Invitation to myth: Introduction -- Cast of characters -- Myths: Beginnings-Creation myths -- Earliest times -- Flood myths -- Tales of love -- Morality tales from the myths -- Four parallel stories -- Some brief myths of the hero -- Journey to the underworld and the path of death -- End-Visions of the apocalypse -- Modern readings of myth: Views of myth and meaning -- Parallel myths and ways of interpreting them -- Myth-Yours, mine, and ours