legend is a narrative transmitted orally by people, aiming to explain mysterious or supernatural events, mixing real facts, with imaginary or fanciful ones, and that are modified through the popular imagination.
As they become popular, legends tend to be reproduced and recorded in the form of stories and written stories, mainly in books.
Etymologically, the word legend comes from medieval Latin, which means “that which must be read”.
Initially, the legends told stories of saints, but these concepts were transformed into stories that speak of the culture of a people and their traditions.
Legends try to provide explanations for all events and situations, including things that do not have a proven scientific explanation, such as the supposed ones. supernatural phenomena.
The legend can be explained as a degeneration of the myth, because as they are passed on orally from generation to generation, they are changed over time. As the popular saying goes: “whoever tells a story, increases one point”.
The origin of the legends is based on four theories that try to give an answer: a Biblical Theory, with origin in the scriptures; historic, originating from different mythologies, allegorical, where it says that all myths are symbolic, containing only some moral or philosophical truth; and Physics, which uses the elements of nature as the basis of everything (water, fire, earth and air).
Urban legend
The main feature of urban legends is their contemporaneity, that is, they are related to current or modern events.
As a rule, urban legends have a sensational or conspiratorial character, with the intention of, like classical legends, finding answers to any type of information and event that does not have a scientific explanation.
Among some of the urban legends that attracted the most attention in Brazil, the following stand out: the legend of Chupa-Cabra, Loira do Bathroom, Homem do Saco and the legend of Boneco do Fofão, for example.
Often urban legends are created with the aim of scaring and scaring people.
Find out more about the meaning of Conspiracy theory.
folk legends
Brazil is a country rich in popular culture and one of the characteristics that helps to recognize this title is precisely the large amount of folklore legends.
From North to South, each Brazilian region has its own legends, such as the legend of Saci-Pererê, legend of Curupira, legend of Iara, legend of Caipora, legend of Mule-sem-Cabeça, of pink dolphin, and many others.
Learn more about the meaning of Folklore.
