Author: Hamel, A.G. van.

Myths have an essential bearing upon the execution of the earliest religious functions, that is, upon the ritual intended for the obtaining of a gift or favor from a superior power. Where a god is worshipped, the myth is there to remind him of what he has done or allowed on a previous occasion . . . In Irish the verb usually rendered by 'to invoke' has the literal meaning of 'to remind' or 'to call to mind'. -from the text.