Christine Shojaei Kawan, Gttingen

Perspectives on Contemporary Legend

28 Conference of the International Society for
Contemporary Legend Research
th

Amsterdam, June 28July 1, 2010

The International Society of Contemporary Legend Research whose annual conferences alternate between North America and Europe (i.e., mostly the British Isles)
met for the first time in the Netherlands, at the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam.
This institution, formerly housed in the Keizersgracht, has now moved to the outskirts of the city, to an elongated building that, with its rows of little windows and
its accompanying lavender beds, gives the impression of a factory in Provence or
the train bleu at a standstill, an impression to which the heat-wave prevailing during the conference added. The meeting was perfectly organized by Theo Meder
(Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam), with the assistance of Hetty Garcia and Marianne
van Zuylen; the atmosphere was familiar as usual, lunches and even breakfasts
were taken together at the institute, and everything ran smoothly. It is to be regretted that several of the usual participants were not able to attend, mostly for reasons
of health; at the same time it is a positive development that beyond the circle of
habitus, the ISCLR conferences now also regularly attract scholars from such
countries as Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The papers dealt with different forms of legends and related phenomena, often
with a strong emphasis on the aspect of belief. Two presentations were dedicated to
well-known Internet devices: Paul Smith (St. Johns, Newfoundland) commented
on the variety of ways the term urban legend is employed in W ikipedia, and
found its usage too inconsistent to recommend the reference tool as a working instrument (Just What Does the Bald Eagle Have to do with Urban Legends? Exploring the Use of the Term Urban Legend in Wikipedia). Patricia A. Turner (Davis,
California) analyzed the Hot 25 list of SNOPES (which evaluates the veracity of
contemporary legends and related stories) with regard to racial content and found
that nine of them had racial underpinnings, including a relentless focus on Obama,
as an indicator of the state of the political climate in the U. S. (From Bloody Car
Seats to the Olympic Torch: What the Snopes Hot 25 Reveals about Race). The
only strictly theoretical paper was the one by Aurore van de W inkel (Leuven) who
had analyzed legends from the Internet and a variety of printed sources in order to
determine the intentions of the transmitters (to warn, condemn, cause surprise ...)

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and the possible effects of the stories as well as processes of interaction meant to
instigate belief (The Construction of Belief: the Case of Contemporary Legends).
Most of the other papers represented case studies. Mikel Koven (W orcester) and
Gunnella Thorgeirsdottir (Sheffield) questioned the notion of fakelore in relation to
the TV series Supernatural (which tells the adventures of two brothers acting as demon hunters): supplying variants within the larger folklore context, it serves, according to the authors, the same functions as folklore that is transmitted in a more
traditional way (Televisual Folklore: Rescuing Supernatural from the Fakelore
Realms). W illem de Blcourt (Maynards Green, England) showed differences between traditional werewolf and vampire legends and the modern development of
these figures (appearance of formerly solitary werewolves and vampires in groups;
the association of the werewolf with the moon, etc.), especially through films
(Werewolves, Vampires and Race: The Development of Modern Belief Narratives).
Peter Burger (Leiden) discussed the exploitation of the New York poison needle
scare (191315; a forerunner of the widespread rumours on white slavery circulating in France and other European countries since the late 1960s) by movies, theatre
plays and serials, and explored their intended (moralizing) and their actual effects
(fascination) on a female audience (The New York Poison Needle Scare: Legend,
News, and Popular Culture).
Jan Pohunek (Prague) examined stories about Hans Hagen, a malevolent phantom encountered in the abandoned limestone quarries near Prague and most often
described as the ghost of a Nazi soldier, but sometimes also characterized as a
guardian spirit, which had given rise to legend tripping, mostly by subcultural
youths (Hans Hagen: between Serial Killer and Genius Loci). Stijn Reijnders
(Rotterdam) investigated peoples need to connect fictional stories with their physical locations, taking Dracula bus tours to W hitby (the setting of several chapters in
Bram Stokers book) and to Transylvania as examples (Stalking the Count: Places
of the Imagination in Dracula Country). W ith regard to geocaching, a high tech
scavenger hunt played throughout the world, Mare Kalda (Tartu) scrutinized processes of control and self-assertion as well as the effects of this form of treasure
hunting on the players everyday life (Seeing Things and Places You Wouldnt
See Otherwise: Insider Representation on Geocaching).
Theo Meder gave an overview over a representative collection of 350 local legends (including contemporay ones) from the twelve provinces of the Netherlands,
ranging from Reynard the Fox and the Flying Dutchman to the Phantom Clowns
and the Smiley Gang, and discussed related processes like invention of tradition,
appropriation and commercialization (In Search of the Dutch Lore of the Land: Old
and New Legends throughout the Netherlands). Gail de Vos (Seba Beach, Alberta)
asked if the widely publicized (and picturized) story told about blues musician
Robert Johnson and some other prominent musicians, said to have acquired their
skills by having sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads, does in fact fulfil the
requirements defining a contemporary legend (and in this case, one should add, a
legend in the traditional generic sense as well?) (A Meeting with the Devil at the
Crossroads: a Contemporary Legend?). Jean-Marie Rouhier-W illoughby (Lexing-

