The 10 Characteristics of Legends (with explanations and examples)
What are the characteristics of legends and what elements are expressed in their stories?
Legends are one of the most well-known and oldest forms of story transmission, and that is why they are part of the cultures of thousands of ethnic groups and nations.
In the following we will see what are the characteristics of the legendThe legend, what defines it as a type of narration belonging to the epic genre, and what is its purpose.
What is a Legend?
Let's start with the most basic: the definition of the term "legend". This is a sub-genre of the epic (category in which we also find myths, epics, epic poems, sagas, etc.) in which, by means of narratives transmitted from generation to generation, important events that occurred in the past, which are totally or partially fantastic, are explained.
In other words, in legends it is very difficult to know which elements of the story narrated actually occurred or not, since there is an overlap between facts and characters. there is an overlapping between real events and characters, on the one hand, and fantastic or supernatural ones, on the other.on the other.
However, one of the characteristics of legends is that they serve to transmit values and concepts to understand the origins of the social organization of a group (usually considered a nation or ethnic group), so that traditionally the veracity of their more general aspects is not questioned, since they are used to educate and socially cohesive.
The main characteristics of Legends
Now that we have seen a summary of what this epic subgenre is like, let's take a closer look at the characteristics of the legend and how it plays an important role in the traditions of human social groups.
1. Fantastic elements
One of the most characteristic features of legends is that in them there are many fantastic elements, which include There are many fantastic elements, including magical events and supernatural entities.. This is so for two fundamental reasons.
On the one hand, legends are part of the tradition and culture of social groups, and this means that they appeared before the scientific conception of reality was as strong as it is today. Generally speaking, for thousands of years people had no way of clearly differentiating between what can happen and what cannot happen according to the natural laws we know today. Therefore, it is very easy that even unintentionally fantastic elements were added to the story.
On the other hand, and partly as a consequence of the above, when imagining the legends, it was not a priority to offer a precise description of how the world works, the priority was not to offer a precise description of how the world works, but rather to try to convey concepts of how the world works.but rather to try to convey concepts and ideas. In other words, legends obey the logic of relationships between abstract ideas (loyalty, virtue, fear, anger, etc.) and not the logic of realism.
2. It pretends to explain facts of History
Legends, in their origin, pretended to explain things that hypothetically happened in the past and that serve to better understand some aspect of the here and now. We have already seen that many of these stories (or even all of them) did not really happen, so they are usually interpreted with a mixture of credulity in the face of facts for which there is no evidence, on the one hand, and the belief that the events of the past that are explained are captured in the legend through metaphors.
In any case, legends are generally not seen today as a valid source of information. are not seen as a valid source of accurate knowledge about the events that occurred in the past, but as a valued cultural reality.but as a cultural reality appreciated precisely for being part of the history of a society regardless of the veracity of its contents.
There are only a few very specific cases in which there is debate about whether legends can give clues about real historical events, usually when their origins are very old and refer to events that occurred before writing began to be used. For example, the legends of the Hadza tribe.
3. The story takes place in a specific place
At first glance, this characteristic may seem anodyne, because at the end of the day we are used to the fact that most of the stories we read or listen to have to do with specific characters performing actions in specific places. However, it must be taken into account that in the epic genre it is very frequent to deal with themes and events of such an abstract character that we are hardly able to imagine where the events take place..
For example, in narratives that explain the origin of the cosmos or the world from the perspective of myths (a type of narratives known as cosmogonies), it is very common that no attempt is made to describe the environment in which the protagonists of the story move, because they are supernatural in character and supposedly existed before the concept of space as we understand it today made sense.
However, one of the characteristics of the legend that serve to distinguish it from other epic narratives is that the action does take place in a specific location, regardless of whether the world in which the events occur is fictional or actually exists in our cosmos.
4. Very clear use of archetypes
Archetypes are recurring roles embodied by most of the characters in the stories that have run through the history of mankind. that have traversed the history of mankind.
Carl Jung and followers of his school of thought, such as Joseph Campbell (best known for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces), developed this concept to show that the different societies, ethnicities and cultures that have existed use very similar characters to shape their myths, legends and narratives in general. Some of these archetypes are the wise old man, the rogue, the child, the hero, etc.
In the legends of special importance is the archetype of the herowho is the protagonist of the story to be told, and who is used as an example to follow and a model of virtue and honorable and courageous behavior.
Thus, legends usually do not contain individuals of very ambiguous morality and full of nuances, but the role that each one plays in the story is usually very clear since each one of them is presented in the narration.
5. Evolution by oral transmission
Legends have existed both before and after the appearance of writing systems, and at all times they have been relatively independent of their embodiment on pages.
That is to say, their existence is not confined to the publication, copying and editing of books, but legends pass from one person to another both through reading and through word-of-mouth and oral tradition. and oral tradition. This, in turn, makes it easier for the legend to change over time, or for several different versions to emerge where before there was only one.
6. The characters are human or semi-human
Since legends are accessible to all the social substrata of a culture, their characters must have motivations and concerns understandable to all, and as a consequence most of them are human or partially human (psychologically, although their physical appearance may vary greatly), so that they express the most common ideas and feelings of the people of a culture. express the most common ideas and feelings.
7. Inclusion of folklore content
Legends adopt as a frame of reference the symbology and images of local folklore, elements that are easily understandable.elements that are easily understood by everyone because they are part of the culture in which they live.
For example, if in the telling of a legend there comes a point where a demon appears, listeners will know instantly that its presence implies danger or, at the very least, caution, and that it will possibly try to harm or deceive the good people included in the story. There is a tendency not to use elements that are very difficult to understand within this frame of reference (for example, a demon who, for no apparent reason, has a kinder character than the hero).
8. No resources of metafiction
Another characteristic of the legend is that its content is presented as separate from the time and space of the reader or hearer, and does not acknowledge the existence of the audience or appeal to their participation..
That is to say, in the Legend of King Arthur, for example, there are no moments in which any character poses questions to the audience, but in any case he poses them to himself or to another character who is part of the narrated events.
9. The closure of the story is clear
Legends tend not to end in open endings that leave room for many interpretations. At the end, something happens that makes it clear that the story has no further development.If there is any unknown is what interpretation we should draw from the legend already told, and not what happened after that ending.
10. The closing is sobering: there is a moral
In most cases, the closing offers a moral interpretation of what actions have been good and what actions have been bad throughout the development of the story. The moral is one of the most important characteristics of the legend, which serves to transmit values and behavioral guidelines, even if indirectly, albeit indirectly and without appealing directly to the listeners or readers (as we have seen).
Bibliographical references:
- Jansen, H.M.M. (2004). Epic Adventures: Heroic Narrative in the Oral Performance Traditions of Four Continents. LIT.
- Krapf, N. (1988). Beneath the Cherry Sapling: Legends from Franconia. New York: Fordham University Press.
- Neveleff, J. (1997). Classification of literary genres. Buenos Aires: Noveduc Libros.
- Taranilla de la Varga, C.J. (2016). Grandes mitos y leyendas de la historia. Córdoba: Almuzara.
- Tangherlini, T.R. (1990). 'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization. Western Folklore, 49(4), pp. 371 - 390.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)