- What is a legend?
- Characteristics of a legend
- Types of legends
- Elements of a legend
- Examples of legends
- Legend and myth
We explain what a legend is, its characteristics, elements and differences with a myth. Also, types of legends and various examples.
The legends are related to the popular culture of the towns.What is a legend?
A legend is a story that tells human or supernatural events, which is transmitted from generation to generation orally or in writing within a family, clan or town. The legends relate facts and events related to the homeland, popular heroes, imaginary creatures and souls.
Despite containing supernatural, miraculous, and fictitious creatures, the legends are considered by many persons as true stories, since they try to explain a phenomenon and are usually located in a known geographical place and in a specific period of history.
Usually the legends are related to the traditional popular culture of the towns. Some are very old so they mutated as they were transmitted orally. In these stories you can trace the deepest feelings of a community, their environment, their religiosity and their identity.
Characteristics of a legend
- It has its origin in oral tradition.
- It is passed from generation to generation.
- It focuses on a character principal.
- It is situated in a weather and specific place.
- It is based on natural or supernatural events.
- Part of a specific historical fact or event.
- Includes elements of the reality and fantastic elements.
- Try to explain a phenomenon.
- It can be taken as a narration true.
- It transforms over time and can have several versions.
- Be part of the culture of the different towns.
- Transmit ideas or values.
- Its main objective is to make sense of asociety or culture.
Types of legends
According to the theme:
- Religious legends. They relate the lives of saints and of great vigilante characters.
- Eschatological legends. They tell stories that refer to thelife after thedeath.
- Ethological legends. They explain how the different elements that make up thenature, are frequent in indigenous culture.
According to its origin:
- Local legends. They are autochthonous stories typical of a region or province.
- Rural legends. They are stories that are developed and transmitted in the field.
- Urban legends. They are stories that are known today and are valid.
Elements of a legend
- Context. It is narrated in a specific time and space.
- Plot. It has an argument and is a narrative with an introduction, a middle and a denouement o moral.
- Storyteller. Relate all the action in the third person.
- Characters. It usually stars a main character, human or not, and has few supporting characters.
Examples of legends
The weeping woman
Legend has it that in the year fifteen hundred, a young mestizo, daughter of a Spaniard and an Indian from the New World fell in love with a Spanish captain, with whom she conceived two children. At the same time, the captain married a Spanish woman, and in a fit of madness, the first woman killed her two children with a knife. With bloody hands, she went out into the street crying and screaming.
La llorona is one of the most widespread legends in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean. This character usually appears in rivers, and people who live in neighboring areas say that at night they can be heard crying.
The Loch Ness Monster
Legend has it that a whale-like beast exists in the waters of Loch Ness (located 270 km from Edinburgh in Scotland). The legend has its antecedents in the 6th century, but it was not until the late 19th century that newspapers began to spread the news and the legend gained international fame.
On one occasion, the animal was spotted by a couple driving their car near the shore of the lake, the news was spread by the Inverness Courier newspaper, who named the creature a "monster."
From there, the story took a media course, multiple investigations were conducted, and many people claimed to have seen the monster.
Robin Hood
It is one of the most popular legends in the world set in medieval England. The story goes that Robin Hood was the Leader of a band of bandits that lived in Sherwood Forest, who robbed the nobles to give to those who had the least.
The character represents the archetype of the hero and his story was taken to theater, to the literature and to movie theater and it is part of popular culture.
Legend of Romulus and Remus
This classic legend tells of the founding of Rome by the twin brothers Romulus and Remus. During their childhood, the brothers were abandoned in a basket in the Tiber river, and fed by a she-wolf, Luperca.
Through a dispute, Romulus killed Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BC.
The abominable snowman
This legend is part of the cultural tradition of Tibet and Nepal and refers to a giant ape that lives in the moutains. Those who defend the existence of this creature, also known as "Yeti", assure that it inhabits areas of Forest of the Himalayas.
Diverse investigations were dedicated during the last decades to the analysis of footprints and skeletal remains attributed to this creature.
Legend of Saint George and the dragon
Legend has it that it existed in a population of the Roman empire a dragon that the inhabitants fed with lambs. There was a time when animals were scarce so people were sent to feed the beast.
When it was the turn of the king's daughter, Saint George came with his horse and with his sword he killed the dragon and from the blood sprouted a rose that he gave to the princess.
Saint George was beheaded by the Diocletian government after a persecution of Christians and is one of the martyrs of the religion Christian. The legend became popular from the Middle Ages.
The curse of the College of Engineering
The current Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires began to be built in 1912 under the orders of the engineer Arturo Prins who sought to build the most surprising neo-Gothic building in the city. town.
In 1938, when the first stage of construction had already been completed, work was mysteriously stopped. Some spoke that the costs had exceeded what was budgeted and others that the plans had a calculation error that, if the work continued, it would end in a collapse.
Prins died a year later and gossip claims that he committed suicide for not having endured the mistake he made. From that moment, no one else dared to continue the building that is on Las Heras avenue, in the Recoleta neighborhood, imposing and unfinished.
Legend and myth
The term "legend" is often used as synonymous from "myth”, And although both are narratives used to explain natural or supernatural phenomena, there are certain aspects that differentiate them:
- Veracity. Legends can be taken as true stories by some people but are known to be fiction, while myths can only be originated if they were considered true within the context of a culture or religion. However, in other cultures myths are considered fiction, as is the case today with the Greek mythology. On the other hand, the legends are based on facts of reality that were experienced or observed and to which an explanation is attempted, they can also be based on supernatural or imaginary events but which are conceived as real.
- Shape. Legends tend to change shape over time, while myths are more concrete and finished narratives.
- Protagonist. The legends have as protagonists men or animals that are believed to exist or actually existed, while in myths the protagonists are heroes, gods or demigods who did not exist.
- Context. The legends are located in a recognizable context, they are located in a specific place and at a precise historical moment. Myths are usually located in places and times past and difficult to recognize.