FOAFTALE NEWS
NEWSLETTER
OF
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR
CONTEMPORARY LEGEND RESEARCH
ISSN 1026-1001
IN
THIS ISSUE
Schmidt: Hairy-Handed Hitchhiker
2000 PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY LEGEND CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
David Buchan Student Essay Prize for
Contemporary Legend Research
2001 Perspectives on
Contemporary Legend
Doctoral Fellowship Opportunity
In the last
issue of FTN, the editor, Philip Hiscock, requested that someone step
forward to take over the reins of editing this newsletter. That request was
again made during the 2000 ISCLR conference in
And so, I am
now the new editor of this newsletter. The new editorial address is as follows,
Mikel J. Koven, Department of Theatre, Film and Television,
***
RESEARCH NOTE
The
Hairy-Handed Hitchhiker and his Relatives in
Sigrid
Schmidt
Am Neuen Teiche 5
D - 31139
One of the most famous rogues
of contemporary legends was active again as recently as April 1998. According
to R. Hathaway and L. Doyle’s report in FOAFTALE NEWS 44, May 1999, this time
the criminal who looks for victims among female drivers did not ask for a lift
at the roadside but appeared at the parking lot of the Tuttle Mall in
We recognize
here an offshoot of the legend of the Hairy-Handed (Smith 1983:91) or
Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker (Brunvand 1984:52-55;
1993:327), though two main motifs are missing: The rogue does not dress as a
woman to beguile his victim, and he is not recognized by his hairy hands. Even
without these motifs the story has enough potential to thrill. The Hairy-Handed
Hitchhiker is one of the most popular contemporary legends, it is not only
widely told but can be traced back into a remarkable time depth. “Versions of
this comparatively well-known story have been circulating in
The 19th
century versions unanimously attribute the role to a male person. The heroes
are usually well-to-do individuals. In the story quoted by Brednich
from a Northern German paper of 1896 it was a wine merchant of
The
adventure of Professor Peuckert’s grandfather, which
took place in 19th century
We have to
keep this tradition in mind when we turn to
I consider
her role as a bogeyman as central for the understanding of the figure and
therefore want to group the statements in relation to this function. Antjie Somers was the bogey of several generations of South
African children particularly in the rural areas of the
Of course a
bogey must look frightening. According to one report she has tusks like a beast
of prey and goat’s feet (echoes of the Devil). More frequently she is described
as a ghost. If you get close enough to her you see that her face is just a
skull, in fact she is a mere skeleton, and her rib bones rattle in the wind,
therefore she is also known as “Klitsribbetjies“. Now
it is just one more step to the stories which explain why the person did not
find rest after death but turned into a ghost. These explanations flourish
particularly in the various literary treatments by South African writers who
usually mixed memories of their youth, common legend motifs and a good deal of
imagination. C. Lous Leipoldt
traced Antjie Somers back to the last hanged man of
the Dutch East India Company who committed suicide in 1795 when the British
conquered the
“Antjie Somers“ for a while became
a children”s game in which the main attraction
consisted of frightening the playmates. “Antjie
Somers“ was the mock name of a person in rags, or, in
the days when this fashion started, of a woman wearing trousers. A vagabond in the
veldt was referred to as: “an Antjie Somers“.
Many people
mentioned extraordinary abilities of Antjie Somers.
But bogeys and related beings have more strength than ordinary persons. So like
a witch Antjie Somers can make herself
invisible or turn herself into a stone or move from place to place with
supernatural speed. Some say that she can move so fast because under her heels
she has steel springs. And to lead us closer to our legend: Antjie
Somers, the bogey, the man in women’s dresses, also may turn invisible
and move around with springs under his heels when he is stealing. He is
also said to carry a basket with a pistol inside.
There were
recollections that Antjie Somers, before she/he
became a bogey, had been a historical person. “Many years ago such a thief
dressed as a woman is said to have actually lived at Paarl,
but one day he was shot by a farmer who surprised him on his cart; his little
lodging was found filled up to the ceiling with stolen goods“ (Schonken 1910:23). In addition, there are quite a number of
versions that come close to our 19th century European stories: A
man, sometimes a doctor, is riding in his horse cart and gives a lift to a
frail old woman. But he discovers that she has a beard. He intentionally has
his handkerchief or his glove fall down to the ground and asks “her” to pick it
up. As soon as “she” has climbed from the car he hastens away. The basket left
on the carriage contains two loaded pistols. Several versions were set in the
Several of
these examples collected by Grobbelaar (1981:279-280)
were contributions by readers to the popular Afrikaans weeklies or monthlies
between 1899 and 1953. We have already noticed that in 19th century
The South
African legend versions remained astonishingly close to the 19th
century European tradition. There is one remarkable difference, however: The
man in women’s dresses is never recognized by his hands but mainly by his
beard. In the old European versions the hairy hands or arms were not compulsory
either, as the Silesian text above corroborates, and the beard noticed under
the scarf could betray the true identity in the same way. The legend remained
about the same, it was Antjie
Somers, the bogey, who grew into ever-new dimensions. The character of the
bogey easily explains this. Whoever has tried to tame naughty children by a
bogey knows the disbelieving eyes that demand more and more additions in order
to convince and which challenge the adult’s imagination. So I attribute to the
role of the bogey this dazzling variety of characteristics of Antjie Somers. But a comparison of the material shows
clearly that the bogey developed out of legend. As soon as we recognize that
the 19th century legend that was so well known in
The basis of
our story is the ancient question of being and seeming to be. It is our dread
that the object and particularly the person that we have labeled as positive,
good, friendly, suddenly might turn into the contrary
and even threatens our existence. But this legend with the happy end also gives
us relief: The person who watches out and distinguishes between being and
seeming to be might overcome the threat. Because of this basic message the
legend can take place at present-day’s
Bausinger, H., 1958: “Strukturen
des alltäglichen Erzählens.“ Fabula 1, 239-254.
- - -
1980: Formen der “Volkspoesie“.
Brednich, R.W.,
1991. Die Spinne in der Yucca-Palme. Sagenhafte Geschichten von heute. München: Beck.
Brunvand, J.H.,
1984. The Choking Doberman and Other “New“ Urban
Legends.
- - - 1986. The Mexican Pet. More “New“ Urban
Legends and Some Old Favorites.
-
- 1993. The Baby Train & Other Lusty Urban Legends.
Burger,
P., 1992. De wraak van de kangoeroe. Sagen uit het moderne leven. Amsterdam: Prometheus.
Fischer,
H., 1991. Der Rattenhund. Sagen
der Gegenwart. Köln: Rheinland Verlag / Bonn: Habelt.
Grobbelaar, P.W.,
1981. Die Volksvertelling as Kultuuruiting. Met besondere Verwysing na
Afrikaans. Stellenbosch: Dlitt.
Diss., unpublished.
- - - 1994. Abel Coetzee en sy
rubriek “Waar die volk skep“. Vroee Afrikaanse Volkskultuur. Stellenbosch: Genootskap vir Afrikaanse Volkskunde.
Grobbeleaar, P.W.,
Hathaway,
R. and Doyle, L., 1999: ““Terror“ (?) at Tuttel Mall,
Portnoy, E., 1980. Broodje
Aap. De folklore van de post-industriele
samenleving.
Schonken, F. Th.,
1910. Die Wurzeln der Volksüberlieferungen. Internationales
Archiv für Ethnographie, Supplement zu Band
19.
Smith,
P., 1983. The Book of Nasty Legends.
