Myths, ways of interpreting the world
Myths legitimize and explain the central principles that make up the belief systems upon which a society is built. Sometimes the meanings of myth and legend are confused, perhaps because in these stories (folk tales, fairy tales) the “mythic” element tends to carry significant weight.
What is the mythic?
It is everything that responds to the intention of explaining the world from its origins and foundations. It constitutes a structure of knowledge that expresses a model of totality. This model is usually called an “archetype” because it is elaborated upon a symbolic system that still lacks concepts or abstract categories, yet must invent them by resorting to the anecdotal. Naturally, the anecdotal lends itself to multiple interpretations, since it lacks rigorous meaning. Hence the polyvalence of the mythic symbol, in contrast to what may emerge from philosophy and science.
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology studies myth by considering it a fundamental part of the body of beliefs of a particular society and in relation to its other parts: religion, ritual, magic — all of which condition the system of values and therefore the norms that make social order possible.
The hero
Concrete myths give rise to the birth of the hero who, in his character as a personified model of conduct, is the embodiment of the Good, the patterns of behavior worthy of imitation. Thus, the myth acquires an affective value that grants it a relevance that permeates culture at an early stage in such a way that it is far more deeply rooted than any subsequent abstraction. Human acts are redeemed from their temporal insignificance by entering into that other sacred time (eternal time, without present, past, or future) — that time which is non-time, mythic time.
The meaning of myth
The ultimate meaning of myth is to establish a bond between the real world and the supernatural, the profane with the sacred, thereby giving rise to an inaccessible realm of the supernatural-sacred through the use of symbols whose referents belong to the immediate sphere of the real-profane world. But for a myth to become such, it is fundamental — it is necessary — that the anecdote confirm it: in all likelihood, myth and ritual have a simultaneous birth, because the emotion of narrating the myth ought to be expressed in various gestures (an essential part of communication, even more so in the early phases of culture), whereby the ritual and the mythic would stand in close relation.