Contemporary Legend Research in German-Speaking Countries

Abstract

Until quite recently, the study of contemporary legends was often considered a stepchild of folk narrative research in the German-speaking countries (Wehse 1990, 67). However, studies of a closely related phenomenon, so-called date back to the early 1930s, and rumours were already being treated at the time of the first world war. The initial focus of this essay will be on these and other early contributions to the field (long before it was recognised and organised as such), and especially on Otto Garner's ideas. I will then discuss more recent works, looking at publications which centre on the collection, description and classification of material, as well as some of the theoretical and critical approaches. I hope to show how themes and genres have changed with the times. The term (Zeitungssage) seems to have been used for the first time by Leopold Schmidt and Alfred Karasek (Schmidt 1932; Karasek 1933a),' but earlier investigations of the phenomenon had been carried out by Otto Gorner and a much more famous scholar-Andre Jolles-in 1930. Garner commented upon the backward-looking approach of folklore research, which was then mainly aimed at the preservation of folklore items considered to be in danger of dying out.2 He seems to have been the first German scholar to ask whether new fairytales, myths and legends, not dependent on the old widespread motifs, could spring up in the modern world. One of the places he found such stories was in the press, in his opinion the most important channel influencing the popular mind (Gbrner 1930, 33-5). As a modern example of legend and horror story, Garner studied the newspaper tale of the cut-off finger. As this does not correspond to the contemporary story of the Severed Fingers3 and I have not been able to find any analogies, I will give a translation of the note which appeared in the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten 6 June 1929: