According to Foster, what is a myth?

Foster believes that there are many stories to the human condition. Foster feels that myths are real narratives about people's lives. Myth helps people navigate through their own "heroes’ quest". Myth is tied to our social fabric and helps people understand their lives on a grand scale. Works like the Bible, Shakespearian stories, or Tolkien's trilogy become part of the reader's consciousness and help the reader interpret other literature that they read.

What we mean in speaking of "myth" in general is story, the ability of story to explain ourselves to ourselves in ways that physics, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry - all very highly useful and informative in their own right - can't. That explanation takes the shape of stories that are deeply ingrained in our group memory, that shape our culture and are in turn shaped by it, that constitute a way of seeing by which we read the world, and, ultimately, ourselves." Foster (p 65, Chapter 9)