***
2000 Perspectives on
Contemporary Legend Conference Abstracts
Compiled
by Sandy Hobbs
Mexica, Criolla Or Mestiza?
The Genealogy Of The Llorona
Shirley L. Arora
arora@hummnet.ucla.ed
In general
terms, the history or origin of a contemporary legend (using the term in the
broad sense of a legend that “circulates actively at present”) is primarily a
scholarly concern, unknown or unknowable to those who circulate the legend and
in most instances irrelevant as well. The Hispanic legend of the Llorona, or
Weeping Woman, is something of an exception to this generalization, her history
and origin having been, for a half century at least, the subject of
considerable discussion among folklorists as well as among individual
transmitters of the legend who may in many instances have a vested interest in
the demonstration of her ancestry. Is she, as some have contended, the direct
descen
Along with
the origin of the Llorona
legend there is considerable debate concerning the not unrelated question of
its age. Those who prefer to see the Llorona as the
descen
Ecotypes, Etiology And
Contemporary Legend: The "Webber" Cycle In
John Ashton
jashton@swgc.mun.ca
This paper
will examine a collection of contemporary legend texts from an area of
The story of
"The Webber" exists as a narrative tradition in its own right,
confined largely to the Stephenville area, as well as being embedded in the
texts of more widely known contemporary legends. It thus embodies a merging of migratory and
local legend traditions. My paper will
provide a detailed description of the "Webber" cycle and discuss its
likely provenance and subsequent diffusion.
In particular I will examine the role of local print and broadcast media
in the dissemination of these stories.
One of the
widely acknowledged features of the contemporary legend genre is its mutability
and in particular its exhibition of an invariable tendency towards
localization. However, I will argue that
the "Webber" cycle of stories involves more than the mere supplementation
of local detail to an otherwise migratory tradition. By attaching the "Webber" motif to
more widely circulated narrative patterns, these stories ground the events that
they portray in the local environment and embody the rhetorical function of
"regionalization" described by Suzi
Jones. In so doing they point to the
utility of Von Sydow's concept of the
"Ecotype" for contemporary legend studies. In addition, by featuring elements that quite
pointedly de-urbanize the narrative context of depicted events,
the "Webber" stories call into question Brunvand's
contentious use of the term "Urban Legend" in discussing this genre.
"...All That Is Happening In This Life Now
Is Going On From The ‘Way Back'...": A Consideration Of Family, Ethnicity And
Region In The Retention Of Belief And Regeneration Of Legend In
Karen Baldwin
baldwink@mail.ecu.edu
Billboards
along
Folklorists
have noted continuities and changes in both Anglo-European and African-Caribbean
traditions as they migrated and resettled in the
Ghost light
sightings and forewarnings of death, successful recovery and "taming"
of "wild" money, and narratives derived from family members setting
dumb supper--all are told, by young adults and elders, through the region.
Examination of textual elements in these contemporary tellings
clearly suggests that, at least for these currents of legend tradition,
private, family spheres of performance in a region where kin communities have
been established for so long, are crucial to retention of belief and regeneration
of legends which speak "in this life now ... from the 'way back'..."
Gary Butler
gbutler@yorku.ca
The term contemporary legend implies at least one
dichotomy - that between the present and the past. This poses a problem when
the term is considered from a purely performance perspective for, in such
terms, any legend is contemporary at
the time it is communicated. However, this apparent contradiction between
content and temporal context may be resolved without too much difficulty by
employing a perspective based on the cross-generational evolution of the
cultural relevance of legendary material. This perspective allows the same
legend to be both traditional and contemporary, depending on how the
individual is situated with regards to such belief narratives.
This paper
will examine the legendary narratives based on the
Is The Legend A Meme?
David Cornwell
Sandy Hobbs
sandy.hobbs@paisley.ac.uk
Richard Dawkins, first proposed the concept of a “meme” in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), as a cultural
equivalent to the gene. Although described rather casually in the thirteen page
final chapter of Dawkins's book, the term has met with some success. Sampling
the World Wide Web on
Setting out
to explain what a meme is, Blackmore starts with an
urban legend, The Microwaved Pet. This raises a possibility for contemporary
legend scholarship. If the meme is indeed as useful a concept in understanding cultural
phenomena as the gene is in the study of biology, it may be a means by which the study of
legends becomes integrated with other
important categories of human behavior. Blackmore
addresses such major issues as the origins of language, altruism, religion and
the concept of an inner self. However, she does not deal with urban legends in
a systematic way and makes no reference to urban legend scholarship.
In this
paper, we offer a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the
concept of a meme as currently presented. In particular, we consider whether
contemporary legend research may benefit from the inclusion of the meme as an
analytical category.
The Good Luck
Coin And Other Sporting Superstitions: An Examination
Of Folk Belief In Football
Sheila Douglas
merlinpress@sol
Taking as a
starting point one example, namely the good luck coin carried by former player
and now football manager, I... M..., I propose to look at different aspects of
the belief that an object, garment or customary ritual can bring good luck to a
practitioner of sport or even a whole team. The object may have no connection
with the sport, like a coin, or it may be some part of the sports equipment of
the player that has been used on an occasion when the person or team was
successful. This latter can be a garment that may or may not be part of the
dress for the sport, and it can be connected with a ritual that involves
putting on that particular garment at a particular juncture or at a particular
spot, for example, at the last minute, before the player steps on to the field,
as if it had some transforming power attached to it.
Rituals seem
to be very individual and based on something that the particular person
associates with a sequence of events that culminated in success in the past.
These rituals may have a positive or negative force; that is, they may involve
either doing something, like wearing a particular shirt or boots or eating a
particular food on the day of the match or coming onto the field last, or not
doing something, like not shaving or having sex for several days before a
match. Some of the actions that bring good luck seem themselves dependent on
chance, like passing a wedding on the way to the fixture. Not many teams would
go so far as to adopt the practice of an African team which employed a witch
doctor to put a curse on the opposing side.
I will show
that belief in good luck charms has a universal precedent that is always
concerned with success and that those who share this belief may not necessarily
be superstitious in other areas of their life. The prime example will be
compared and contrasted with others collected from members of different teams,
and conclusions drawn about the psychological basis for the practice. In particular
I will try to discover how a balance is struck between the knowledge that the
outcome of a match depends on skill and the feeling that luck is needed in
order to win, because of the pressure of competition.
"Gie Her A
Haggis!": The Haggis As Food, Legend And Popular
Culture
Joy Fraser
Memorial
e99jf@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
This paper
examines the role of the haggis in the productions of the Scottish culinary,
tourism and cultural industries. In the
run-up to Burns’ Night, supermarket shelves are stocked with haggis of several
brands, each made to a slightly different recipe, including the recently
concocted vegetarian haggis. One
So how
exactly has haggis come to occupy such diverse cultural roles? As Maisie Stevens
puts it, “Why is it that this, of all Scottish dishes, should have so caught
the imagination not only of tourists but of countless others…?” This paper addresses
this issue by considering the interrelationships between the haggis as ethnic
foodstuff, as legendary creature, and as popular culture phenomenon. In each of these manifestations, the haggis
has generated a considerable amount of expressive culture and narrative
material, ranging from Burns’ “Address to the Haggis” (1787) and etiological
accounts concerning the origins of edible haggis, to the tall tales and pseudo
personal experience narratives surrounding the “legendary haggis”. As adopted by popular culture media,
including newspapers, comic books and radio, this legend material is frequently
transmuted from tall tale to joke form, and the process of commodification
also shapes it. In all its
manifestations, however, I argue that the haggis acts as a vehicle for the
(often humorous) expression of a Scottish identity which hinges upon the
appropriation of stereotype. I examine
the typical characteristics and behaviors of the haggis as legendary creature in
order to illustrate its status as a nexus around which are clustered multiple
stereotypes of Scottishness – most noticeably tartan,
bagpipes, heather, hills and whisky. I
consider the nature and extent of variation between the accounts, examining in
particular which elements are emphasized, which de-emphasized, and which
neutered in marketing the haggis to a popular audience.
