


Brittany Meadows
LA 462 OL1: Power of Myth and Symbol
Assignment 2.2
9/17/2022
Robert Tindall
The first legend I’ll start with is the story of Beowulf from Anglo-Saxon lore. Beowulf is a narrative about a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from a man-eating monster called Grendel. He defeats the monster in a triumphant victory only to be faced with Grendel’s mother who is angered by Grendel’s death. Beowulf nevertheless travels to the mother’s lair and defeats her as well, before returning to his homeland to reign as king. His last courageous stance comes years later. A dragon is disturbed and Beowulf seeks out the creature to rid his kingdom of the threat and protect his people. He fearlessly slays the dragon but is mortally wounded and dies a warrior’s death (Heaney.) Beowulf exemplifies the definition of a legend because the story’s main character is not a magical being. It is an epic of good versus evil that is thought to have been originally passed through oral tradition until the only surviving written account was made after Christianity was brought to England (“Beowulf, the Poem – Beowulf.”) I chose Beowulf as one of my selections because it was suggested to me. Since I was familiar with the name but unfamiliar with the story, I wanted to learn what the legend was about.
For my next topic, I chose the subject of the kelpie. The Kelpie is a Celtic/Scottish folklore of a malevolent water creature that lurks from among the lakes and rivers of Scotland. Often described as taking the form of an alluring black or white horse, the kelpie would appear to an unsuspecting passerby as a gentle equine. If one was fool enough to approach a kelpie and attempt to mount it, the myth goes that the person would become stuck to the kelpie’s sticky body as the kelpie plunges into the water and drowns their victim before devouring them (Mercatante and Dow.) One folktale about kelpie is called “The Laird of Morphie and the Water Kelpie.” The legend tells of John Graham of the Morphie clan in Scotland, who thought so highly of himself that he deserved a grand mansion. Unwillingly to pay for the laborious work, according to his wife, he sought to capture the Kelpie of Ponnage Pool and use its magical strength to yield his desired mansion. He managed to subdue the beast for his labor, however, he treated the kelpie poorly, like an abused farm animal given little regard for its effort or welfare. He fed the kelpie very little food and forced him to pull enormous granite boulders each day without rest. Upon the completion of his task, he set the kelpie free once again, as he promised he would to the creature. Furious, worn down, and exhausted from the continuous strain of back-breaking work, the kelpie swore his revenge and cursed the Morphie clan until the end of their progeny (Elphinstone Institute.) It’s thought that this story about the kelpie and similar stories from other regions contains conventional wisdom of a cautionary sort. That man shouldn’t carelessly exploit the earth and its creatures because they regard themselves as more powerful or important (Harkavy.) The bloodline of the Morphies ended when the laird’s mansion collapsed onto him. His daughter was the only surviving lineage and all that remains of Morphie is that of a farmhouse. Supposedly, according to the legend, the district folk always credited the kelpie’s curse for the demise of the Morphie clan (Elphinstone Institute.) Thus giving validity to this story as a tale born of popular Scottish folklore.
For my second hero legend, I chose the tale of Paul Revere. Paul Revere is an American folk hero who’s attributed with saving Samuel Adams and John Hancock and single-handedly kicking off the start of the Revolutionary War. According to legend, Revere took off on horseback from Boston to Concord to warn Adams, Hancock, and militiamen that the British were invading by riding through the towns and shouting, “The British are coming!” However, it’s now attested that the story widely known in American culture is largely inaccurate. The legend is based on a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow some fifty years after Revere’s death. It’s also said that but not for Wadsworth’s poem, Revere would’ve remained a little-known character in the history of the American Revolution. Despite written accounts from Revere himself on his actions that fateful night, the folk hero version persists in American culture as one of the founding nation’s greatest folk heroes. (Eschner; Ewers and Smith.) Even though this hero legend is slightly different, as it’s believed the hero narrative didn’t gain notoriety until after the poem was written and published, versus becoming popular in culture by oral tradition as customary with other folk heroes, I still feel it meets the definition of a heroic legend. Despite the popular narrative having since been disputed and disproven through historical records and written accounts, the folk hero legend of Paul Revere is still believed to be the true story by a popular misconception.
To finalize this assignment, I chose the folktale of the Maneki Neko aka “Lucky Cat” of Japanese folklore. According to lore, the tale takes place in 17th-century Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, at the small Gōtoku-Ji temple. There an impoverished monk resides with his white pet cat. Naotaka, a wealthy Samaria lord, is passing by when it starts to downpour rain. He stops near the temple to get out of the rain when the monk’s cat seems to gesture for him to follow him. Just as he starts approaching the cat, a flash of lightning strikes the tree that Naotaka was shielding himself from the rain under. The samurai was so grateful to the cat for saving him from certain death that he became a patron of the temple and helped the monk rejuvenate the building. The folktale has remained a popular part of Japanese culture and folklore. It’s widely seen as a symbol of good luck today, especially with little white cat figurines posing with one paw up, just like the temple cat of myth (“50 Most Popular Folktales Around the World”; Taggart.) I liked this story because it shows how humans can do good deeds when we are humbled by circumstances or reminded of our own mortality.
Works Cited
- “Beowulf, the Poem – Beowulf.” LibGuides, 23 March 2020, kua.libguides.com/c.php?g=787499&p=5638176.
- Elphinstone Institute. The Laird of Morphie and the Water Kelpie. University of Aberdeen. Elphinstone Map, www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/map/text/33_The_Laird_of_Morphie_and_the_Water_Kelpie.pdf.
- Eschner, Kat. “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and Some Other Guys.” Smithsonian Magazine, 18 April 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/midnight-ride-paul-revere-and-some-other-guys-180962866/.
- Ewers, Justin, and Cecelia Smith. “Rewriting the Legend of Paul Revere.” USNews.com, 27 June 2008, www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/06/27/rewriting-the-legend-of-paul-revere.
- “50 Most Popular Folktales Around the World.” Facts.net, 24 January 2022, facts.net/popular-folktales/.
- Harkavy, Victoria. “Horse Motifs in Folk Narrative of the Supernatural.” 2014, pp. 52-53. Mason Archival Repository Service, hdl.handle.net/1920/9033.
- Heaney, Seamus, editor. Beowulf (Bilingual Edition). W. W. Norton, 2001. epub.
- Mercatante, Anthony S., and James R. Dow. The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend. Facts On File, 2008. epdf.Taggart, Emma. “The History and Meaning of Maneki-Neko: The Japanese Lucky Cat.” My Modern Met, 26 July 2021, mymodernmet.com/maneki-neko-japanese-lucky-cat/.