Stories that become Myths

“A tale “created”– that is, invented by an individual author– may somehow become “myth” if it becomes traditional, to be used as a means of communication in subsequent generations, usually with some distortions and reelaborations.”

This quote explains that a story becomes more unreliable as it is told more. This makes sense because the more times a story is told, the more opportunity there is to forget a detail or misrepresent a part of the story. These stories that are told over and over again become traditions within a culture or religion but come to be called myths. This is important to understand because we need to know that we cannot always trust these traditional stories since, again, they become so distorted over time and deviate from the true meaning of the story that the author hoped to convey. It teaches us that stories change over time, and that’s okay, as long as we realize that they might not be so accurate.