In the early days of every land, people told stories to help them understand their world. Sometimes all those stories put together became the people's religion.

So it was with the people of early Greece. These people told many wonderful stories to explain how the world came about and how things worked. These stories were called myths.

Myths were all about two main groups: gods and mortals. The gods and goddesses looked like people but had magic powers and never died. They lived on a mountain in the heavens called Olympus (oh-LIM-pus). Their leader was named Zeus (2OOSE). The gods and goddesses often played tricks on the mortals, or common men and women. So the mortals lived in fear of the gods and did their best not to anger them. Some mortals did very amazing things and were called heroes.

Are the myths true? Many of the stories are based on real events. Many others are not. Some are partly real and partly not real. Perhaps they don't really explain how the world came about and how things work. But almost all the myths teach us something about human nature.