Which author introduced C.S. Lewis to the idea that myths can convey truth?

J.R.R. Tolkien introduced C.S. Lewis to the idea that myths can convey truth.

Lewis and Tolkien became close colleagues at Oxford and members of the Inklings. Their conversations about mythology, literature, Christianity, and language influenced Lewis’s intellectual development. Tolkien, a Roman Catholic and professor of Anglo-Saxon, helped Lewis reconsider his earlier view that myth was merely an attractive falsehood.

Lewis later described a key realization: the Christian story could be understood as a myth that was also historically true. This idea contributed to his return to Christianity, although Lewis’s conversion involved several influences and cannot be credited to Tolkien alone. Hugo Dyson was also present during the famous 1931 conversation at Addison’s Walk, and Owen Barfield had already challenged Lewis’s assumptions about language and meaning. The friendship therefore involved a wider Oxford circle, but Tolkien was the author most directly associated with the myth-and-truth insight.