Mythology

Mythology, in present use, is the collected body of myths of a group of people: Greek, Roman, Celtic and Hittite mythology each name the body of myths a culture retells. Where a single myth is one narrative genre of folklore, mythology is the whole shelf, and the word can also refer to the study of myths. Myths "are often endorsed by religious and secular authorities", and myth "is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives".

For novelists, a story world's mythology is the deep layer of worldbuilding: the pantheon, the origin stories, the differing accounts cultures give while the underlying truth stays fixed. Inventing a whole mythology is mythopoeia, the practice Tolkien defended as sub-creation and how to create fictional religions; he called his own collected mythology a legendarium.