Table Of ContentPERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY LEGEND
Volume II
CECTAL Conference Papers Series No. 5
PERSPE(TIVES ON
(ONTEMPORARY
LEGEND
Volnmtll
Edited
by
GILLIAN BENNETT
PAUL SMITH
and
J.D.A. WIDDOWSON
(@.V
Sheffield Academic Press
CECTAL
Copyright © 1987 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by Sheffield Academic Press
The University of Sheffield
343 Fulwood Road
Sheffield S10 3BP
England
for
The Centre for English Cultural Tradition and Language
Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press
and
printed in Great Britain
by Dotesios (Printers) Ltd.
Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Perspectives on contemporary legend.
(CECTAL conference papers series; no. 5)
Vol. 2
1. Tales- History and criticism
I. Bennett, Gillian II. Smith, Paul S.
III. Widdowson, J.D.A. IV. University of Sheffield.
Centre for English Cultural
Tradition and Language
V. Series
398.2'1 GR74
ISBN 1-85075-118-8
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 7
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11
PAPERS PART 1:
ASPECTS OF COLLECTION,
TRANSCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS 13
Gillian Bennett Problems in Collecting and 15
Classifying Urban Legends:
A Personal Experience
Bill Ellis Why Are Verbatim Transcripts 31
of Legends Necessary?
W.F.H. Nicolaisen The Linguistic Structure of Legends 61
PAPERS PART 2:
VARIETIES OF LEGEND 77
Shirley Arora Memorate as Metaphor: Some 79
Mexican Treasure Narratives
and their Narrators
Mark Glazer The Cultural Adaptation of a 93
Rumour Legend: The Boyfriend's
Death in South Texas
Gordon McCulloch Suicidal Sculptors: Scottish Versions 109
of a Migratory Legend
Sigrid Schmidt Contemporary Legends of Europeans 117
in Namibia
PAPERS PART 3:
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEGEND 131
Sandy Hobbs The Social Psychology of a 'Good' 133
Story
Stephen Sayers The Psychological Significance of 149
Genealogy
PAPERS PART 4:
LEGENDS AND THEIR OFFSPRING 169
Marion Bowman Contemporary Legend and Practical 171
Joke
Paul Smith Contemporary Legend and the 177
Photocopy Revolution
Appendix I Synopsis of 'Tales of the Super 203
natural', a film produced by Sharon
Sherman
Appendix II Abstracts of papers not received for 205
publication
Appendix III Participants in the 1983 and 1984 208
Sheffield seminars
INTRODUCTION
The majority of papers included in this volume were read as contribu
tions to the second Perspectives on Contemporary Legend seminar,
held over a five day period in August 1983, at the Centre for English
Cultural Tradition and Language at the University of Sheffield. In
addition the volume contains a number of those read at a special
weekend seminar (held at CECTAL in July 1984) for British scholars
unable to attend the panel discussions on contemporary legend at the
ISFNR meeting in Bergen earlier that year. The subjects covered at the
Sheffield gatherings were as heterogeneous as they were interesting, and
ranged from discussions of the meaning of the term 'contemporary
legend' to memorates of treasure trove, to family traditions, ghost
stories and the literary treatment of folktale motifs. It is not our
intention to summarise these papers here (they will speak for themselves
later), but rather to provide a background for them, in order to set them
in context.
It has been suggested that the Perspectives on Contemporary Legend
seminars are 'not quite like other academic meetings'. In attempting to
interpret this surprising comment, naturally our first assumption is that
they are simply nicer than average. Certainly, we do try to work to a
different set of expectations: firstly, everyone is involved-there is no
audience, everyone is a participant; secondly, criticism is welcome, even
sought, as long as it is constructive, not acrimonious; and thirdly
everyone is conscious that they have come to learn. Then of course
there is the eccentricity factor. The 'resident rebels' staying in the hall
of residence persistently test Paul Smith's organisational skills by trying
to rearrange the programme, and people come and go throughout the
week at ordinary and extraordinary times. Jean Ure, in particular, has
perfected the art of the dramatic arrival: in 1983 she made a spectacular
entrance at three o'clock in the morning, airily explaining that she had
'just been finishing a book'. Walks and table-tennis keep people in trim
(Mark Glazer claims to have lost half a stone in 1983-possibly the half
stone he put on in 1982!). There are also day trips: in 1983, for example,
8 Perspect£ves on Contemporary Legend II
the group went to Derbyshire to see well-dressing celebrations, with
Charlotte Norman acting as expert guide. Overall, therefore, the
seminars are designed to create a friendly, relaxed atmosphere conducive
to constructive debate and the free exchange of opinion.
The later of the two gatherings represented in this volume was an
informal and local one, primarily a discussion meeting, but we have
persuaded two contributors, Marion Buwman and Sandy Hobbs, to
include their papers in the book. Abstracts of the remainder may be
found in Appendix II; and it is hoped that the full papers will eventually
appear in print at a later date.
The more formal1983 programme included films and discussions as
well as the presentation of papers. Films included commercial
presentations, which used contemporary legend motifs or explored
them as a genre, and a short black and white production by Sharon
Sherman which explored the nature of a tale-telling session (see
Appendix 1). There were three principal discussion sessions. The first,
chaired by Paul Smith, was devoted to 'varieties of contemporary
legend' and took as its thesis the view that it would be wrong to assume
that we have already identified the total corpus of contemporary
legends. This session provided an opportunity to explore areas at
present considered to be outside the field of contemporary legend
research (ESP, UFOs and so on), and also included contributions from
Willem de Blecourt, Lisa Wamer and Eiko Fukyoshi about the genre in
Holland, Russia and Japan respectively. A second session, chaired by
Graham Shorrocks, dealt with the problems of'collecting contemporary
legends' and drew on the paper by Gillian Bennett and, of course, the
personal experience of all the other participants too. Mark Glazer
chaired the third session, 'towards a Type Index of contemporary
legends', which looked at the various ways in which the indexing of
legends has been approached to date and described the ongoing work of
Mark Glazer in the USA and Paul Smith in the UK. In addition, an
outline was given of the progress so far of Glazer, Smith and Barnes's
computerised index of contemporary legend motifs. It has not been
possible to include reports of these discussions in the present volume,
but anyone who is interested will find recordings of the sessions in
CECTAL's audiovisual archives.
The present volume aims to present papers representative of these
very pleasant and constructive gatherings, and, in doing so, to stimulate
discussion of the nature, forms and functions of the legends of our time.
Description:value, in short, was that I had already shown my good faith, proved myself . 'Has anybody ever told you about ?', which does suggest narrative but does Marginal and interlinear 'stage directions' represent additional semiotic
