How few followers does a belief have to have to be considered mythology?
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It depends on who’s talking. In the fields of social science, EVERYONE’s beliefs are labeled mythology because that’s such a handy word. When students first run into that label, they always rare back in a huff and tell me (as their teacher), “What?! MY SCRIPTURES aren’t mythology. They’re the TRUTH!” But we can’t use a word like “truth” as a label in social science. Besides, nobody really knows what the truth is, philosophically. Only God knows that!
But in common parlance, it’s everybody ELSE’s beliefs that are mythology. MINE are the truth. YOURS are myths. Which won’t do when we’re in a social science. So, in anthropology or sociology, both of which I taught for several years, we used the terminology of “mythology” to describe beliefs of anybody. Of course, I thought we could have just used the more bland term “beliefs” but then nobody asked me, did they? That’s the trouble with the world — it never asks for my opinion before it off and does stuff! Remember that, guys! Ask me first!
You just need a family line who will pass the tradition of the myth. So only a couple at a time. Father tells his son, and so forth through the generations. Within these generations, the myth may be told to friends, who will spread the myth but in their own words. Yet the myth stays alive. But you just need two (or even one) at any given time. That seems like a reasonable answer to me.
A belief will only need to be, if by that belief there is a life and a written way of life.