In this lecture, we engage historical legends about great fighters. Stories about them were remembered and retold both locally and nationally, in variants that resonated with the teller's real-world fears and hopes.

As in all legend traditons, these stories connected to debates over what was believable. For example, during the 1930s and 1940s in the deeply segregated United States, was it believable that a Black man could be a national hero for all Americans? And in Denmark through the past two centuries, was it believable that a strong leader would appear to defend the Danes, if their country were attacked by Germany? The tellers and retellers of legends about Joe Louis and Holger Danske added variants to these legend debates.

Reading

Today's reading features many examples of stories about strong men in American and Danish hero legends.

How did these stories debate the tellers' believable world?
How did they function in the politics and society of their day?

Estimated time: ~40 minutes

William Wiggins (2003). Chapter 7 "Joe Louis, American Folk Hero." Pages 148-171, in Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America. Edited by Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins.

UW Library : Permalink to Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America.

Kvideland & Sehmsdorf, (1991).“Holger the Dane” (number 57.1) and other European historical legends, pages 329-374 in Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend.

UW Library : Permalink to Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend

Hans Christian Andersen, "Holger the Dane" in The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, pages 302-305. Translated by Erik Christian Haugaard.

PDF File : AndersenHolgerTheDane.pdf

Rationale: Compare and contrast legends about the historical heroes Joe Louis and Holger Danske, with tall tales (folktales) about a fictional character, Paul Bunyan. All of these stories about strong men were adapted into national culture, where they continued to play different roles depending on their category, legend or folktale.

Lecture

In this lecture keep the following ideas in mind:

How does a locally told legend enter national storytelling tradition?
How do these legends connect to the tellers' believable world?

Optional Expansion

Joe Louis legends uncovered a possible path to racial integration of the US Armed Forces. Many less famous, but equally powerful Black American soldiers forged ahead on that path. Here's a recent essay about "Three Distinguished Colonels Who Led the Way for Others"