Answer: it´s simple.
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The Myth of The Great American Novel persists despite the fact that novel was written: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
Similarly, The Legend of El Dorado persists despite the fact El Dorado was discovered.
Fantastic quantities of New World gold came not from a hidden city in a jungle or a mountaintop but from the Santa Barbara River and nearby tombs of pre-Columbian Cañari royalty in the Chordeleg area. Over the centuries, tons of precious metal were dug up and melted down. A minimum of 550 kilos of gold were attributed to one man alone -Heduvides Serrano, the tomb raider who discovered the Patecte, a pre-Columbian gold plaque and the subject of our documentary film "The Search for The Lost Gold Patecte of Ecuador.".
Despite proven facts, The Legend of El Dorado persists because legends operate before, outside of, beyond, more than rationality. In legends and myths - in music and poetry too - we enter another realm: the architecture of emotions.
It took an epic character, Don Quixote, to express most poignantly the disconnect between reason and legends:
Facts are the enemies of truth.