Elvis Presley

One of the biggest myths about myths is that any myth is just a made-up story, casually invented to explain something imperfectly understood. Well, that's true, in the same way that Antonio Stradivari was a pretty good fiddle-maker. That is to say, there's more to it than that -- a lot more. Sure, people are good at making things up, and describing things by comparing them to what we already understand: fiction and invention, metaphor and simile. But myths are nothing less than earnest attempts to understand the reality of the world around us. Admittedly, sometimes we're so off-base it's funny. Like this example: Myths About Myths, and What a Myth Really Is