Bodies

Bodies: Sex Violence Disease and Death in Contemporary Legendby Gillian Bennett.Because they are so often told as news contemporary legends force us to reevaluate life as we know it. They confront us with macabre fantastic horrific or hilarious characters and events that seem to come straight out of myths and folktales but are repeated as present day facts. It is not at all easy to decide whether these often disturbing stories should be treated as reliable or dismissed as fantasy.The legends explored in this book are some of the most bizarre gruesome and politically sensitive stories in the contemporary legend canon. At any moment a body may be invaded by noxious creatures deliberately infected with deadly disease or raided to provide donor organs for sick foreigners. These are winter's tales the stuff of nightmares.In this book Gillian Bennett traces the cultural history of six legends well-known in Europe and America from medieval times to the present day. Appearing in broadsides ballads myths ancient and modern legends novels plays films television shows and stories told in the oral tradition these legends are not just silly tales which can be dismissed as trivial and untrue. They reveal much about the concerns and fears of everyday life and demonstrate the limits of knowledge and power in the modern world.Gillian Bennett is the author of several books on legends and the co-author of the standard legend bibliography and reader. She lives in Stockport United Kingdom.