History and Myth

You can follow the trail of bones throughout history and study the messages of ruins, but to know the true soul of a people you need their myths. To discount the validity of myth is to embrace ignorance and, as a historian, to admit satisfaction with partial knowledge. If we are to be true students of the past and if we are to record the old happenings and their relationships we need to also address the tales told and the beliefs held. Those are no less valuable than names and dates, causes and effects.