Legend

When I’m stuck for a word to share, I head over to the ‘Random Word Generator’. I could pretend that I get out an old dictionary and fan through the pages picking one at random, but I don’t.

It’s not completely random when you refresh the screen again and again until a word jumps out; there is an element of choice. There are times though, when a word appears several times in this process. I take that as a sign – pick me! This week’s word is Legend. It’s as good a word as any, I suppose. Let’s see where it goes, or maybe where it’s been.

Legend

A story whispered through time about an extraordinary event

A person or thing famous or notable for a particular reason

What comes to mind?

Living legend. Legend has it. The stuff of legends. Urban legend. What a legend!

I’m sure we all remember legends we’ve heard. The legend of King Arthur springs to mind – it was the example given in the dictionary when I headed there to sense check my definitions.

Take Dracula, a story based on folklore legend but tethered in real history. A castle, a count, real people, their stories passed on, whispered, embellished for dramatic effect and interwoven until it’s all impossible to separate.

I think about legends that are closer to home. There’s a myth about the ghost of a watercress picker in Pluckley. I look it up. Legend has it she was a gypsy woman who set herself on fire with a pipe while she slept on the bridge. Too drunk on whiskey to notice, she burnt to death. Her ghost appears as a howling figure with a pink glow. Turns out the woman in this legend was real.

I digress – are ghost stories legends? – but it’s making me think about how stories take shape. We witness it in our own lives, their retelling hammed up or played down, different versions of events depending on different perspectives.

Where might this week’s word take you?

Think about one extraordinary event from your own life. If you wanted it to live on as legend for years to come, how would you tell it?

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