donovan Hohn speaks with folklorist, classicist, and historian of ancient science Adrienne Mayor about her new book, Mythopedia: A Brief Compendium of Natural History Lore . In 53 alphabetically arranged essays about “legends of the earth,” or “geomyths,” Mayor’s compendium draws upon oral traditions from all over the world and upon “historical and scientific discoveries that shed light on the remarkable phenomena featured in the legendary stories”—phenomena such as tsunamis, meteor impacts, lethal lakes, perpetual fires, fish that…

People in this episode

Host: Donovan Hohn

Guest: Adrienne Mayor

Topics covered

  • geomyths
  • natural history
  • folklore
  • ancient science
  • ocean phenomena

Keywords

  • oarfish
  • sea monsters
  • tsunamis
  • meteor impacts
  • folklore

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Mythopedia: A Brief Compendium of Natural History Lore

Places: Golden Fleece

More episodes of The World in Time / Lapham’s Quarterly

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The World in Time / Lapham’s Quarterly podcast page.