Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes By Edith Hamilton

Intro to Classical Mythology
Greek and Roman mythology is quite generally
supposed to show us the way the human race thought
and felt untold ages ago. Through it, according to this
view, we can retrace the path from civilized man who
lives so far from nature, to man who lived in close
companionship with nature; and the real interest of the
myths is that they lead us back to a time when the
world was young and people had a connection with the
earth, with trees and seas and flowers and hills, unlike
anything we ourselves can feel. The imagination was
vividly alive and not checked by the reason, so that
anyone in the woods might see through the trees a
fleeing nymph, or bending over a clear pool to drink,
behold in the depths a naiad's face.
Nothing is clearer than the fact that primitive man,
whether in New Guinea today or eons ago in the
prehistoric wilderness, is not and never has been a
creature who peoples his world with bright fancies and
lovely visions. Horrors lurked in the primeval forest, not
nymphs. Terror lived there, with its close attendant,
Magic, and its most common defense, Human Sacrifice.
Mankind's chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever
divinities existed lay in some magical rite, senseless but
powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain
and grief.