ABSTRACT
A myth contributes to the organisation of the family's fantasy life and represents the memory of an event and of the relationships that allowed it and characterised it. The most relevant aspect of this case, however, is the reflection it prompts on the link between a transgenerational family myth and an individual myth-fantasy. In this case, the myth of family origins coincides with and affects Ariela's myth of her own origin. Anthropologists are the scientists interested in myths. In the late 1950s their research was based on the concept that a myth cannot be understood outside the role it plays inside social communities. For B. Malinowski, myths establish the foundations of social organisation and represent the charter on which a community is established. For generations all family members supply their share and, in organising the myth, establish the continuity of culture and the identity of the family, passing on a possibly traumatogenic functioning in pathological situations.
