How Long for History to Become Myth?

I'm working on my story's timeline and I'm trying to decide how many years it would believably take for a historical event to become muddled in mythology.

So something important happened in my world's past, but all of the stories about the event are loaded with inaccuracies that obscure what this event really was from the reader, and make it so none of the characters know with clarity.

Importantly there would be literacy at the time of the event, but there was also another event at a later date, that sought to erase evidence of this event.

Now ultimately this event exists as pure world-building (it's tied into several of the religions of the world) and knowing the truth is something that I need to know, but won't be explicitly revealed to the reader since it isn't important to the conflict of the plot.

 

Sometimes not very long.

When Constantinople fell, a legend grew that Emperor Constantine XI, who was seen throwing himself into the fight, would return one day when the city needed him (a version of "The King Under the Mountain".

On a slightly longer timescale, the Japanese warrior Minamoto no Raiko (Minamoto Yorimitsu) lived in the early 11th century. He was tasked with defeating bandits who had set up base in and around Kyoto. At the time, the suffix "do(u)ji" was one that was often given to particular individuals, such as bandit leaders. He and his retainers defeated two such people, Shuten-douji and Ibaraki-douji.

By no later than the 14th century, his real historical feats had been immortalised in legend, become the tale of how the hero defeated the oni (demons) by the same name (Ibaraki-douji was defeated by Raiko's retainer, Watamabe no Tsuna). So the timescale in this case is 300 years.

 

Honestly, not long. People will believe something if they want to and will readily grab onto stories other people are telling if they like what they hear. You can see it all the time even today. Something happens on video ten or twenty years ago, and people will believe claims that the opposite happened because it fits their worldview better. Same thing with conspiracies. There will always be those who prefer fiction to reality and will readily spread their fiction. If there isn't any hard proof to the contrary, that kind of thing can potentially spread rapidly.

I'd say the fastest it would happen (without some organization purposefully spreading fiction), is probably around 100 years, as by then there won't be any eye-witnesses still living. I'd expect it would usually take longer, but if there weren't any hard facts documented I'd definitely see it as a plausible time frame.

 

Have a look at the works of Flavius Josephus and compare his works with modern interpretations of the time period. I read HG Well’s Outline of History and the description of religious leaders would not be allowed in print today. I think most have hidden their past, whether it was a government or religious empire.

 

In Star Wars the cycle is usually around 30 years.

 

Hard to fault the characters for that one, seeing as how canon changes about once a decade.

 

For some reason this made me think of the issue where people think something's happened, but it hasn't. What's it called... Mandela Effect? False memory? It started when some lady in the 80s claimed Nelson Mandela died, when in reality he lived till 2013. But a lot of people believed he'd died, so I guess they were pretty shocked when he actually died.

I don't know. I think the others have kind of answered this already. I think I was tying it more into the problem of handed down histories, where something is changed in the retelling, before it's written down, so the original story isn't even correct from mouth to paper. Or stone, if they're chippin' away with chisels.

I hope this helps, and if it doesn't, I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to be awake right now.

 

Thank you all for the quick responses.

At least it looks like my intended time-frame of between 1000-2000 years prior to the beginning of the story shouldn't be an issue. And I could potentially go on the low end at around 1000 years without too much suspension of disbelief. (That way I don't have to develop as much world history.)

It is a global event and so it will take longer to obscure than an event that would be confined to one country, but a thousand years will probably be enough. And since it isn't much of a focus it will likely escape most scrutiny from the readers.

 

These days? All of five minutes. I'm serious. It only takes five minutes for a story to descend into myth. There are many myths surrounding the American Founding Fathers and the country is less than 300 years old.

 

Isn't this going to depend on technology level?

If you're in a pre-writing society with oral tradition, I suspect it can happen quickly. If you're in a society with digital recording and heavy documentary evidence of important events, it would likely take a lot longer (though I suppose you could invent story reasons as to why it wouldn't).

 

History vs Myth?

I live in Texas and the Alamo is usually told as myth.

