We turn to another widespread character in legends - fairies and other supernatural spirits, discussed in traditional communities like Ballymenone as well as virtual communities of 21st century USA.

How do the tellers negotiate more believable and less believable legends?

Reading

Estimated time to read: ~45 minutes

Henry Glassie (2006), Irish fairy legends as told by Ellen Cutler and Peter Flanagan, in The Stars of Ballymenone.

PDF File : Glassie_2006_2_fairy_legends.pdf. Also listen to Ellen Cutler, and Peter Flanagan as recorded by Henry Glassie

Kvideland & Sehmsdorf (1991) Chapter 47 "Good Neighbors and Friends" (pages 222-237) and Chapter 53 "The Wild Hunt" (pages 272-274) in Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend.

UW Library : Permalink to Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend

Andrew Peck (2015), “Tall, Dark and Loathsome" Journal of American Folklore, pages 334-348.

UW Library : Permalink to Tall, Dark and Loathsome

Rationale: Compare two different legend-telling events, to explore how beliefs emerge and take shape while people tell legends.

Lecture

Part 1: In this lecture keep the following questions in mind:

How does the believability of legend texts change and shift DURING a legend-telling event?
Are Mrs Cutler and Peter Flanagan participating in a debate over what is believable? How?

Part 2: The online, crowdsourced creation of Slenderman legends is a well-documented example for studying how a legend-telling community negotiates what is believable or not. In this lecture, consider the following question:

How is the communal creation of Slenderman legends similar or different from the legend debates we examined earlier - in Mrs. Cutler's and Mr. Flanagan's fairy legends as well as the classic debate over witch legends that Linda Dégh recorded?

Bonus

The UW Professor who translated Scandinavian legends in the e-book we're reading, Henning Sehmsdorf, also collected legends here in Washington State. See recently collected variants of legends about supernatural beings and spirits, pages 11-28, in Henning Sehmsdorf, Continuity of Norwegian Tradition in the Pacific Northwest (2020).

Online PDF Publication : Continuity of Norwegian Tradition in the Pacific Northwest

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