The word myth, which literally means "word" or "story" in ancient Greek, refers to authorless tales perpetuated by ancient communities. Other communities besides the Greeks, such as the Sumerians and Egyptians also perpetuated communal myths, but the Greek ones are most prevalent in Western culture. The characters in Greek myths are typically gods and heroic humans. Each story contains a lesson for mortal humans on earth to learn from the immortal gods and various kinds of tragic human heroes. Most often, these lessons either concerned morality or an explanation of how a feature of nature was created. The earliest myths were primarily transmitted orally from one generation to the next. Because they were never written down, they could be told slightly differently depending on who was doing the telling/exaggerating, and this could alter the myth's essential message.
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