Legend 53974 224932554 2008-07-11T01:51:10Z Bongwarrior 1879566 Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/Hunterliv|Hunterliv]] ([[User talk:Hunterliv|talk]]) to last version by Nehrams2020 {{Refimprove|date=October 2007}} {{otheruses}} {{redirect|Legendary}} {{wiktionary}} [[Image:Swiss Rütlischwur.jpg|right|thumb|A depiction of the legendary [[Rütlischwur]].]] A '''legend''' ([[Latin]], ''legenda'', "things to be read") is a [[narrative]] of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale [[verisimilitude (literature)|verisimilitude]]. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include [[miracle]]s that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of [[indoctrination]] where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and [[realism (arts)|realistic]]. A '''legend''' is a [[story]], that is ''probably'' about someone that '''did exist''' but has been twisted to seem more ''interesting'' and ''fascinating.'' This story is passed down generation to generation. Most legends are [[pourquoi story | pourquoi stories]]. A modern [[folklore|folklorist]]'s professional definition of ''legend'' was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:<ref>Tangherlini, "'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization" ''Western Folklore'' '''49'''.4 (October 1990:371-390) p. 85.</ref> <blockquote>Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified<ref>That is to say, specifically located in place and time.</ref> historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs." </blockquote> ==Etymology and origin== [[Image:Holger danske.jpg|right|thumb|[[Holger Danske]], a legendary character.]] The word ''"legend"'' appeared in the [[English language]] circa [[1340]], transmitted from medieval Latin language through [[French (language)|French]]. Its blurred extended (and essentially [[Protestant]]) sense of a non-historical narrative or myth was first recorded in [[1613]]. By emphasizing the ''un''realistic character of "legends" of the saints, English-speaking Protestants were able to introduce a note of contrast to the ''"real"'' saints and martyrs of the [[Reformation]], whose authentic narratives could be found in [[John Foxe|Foxe's ''Book of Martyrs'']]. Thus "legend" gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious". Before the invention of the [[printing press]], stories were passed on via [[Oral history|oral tradition]]. [[Storytelling|Storytellers]] learned their stock in trade: their stories, typically received from an older storyteller, who might, though more likely not, have claimed to have actually known a witness, rendered the narrative as "history". Legend is distinguished from the [[genre]] of [[chronicle]] by the fact that legends apply structures that reveal a moral definition to events, providing meaning that lifts them above the repetitions and constraints of average human lives and giving them a universality that makes them worth repeating through many generations. In German-speaking and northern European countries, "legend", which involves Christian origins, is distinguished from "[[Saga]]", being from any other (usually, but not necessarily older) origin. The modern characterisation of what may be termed a "legend" may be said to begin in 1865 with [[Jacob Grimm]]'s observation, "The [[fairy tale]] is poetic, legend, historic."<ref>"''Das Märchen ist poetischer, die Sage, historischer''"; quoted at the commencement of Tangherlini's survey of legend scholarship (Tangherlini 1990:371), which is in large part the basis of this section.</ref> Early scholars like [[Karl Wehrhahn]]<ref>Wehrhahn ''Die Sage'' (Leipzig) 1908.</ref> [[Friedrich Ranke]]<ref>Ranke, "Grundfragen der Volkssagen Forshung, in Leander Petzoldt (ed.), ''Vergleichende Sagenforschung'' 1971:1-20, noted by Tangherlini 1990.)</ref> and [[Will-Erich Peukert]]<ref>Peukert , ''Sagen'' (Munich: E Schmidt) 1965.</ref> followed Grimm's example in focussing solely on the literary narrative, an approach that was enriched particularly after the 1960s<ref>Stimulated in part, Tangherlini suggests, by the 1962 congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research.</ref> by addressing questions of performance and the anthropological and psychological insights provided in considering legends' social context. Questions of categorizing legends, in hopes of compiling a content-based series of categories on the line of the [[Aarne-Thompson]] folktale index provoked a search for a broader new synthesis. Compared to the highly-structured folktale, legend is comparatively formless, Helmut de Boor noted in 1928.