The mythological elements in anatolian field of Turkish folk tales

Myths that are created during the early times of mankind are extant byundergoing some changes within themselves. Folk tales play an importantrole for myths to be present today and still it is the folk tales that keep themyths alive. Generally myths exist in folk tales as symbols and carries theirexistence in this way. Almost in every narration there are some elementsfrom the myths. One of these narrations are folk tales.In this thesis the importance and the place of mythological elementsin Anatolian field of folk tales is studied. For this reason considering theother studies on mythology, folk tales are studied. The counter parts of manyelements in mythology, which are present in folk tales, have been stated withnecessary examples.This thesis consists of four main parts. First part includes thesupernatural heroes in the tales and the equivalences of those heroes in themyths are tried to find out. In the second part natural elements like trees,water, mountains and caves are examined. The appearance of theseelements in the myths are estimated. In the third part rather than the first twoparts the other supernatural subjects in the folk tales are taken place. In thispart; resurrection, concepts of life-soul and crown, change of clothes andthose who report from future are tried to be associated with their counterparts in mythology. The last part is the study of effects of numbers andcolors that are stated in mythology on folk tales.As a consequence of this research a rich mythological existencefound in folk tales.