A legend is a fairy tale, a myth, a story relating very often the adventures of a hero confronted with fantastic and yet a bit dangerous situations. Traps and monsters can be set on his path and fate can be as threatening as the most cruel witch.

To some extent legends were born at the same time as religion. Indeed, many civilizations (Egyptian first) in their stories frequently casted men and Gods into unusual and extraordinary backgrounds.

Everybody knows Greek and Roman mythologies, that are a compilation of short stories where humans mingle with monsters or divinities. The most famous tell the adventures of Achille and his heel, Theseus and the Minotaur, Prometheus and fire, and the fight dividing Romulus and Remus.

Some truthful facts have been made up into legends to emphasize certain of their aspects ( savagery and the hunt down of the Gevaudan's beast) or for a propagandistic purpose, when they “forget” to mention a part of the story (Che Guevarra..) In the first case, legends are like a mirror reflecting all the facets of humanity. In the second one, they are to some extent a distorting mirror of reality.

The expression “(living) legend” is used to speak of a man who either shed a bright light on his working field, thanks to the quality of his work or his inherent qualities, or knew an exceptional destiny ( and a tragic death very often) to such an extent that he became an icon: Elvis, Marylin, James Dean, the Beatles...

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