 

Myths can take no time at all to form think about the stories around rock stars look at the story about Alice Cooper eating a live chickens head off on stage, that didn't happened but an urban legend sprung up almost immediately

 

I don't think time has as much to do with just how much hard evidence there is.

King Arthur's myth says he lived sometime around 500 and almost everything about him is legends and stories. Historians aren't even sure if he was a real person or not. However, Julius Caesar, who lived hundreds of years before that has well-known pinpoint accurate biographical information. The difference isn't how long ago it was, it was the sophistication of the civilization that they existed in, the preservation and abundance of hard historical data, and the fact that we can still read the language. Hell, we even have accounting records of Caesar's rule. There is simply no room for stories about magic swords and wizards like there is in accounts of Arthur.

 

In oral cultures, each story is likely to become further distorted with each retelling.

 

you said they were literate at the time of the event: How literate, and what was the worlds overall level of technology?

If was paper scrolls, ect- a war, siege or fire could destroy a huge amount of knowledge. If the empire(s), kingdoms went into decline leading to loss of trade between cities, things that happened in other regions would be distorted by the time word of mouth carried it that far.

If a technologically advanced society where most of their information is housed on their version of the internet, a virus, emp or similiar could wipe out vast amounts of information.

You said they were later trying to hide evidence of the event: 1). Disinformation campaign- if hey actively spread false stories and conflicting versions of the event, those without direct knowledge could easily be influenced to accept a different version, or even to question if the event occurred at all. 2). If high tech internet- virus designed to track references and erase or corrupt the data.

 

The passing of time may not be the main variable in the creation of myths. Some events that happened thousands of years ago are deemed historic facts as they are supported by multiple sources of evidence. Whereas some events from a few decades ago have already entered into mythology. I think creation of myths have more to do with; culture, Religion, missing supporting evidence, conspiratorial thinking, popularity of a character, folklore, psychology etc. than time.

 

I don't think I can answer any of this while being purposefully vague so I'll just say what the event is.

Spoiler

Essentially what happened is that humanity traveled to this planet on a spaceship. So at the point that they landed they had a technology level of near-future. They had computers that would have extensive record of their flight as well as information from Earth.

At some point a group of humans decided that they were being held back by trying to force the planet and civilization to be like how it was on Earth and they destroyed all of the computers. Since this new planet lacked several key resources that Earth had, the people lacked the means of restoring what they lost.

Now this happened late enough that humans had developed a relatively stable level of technology so they wouldn't be shoved back to the stone ages. However all records of the actual spaceflight were destroyed or confined from public knowledge, and the oral stories became twisted over time. Sometimes intentionally so, to suit those in power.

Again none of this is really important to the actual story (by which I mean explicitly revealing this is not something I intend to do) and exists mostly as a fun easter egg, for those who piece together the clues. At least that is my intent as I'm writing it.

 

In the real world a myth starts at the third generation, at that pont the story, memory or event is a word of mouth event and there is no living witness or first hand account record or first hand account oral witness, so 75 years

If your wondering "tradition" is 25 years, you can call any eveent traditional after 25 years of participation

 

I don't think it's necessarily time but facts. Myths tends to be things that are spoken of but there's no evidence to suggest any of it is real/happened or was actually seen. I've never heard the years written as hard fact.
It can become a Myth very quickly or very slowly. People will always believe what they want to believe, often on faith alone. It also depends how many times the story has been re-told as it becomes distorted each time. Sometimes there is a hint of truth is a myth. Like Santa Claus - the figure we know if a fiction but there was a man who generated that story and he was very real. But that's the only example of truth in a fiction I can think of.

 

Sources for this?

It's been 75 years since the end of WW2. It's definitely not myth.

 

Fiction piled upon fiction, but absent hard documentary evidence:

 

Well the victor always rights the accounts, will embelish them
to make them sound better and grander than the really were.

 

But there are legends within the narrative. WW1 is also still history, but we have legends like The Angel of Mons that were a part of that narrative since these stories were new.