Joseph Campbell :Hero with a thousand faces . Flight of the Wild Gander .
Robert Graves : White Goddess
Frazer : Golden Bough
Vladimir Propp Morphology of a folk tale .
Freud : Throughout writing.
Jung :throughout writings .

There are many others that will be much more suitable ,but I can't think think of them at the moment or don't know them . Only Campbell ,Fraser and Propp (nearly) are straightforward and reccomended the others stray into too subjective territory and the battles among structuralists like Levi -Strauss are best avoided .

Mircea Eliad

Specifically:
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries
Myth and Reality
Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return

but much his other work too

I think this is an interesting website he might like
http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/foamycustard/index.htm
and it'll give lots of leads.
Personally I love urban myths, modern folklore - I mean yes I suppose you've got to read all the older discussions, but if you can think about it all with an eye to the terms of your own culture, that's got to help hasn't it. Partly because it's pretty impossible to think yourself into someone else's cultural shoes. Maybe there are universal things that are important to you that are important to everyone, in other times and cultures. Or maybe there aren't. Dunno. I think there's probably a few though, just because we're all biologically the same with urges to eat, sleep, shag, create stuff, and avoid dying.

I've not read this
http://www.hoap.co.uk/explore.htm#ExMy
but I imagine it's very good. I've just read the 'explore fairy traditions' which is Excellent. You might imagine from the titles that they're rather 'introductory' and shallow but they're not at all. There are apparently some excerpts on the foamy custard site.

Devereux - The Sacred Place - Ancient of Holy and Mystical Sites, reading that at the moment.. its an overview with pretty pictures....
What I'd like to know does all our folk/fairytale stem from the 19th century collection of stories, which all seem to follow the same pattern?