Mark Glazer
mglazer@panam.edu
In recent
years numerous urban legends and rumors have been collected and discussed among
folklorists and by scholars who work on rumor studies. A review of the
literature shows that most of these studies have been conducted without any
systematic effort to collect primary materials about the topic in a given
geographical area. In some ways, many of these studies are more akin to
literary analysis than any type of systematic social science research because
most of these studies are based on secondary data and published materials.
The goal of
this paper is to test the hypothesis that a systematic survey of urban legends
will lead to important information about the teller and the social context of
these narratives. With this purpose in mind the narratives which are the basis
for this paper were collected with a questionnaire entitled, "The
Contemporary Legend Information Sheet." This survey includes questions on
demographic and contextual information as well as on the contemporary legends
themselves. This process has resulted in a collection of 846 versions of urban
legends in the
The four
major types of contemporary legends in this collection are: 1)
) “Food Contamination” stories: 92 versions (10.9% of the total), 2)
Versions of the “Vanishing Hitchhiker”: 76 versions (9.0% of the total), 3)
A.I.D.S. related narratives: 75 versions (9.0% of the total), and 4) “Stolen
Body Part” legends: 71 versions (8.4% of the total). This adds up to 314
legends or 37.0% of the total.
I would like
to give a few preliminary examples of the kind of information which has
resulted from this survey by using “The Vanishing Hitchhiker” as a case in
point. For this legend we find that 96%
of the respondents are Hispanic. Furthermore we find that 56.6% of the respondents
are male and 43.4% are female. Keeping this in mind, we find that the most
common context for men to tell the story is while “talking” (32.6% of the
sample), while for women the most common context for telling this legend is a
“story telling” session (45.5% of the sample).
This paper
is attempted to study contemporary legends in one given area through systematic
research. The paper will demonstrate how this type of research and analysis
based on a combination of legend materials and contextual information can lead
to new insights in folklore studies.
Comprehending
Emerging Illnesses: Lay Activism, Product Contamination And
Popular Science
Diane E. Goldstein
Memorial
dianeg@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
This paper
will focus on a corpus of contemporary contamination rumors that warn of links
between common household products or food items and serious emerging on
re-emerging illnesses. In the past year
consumer panics have surfaced focusing on connections between the use of
antiperspirants and breast cancer, Costa Rican bananas and nicrotizing
faciltis (flesh-eating bacteria) feline flea collars
and multiple sclerosis, and the association of a particular tampon brand with
immune deficient diseases. These health
consumer panics are presented in the narratives as a form of lay activism and
as a community response to collusion between manufacturers, importers,
government and health care.
This paper
will explore popular scientific constructions of emerging health threats
contained in contamination narratives.
Initial research suggests that the lay exploration of emerging illnesses
incorporated in narrative accounts of these rumors provides a valuable resource
for accessing lay health worldview and popular science. Contemporary health legends concerning themes
such as contaminated products, organ transplant black markets, medical experimentation and health conspiracies circulate
constantly, affecting health care choices and attitudes toward illness, disease
and medical institutions. While research
in the social sciences has increasingly stressed the cultural construction of
health and illness and the critical importance of an adequate understanding of
lay health beliefs and practices, researchers continuously debate the utility
of models developed to access vernacular health belief. These debates have prompted an exploration of
the use of illness narratives as a natural form for articulating the meanings
and values associated with health, illness and suffering, within specific
individual and cultural contexts. The
generic material that generally supports these efforts is usually based on
personal experience narrative. This
study will explore the usefulness of legend as a form for the expression of
health values, concerns, and explanatory models.
The current
paper will explore ten to twenty accounts of each narrative which will be
analyzed according to: concepts of
disease process and etiology; bodily "geographies" which account for
contamination understanding; notions of toxicity, carcinogens and risk; popular
understandings of contemporary medical language and concepts; and, vernacular
explanatory models for new, emergent, re-emergent, unexplained and devastating
illness. The paper will also explore
vernacular absorption of environmental risk activist messages and the
correlation of "new" products with "new" illnesses.
Jessica Grant
Memorial
a87jgg@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
"Are
you daft?!" was just one of the many responses that I received with
regards to my queries about lactating men. People have laughed, given me
bewildered looks, and just generally joked about the subject. And indeed, when
I was first introduced to the subject, I reacted in very similar fashions. Yet,
my curiosity was piqued. And so, I embarked on a mission to discover the
"truth" about male lactation. Through an examination of medical
journals, I was able to label such a physiological phenomenon with its
scientific name, galactorrhea. Through an examination of folklore motif
indices, I was able to determine analogues, linking male lactation to stories
involving male pregnancy, the couvade, breastfeeding
men, and abnormal lactation (including lactating children, breastfeeding
virgins and menopausal milk mothers). After separately tracing the scientific
and folkloric "proofs" for male lactation, I decided to thrust these
"proofs" together. The contentious combination that followed seems to
be just a minute debacle in an ongoing battle between science and folklore,
between what is "real," what is "true,"
what is "proof." Mermen, transforming frogs, werewolves, sea
monsters, vampires, bosom serpents, lactating men are just a few of the issues
being dissected and shredded in this struggle of "proofs." And a folklorist stands somewhere in the
midst of that torrential argument with hopes of mediation.
Essentially,
this paper follows the muddles, the paradoxes, and the contradictions of the
research process of a folklorist-in-training. As I initially set out to uncover
the "truth" about male lactation, I was very much focused on the
mendacity or veracity of such a subject. I was out to debunk or to verify,
depending upon what "proofs" I uncovered. Yet, as I accumulated the
scientific "proofs," I soon began to recognize that the emphasis
which I was placing upon "rational" and "logical" thought
only emphasized my scientific prejudice and medical bias. I eventually realized that there were also
"proofs" to be found in folklore and that these folkloric
"proofs" were as equally valid as the scientific ones. And, as I
shifted my focus away from the scientific, I began to better comprehend the
role of the folklorist in the swirling eddies of debates surrounding
"folk" medicine and "scientific" medicine, in the contentious
interplay between the "rational" and the "irrational."
Ultimately, I determined that my initial objective to uncover the
"truth" was not the point at all - truth seems to be reductionist by its very nature. The point is to recognize
the rationality of the "irrational" and sometimes just forget the
"proofs" and enjoy the speculations. The truth may set you free, but
it is the mystery that keeps you going.
E-Traditions
Following The Fatal Collapse Of The
Sylvia Grider,
grider@tamu.edu
The defining
tradition at
Not only the
University, but also the immediate community and the rest of the state woke in
horror to news of the tragedy. By daylight, the media had spread news of the
disaster throughout the world. Within hours of the removal of the last body
from the mass of collapsed logs, students and community members began bringing
floral tributes and other memorabilia and placing them on the security fence
which was erected by authorities around the accident site. The creation of this
spontaneous shrine was consistent with public behavior following such events as
the bombing of the
Because the
local telephone lines were jammed with calls, people on both ends of the
communication turned to the Internet to try and reach their friends and
families. So many e-mails were sent and received in the hours after the
accident that the main server at
Folklorists
and other social scientists have long recognized that e-mail has changed the
communication conduit of many previously oral genres. Stories which were within
the purview of oral tradition are now found more commonly as forwarded and/or
amended e-mails. Although the degree of variation in these e-narratives is less
fluid than in oral tradition, the e-narratives nevertheless become traditional
by virtue of their context and widespread transmission. The e-mails of
"e-traditions" which circulated following the Bonfire accident
constitute a data set which confirms that the internet is a viable
communication conduit for traditional narrative materials.
