Therefore I will use some examples also of the myth of the American west. So to say myths are spoken stories based on history. This of course is a very vague and also incorrect description. It is, if at all, surely not possible to describe the complex phenomenon of the myth in only one sentence. Regular stories have many things in common with myths, such as the narrative type of presentation or the usage of metaphors.
Metaphors are in fact a main concept of myths.
People use them to explain new phenomena by using older concepts. The method to see new phenomena as different occurences of older ones is part of the process of creating a myth. In my opinion it is also a reason for the existence of myths, because people use myths not only to express basic opinions of their society, but also to explain new phenomena and happenings within their society. To summarize this a bit I would say a myth is always something which comes from the past, which is used to interpret something in the present and which uses idealized images or concepts of the society to do so. This is surely an image which is not clearly shaped, but the following points should help to make it more precise.