<ref>de Boor, "Märchenforschung", ''Zeitschrift für Deutschkunde'' '''42''' 1928:563-81.</ref> The narrative content of legend is in realistic mode, rather than the wry irony of folktale;<ref>Lutz Röhrich, ''Märchen und Wirklichkeit: Eine volkskundliche Untersuchung'' (Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag) 1956:9-26.</ref> Wilhelm Heiske<ref>Heiske, "Das Märchen ist poetischer, die Sage, historischer.Versuch einer Kritik", ''Deutschunterricht'''''14''' 1962:69-75..</ref> remarked on the similarity of motifs in legend and folktale and concluded that, in spite of its realistic mode, legend is not more historical than folktale. Legend is often considered in connection with [[rumour]], also believable and concentrating on a single episode. Ernst Bernheim suggested that legend is simply the survival of rumour.<ref>Bernheim, ''Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft''(Berlin: de Gruyter) 1928.</ref> [[Gordon Allport]] credited the staying-power of certain rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise;<ref>Allport, ''The Psychology of Rumor'' (New York: Holt, Rinehart) 1947:164.</ref> thus "[[Urban legend]]s" are a feature of rumour.<ref>Bengt af Klintberg, "Folksägner i dag" ''Fataburen'' 1976:269-96.</ref> When Willian Jansen suggested that legends that disappear quickly were "short-term legends" and the persistent ones be termed "long-term legends", the distinction between legend and rumour was effectively obliterated, Tangherlini concluded.<ref>Jansen, "Legend: oral tradition in the modern experience", ''Folklore Today, A Festschrift for William Dorson'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press) 1972:265-72, noted in Tangherlini 1990:375.</ref> The elasticity of legend in its highly specific and localised social context has rendered it elusive to attempts to typify it simply through its content, as [[fairy tale]]s have been successfully categorised. [[Image:Lady godiva full.jpg|thumb|left|In the painting of [[Lady Godiva]] by [[Jules Joseph Lefebvre]], the authentic historical person is fully submerged in the legend, presented in an anachronistic high medieval setting.]] ==Examples== A legend or legend fragment is a [[meme]] that propagates through a [[culture]]. It may be crystallized in a literary work that fixes it and which affects the future direction it will take. Such an example of this is the contrast of ''[[Hamlet (legend)|Hamlet]]'' the legend, and Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]''. When a legend that is rooted in a kernel of truth is so strongly affected by an ideal that it conforms to expected literary conventions of behavior, in certain cases it turns into a [[Romance (genre)|Romance]]. Such may well be the case with a historical Arthur (see [[Historical basis for King Arthur]]), around whom legends accumulated and were expressed in the purely literary magical atmosphere of surviving Arthurian romances, collectively known as the "[[Matter of Britain]]". Modern retellings of the legend of [[Saint George]] omit many of the miraculous happenings that were central to earlier versions, but which have lost credibility. Thus modern "[[urban legend]]s" are quite correctly termed legends: "it happened to the brother-in-law of someone my friend's mother knew". In short, legends are believable, although not necessarily believed. For the purpose of the study of legends, in the academic discipline of [[folkloristics]], the truth value of legends is irrelevant because, whether the story told is true or not, the fact that the story is being told at all allows scholars to use it as commentary upon the cultures that produce or circulate the legends. [[Image:Hübner Bürkner Genoveva.jpg|right|thumb|The medieval legend of [[Genevieve of Brabant]] connected her to [[Treves]].]] [[Hippolyte Delehaye]], (in his Preface to ''The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography'', 1907) distinguished legend from [[mythology|myth]]: "The ''legend'', on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot." A clear example, which distinguishes what is myth from what is legend, is the story of the [[Gordian Knot]]. The ''legend'' concerns [[Alexander the Great]], who, when confronted with the ancient knot of cornel bark that secured the pole of the sacral ox-cart at [[Gordium]] in the winter of 333 BC, severed it with a slash of his sword. The ''myth'' of the Gordian Knot is the founding myth of Gordium itself, justifying the authenticity of its