Sang, Sperme Et Suer:
Contemporary Legend And The Theatre Of Grand Guignol
Richard Hand and Michael Wilson
mwilson@glam.ac.uk
Between 1897
and 1963 in a little theatre down a dark alleyway in Pigalle,
the Parisian red-light district, violent acts of great intensity were staged
for the delights of the audiences who flocked there. This was the Grand-Guignol, a theatre of horror, where audiences regularly
fainted as actors were stabbed, burned, disemboweled and mutilated - sometimes
three times a night - in an addictive orgy of ‘sang, sperme et suer’
(blood, sperm and sweat).
The Grand Guignol began life as an avant-garde experiment in
Zola-derived naturalism, growing directly out of Antoine’s Théâtre Libre, but within a few years had become
recognized for its staged horror with its sleight of hand and special effects.
However, the defining characteristic of the Grand Guignol
was not simply the blend of violence and eroticism. There was a third, equally
important, ingredient: comedy. A typical evening at the Grand Guignol might comprise of five one-act plays, three
horrors, interspersed with two comedies, usually sex farces, parodying
bourgeois manners.
The Grand Guignol is currently undergoing a re-evaluation by scholars
and this paper seeks to explore the links between the plays staged there and
emerging contemporary legends during the twentieth century. It is interesting
note that both concern themselves with the not altogether contradictory
emotions of horror and humor, blended with a healthy dose of eroticism.
Furthermore, the Grand-Guignol and contemporary
legends trade on the contemporary fears and anxieties of twentieth-century
society and it is, therefore, not entirely surprising that the plays staged at
the Grand-Guignol abound with escaped psychopaths,
compromising situations and the horrors of unfettered technology.
Mikel J. Koven
mik@aber.ac.uk
With the 1998
release of the film Urban Legend, and its screening at the 1999 ISCLR
conference, it is time for a reconsideration of the relationship between
Contemporary Legends and film versions of those legends. In Smith and Hobbs’
1990 ‘Films Using Contemporary Legend Themes/Motifs,’ the authors do not
distinguish between those films whose primary narrative source materials
pertain to contemporary legendry and those films that utilize a single motif
within their diegesis. This current study examines the former – films which are
based on legends, or whose narrative source materials are derived primarily
from the oral tradition.
The kinds of
popular cinema I am exploring in this paper utilize legend materials in two
primary ways: one approach takes a single legend and brings it to the screen as
a developed narrative. These films primarily use only a single legend narrative
and ‘flesh it out’ across a full ninety minutes or two hours. Although
occasionally some of these ‘Single Narrative Films,’ as I have labeled them,
may fuse together other legend narratives, or make reference to other legends,
it is the primacy of a single legend text that places them within this
category. Films under consideration within this category include Alligator (alligators in the sewers), When a Stranger Calls (the babysitter
and the man upstairs), The Harvest
(organ thefts), Dead Man on Campus
and Dead Man’s Curve (both roommate’s suicide means 4.0 GPA).
The other
approach filmmakers utilize is what I have termed the ‘Multi-Narrative’ approach:
these are film narratives that fuse together different legends. Within this
category there are two sub-categories, both of which demonstrate yet further
filmic narrative strategies. On the one hand is the ‘Fusion Film’: films that
fuse together many different legend narratives, like the aforementioned Urban
Legend. The other filmic strategy is the ‘Anthology Film’, which treats each of
the legends told as distinct narrative units, often held together by a diegetic
‘framing narrative’. And in the case of Campfire Tales, one
that even demonstrates a high degree of verisimilitude to story telling
situations.
This
consideration of the narrative structure of dramatized contemporary legends in
popular cinema is intended to set up an analytical schema for further
discussion on this subject.
"Incredibile, Tam Verum": Legendary Interactions Between
Dolphins And Humans
Henrik
R. Lassen
hlassen@language.sdu.dk
Some time in
the middle of the first century A.D., Pliny the Younger started a letter to his
poet friend Caminius Rufus with the following
preamble:
I have come across a true story which sounds very like a fable, and
ought to be a suitable subject for your abun
The story which
Pliny goes on to relate in graphic detail is one of many classical accounts of
a dolphin befriending humans. Versions and variants of the same story
(concerning a series of incidents in a lagoon by the Roman colony of Hippo on
the coast of
In the
modern world, a few such encounters have, of course, been widely publicized
(notably the case of Opu the dolphin, New Zealand,
1955-56), and especially in the 1990s we have seen a widespread popular
interest in the alleged healing powers of dolphin encounters, sometimes in the
form of therapy involving "domesticated" dolphins in captivity, but
in some cases also in the form of regular meetings between human beings and
dolphins in their natural habitat.
In this
paper, I shall examine a number of stories relating close encounters between
humans and dolphins specifically from a contemporary legend perspective. This
in order to reexamine the relationship between legend and belief through an
investigation of the changing attitudes to the truth-value of, particularly,
the classical stories through antiquity and the middle ages, as expressed both
directly and indirectly by way of narrative framing.
Carl Lindahl
clindahl@uh.edu
Legendry has
long thrived on situations in which the most private acts, performed in seeming
solitude, are suddenly exposed to a public glare. Among the most popular twentieth-century
twists on this theme is the legend of "The Surpriser
Surprised," subject of a major study by W.H. Jansen, in which he isolated
three subtypes according to the formalistic criteria of the
Historical-Geographic school and speculated at length on the psychological
implications of the symbolic content of the variants. Yet Jansen's study implies a good deal more
than it concludes concerning the social contexts and functions of these
tales. Following these contextualizing
cues, I have rearranged his variants according to chronological and generic
schemes. In this paper I present the
results of those findings and relate "The Surpriser
Surprised" to a newer legend, "Peanut Butter Surprise," which, I
believe, has taken some of the roles of its predecessor in a changing social
environment.
When
Jansen's texts are arranged chronologically, two patterns emerge. The first concerns the tellers' and
listeners' responses to the nude person surrounding by an equally shocked, but
clothed, audience. In the earlier
variants the nude figure is a young, monogamous woman, who has saved her
virginity for a special private moment with the man she wishes to many. When the lights come on this most sacred act
becomes a festival of public shame to which listeners react in horror. In later versions, the nude is a philandering
husband, whose exposure is regarded as just punishment for his deceit and often
greeted with laughter.
The second
pattern, directly related to the first, concerns genre. When the teller and audience sympathize with
the victim, we tell this tale as a legend, but when we regard the victim as
justly punished, the narrative tends to be told as a joke. This phenomenon reaffirms what Linda Dégh
observed in her study of "The Belief Legend in Modern Society": many narratives labeled legends by folklorists
assume the traits of jokes. As I have argued elsewhere, most of the legends labeled
by Brunvand as "urban legends" are studied
and performed in ways that makes them closer to jokes than to legends. "The Surpriser
Surprised," then has changed generic status in response to major social
forces, which folklorists have to some extent manipulated.
The closest
current cognate to "The Surpriser
Surprised" is "Peanut Butter Surprise", an account of a woman
caught in the act of sexual intimacy with her dog. Presenting variants collected by Elissa R. Henken and myself, I
argue that "Peanut Butter Surprise" blends elements of both the major
"Surpriser Surprised" versions, but persist sas a legend through its
troubling effect of its audiences. The may in which this latest
"naked" legend alters the content and focus of its predecessors
reveals much about perceptions of nudity and sexuality in contemporary society.
Bodil Nildin-Wall and Jan Wall
SOFI, Uppsala, Sweden
bodil.nildin-wall@sofi.uu.se
Between 1933
and 1937 strange phenomena were reported from the northernmost parts of the
Nordic countries. Tales of foreign unidentified airplanes came pouring into
newspapers and local authorities. At first only strong lights were reported but
after a while tales were coupling lights with sounds of an engine. Later on the
planes themselves were sighted.
The initial spottings were made during the first half of December 1933
and were brought to the notice of a local newspaper on December 12th. It was
reported that every day towards the evening an airplane landed on a mountain
plateau in the wilds. Shortly afterwards it took off again and circled the
mountain for about half an hour while scanning the ground with a strong
searchlight.
The news
reached other newspapers and the radio. Most articles were skeptical. Why
should a plane behave in such a mysterious way night after night? Did a planet
or the Northern Lights cause the strong light? During the following week
various new reports came from the same area. A shining light in the sky and
sounds from an engine were heard.
In 1933
Prohibition had recently been abolished in the USA. In Sweden strong liquor was
severely rationed; consequently bootlegging was common along the coasts. Ships
carried large amounts of illegal booze that was brought ashore by smaller
vessels and distributed for sale. People in the northern
provinces were convinced that the mysterious aircraft - now commonly known as
the Ghost Pilot - was bootlegging.
During
Christmas the Ghost Pilot was especially active. Authorities were demanding
that the Air Force be brought in. At the same time the police who had been
handling the affair started to realize that it would hardly be a lucrative
business to smuggle liquor in an airplane. So what was smuggled? Silk, spices,
pornography, cocaine or weapons were suggested.
Now rumors
of international arms smugglers that had their ships lying off Scotland were
rife. Did private gangs have the resources to build fuel depots in Swedish Lappland? Who needed such amounts of arms in the Swedish
inland? It had to be foreign powers! Were weapons brought in for the use of
Swedish and Norwegian communists? Could it be espionage? Newspapers put the
theories forward. The Ghost Pilot came from Soviet Russia. Other newspapers
described him as German.
The Ghost
Pilot was especially busy during January 1934 when reports came from a large
number of places. Then he disappeared. IN November, however, he returned.
Mysterious radio signals meant for the Ghost Pilot were recorded. Once again he
was supposed to come from Soviet Russia and his mission was to spy out secret
defenses and map railways. In a state of war between Germany and Russia, the
Russians was launch a surprise attack and occupy the northern parts of Norway
and Sweden in order to stop Germany from getting control of Swedish ore-mines.
By the end of 1937, there were two established theories: the Soviet Union was
guilty of espionage; or there was a mass psychosis coupled with certain German
activities.
Military
history research has later established the Ghost Pilot as real and coming from
a large nation in the geopolitical zone surrounding the Scandinavian Shield.
For a while suspicions of Great Britain were entertained but abandoned. Germany
and Russia were left. According to the researchers most evidence pointed
towards Germany. The conclusion is partly due to the fact that a “mine” had
been placed.
We are of a
different opinion...
Internet-Lore: The Cognitive Imagination Of Our Times
Marlena Ryl and
Michal Derda-Nowakowski
University of Silesia, Poland
mderda@homer.fil.us.edu.pl
We have
already researched internet-lore issues for a few years, with the main focus on
the sphere of the conspirational theory of history
accompanying the ever-increasing presence of advanced technologies in everyday
reality. The WWW, Usenet, IRC channels, BBS and ICQ services are realms where
everything and anything can meet. This potentiality and ease offers
possibilities, as yet unprecedented in the whole of human history, of
exchanging data by the individual disconnected from any corporation, publishing
house, university or any other educational institution as well as from the
government organization promoting his or her thought. On the net, however, the
dominant feeling is that of community rather than private freedom and
singularity.
Not only
does the Internet community boast of its own code of honor, but it also shares
common heroes and problems. Consequently, the participant of any non-commercial
Internet activity is incessantly witnessing the mythological COMMON. This
happens, for instance, in the research programme
SETI, where one achieves the quasi-missionary consciousness of forming a part
of the largest programme of diffused computing that
none of the currently used supercomputers can deal with. The Internet community's
area of interest is not limited solely to the kind of technological sharing
described above. In fact, it is predominantly tangible in the peculiar net
mythology (from the cyberpunk and hackering issues to
the non-ideological problems concerning the freedom of the speech on the net
and the data security), often transforming into the conspirational
theory of the net.
One could
argue that it is precisely on the Net that the present-day enclave of the
authentic folklore is to be found, the folklore neither belonging to the realm
of cultural heritage, nor expressive of the ideology of political correctness.
It may well be the last authentic folklore within the Western civilization, the
whole rest not deserving this name anymore. Additionally, the net preserves
what has traditionally formed part of any folklore communication: the oral
tradition.
We will try
to prove that the world of the net texts ASCII (mainly Usenet and IRC and also,
to a certain extent, the sphere of WWW) meets the criterion of oral communication
both in its metaphorical and cognitive aspects. Also, we have to do here with
the visual folklore (especially in the case of Microsoft iconography). What has
definitely been preserved in the whole of Internet communication is the
distinctive quality of multiplicity that sets any folklore apart from the
literary creation. What we mean here is the multiplicity of the various threads
and underplots appearing on the net at the same time
as a result of the ceaseless semiosis triggered by
the given proto-story or a discourse paradigm (being not yet a story as such
but expressive of a strong conviction characterized by the mythologizing
features).
To
illustrate the ideas explored in the paper, a video film recorded by the
authors straight from the computer screen will accompany the presentation. The
film is largely the record of the phenomena involved in the Internet-lore
within the Polish context as contrasted with its main, English-dominated realm.
As a result we present specifically Polish phenomena with
an emphasis on their global character.
In our paper
we aim to decide to what an extent the new folklore genres gathered under the
general label of Internet-lore constitute the continuation
of the old and tradition-sanctioned mythologizing tales. Or is it better to
talk about the folklore-like situation? Let's try yet another term: the
cognitive imagination, which allows us to abandon the old methodological
habits.
Miracle Of The Virgin And Orthodoxy In Syria: Reconstructing History
For Community Unification
Noriko Sato
Grey College, Durham, England
noriko.sato@durham.ac.uk
The Syrian
Orthodox Christians in the town of al-Malkiya in
northeastern Syria is concerned with how they can differentiate themselves from
the rest of the population and at the same time enforce their own unity so that
they can deal with contemporary problems. Such concern is related to their
fears that:
(1) The
Kurds who have dominated these Christians for over eighty years are rapidly
increasing their population, whereas the Christian population has been
decreasing over the last twenty-five years due to emigration;
(2) The
quasi-Christian groups, such as “the Brethren” and “the Jehovah’s Witnesses”,
have made some local converts, and this has led to divisions in the Christian
community.
In order to
halt its decline, it is reviving and reconstructing its history.
