Produced by David Garcia, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: GUY EARL OF WARWICK]
If we knew how the words in our language were made and what they havemeant to successive generations of the men and women who have used them,we should have a new and very interesting kind of history to read. Forwords, like all other creations of man, were not deliberatelymanufactured to meet a need, as are the various parts of a bicycle or ofan automobile; but grew gradually and slowly out of experiences whichcompelled their production. For it is one of the evidences of thebrotherhood of men that, either by the pressure of necessity or of theinstinct to describe to others what has happened to ourself and so makecommon property of personal experience, no interesting or influential orsignificant thing can befall a man that is not accompanied by a desireto communicate it to others.
The word legend has a very interesting history, which sheds light notonly on its origin but on early habits of thought and customs. It isderived from the Latin verb legere, which means "to read." Aslegends are often passed down by word of mouth and are not reduced towriting until they have been known for centuries by great numbers ofpeople, it seems difficult at first glance to see any connection betweenthe Latin word and its English descendant. In Russia and othercountries, where large populations live remote from cities and arepractically without books and newspapers, countless stories are told bypeasant mothers to their children, by reciters or semi-professionalstory-tellers, which have since been put into print. For a good manyhundred years, probably, the vast majority of legends were not read;they were heard.
When we understand, however, what the habits of people were in the earlyChristian centuries and what the early legends were about, the originalmeaning of the word is not only clear but throws light on the history ofthis fascinating form of literature. The early legends, as a rule, hadto do with religious people or with places which had religiousassociations; they were largely concerned with the saints and werefreely used in churches for the instruction of the people. In allchurches selections from some book or books are used as part of theservice; readings from the Old and New Testament are included in theworship of all churches in Christendom. In the earliest times not onlywere Lessons from the Old Testament and the Gospels and Epistles of theNew Testament read, but letters of bishops and selections from otherwritings which were regarded as profitable for religious instruction.Later stories of the saints and passages from the numerous lives whichappeared were read at different services and contributed greatly totheir interest. The first legends in Christian countries were incidentsfrom the lives of the saints and were included in the selections madefrom various writings for public worship; these selections were calledlegends. The history of the word makes clear, therefore, theorigin and early history of the class of stories which we call legends.
The use of the stories at church services led to the collection, orderlyarrangement and reshaping of a great mass of material which grew rapidlybecause so many people were interested in these semi-religious tales. Inthe b