The cultural context of legend telling in a west Kerry fishing community

The late nineteenth and early twentieth-century fishery in the Corca Dhuibhne (Corcaguiney or Dingle) peninsula in west Kerry, Ireland, provides the backdrop for a contextualized reading of a legend told to a professional folklore collector on different occasions by two brothers who had participated in the events related. The socio-historical context of the fishery helps the reader to understand the issues that arise. Although the factual basis of events concurs in both narratives, important disparities of detail and interpretation emerge from a close comparison. The first presents an elaborated master narrator’s performance with considerable additional details and references, augmenting the legend’s single event and placing it in a social and moral hierarchy of action and behaviour. The second, shorter telling concentrates on the event only as a single remarkable incident. The comparison reveals how the abilities of a gifted teller can imaginatively build a single event into a broad referential framework of other relevant material to create an engaging, compelling story

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology · Event (particle physics · Folklore · Interpretation (philosophy · Legend · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Peninsula · Reading (process · Sociology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Irish and British Studies · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy