The verbal culture of a prediscursive society will consist largely of stories, but among those stories there grows up a specialization in social function that affects some stories more than others. Certain stories seem to have a peculiar significance: they are the stories that tell a society what is important for it to know, whether about its gods, its history, its laws, or its class structure. These stories may be called myths in a secondary sense, a sense that distinguishes them from folktales - stories told for entertainment or other less central purposes. They thus become “sacred” as distinct from “profane” stories, and form part of what the Biblical tradition calls revelation. ... Mythical, in this secondary sense, therefore means the opposite of  “not really true”: it means being charged with a special seriousness and importance.

The Great Code (1982)

Northrop Frye