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Because they are so often told as news, contemporary legends force us to reevaluate life as we know it. They confront us with macabre, fantastic, horrific, or hilarious characters and events that seem to come straight out of myths and folktales, but are presented as present day events. The difficulty is that it is not at all easy to decide whether these often disturbing stories should be treated as reliable or dismissed as fantasy. The legends explored in this book are some of the most bizarre, gruesome, and politically sensitive stories in the contemporary legend canon. At any moment a body may be invaded by noxious creatures, deliberately infected with deadly disease, or raided to provide donor organs for sick foreigners. These are "winter's tales," the stuff of nightmares. In this book Gillian Bennett traces the cultural history of six legends, well-known in Europe and America from medieval times to the present day. Appearing in broadsides, ballads, myths, ancient and modern legends, novels, plays, films, television shows, and stories told in the oral tradition, these legends are not just silly tales which can be dismissed as trivial and untrue. They reveal much about the concerns and fears of everyday life and demonstrate the limits of knowledge and power in the modern world. Gillian Bennett is the author of "Alas, Poor Ghost!": Traditions of Belief in Story and Discourse and Traditions of Belief: Women and the Supernatural and coauthor of the standard legend bibliography and reader. She lives in Stockport, United Kingdom.
E-Book Content
BODIES
BODIES
SEX, VIOLENCE, D I S E A S E , A N D D E AT H IN CONTEMPORARY LEGEND
GILLIAN BENNETT
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI / JACKSON
www.upress.state.ms.us The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Copyright © 2005 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bennett, Gillian. Bodies : sex, violence, disease, and death in contemporary legend / Gillian Bennett.— lst ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57806-789-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Legends. 2. Body, Human—Folklore. I. Title GR78.B46 2005 398.209—dc22 2005003925 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
CONTENTS VII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IX
P R E FA C E
3
ANIMALS INSIDE B O S O M S E R P E N T S A N D A L I M E N TA RY A M P H I B I A N S
60
POISON AND HONEY
104
AIDS AGGRESSORS M I R R O R S, C A S K E T S, A N D N E E D L E S
142
KILLING THE PRODIGAL SON
188
DISPOSSESSED T H E B O DY S N AT C H E R S
247
BLOOD AND BABIES
304
AFTERWORD: A TRIVIAL PURSUIT?
311
INDEX
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In many respects this book is a joint effort. I am indebted to friends and family for finding many of the texts I quote. Special thanks go to my daughter, Kate; to Caroline Oates, the librarian of the Folklore Society; to Véronique Campion-Vincent for many of the French texts; and to Paul Smith, as always wonderfully generous in finding material for me. The library of the Folklore Society has been an invaluable resource, as has the Manchester Public Library (the best British public library outside London), and the library of Manchester Metropolitan University. Special thanks, too, to Bill Ellis for a thoughtful reading of an earlier draft. Thanks also go to my teacher, Michèle Phillips, and my nephew, Mark Gray, for help with some of the French translations, and to Adrienne Mayor, Ruth Richardson, and Véronique CampionVincent for allowing extensive quotation fr