Formerly,
these Christians lived in Bazbdi in southeastern
Turkey. However, when the Kurds attacked them in 1915, the Christians retreated
into a quarter of the town of Azakh. The Kurds
besieged the quarter, but when they heard the sound of gunfire coming from the
church of the Virgin Mary, they withdrew their troops, assuming that the
Christians had an armed force there. This was untrue, and so gave rise to the
belief that the Virgin, not allowing the evil act of the Kurds, saved their
community. In the 1960s, when the Christians in al-Malkiya
were moving out of their old residential quarter, due to Kurdish population
pressure, a miracle was said to take place that olive oil sprung out of the
church grounds prevented the officials from demolishing the church of the
Virgin. This conveys the notion that these Christians are under the patronage
of the Virgin Mary, and so can resist Kurdish aggression. That “the grace of God”
was shown to these Christians in the history also provides them with a strategy
for separating themselves from the other quasi-Christian sects, which deny the
Trinity and Mary’s existence as an eternal virgin.
The belief
that God is on their side, shown by the miracles, gives credence to the belief
that they are different from the rest of the Christian sects and, most of all
the Kurds. Therefore, the Christians use this reconstructed history as a means
of creating unity in response to contemporary problems.
Graham Seal
nsealg@cc.curtin.edu.au
The
"Claremont Killer" is a serial murderer who has terrorized a
well-heeled area of suburban
The killings
began on the night of
The police,
despite allocation of massive resources, public and private, and the use of
British and FBI operatives and a range of new forensic techniques, including
DNA testing, have not found Sarah Speirs - now
presumed dead - or arrested anyone for the murders of the other two women.
Since the murder of Jane Rimmer, the police have
worked on the assumption that there is a "serial murderer" involved,
now dubbed "the Claremont Killer".
These events
generated an invisible but very real could of fear in the city of
The paper
documents these extraordinary circumstances and the community panic they
occasioned and the concern they continue to generate. It also makes some
specific suggestions about how knowledge of the folkloric processes involved in
such situations might be used to alleviate, even avoid, the kind of fear that
gripped the people of
Debating The Undead: Vampiric Narratives In Late Twelfth Century
Jacqueline Simpson
William of
Newburgh, a monastic historian writing in 1198, includes four narratives about
physical revenants and the means taken to lay them, these being allegedly true
events occurring within the previous two years. These stories do get mentioned
in modern studies on the development of beliefs about the dead, but only in
summary form. A more detailed analysis of the way William presents and
authenticates the narratives, and the comments which he himself makes or
reports others as making, shows that tales and rumors about the Undead were
widespread at the time. Such revenants were perceived as en
Though
anomalous in the general context of medieval theology about death (and
contrasting sharply with another set of medieval English narratives about
ghostly encounters some 200 years later), the stories circulating in William’s
time reveal attitudes which echo both archaeological testimony from earlier
centuries and the persisting vampiric tradition in
parts of Europe.
Black Helicopter As A
Symbol Of Fear In Contemporary American Folklore
Alasdair Spark
King Alfred's College,
a.spark@wkac.ac.uk
This paper
will examine the mysterious sightings of black helicopters which numbers of
Americans claim to have seen flying over the rural
Recently I have
noticed military looking helicopters painted black, flying around my town
during the late evening and night. We have no Army bases close by, and everyone
is talking about how they (the helicopters) are part of some New World Order
group training up here, because of the seclusion
(central
What bells does this ring? First of all, clearly the "black
helicopter" is not just restricted to rural conspiracy fantasies, despite
the term becoming shorthand for the runaway imagination to which members of
American militia groups have become prone in the past decade. The Black helicopter has a wider provenance
in contemporary folklore as a symbol of power, authority, threat and fear. For this reason, it has also become prominent
in popular TV series such as The X-Files and in movies such as Conspiracy
Theory and Enemy of the State, and the image of the prowling helicopter has
become a commonplace.
Therefore,
my interest is in what is being seen - I
do not believe these sightings are imaginary; why then are sightings of actual
and mun
To explain
this phenomenon, first of all, there is a clear link to the Vietnam War, and to
the symbolic association of this technology with that unpopular and deceptive
War. Following Vietnam, the very real
capabilities of the helicopter to target populations with gun or camera came
home, and to a significant extent law enforcement has become ñ as Mike Davis
has pointed out - "Vietnamized." The helicopter presents a real technology of
policing and control via tracking, surveillance and this can be seen most
obviously over the African-American ghettos of the USA, and it is not
surprising therefore that helicopters have become a powerful component in black
movies and Rap music. However, this begs
a question: it is easy to see why an inner city African-American population
might regard the helicopter as threatening and symbolically loaded, but why
should a rural and predominantly white population do likewise? In fact, this is not the first time the
helicopter has gained this status, and the current black helicopter stories are
in many ways a continuation of similar tales told in the 1970s, in which cattle
mutilations and biological testing figured strongly, and which later became a
central part of UFO folklore. Exploring
this continuity, we can see that the answers lie, I think, first of all in a
legitimate fear of this powerful technology, but secondly, examining its hypertrophic articulation, in a sort of "wannabee" victimhood that
seeks to put back at the centre of events a rural population which feels
neglected, which feels that America no longer belongs to or represents their
wishes and desires. As such, their representation as agents of a conspiracy in
which the Federal Government itself is seen as a prime mover is no accident.
Emo, Joe Palooka, And The Angel: Statuary, Cemetery Legends, And Gender
Jeannie Thomas,
jthomas@english.usu.edu
This paper
is a continuation of my on‑going examination of legends told in the
In some
cases these female statues are also strikingly sexualized, as David
So in this
paper, I look at male cemetery statues (often of specific and individualized
men) and their legends in comparison to the legends about female statues (often
of surrogate mourners) in cemeteries in the
Not
surprisingly, the male statues and legend differ in significant ways, and it is
these differences that I chronicle in this paper. The paper briefly discusses a statue of Joe
Palooka found in
Inna Sergeevna Veselova
veselovy@cityline.ru
On a
criterion of truthfulness, folklore narratives are accepted to divide on fact
and fiction. In this paper, I analyze markers of storytellers’ belie in the
interpretation of events in the texts of Russian folklore non-fiction prose
(oral stories and publications of the “yellow” press). Judging from the texts,
storytellers demonstrate their belief not only in the fact of events, but also
on the events’ interpretation. Storyteller intentions and purposes (illocution)
and listener reaction (per locution) directly depend on a degree of truthfulness
(Beliefness) of the text. Thus the belief is a
pragmatic category.
The teller
belief may be explicated in text as the specific statements (parentheses).
Teller appeals to a system of traditional beliefs as to a basis of the
interpretation his actual experience. There are several ways of belief
explication: direct citation of the belief, citation with a rational motivation
- rationalization, loosed negation, direct negation. Direct negation can become
a basis for narration rather seldom (for example, remark in conversation as
preliminary test of the interlocutor).
Using direct
citation teller gives his interpretation without comments. The special
statement can also express the belief in the interpretation: “I so believe”, “I
so consider”. both direct citation and the statement
tries to convince the interlocutor of the interpretation. In case of the
listener agreement interlocutors have a bas for further communication and
integration.
Rationalization
as the variant of doubtful belief is popular in the excursion programs,
publications “of yellow press”. “Rational” interpretations are always told by
“experts”, who explain traditional superstition by the “scientific” facts. The
widespread parameter of a rational motivation is the parentheses “a na samom dele” (but in the matter of facts). The doubtful
belief in the oral stories is exhibited in loosed negation, that expresses in
special discourse words - quotatives ("vidimo", probably? "Govorjat", they say, - doubt in a source of
an information). Quoative functions also have the
parentheses ("po slucham
", according to hearings, "po legende",
on a legend). Discourse words demonstrate teller’s intention to delegate
the responsibility for the interpretation to the third face. The main purpose
of the storyteller using verbal “masks” (a rationalization and assertive
parentheses) to inform and to amuse, but not to convene.
