PART IV

The Return

This brings us to the final crisis of the round, to which the whole miraculous excursion has been but a prelude—that, namely, of the paradoxical, supremely difficult threshold-crossing of the hero's return from the mystic realm into the land of common day. Whether rescued from without, driven from within, or gently carried along by theguiding divinities, he hasyet to re-enter with his boon the long-forgotten atmosphere where men who arefractions imagine themselves to be complete. He hasyet to confront society with his ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir, and take the return blow of reasonable queries, hard resentment, and good people at a loss to comprehend.¹⁰⁸

—Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces