Myth Busted?

I have always looked at myth and legend as one in the same with slight differences..  A legend is more of a story that everyone knows to have been passed down from person to person.  Its contents are assumed to be exaggerated and it’s purely for entertainment.  A myth however is some kind of story that everyone assumes to be false but still makes sense, just has a lack of evidence.

You’ll see a lot of this in fantasy and I don’t mean medieval fantasy.  All fantasy carries this little quirk and it is what they do with it that makes their story stand out.  Neil Gaiman’s Ananzi Boys touches on this in a very interesting way.  It is always very cool to see the juxtaposition between the real world and the “before world” or “super world”.

            Here we see someone who is coming across another plane of existence that he has never seen before.  We aren’t talking about just physical planes either.  Charlie stumbles across something that is far greater than himself.  He ends up meeting his brother, who then starts messing with his life.  Then they both get sucked in further when Charlie looks to get his brother Spider out of his life.

            Charlie stumbles upon old ones and supernatural creatures and age old rivalries.  Now I know some people would love this to happen to them, but I think I would react in the same way.  I would really just want everything to go back to normal.  One could go insane from all of this happening at once.  However there’s one point that sticks out.  It doesn’t matter what time you’re in, the myths always seem to apply everywhere.  It just has to adapt to where it is currently.