Law is the name of a cultural god, a god that lawyers, judges, and other penitents can worship. We enter law as we enter the realm of any myth, any world of gods.

law as a god of culture

W.B. Yeats is reputed to have said: "I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought." The same might be said for those who take up Law as a discipline, profession, and way of life. Law is an archetypal force in culture and in the lives of lawyers who devote themselves to the practice of law, and who use law-shaped ways of thinking and speaking.

It would be difficult to find a culture—and the culture of law is no exception—that does not make of its origin and destiny a mythic story.

mis-placing myth