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ton, Kentucky) examined two religious Russian oral folk legend cycles about the
role of Jews and Roma in stories surrounding Christs birth and crucifixion, and
came to the conclusion that they were built on preexisting stereotypes and were actually critical of the socio-religious system (Clean or Unclean? Jews and Roma in
Russian Folk Legends). Tjalling A. Beetstra (Apeldoorn) explored the phenomenon
of satanic ritual abuse and its narrative status as well as the ways in which societies
have responded to the allegations of cult survivors, in the context of pseudo-science
(especially recovered memory therapy) and pseudo-history (The Legendary
Character of Satanic Ritual Abuse in Dispute).
David Clarke (Sheffield) discussed the development of the Rendlesham Forest
UFO incident (Christmas 1980) from the memorates of US Airforce personnel to a
legend with international significance (including legend tripping) as well as the circular processes by which beliefs, memorates and legends inform each other, and
the researchers problems with credence and credibility (If You Go Down to the
Woods Today: Legend Tripping in a UFO Window). Based on her fieldwork in
Texas and Nevada, Susan Lepselter (Bloomington) analyzed an abduction narrative
and a report about cattle mutilation to demonstrate how, through a specific narrative poetics, such stories create meaning (Connecting the Dots: Plot and Poetics
in UFO Storytelling).
Violetta Krawczyk-Wasilewska (xodz) thematized folklore spread on the Internet
following the earthquake in Haiti, such as the legend about the alleged pact the
leaders of the 1791 revolution made with the devil and the ensuing curse on the
country; in Poland reports about Haitians with Polish ancestors attracted special attention (The Haiti Legend Revisited: Earthquake, Devils Pact and Net-Community
Comments). Virginia Fugarino (St. Johns, Newfoundland) considered ambiguities
created by the media in the wake of natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes),
hinging upon issues of race and socio-economic status (for example, black people
acquiring supplies were called looters whereas white people were said to have
found food) in the context of the concept of limited good, issues of distrust and
conspiracy theories (The Things They Carried: Legends of Supply Acquisition
and Cultural and Media Response in the Wake of Disaster). In his thematically related paper, Carl Lindahl (Houston), who had examined such media reports in previous papers, found an unexpected pattern of response in his interviews of 400
persons who had experienced urban chaos following Hurricane Katrina: whereas
the media invariably described acts of savagery committed by survivors, the survivors themselves mostly reported positive behaviour by fellow survivors, including
heroic acts (Paradises Built in Hell: Legendry of Selflessness and Nihilism in the
Wake of Hurricane Katrina).
Joel Conn (Glasgow), a solicitor by profession, considered the famous Snail in
the Bottle court case (1928), a milestone in the history of consumer rights, from
the point of view of the different versions of occurrences leading to the case, with
an emphasis on the personal fate of May Donoghue, the victim (Gingerlore: Legal
Tales about Donoghue v Stevenson; the Snail in the Bottle Case). Eda Kalmre
(Tartu) examined narratives of four informants and their reactions to the legends

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told in post-war Tartu about a factory allegedly producing sausages from human
meat, passed on from generation to generation as evidence of the horrors of Soviet
occupation, and came to the conclusion that those who believed them were persons
who perceived themselves as victims (Legends about Sausage Factories: A Source
of Memoirs and Biographies). Carsten Bregenhj (Kerava, Finland) made a significant contribution to the history of the legend of the Stolen Grandmother by unearthing Andreas Vindings description of his flight from Paris after the surrender
of France, published 1944 in the Danish newspaper Politiken. Bregenhj raised
questions concerning journalistic credibility and possible motivations for resorting
to an untrue story; he also tried to disclaim the truth of the report with the help of
technical details (the roof box) and asked if the Nordic term svigermorboks could
in fact be derived from the legend (The Mother-in-Law Roof Box).
Elissa R. Henken (Athens, Georgia), in her inventory of the changes and reinterpretations concerning sex- and health-related legends of the kind she had formerly
collected and published together with Marianne H. W hatley, found a significant increase of violence and the representation of danger (Ten Years on: Developments
in Legendry on Sex and Health). Similarly, Elizabeth Tucker (B inghamton, New
York) returned to a former subject of study, the tapeworm diet legends whose credibility is nowadays discussed on Internet websites; she considered reasons for their
fascination (the tapeworm as a phallic symbol, the superego, the hungry self) as
well as its funny sides (From Oral Tradition to Cyberspace: Tapeworm Diet Legends).
The conference concluded with a legend walk around Amsterdam during which
the participants were shown, among other things, haunted places, the location of a
host miracle (the Heilige Stede, formerly an important place of pilgrimage which
was demolished in 1908), and houses to which robber stories are attached. One of
them corresponds in fact to international tale-type ATU 956 B: The Clever Maiden
Alone at Home Kills the Robbers and thus represents the interesting case of a
novellesque tale that has become a local legend.

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