Originally Posted by Og

I recommend wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

Joseph Campbell was the definitive expert on myth as metaphor and the monomyth of human culture represented in various "local forms" as the various religions of the world from native american to hindu and christian cultures.

Joseph Campbell is responsible for the mythic structure of the original Star Wars movies as well as many other modern myths including "The Matrix"... A recent History Channel special on the 30th anniversary of Star Wars was narrated by the director of the Joseph Campbell foundation.

Joseph Campbell was a professor of Comparative Mythology and was probably the founder of the field given how the world shrunk in cultural size massively during his life time and he was there to document and comment on it all.

To me, his work defines what myths are and where they come from. He has a 4 point definition of what a myth is and what it's functions are that is worth studying. His collected lectures are available on CD, DVD, and in book form and he has many books specifically written on these topics as well.

It's life changing stuff that empowers you to understand where your myths come from. It's academic work that gives you powers to understand yourself and your myth and the mystery of existence. It empowers you with facts about the history/context of religions and how they all derive from the same elementary ideas. "Myth" is the folks/cultural expression of that elementary ideas in terms of cultural images of a group of people.

I highly recommend his work to anyone seeking to understand myth and religion over the entire course of human history.