line of kings. From the moment a legend is retailed ''as a legend'', its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in ''[[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow]]'', [[Washington Irving]] transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a literary anecdote with [[Gothic novel|"Gothic" overtones]], which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend. Like [[metaphor]]s, legends may be living or dead: the vital signs of a legend depend upon its being fiercely defended as ''true,'' such as the voyage of [[Brendan]] or the [[Black Legend]] of the supposedly fanatical and cruel national character of Spain. ==Related concepts== Legends that exceed these boundaries of "realism" are called "[[fable]]s". The [[talking animal]] formula of [[Aesop]] identifies his brief stories as fables, not legends. The parable of the [[Prodigal Son]] would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included an [[Donkey|ass]] that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable. Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. [[Jacob de Voragine]]'s ''Legenda Aurea'' or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of ''vitae'' or instructive biographical narratives, tied to the [[liturgical calendar]] of the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of [[hagiography]]. The ''Legenda'' was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the [[saint]] of the day. Legend may be interpreted for its [[ontology|ontological]] consequences and be treated as [[mythology|myth]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}} To take an example, myths surrounding [[Cadmus]], a Phoenician immigrant credited with bringing the [[alphabet]] and other Near Eastern culture to Bronze Age Greece, may have begun as a series of legends gathering around the memory of the historical founder of certain coastal cities in Greece.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Explaining the origins of myth as former historical legends in this fashion is termed "euhemerism". See the entry [[Euhemerus]] for more detail. [[Conspiracy theory|Conspiracy theories]] are similar to legends in that the linchpin of the conspiracy is usually a plausible, but unprovable secret agenda which exclusively drives the story and links otherwise unconnected happenings into a satisfying pattern: thus meaning is supplied for events. ==Some famous legends== *[[Atlantis]] *[[Cenodoxus]], or the Damnation of the Good Doctor of Paris, told as an event justifying the sanctification of St. [[Bruno]] *[[King Arthur]] and the [[Knights of the Round Table]] (might be real) *[[Celtic Legends]] *[[Roma society and culture|Romani legends]] and [[Romulus and Remus]] *[[El Dorado]] and the [[Fountain of Youth]] *[[Vlad III Dracula|Vlad the Impaler]]; stories of his cruelty have attained legendary status, most likely spread post-mortem by his enemies. *[[Robin Hood]] *[[Roland]] *[[William Tell]] *[[Legends of Africa]] *[[Philosopher's stone]] *[[Odysseus]], for those convinced that a historical Odysseus existed and seek to locate his Ithaca. *[[Beowulf]], for those convinced that a historical Beowulf existed, his supposed Burial mound has yet to be excavated. *[[Shangri-La]] ==Legendary animals== Legendary animals are those a traveler in an exotic place might hope or fear to meet: their descriptions are always presented within the conventions of realism that are accepted by their hearers, though the details might stretch credulity: the [[basilisk]]. They do not include ''mythical animals'', like the [[sphinx]] or the [[Nemean lion]]. Some real animals have developed legends: the [[Tiger|man-eating tigers of the Sundarbans]], for instance, or blond [[spirit bear]]s. {{commonscat|Legends}} *[[Yeti]] *[[Bigfoot]] *[[Sasquatch]] *[[Loch Ness monster]] *[[Jackalope]] *[[Chupacabra]] ==References== {{reflist|2}} *[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/delehaye-legends.html Hippolyte Delehaye, ''The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography'' (1907)], Chapter I: Preliminary Definitions, ''et passim'' *[[Karl Kerenyi]], ''The Heroes of the Greeks'' (1959) *[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09121a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article] ''Literary or Profane Legends'' *Timothy R. Tangherlini, "'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization" ''Western Folklore'' '''49'''.4 (October 1990:371-390). A condensed survey with extensive bibliography. 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