Legends today

     The flowers spread throughout the land of the Cherokees and to this day, the CHEROKEE rose is the first flower to bloom – her eager face opening early in Spring to welcome the return of her loved one. 
 

    PART 2 
 

     But  not  all legends  are  ancient. There  are  modern  legends  too. A  number  of legends  tell  about  the  Loch  Ness  monster, a  sea  serpent  in  Scotland  and  the abominate  snowman  a  hairy  least  of  the  Himalayas. Some people believe that these creatures actually exist. From time to time the various expeditions have tried to find both of them.

                                               Loch Ness from Scotland

     1. In Scotland there is a popular legend about the monster from a lake called Loch Ness, near the town of Inverness. Loch Ness is 32 km long, 5 km wide, and very, very deep. The monster's name is Nessie. People say that she is very big, and that she has got a long neck, like a snake.

     But does Nessie really exist? Some people say yes, some say no. Scientists are exploring the lake with cameras and sound equipment. Sometimes they see something and sometimes they hear something, but they do not understand the mystery of Loch Ness.

     The legend of the monster is very famous, and millions of tourists from all over the world come to Loch Ness. Everybody wants to be the first person to see Nessie. Come to Scotland and Loch Ness - that person may be you!

                       The Yeti from the United States and Canada

     2. In the United States and Canada, there is a popular legend about a monster. People say that it is very big and that it has a lot of hair. It's name is Bigfoot, because there are big footprints in the snow. The footprints are 60 cms long and 20 cms wide. The encyclopedia "Guide to British and American Culture" says; "Bigfoot, also called Sasquatch, is a large hairy creature like a human with big feet and long arms that is 

      believed  by  some people to live in the north-west mountains of North America. Although reports than such a creature has been seen appear occasionally in popular newspapers, most people regard them as a joke. But  does Bigfoot really exist? We don't know!

                                              Bigfoot from the Himalayas

     3. In Himalayas there is a country called Tibet. People who live 
there say there is a monster in the mountains. They call it the Yeti. There 
are large footprints in the snow and sometimes people hear and see 
something. But is it monster, or is it bear? We don't really know.

                                           The crocodiles under New York

     4.Modem legends are often called urban legends, because the 
stories happened in modem cities. Ten years ago there was a rumour that 
there were crocodiles under New York. The rumour was soon a 
newspaper story, and the newspaper story was soon a legend. So, today, 
many people in New York believe that there are crocodiles under the 
ground  there.

                                              The Legend of the Vampire

     5.Another legend is about the Vampire.

     One night in January 1973 John Pyle, a young British police officer, was called to investigate a death. Within an hour what had seemed like a routine mission turned into one of the strangest cases any policeman can have encountered. Police Constable Pyle found the dead man's room plunger in darkness. The man had apparently been so terrified of electricity that there were no light  bulbs in his room But gradually the beam from the policeman's flashlight revealed an extraordinary scene. P.C. Pyle was looking at a fortress prepared against an attack by vampires. Salt was scattered around the room and sprinkled over the blankets. A bag of salt rested by  the dead man's face, and another was laid between his legs. The man had mixed salt with his urine in various containers. Outside on the window ledge he had placed an inverted bowl that covered a mixture of human excreta and garlic.

     The dead man was Demetrious Myiciura, a Polish immigrant who had left his country for Britain 25 years earlier. He had worked as a potter in Stoke-on-Trent I n the heart of England's pottery district. That is where he met his bizarre death. It would certainly be hard to imagine a place more remote from the traditionally vampire-haunted forest of Transylvania in Romania . Stoke-on-Trent is an industrial town, set in a landscape mutilated by factory chimneys and slag heaps. The streets of little houses are uniformly black and narrow. It is all the more surprising, therefore, to come across the line of large old-fashioned dwellings where Myiciura had made his home. His houses look gloomy and somehow eerie. They are called, simply, "The Villas," and it was at number 3 that Myiciura met his death.

     The body was removed for examination. At the inquest the pathologist reported that Myiciura had choked to death on a pickled onion. The coroner thought this unusual, but commented that it was not unknown for people "to bolt their food and die". Meanwhile the young policeman could not forget what he had see. He had gone to the Public Library and read the Natural History of the Vampire by Anthony Masters. His suspicions were confirmed: salt and garlic are traditional vampire r epellants, and the mixture on Myiciura's window ledge was intended to attract the vampires who would then be poisoned by the garlic. When told of this, the coroner ordered a reexamination of the  picked onion. It   was found to be a clove of garlic. As a   final desperate measure to ward off the vampires, this wretched man had slept with a clove of garlic in his mouth, and the garlic had crocked him to death. So in a roundabout way, the vampires did get him in the end.

     What, then, are these vampires that literally scared Myiciura to death? Vampires are corpses, neither dead nor alive, that rise from the grave at night and suck the blood of the living. They gradually drain the   blood of   their victims, who must then become vampires in turn. The  legendary home of the  vampires is in Eastern Europe, notably Romania. It was there, in the province of   Transylvania, that British author Bram Stoker set his famous story of Dracula.

     His Count Dracula, with arched nostrils, blooded lips, and long sharp teeth, has come to typify our image of   a vampire.

      But like the legendary vampires, Dracula could readily change into an animal such as a wolf or a bat. A vampire might even become a vapor  to filter around the window frames in search of his or her chosen victim. When their gruesome feast of blood is over, the vampires crawl back into their coffin, where they can easily be recognized by the excellent state of preservation of their body. No matter how long vampires have been buried, it is said, they look as if they were still alive. Garlic, salt, or a crucifix may drive them off, but they only way to destroy them is to plunge a stake through their heart – at which time they give a horrible death  shriek. They may need to be beheaded and burned as well.

     A primitive superstition? Perhaps. Nevertlieless, Myiciura believed it. He was convinced that vampires exist - and not just in the faraway forest of Transylvania. Demitriors   Myiciura believed that he was being threatened by vampires in a British city in the 1970s.

     But are these stories true? The answer is: we do not know. That is the secret of a good legend. We do not know if the stories are true. 

                                                            CONCLUSION 

     The  subject  of  my  work  was  legends  from  different  countries. I  have  chosen  this topic, because  I  am  interested  in  history  and  I  am collecting  the  legends  from  different countries  of  ancient  civilization  as  well  as  modem  ones, which  have  been translated  into English. I believe it is rather an interesting topic and I am convinced that the subject of the work will be of great interest for students and English teachers.

     A short definition of the term "legend" is the following: " A legend is a popular story which is perhaps true and perhaps not."

     I analyzed many legends from ancient civilizations to nowadays.

     The ancient stories are often about great events and great people and about the origins of the world. There are also many stories about powerful gods and about important people such as kings and queens.

     Modem legends are mainly about magic and about animals and monsters. Modem legends are often called the urban legends, because the stories happened in modem cities.

     The key questions of any legend are: " Is the story true? Did the legendary heroes really exist?". The answers are: "We do not know!" That is the secret of a good legend and many people for a long time try to guess it. 

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