There is no more distinctive part of folklore than the legend or belief tale. In twentieth century America we live in a culture that prides itself on being high-tech, rational, and cynical. Yet there is no segment of our society that does not listen to, remember, and retransmit stories of wonder and surprise. The tales are thought to be "rumors," "gossip," "myths," "old wives' tales," or "dirt." But most importantly, they are understood to be "truth."
In conversation we learn that a friend of a friend has found empty dogfood can in a garbage can outside a popular pizza shop--part of a major chain. We, in turn, tell the story to someone else. Suddenly, all who hear the "rumor" find that the pizza doesn't taste so good--and certainly not quite so ordinary! The "gossip" has it that one of the biggest of the international hamburger chains maintains a complex of earthworm farms in Mexico, and then we "understand" why they protest so much about the purity of their beef! A Southeast Asian restaurant opens in any town and rumors circulate that the community's dogs and cats have begun to disappear. The logo of a major American food manufacturer is revealed to have satanic interpretations. A popular bubble gum contains spider eggs!
Somewhere we are told that if we save wrappers from cigarette packages, or collect pull tabs from soft drink cans, we can turn them in somewhere to buy time for a cancer victim on an "iron lung" or for a sufferer of a kidney disease on a dialysis machine. It is obvious that the tobacco industry is not about to associate itself, even positively, with lung disease nor the soft drink industry with kidney problems. Nevertheless, such legends persist without suffering the slightest effect from such jarring disjunctures. Through hearing these stories what had seemed ordinary becomes, instead, something very remarkable and alive.
Beliefs and stories like this are classified by folklorists as legends or belief tales. Occasionally, and mistakenly, they are even described as "urban belief tales." This is mistaken because such stories are not restricted to urban settings, nor do they all arise from within the urban context. Stock feeders are as likely to know the tales as stock brokers, Nebraskans as well as New Yorkers. Old, young, rich, or poor, it makes no difference. We are all part of the oral chain that passes these narrative materials across America at incredible speed and with unimaginably broad distribution.
The belief tale plays a significant role in modern American folklore but it is not the only, or even the most prominent part of that folklore. American society delights in the orally transmitted joke perhaps more than any other society within our knowledge. Few modern American gatherings of any kind are complete without an exchange of a joke or two. From banquet to beer bust, from tete-a-tete to television extravaganza, the joke has a central position in every social situation that we are likely to encounter. But, in America, it is the legend that provides the most particular interest. It is such a subtle part of our folklore. We know when we are telling a joke but we never suspect when we are reciting a legend.
Many belief tales have only a simple statement and the barest hint of a plot. Simple examples would be that two television beauties have married each other or that a popular rock song has the sounds of a murder or Satanic obscenity in its background music. A
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