Norse mythology is an interesting example too because what we have today is supposedly only a small, dubiously-translated piece of the whole. And from what we do have, I swear it has to be ironic or something. The Norse gods are portrayed at every turn as childish and downright villainous, doing all kinds of petty evil like worming their way out of paying for contract labor to systematic oppression and mistreatment of "ugly" dwarves and jotuns. Considering the patriarchal, deeply unequal society that characterized a lot of the region at the time when they were meeting lots of Christians, it makes me wonder if all the tragedy and irony and hopelessness of the famous Voluspa is the result. Maybe an older, now lost, version of the tale is less doom and gloom?