A bitter chill crept along the whole length of his body. The frozen ground seemed to drain the heat from his blood, and the blood from his heart itself. Perhaps it was that, and knowing where he was, that accounted for what happened next. Or maybe scars, almost as old as he was, were still in existence, down at the bottom of his mind, long buried under everything that had happened in between. The sky seemed to darken, while a ringing, buzzing sound came into his ears, and when the sky was completely black it began to redden with a bloody glow. His stomach dropped from under his heart, and a horrible fear filled him -- the fear of a small helpless child, abandoned and alone in the night. He tried to spring up and out of that, and he could not move; he lay there rigid, seemingly frozen to the ground. Behind the ringing in his ears began to rise the unearthly yammer of the terror-dream -- not heard, not even remembered, but coming to him like an awareness of something happening in some unknown dimension not of the living world.

-Alan Le may, The Searchers



A people unaware of its myths is likely to continue living by them, though the world around that people may change and demand changed in their psychology, their world view, their ethics, and their institutions.

-Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence