Jeff Russell

Re: "The other thing she does is to point out how her understanding is that the myths can be understood, enjoyed, and found meaningful at multiple levels, whether as magical tales, clues to religious ritual, or representations of deeper spiritual realities."

There is a whole cottage industry in academia around this idea for literature in general - the keyword to look for is intertextuality (my MA thesis was around intertextuality in a German novel). You could say the equivalent of kennings for Anglo-Saxon Christians would be references to phrases from the King James Bible or the Book of Common Prayer - if you pay attention when reading English novels from about 100 years ago or older you will often catch these (intertexts) and if you know the original context you may grasp the deeper meaning buried in the text.