The Sage glossary of the social and behavioral sciences defines myth as " traditional sacred story shared by a group explaining a historical or natural event, rite, or belief and linked to cultural identity and religious beliefs." Oxford's Dictionary of cultural anthropology (2018) says, "A story, often cosmological or supernatural in nature, that communicates about scenarios, conventions, or characters important to a society." and povides additional attributes based on the evolution of the term by Anthropolgists.
You'll need to find a published text of a myth as told by a person from a particular society or cultural group. This should be a primary source (not a retelling or summary).
You can search the Library Search for books containing myths about a specific group, place, or theme -or a combination of all three.
For example: Myths Canada Indigenous Creation [myths - place- people - theme]
Limit to BOOKS or PEER REVIEWED (though not both at the same time).
Note any useful synonms that you're aware of or that you find along the way. Look at each books's subject headings to find terms for your next search, or to click through to find similar works. You'll often see descriptors like: Myth, Legend, Folklore, or Tales. These will be linked to groups or places: Folklore--India, Myth--Indigenous peoples, etc. SO use those synomyms (to reflect various descriptors, the changing names of groups and places, and aspects of a theme).
Myths can be found all over the library, depending on a vareity of factors considered by cataloguers:
Remebering that LC classification is an old and imperfect system, seeing these call numbers in Library Search can tell you something about the source of the myth, how it is presented, and how it is treated. P is language but also fiction, so these are likely to be retellings. I expect that most of the useful myths in books will be round in the G part of the library (Anthropology and Anthropologists).
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