Introduction to Literature
Senior 4 · Literature in English
Introduction to Literature
Lesson 4 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Every people has asked the same hard questions: Why must we die? Who were our first rulers? How should we live? Long before anyone wrote an essay on them, communities answered in stories. This lesson reads three of those stories: a myth from Rwanda, a legend from Britain and a fable from ancient Greece. As you read, ask of each one: When is it set? Who are its characters? Did its first listeners believe it happened? What is it for?
In the beginning, people did not die. Death was a wild creature that roamed the land, and Imana, the Creator, set out to hunt it down and rid the world of it. He ordered every person to stay inside the house, so that Death would find nowhere to hide.
But one old woman thought, "Imana's hunt is no business of mine. My bananas need me." She slipped out to her banana grove. There Death, worn out by the chase, ran to her feet. "Mother, hide me, and you will not regret it." Out of pity she lifted the hem of her skirt, and Death crept underneath.
Imana arrived and saw what had happened. "You have chosen to hide Death," he said. "Since a human being has sheltered it, let it stay with human beings." And so Death lives among us still.
A myth of the Banyarwanda, retold by Ganzaa
Like every oral text, this myth has variants. In a version from neighbouring Burundi, the woman hides Death in her mouth and swallows it; in another telling, Death slips into a dog that runs into an old woman's hut.
British legend tells that after King Uther died, England had no king, and the lords quarrelled. On Christmas morning a great stone appeared in a London churchyard, with a sword stuck in an anvil on top of it. In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, printed in 1485, gold letters on the stone read:
Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), Book I, Chapter 5
The strongest knights pulled and failed. Then a teenage boy, Arthur, sent to fetch a sword for his foster-brother, drew it out easily, not knowing what it meant. He was the dead king's hidden son, and he became King Arthur. Historians still argue about whether a real British war leader of around 500 CE lies behind the legend. What is certain is that the stories grew for a thousand years around a figure people believed was part of their history.
A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: "Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race." The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue.
Slow but steady wins the race.
Aesop, translated by George Fyler Townsend (1867)
Definition
| Myth | Legend | Fable | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time | The beginning of time, or a time outside history | The remembered human past | No particular time ("one day") |
| Characters | Gods, spirits, the first people, forces like Death | Heroes, kings, founders: humans with extraordinary powers or luck | Animals (sometimes plants or objects) that behave like people |
| Belief | Held to be sacred truth by its first tellers | Believed to be history, though full of wonders | Known by everyone to be invented |
| Main purpose | To explain origins and the order of the world | To celebrate heroes, explain a people's identity and the origin of places or institutions | To teach a practical moral lesson |
| Length | Short to long | Often long, gathered into cycles | Very short |
| Example in this lesson | How Death Came to Stay | The Sword in the Stone | The Hare and the Tortoise |
| Rwandan examples | Stories of Imana; the tale of Kigwa, said to have come down from the sky | Ryangombe, the hero said to have been killed by a buffalo while hunting | Tales of Bakame the hare and other animals |
The borders are not walls. Some stories sit between kinds: the tale of Kigwa falling from the sky to found a royal line is both a myth (a supernatural origin) and a legend (it explains a real dynasty). Classify a story by its main features, and say so when it mixes them.
The myth explains, and it judges. "How Death Came to Stay" is aetiological: it answers "Why do people die?" Its answer is not scientific but moral. Death stays because a human being chose pity for Death over obedience to Imana. The myth makes death part of the human story, not a random accident, and it warns that small acts of disobedience can have huge consequences. Notice too that the teller makes Death a hunted animal: an abstract idea is turned into something you can picture running.
The legend creates a rightful ruler. The sword can be drawn only by the "rightwise king born", so the test proves Arthur's right to rule better than any argument could. Legends often do this political work: they tell a people where their rulers, their nation or their customs came from, and why these deserve loyalty. The wonder (a sword in a stone) sits inside a believable frame: a real city, quarrelling lords, a Christmas church service.
The fable teaches through types. The Hare is pride, the Tortoise patience; neither has a name or a past. The Fox, a referee famous for cunning, is a sly touch. The fable states its moral at the end (the epimythium) so that no listener misses it. Its characters are animals partly because animals allow a lesson to be told about human faults without naming any real person.
Worked example: classify and justify
Task: Is this a myth, a legend or a fable? Give three reasons.
"Long ago the sky lay so close to the earth that women pounding grain kept striking it with their pestles. Annoyed, the Creator lifted the sky high above the people, where it remains."
Answer: a myth. It is not a legend, because no historical hero, place or event is involved, and not a fable, because it has no animal characters and teaches no practical moral. (Stories of the sky being pushed away by pestles are told in several West African traditions; this is a short summary written for this lesson.)
Tip
Three questions sort any traditional story: When? (beginning of time → myth; remembered past → legend; any time → fable or folktale), Who? (gods → myth; heroes → legend; animals with a moral → fable), Believed? (sacred truth, history, or plainly invented). Use them as the three reasons in your answer.
Warning
"Differences Between Myths, Legends, Folktales, & Fairytales", from the channel Irish Myths. Its examples are Irish, but the definitions travel: watch the sections on myth (from 3:18), legend (from 4:46) and folktale (from 6:58), then test them on the three texts in this lesson.
Practice
Key points
Sources and credits
Quick check
Match each story to its kind.
Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
