But in the premodern world, the purpose of myth was not to impart factual or historical information. The Greek mythos derives from the verb musteion, “to close the mouth or the eyes.” It is associated with silence, obscurity, and darkness. A myth was an attempt to express some of the more elusive aspects of life that cannot easily be expressed in logical, discursive speech. A myth is more than history; it is an attempt to explain the deeper significance of an event. A myth has been well described as something that in some sense happened once—but that also happens all the time. It is about
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