I have always associated myths and legends with the idea that they were created to remember a past whether it was ideals, history or traditions. (Note I use a past not the actual fact and historical past)

The reason for this recollection is so that these remembered things  (true or false) could be used to influence present and future decisions.

I have been thinking a bit on memory on a large scale as applied to a culture. I view the myths and stories similarly to an individuals memories.

Myths to me seem to be  way to pass down a set of ideas from one generation to the next. I feel this conclusion was in part drawn from my past classes in history, but I feel like I would like to add to this definition.

My thoughts
Great works of art (including but not limited to) paintings, novels, plays, movies, myths, all have a timeless quality in that they center their stories on aspects of humans that are unanswerable and continue to recur (even today) One example come to me from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is a timeless tale that I am sure is known to you, a tale of star crossed and ill fated love. The tale told again and again and will continue to cycle and repeat its self (I am sure of this.) I feel that I have lived through the theme of this story, unlikely and strong vibrant love is broken not by the lovers but by an unstoppable outside force and was fated to end even before it begin. This theme appears from many sources.

I fell that myths and stories have and will continue to influence our society and cultures due to their repeatable subject matter, subjects certainly not limited to hate, love, desire, and justice, aspects of our lives that occur now and have occurred before. The stories that have had the greatest emotional influence on me were the tales that I felt reflected what I had experienced in my life. It is sometimes a comfort to known that I am not alone in my hardships and that as others lived through their own troubles I will traverse my own.

But also of great importance to me are the concepts that I am unfamiliar with. Reading and experiencing a story (or a painting for that matter (of which I am quite fond)) lets me experience events that I have not lived through and I hope I learn from them something that builds my character in a similar way as its initial witness.

For example I was not a witness to the bombing of London during world war II, but I have listened to a first hand account. Even though I have not lived through that time I feel that a part of me now has. I hope I have learned from this pseudo experience. Myths, stories, paintings and other acts of creation let me experience ideas and emotions out side of my lifetime.

But these are just my thoughts