ABSTRACT
In Jung’s understanding both myths and fairy tales reflect innate archetypal motifs arising from the collective unconscious. While both symbolise archetypal dynamics, there is a great difference between the two. In his book Myth and Reality, Mircea Eliade states:
Myth narrates a sacred history: it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled Time of ‘beginnings’. In other words myth tells how through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence…. Myth tells only of that which really happened…. The actors in myth are Supernatural Beings…. In short, myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthrough of the sacred (or supernatural) into the World. Furthermore it is as a result of the intervention of the Supernatural Beings that man is himself what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being.
(Eliade, 1964)