Use and caution

The atlas uses archetypes as an organising overlay, a way to line up comparable figures, while being clear that the framework is modern and interpretive, not a doctrine any of the traditions themselves hold. Reading Zeus, Odin and Indra as versions of a sky-father, or Loki, Hermes and Coyote as tricksters, can illuminate patterns; it can also flatten the real differences between them, and the entries keep those differences in view.

Each archetype entry describes the pattern, names figures across traditions that have been read through it, and notes where the comparison holds and where it strains.