Truth or Fiction?
Letter to the Editor
| Did you hear that a little girl died falling off the children’s train set behind the Norfolk Library? Or that the train set was delivered via the old railroad tracks that go under Route 44? There is a word that defines such “legends”. The word is fabulate, which is a good addition to one’s vocabulary, especially if one plays ‘words-with-friends’. According to Dictionary.com, fabulate is a verb which means, “to tell invented stories; create fables or stories filled with fantasy.” It is an interesting phenomenon that occurs regularly in humans. There is even a psychiatric disorder called paramnesia in which similar things happen. Dictionary.com defines paramnesia this way, “a disorder of the memory or the faculty of recognition in which dreams may be confused with reality.” This is how urban legends are formed. | |
And if you need a definition for that, “An urban legend is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true. As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story’s veracity, but merely that it is in circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it” (from Wikipedia).
Despite its name, an urban legend does not necessarily originate in an urban area. Rather, the term is used to differentiate modern legend from traditional folklore in pre-industrial times.
Oh, the true story… the train set was donated in 1988 by the Vanderlip family for the enjoyment of all the children of Norfolk, in memory of our daughter, Blake, who died of a childhood illness in 1986. No child has ever fallen off the little train, or died anywhere near it … and the train set was delivered unremarkably by truck.
-Christina Vanderlip
