The Only Story Ever Told

My family and I just completed reading through the "Chronicles of Prydain" series, that was written by Lloyd Alexander in the middle to late 1960's and 1970's. It is a fabulous repackaging of classic Welsh mythology. All of us thoroughly enjoyed the series; so much so that I even engaged the idea for a moment that I preferred Prydain and its cast of characters to Middle Earth or Narnia. But then, I came to my senses ;->. I still prefer Tolkein and Lewis stories because of their strong spiritually allegorical feel. That being said, Prydain's heroes and villans, while lacking the allegorical quality of the aforementioned fantasy lands, are more human and, generally, less dour. I recommend this series to all.
While reading the books, it occurred to me, again and again, that good stories seem to share similar plots. They seems to inevitably revolve around good and evil, right and wrong. It may be that this is somewhat isolated to the historical-based fantasy. Nevertheless, some variation of the good versus evil them seems to abound it almost all stories. For example, the Thousand and One Nights stories have similar plots and these are, by no means, "Western" stories. By the way, I would also like to recommend "Arabian Nights" program that was produced for TV in 2000 by Hallmark. It starred Mili Avital and is a nice introduction to the Thousand and One Nights and the special effects weren't bad either, for TV.
I think the similarities in story speak to a common desire to utilize story, generally, and words, specifically, to give us meaning. We, as humans, desire meaning and purpose. We desire "The Good" of Aristotle. When we tell stories, we transcend ourselves. We see that what we are is not all we can be. We learn what we ought to be, in fact, what we MUST be. As it is stated by one of the characters in "Castle of Llyr", "Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are."
We are to be heroes; more than what our biology or psychology tells us! We are to live, love, fight, and have adventures; forget Satre's mundane existentialism! The adventures comes when we have purpose and meaning. We are to, like St. George, slay our dragons. The interesting thing is that, most often, our inordinate desires are our own dragons. These dragons can only be faced through inner struggle against the self. Taran, the hero of Prydain, starts as an impatient youth of quite poor judgement (for an assistant pig-keeper) and ends up as the "High King". He learns many lessons, along the way, but one of the lessons subsumes them all. In order to find oneself, one must lose oneself. Specifically, one must lose oneself to others. Our dragons of selfishness, pride, hatred, deception, etc can only be overcome by sacrificing them on the altar of others' needs.
Jesus said in St. Matthew's Gospel, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it". This is just one of the similar themes that are shared between Christ's teachings and various stories. Even Harry Potter has to sacrifice himself for his friends. The values preached in the Christian tradition seem to resound so widely, across the history of story, that it makes me think that the Gospels are NOT the "Best Story Ever Told". Perhaps, it is the ONLY STORY EVER TOLD!