Judging to
the explication of teller’s belief in the text we can say about his aims: to
integrate with person, to inform, to explain some norms and rules or simply to
amuse.
The Sociological Analysis Of
Contemporary Sexual Legends
Jeffrey S. victor
victor@madbbs.com
This paper
applies sociological theories to contemporary sexual legends, as a way of
demonstrating the usefulness of these theories for the analysis of contemporary
legends.
In the past
sexual legend stories have been interpreted most commonly using an individual,
psychodynamic level of analysis, rather than a collectivist, social level of
analysis. Analytical questions about the meanings of the stories have been
answered in terms of personal motives, personal desires, and internal personal
symbolism. Sociological analysis offers a very different, alternative mode of
interpretation, albeit one that is generally less familiar to people who work
in literary or medical occupations.
The
contemporary legend stories analyzed in this paper will primarily include
rumors about the spread of AIDS, “snuff” pornographic
movies, “white slavery”, satanic ritual sexual abuse of children and
promiscuous cheerleaders. Secondarily they will also include more traditional
stories of penis captivus,,
castration and vagina dentata. The focus will be upon
contemporary legends in the urban, industrial societies of
The paper
will not recount all these contemporary sexual legend stories. Instead, the
paper will demonstrate how to use the sociological theories to interpret
various sexual legends as forms of collective behavior.
The
sociological theories employed will include symbolic interaction theory,
functionalist theory and social conflict theory. Social interactionist
theory asks the question: What are the cultural symbols expressed in the
legend, as metaphors for the social construction of reality? Functionalist
theory asks the question: What social structural purposes are served by legend?
Social conflict theory asks the question: What vested interests of groups in
society are being promoted by the legend, in terms of wealth, power, or
prestige?
The sexual
content of some of the legends will also be related to sex research findings.
This will be done to determine whether or not the stories have any relevant,
empirically verifiable basis. Doing so is particularly important with threat
rumors. For example it is useful to know whether or not “snuff” movies have
ever actually been made, or whether or not organized groups have kidnapped girls
for sale as sexual slaves.
In a
conclusion, the paper will contrast the foregoing sociological analysis with
more commonly employed psychoanalytic interpretations of sexual content in
legends. Some specific contrasts will be made with some past psychoanalytic
interpretations. The case will be made that such psychodynamic interpretations
are inappropriately applied to collective social phenomena such as contemporary
legends.
Professional Women Storytellers And Their Love/Hate Relationship With Urban Legends
Wendy Welch
Memorial
jbeck69087@aol.com
The
ways in which urban legends reflect women's fears, hopes, and place in society
is a relatively understood concept in folkloristics.
Women often recount contemporary legends to one another in informal settings,
in a shared performance style. But in more formalized settings, women as
tellers of urban legends face a unique set of challenges: do blood and guts
work in a school setting with a female teller and a ring of female teachers
watching?
Does
the role women play in contemporary legends differ significantly from that of
older folktales, particularly in terms of passivity and victimization? Do
professional tellers feel more or less freedom to alter urban legends than traditional
folktales of ancient status (such as Little Red Riding Hood or Tam Lin)?
These
are the subjects explored in this discussion of the interplay of formalized
storytelling contexts, feminism, creativity, and audience expectation.
***
RECENTLY HEARD
Article
From The
Chamber Of Commerce Newsletter: Security Warning
[email received
We have been informed of the following scam, which is
targeting females in particular.
They received a phone call from the Post Office asking them to
confirm their company postcode. When this is given, they are told that they
have become eligible for some gift vouchers for their co-operation and are
asked to provide their home address and postcode in order to receive the
vouchers.
So far 90% of the women who have provided this information
have been burgled as it is assumed that their homes are empty during office
hours. The police are aware of this scam and the Post Office have
confirmed that they are NOT conducting postcode surveys.
Also, it has been reported if you receive a telephone call
from an individual who identifies himself/herself as being an AT & T
Service Technician who was conducting a test on that telephone line, or anyone
else who asks you to do the following don't. They will state that to complete
the test the recipient should touch nine, zero, the hash (90) and then hang up.
To do this gives full access to your phone line, which
allows them to place a long distance international or chat-line calls billed to
your account. The information which the police have, suggests that many of
these calls are emanating from local jails and prisons.
The information has been checked out by the police and is
correct DO NOT PRESS 90 FOR ANYONE. Would anyone reading this please pass the
information on to colleagues, friends, etc.otherwise
it could cost someone a lot of money."
***
NEWS WATCH
Body Parts in
Brian
Chapman
wt046@victoria.tc.ca
Brian
Chapman sent FTN the following Internet link, which traces just over a
years worth of ‘Organ Theft’ stories appearing in The Bangkok Post from
July 1999 to August 2000:
http://www.bangkokpost.net/issues/organs/stories.html.
Headlines
are as follows:
Hospital
accused of trading in organs,
Doctors may
face criminal charges,
Donor's kin
told to sue,
Evidence
built against medics,
Hospital
hazy on payment to relatives of donating patients,
Kidneys not
stolen from dead woman,
Findings on
malpractice allegations out next week,
Row over
profits kills organ trade,
A donor can
give the gift of life,
Other
hospitals involved in unethical dealings,
Hospital
may elude legal arms,
Kidney
recipients in show of support for hospital,
Hospitals
will have to register,
Inquiry
finds allegations have grounds,
Hospital
may face serious crime cases,
Relatives
of donors urged to speak up,
Red Cross
strikes off suspect hospital,
Medical
body formed to monitor organ transplants,
Doctor sets
Thai kidney record straight,
Top doctor
probed for keeping silent,
Doctors
breached medical ethics,
Doctors to
lose their licences,
Legal push
to block organ deals,
Top surgeon
says penalty is too severe,
Police ask
for list of organ recipients,
Police to
get information on recipients,
Surgeon
says ethics inquiry found no proof of violation,
Organ
doctors face murder charge,
Accused
doctors to fight charges,
Suspects
submit to police, deny murder,
We place
our lives in their hands,
Another 10
doctors may be implicated,
Three may
go on trial for murder,
Trio may
face trial this year,
Got Beer?
fpsmith@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
from The
Globe and Mail,
“Cabbies
were to test deadly beer, court told”
Johannesburg. South Africa’s apartheid-era germ warfare
chief Wouter Basson
supplied poisoned beer to test on unsuspecting black taxi drivers, a former
special-forces assassin told a court yesterday.
Johan Theron, who dumped the
drugged bodies of apartheid opponents into the sea from helicopters, told
Pretoria’s High Court that the beer was to be distributed to taxi drivers to
see if it was “functional.” Dr. Basson has pleaded
not guilty to 61 charges of murder, fraud and drug peddling.
The Runaway
Father-in-Law
Memorial
University of Newfoundland
fpsmith@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
from The
Globe and Mail, 9 May 2000, A13 [Reuters]
“Fan Tries
to Smuggle Corpse home on bus”
London. An English rugby fan dressed his dead father-in-law
and tried to smuggle the body back home from Scotland on a tour bus, police
said Sunday.
The bizarre incident happened last weekend after the two men
watched a rugby league final in Edinburgh on Saturday and then only the
son-in-law woke up in their hotel room in Glasgow on the Sunday morning.
“For reasons known only to himself,
he decided to dress the man – I believe in a shirt and tie and a suit and also
a baseball cap – and he got him onto the bus,” a Glasgow police spokeswoman
said.
