IV.

Legends

Legends are folk history, and even when dealing with religious subject matter they differ from myth in that they tell about what has happened in the world after the period of its creation is over. They are believed by both narrator and audience and encompass a great variety of subjects: saints; werewolves, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures; adventures of real heroes and heroines; personal reminiscences; and explanations of geographical features and place-names (called local legends).

Legend differs from formal history in style of presentation, emphasis, and purpose. Like other folktale forms it tends to be formulaic, using cliches and standardized characterization. Little effort, for example, is given to recording what a hero was really like. Jesse James, a real-life American outlaw, is presented as a modern-day Robin Hood: a good-hearted character who stole from the rich to give to the poor. The American wilderness scouts Davy Crockett and Kit Carson are virtually the same character in legends. Likewise, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra (of ancient Egypt), Deirdre (of Irish legend), and more recently the modern actor Marilyn Monroe have passed into folklore as symbols of female beauty with almost no individuality. A similar patterning of characters and plots occurs in ghost stories, local legends, and in some cases even in family reminiscences. Such stories, though they may be presented as history, are too patterned to be trusted as objective historical accounts.

Urban legends are contemporary stories that are set in an urban environment and reported as true (sometimes in newspapers) but that contain patterns and motifs that reveal their legendary character. The context of these legends may be contemporary, but the stories reflect timeless concerns about urban living, including privacy, death, decay, and vermin.