Genres & Forms
Legend
A legend is a folklore prose work of fantastic or religious-didactic content that narrator and listener treat as plausibly true, unlike a tale. There are cosmogonic legends (about the creation of the world, mountains, rivers), etiological ones (explaining the origin of phenomena), biblical-apocryphal, and historical-heroic legends. A legend inclines toward explanation and moralizing and is often tied to a specific place or saint. In the Ukrainian tradition, legends about the founding of Kyiv, about Saints Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves, and about the opryshky and Oleksa Dovbush are widespread. Legends were collected and systematized by Volodymyr Hnatiuk ('Galician-Ruthenian Folk Legends,' 1902–1903) and Vasyl Myloradovych. Literary life was given to the legend by Marko Vovchok and Ivan Franko ('Moses').
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Compare “Legend” with another term
Meaning, origins and distinction — side by side.
Distinction
Two non-fairytale prose narratives differing in degree of fantasy. The legend contains a pronounced FANTASTIC or religious-miraculous element (a miracle, a saint, the supernatural) and inclines to instruction. The historical tradition (perekaz), by contrast, claims HISTORICAL authenticity: it recounts real events, persons or places (the Khmelnytsky era, Karmaliuk, place-name origins) almost without invention, though over time it accrues conjecture. The legend is closer to the miracle; the tradition, to historical memory.
