Remember sitting with your friends in elementary school and you all start making up a story? You're all taking turns, getting hyper, and someone says "and... and then, and then, a light shoots out of the sky!" and your other friend says... "and then someone's arm gets ripped off and a lephrichan appears, and how about they have to fight demons with one arm!"
Eventually the bell rings, and you all come back to earth and realize it was just plain silly. Well, someone put that story on T.V. and called it American Gods.