mythology

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A body or collection of myths belonging to a people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes.
• noun A body of myths associated with an event, individual, or institution.
• noun The field of scholarship dealing with the systematic collection and study of myths.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The science of myths; the science which investigates myths with a view to their interpretation and to discover the degree of relationship existing between the myths of different peoples; also, the description or history of myths.
• noun A system of myths or fables in which are embodied the convictions of a people in regard to their origin, divinities, heroes, founders, etc. See myth.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The science which treats of myths; a treatise on myths.
• noun A body of myths; esp., the collective myths which describe the gods of a heathen people.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun countable and uncountable The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes.
• noun countable and uncountable A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.
• noun countable and uncountable Pervasive elements of a fictional universe that resemble a mythological universe.
• noun uncountable The systematic collection and study of myths.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun myths collectively; the body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person
• noun the study of myths