“Apparently, he pulled the cap down over the man’s eyes and
the rest of the coach were unaware that the man was
dead.”
Once on the bus, the man phoned his wife to tell her that
her father had died, prompting police in
***
BOOK REVIEW
Paranormal
Beliefs: A Sociological Introduction.
By Erich Goode. Waveland Press,
Review by Jeffrey S. Victor
victor@madbbs.com
Readers who
are familiar only with psychological studies of paranormal beliefs will find
Goode’s book to be refreshingly different. Goode’s sociological analysis is a
useful antidote to psychological reductionism, which seeks to explain the
persistence of paranormal beliefs exclusively on the basis of individual
personality characteristics. This is the first summary and integration of
sociological research on beliefs in paranormal phenomena.
Goode defines
"paranormal" as being: "Events, phenomena, or powers that
scientists regard as contrary to the laws of nature (p.18)". He notes that
"Paranormal claims or stories invoke or make use of forces, factors,
dynamics, or causes that scientists regard as inconsistent with a satisfying,
naturalistic or materialistic, cause-and-effect explanation". Goode’s sociological
analysis presents paranormal beliefs as socially "deviant"
alternatives to the culturally dominant scientific belief system.
("Deviant" means that the beliefs are widely disapproved as being
wrong, eccentric or fraudulent, especially by scientific authorities.) Goode ‘s study focuses upon four forms of paranormal
beliefs: 1) astrology and psychics, 2) creationism, 3) parapsychology and 4)
the belief that UFOs are real.
Goode
organizes his study around certain essential questions. What causes the persistence
and even popularity of paranormal beliefs? Why do paranormal beliefs persist
despite increasing levels of education, technological modernization and the
dominance of the scientific belief system in society? Conversely, why does
skepticism of the paranormal have such little popular appeal?
Goode
concludes that there are several sociological reasons for the persistence of
belief in paranormal phenomena. First, paranormal stories and explanations are
much more dramatic and entertaining than are scientific explanations for the
vast majority of the population, regardless of educational level. Second,
paranormal stories and explanations embody very ancient and enduring symbolism
and themes relative to everyday hopes and fears, aspirations and anxieties.
Third, most paranormal beliefs support anti-elitist sentiment against the
elitist dominance of scientists and the scientific belief system. Scientific
truth is not one in which everyone’s personal "truth" is on an equal
footing. In contrast, paranormal truths are personal and accessible to
everyone. Fourth, the dissemination of paranormal beliefs brings benefits to
many diverse groups in society, sometimes in the form of income, or by
increasing membership strength, or by gaining influence in society.
Paranormal
Beliefs should be read by anyone who wonders why so many
people believe in paranormal phenomena.
***
BULLETIN BOARD
Dr.
David Buchan Student Essay Prize for Contemporary Legend Research
The International Society for Contemporary Legend Research
(ISCLR) is pleased to announce that it is to award an annual student essay
prize to honour the memory of Dr. David Buchan (1939-1994), leading
international ballad scholar, and a staunch supporter and perceptive writer in
the area of contemporary legend research.
The prize will be awarded for the best student essay that
combines research and analysis on some aspect of contemporary legend, or
contemporary legend research. Previously published essays will not be
considered for the award.
Applications are invited from registered (post)graduate
students, although undergraduate essays will also be accepted for consideration
on the advice of faculty members.
Either students or their teachers may submit essays.
Instructors are asked to encourage students with eligible essays to enter the
competition.
The deadline for submission is 1st of May in the
year the award is to be made, and the essays should have been written within
the previous academic year, or the current academic year.
The award will be made by the President of ISCLR upon the
recommendation of the Selection Committee appointed by him/her, and will be
announced at the annual meeting of the Society.
The winner will receive $250 (
For further information or a copy of the Guide for
Applicants, please contact Dr. Jeannie Thomas, Coordinator – David Buchan
Student Essay Prize, Department of English,
Email: jthomas@english.usu.edu
Perspectives
on Contemporary Legend 2001
Nineteenth International Conference
The
International Society for Contemporary Legend Research is pleased to announce
that the 2001 "Perspectives on Contemporary Legend" Conference is to
be held in
Proposals
for papers on all aspects of "contemporary," "urban," or "modern"
legend research are sought, as are those on any legend or legend-like tradition
that circulates actively at present or has circulated at an earlier historical
period.
The 2001
meeting will be organized as a series of seminars at which the majority of
those who attend will present papers or contribute to discussion
sessions. Concurrent sessions will be avoided so that all participants
can hear all papers. Proposals for special panels of papers, discussion
sessions, and other related events are encouraged.
For further information contact:
Doctoral
Fellowship
Department
of Folklore,
The
Department of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland is announcing a
Doctoral Fellowship competition for PhD applicants interested in the field of
Legend and Health. The Fellowship is valued at $15,000 per annum, renewable.
The successful candidate will participate in a research assistantship program
designed to provide extensive training in the skills necessary for the combined
use of folklore and medical resources. The application deadline for this
Fellowship is
***
FTN
needs your contributions!
In
order to publish more frequently, FTN will be cutting back its size to
approximately four pages starting from the next issue. This should enable us to
publish four issues every year, and on a regular schedule. In order to achieve this goal we need your
contributions. Please send me news, queries, research notes, clippings, calls
for papers, book and movie reviews, or notes about local rumor and legend
cycles for inclusion in FTN.
Deadline
for next issue:
Next
Issue Out:
January
2001
FoafTale
News (FTN) is the newsletter of the International
Society for Contemporary Legend Research.
We study "modern" and "urban" legends, and also any
legend circulating actively. To join,
send a cheque made out to "ISCLR" for
US$30.00 or UK£18 to Mark Glazer, Arts & Sciences, University of Texas -
Pan-American, Edinburgh TX 78539-2999, USA for North American subscriptions, or
Sandy Hobbs, ASS Department, University of Paisley, Paisley, Scotland, PA1 2BE
for European subscriptions. Institutional rates available
upon request. Members also
receive Contemporary Legend, a refereed academic journal. Most back issues of FTN are available
from the Editor at a charge of US$3 each.
FoafTale News is indexed in the MLA
Bibliography.
This newsletter is called FoafTale
News for the jocular term current among legend scholars for over twenty
years. The term "foaf" was introduced by Rodney Dale (in his 1978 book,
The Tumour in the Whale) for an oft-attributed
but anonymous source of contemporary legends: a "friend of a
friend." Dale pointed out that
contemporary legends always seemed to be about someone just two or three steps
from the teller — a boyfriend’s cousin,
a co‑worker’s aunt, or a neighbor of the teller’s mechanic. "Foaf"
became a popular term at the
FoafTale
News welcomes contributions, including those documenting
legends” travels on electronic media and in the press. All research notes and articles are
copyright by the individual authors who reserve all rights. For permission to reprint, contact them at
the addresses given in the headnote of the article.
Send queries, notices, and research reports to a maximum of 3000 words to the
Editor; clippings, offprints, and citations are also
encouraged.
The opinions expressed in FoafTale
News are those of the authors and do not in any necessary way represent
those of the editor, the contributing compilers, the International Society for
the Study of Contemporary Legends, its Council, or its members.
Editor: Mikel J. Koven, Department of Theatre, Film
and Television Studies, Parry-Williams, Building, Penglais Campus, University of
Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, SY23 2AJ
Email:
Web page:
www.panam.edu/faculty/mglazer/isclr/isclr.htm
ISSN 1026-1001