HMM, 26 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS BUT ONLY 22 UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD.

Well, if this isn't a dilemma I don't know what is. With Christmas in 26 days and, if the ancient Mayan's are to be believed, only 22 to the end of the world do I do my Christmas shopping now OR wait until after December the 21st?

Seriously though, with just about every culture and religion (major and otherwise) having its own Doomsday story, it's not just the ancient Mayan's who had myths about the end of time.

Supported by a giant ash tree, Yggdrasil, which grew from the dead body of the evil giant, Ymir, at the beginning of time, according to Norse mythology the death of the ash heralds the end of mankind, so ......

Combine this with the fact that 80million of the UK's ash tree population are faced with being wiped out by a deadly fungus and it doesn't look good.

Then there's the ancient Aztec mythology which, heavily based on the Legend of the Five Suns,  has it that on the death of a Sun, each of which is destroyed in its own distinctive way, the world is destroyed by the Gods only to be renewed by the next Sun, thus .......

• Sun 1:  Sun of Precious Stones. Destruction method: jaguars. God involved: Tezcatlipoca (depicted right)
• Sun 2:  Sun of Darkness. Destruction method: large hurricane. God involved: Quetzalcoatl
• Sun 3:  Sun of Fire. Destruction method: rain of fire. God involved: Tezxatlipoca
• Sun 4:  Sun of Water. Destruction method: flood. God involved: Tlaloc
• Now living under Sun 5: Sun of Movement. Destruction method: The Aztec's predict the world will be torn apart by an earthquake. God involved: not given.

Not so according to the ancient Greeks who believed that Zeus, his powers diminished by lack of belief, would ultimately destroy the race of mortal man.

Not that it hasn't happened before ..... according to the myths just as there have already been several 'generation of man' (as with the Aztec's according to the ancient Greeks we are now in the fifth stage, The Iron Age)  there have also been several apocalypses, each ending a period of man's existence on earth.

• The Golden Age ( First Generation of Man): Destroyed by fire when Zeus became afraid that man, loyal to Cronos, would rise against him
• The Silver Age (Second Generation of Man): Also destroyed by fire. Zeus became concerned with man's lack of maturity.
• The Bronze and Heroic Age (Third and fourth generation of Man): Destroyed by floods and war.

Or, to come full circle, how about Nancy Leider, a self-proclaimed psychic, who, on her website, claimed to have received messages from extraterrestrials saying that the world would end in December 2012 (originally it was 2003) when the mysterious Planet 'X'/Nibiru would collide with Earth?

Sources: The Sun newspaper, National Geographic News, Woodworks Ezine, AllExperts, World Of Lucid Dreaming.