mythography

Mythography is the study, recording, and interpretation of myths, or the practice of compiling mythic narratives. The term comes from Greek mythos “story” and graphia “writing,” and it is used to describe both the process of collecting myths and the scholarly study of their meaning and origins.

In classical antiquity, mythography referred to manuals that gathered and summarized traditional myths, such as Apollodorus's Library (Bibliotheca) and Hyginus's Fabulae, which organized legendary material by gods, heroes, and genealogies. In modern usage, mythography encompasses both the composition of new mythic narratives and the critical study of existing myths, including cross-cultural comparison, textual analysis, and the examination of how myths function within religion, literature, and society.

Because mythography can describe both a practice and a field, it is often distinguished from mythology, which denotes the body of myths themselves. Scholars ask how myths arise, converge, diverge, and encode cultural values; and how myths are transmitted, adapted, or contested in different media and communities. The field overlaps with folklore, anthropology, literary studies, and religious studies, and has been shaped by modern methods such as philology, ethnography, and digital humanities.