[ergyuu]

People in the pre-modern era were more at home with imaginative and mythopoeic forms of expression

Right.... and that's why there's so much twaddle and add-on surrounding the Buddha's teachings.

The myth, fantasy and folk-tales of past times and the modern day fantasy of Harry Potter (or other) movies for example (which are enjoyed by adults as well as children) are all ways to temporarily try to escape for a while from the dukkha of ordinary life .