I knew my grandfather, who in my eyes was a god, and I embellish everything about him. He died in 2010. Think how muddled, exaggerated, revised, and dressed-up stories get over centuries... especially when they are not written down.
Somewhat different cultures, I think. There are oral traditions where we can compare the written and oral records and see less deviation in the oral records over even long periods of time.
I acknowledge that requires examples and citations and at one point I knew where to pull them up offhand.
