myths and legends

Myths comes from the Greek word mythos which means story or tale. Greek mythology is the story telling form one generation to the other. Some myths are actually based on actual events.

It's hard to say where myths and legends come from. Some are stories made up to account for the state of the world (eg all the creation myths). Some are actually folk memory of true events. For example, many people thought that the Trojan war in the Illiad was just a myth. But archaelogists then discovered Troy, and it was actually a true story that had been handed down over the generations. Quite a few myths are like this.