Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi - Memorate and Proto Memorate

The Memorate and the Proto-Memorate
Author(s): Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi

Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 345 (Jul. - Sep., 1974), pp. 225-239
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/538735
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LINDA DEGH and ANDREW VAZSONYI
The Memorate and the Proto-Memorate
MANY STILL HOLD VALID the first definition of fmemo.rate proposed by Carl Wil-
helm von Sydow in his assertion that there was a need to distinguish from legend
a category of material which, although "in a way related" to the genre, exhibited
neither poetical (dichterischen) characteristics nor tradition. These reproductions
of people's "own, purely pers'onal experiences" he decided to call Memorate.'
All later considerations relate to this classic formulation, and most folklorists
have accepted it as is, questioning at most only a few parts of it. We do not
know of anyone who has objected to von Sydow's definition in its entirety or in
its major parts. For example, no one has raised these questions: does this scrupu-
lous segregation of the memorate from other genres carry some major theoretical
importance or--even if this sounds somewhat peculiar (if not altogether absurd)
-does the memorate exist at all in the form in which it is described?
Scholars seem to have followed von Sydow's advice, making sharp distinctions
between the memorate and all narrational forms, from which, in our view, it
need not or in fact cannot be distinguished. Primarily, of course, they differen-
tiate it from the fabulate. And the memorate is also set off from the legend."
Further, the memorate has been said not to belong to folklore at all, because it
does not possess folkloristic traits. It has even been differentiated from lesser
related prose genres, such as the memory legend, the fict, the recently identified
Stereotyp,' the Sagenbericht (legend account), the Erlebnisbericht (experience
report), the pseudo- and quasi-memorate, the Sagenmemorate (legend-memorats),
and the Chroniknotiz (chronicle note). Legend experts deemed it their duty to ex-
amine the masses of collected materials to see whether they could trap a hidden
memorate in them in order to remove it from a corpus conceived of as otherwise
worthy of folklore analysis. Tillhagen suggested leaving memorates out of the
1 The memorat and fabulat terms were first introduced by von Sydow in his "Kategorien der
Prosa-Volksdichtung" published in Volkskundliche Gaben John Aleier zum siebzigsten Geburts-
lage dargebracht (Berlin and Leipzig, 1934), Pp. 253-268. Later it was reprinted in von Sydow's
Selected Papers on Folklore (Copenhagen, 1948), 60-88.
2 Juha Pentikiiinen declares that memorate is not a subconcept of the legend, in "Grenzprob-
leme zwischen Memorat und Sage," Temenos 3 (1968), 141.
a Ibid., z6I.
226 LINDA DEGH and ANDREW VAIZSONYI
planned legend catalog because they do not const

hoc formations in both form and content.' This m
for their exclusion; nevertheless, it reflects the
quantite nigligeable. On the other hand, C(istov be
a catalog of fabulates would be "theoretically inco
ficial isolation"; in this view, the classification ne
quasi-memorates, Sagenberichte, and Chroniknoti
question of whether there is room enough to as
materials into one single catalog, the effort to en
orates and to open the way for the clarification of c
A further lack of clarity is well reflected-just t
-in Christiansen's statement that the memorate
with some landmark, locality or person."' What
jects, and natural and supernatural phenomena,
limitation lies in the specific nature of the Norwegia
for by the poverty of adequately ordered and statist
latter is more plausible. Honko calls the memo
genre."' We feel that it would be no exaggeration
Nevertheless, if it is true that the memorate c
separated from related narratives, it must also be
recognizable attributes absent in the others or that t
exhibited in the others. From this viewpoint, the
promise, among other things, better cognition of th
In the Sydowian thesis, "personal experience" is
the memorate. This can be interpreted only one w
be transmitted to another only by the person who h
ond person told the story to a third, he would no
but as that of the first person, who had the original
it. The classical definition, therefore, would mean in
a memorate can be known only by that single person
people as heard it from him. This presupposes eith
not retell the memorate or that, if he does retell
be called a memorate, even if it otherwise corre
almost to the word. In the first supposition, the m
in the second, it acquires a new name-Erinner
this faithful to the idea that assigning new names to
rule might confirm the rule itself. Obviously, som
memorate in order to save it from submerging in
not only were single memorates in danger of
threatened was the general conception of the genr
The postulate of a "first hand" in the course of
Carl Herman Tillhagen, "Was ist eine Sage?" Acta Ethnog

r K. V. Cistov, "Das Problem der Kategorien miindlicher Pro
Fabula 9 (1967), 40.
6 Reidar Th. Christiansen, The Migratory Legend (Helsin
I Lauri Honko, "Memorates and the Study of Folk Beliefs,"
I (1965), 18.
8 Von Sydow, 73.
THE MEMORATE AND THE PROTO-MEMORATE 227
ible. Christiansen, more liberal, found memorates

perience at either first or second hand."' Granberg
rates can be based not only on personal experience
others if told to the informant directly.1" While Is
between fabulate and Erlebnisbericht, he does admi
to take the distinction between legend categories as
in order to reach conclusions." Thus, "personal ex
quirement, although the narrator has to know pers
experience. Correspondingly, the story need not b
me," or "I saw it with my own eyes"; it also can st
father, it happened to him" or "A good friend of
self." Certainly this is progress compared to the Sy
the category memorate to a great number of narrativ
rates are of the "I heard it from" kind than the other
we have encountered mostly such "second-hand" st
Other kinds of stories beginning with the statements
pened to my grandfather" or "My friend said that
are also known to everybody. If we remember corr
ously told legends we heard began in such a way. W
phrases "I have seen this in the paper" or "I heard
make the account a sort of third-hand tradition, for t
necessarily also take the information from someone
As time passed, the permissive definitions of Gr
proved to be still too narrow. Pentikiinen, a most t
searcher, found on the basis of a statistical analysi
raconteur Marina Takalo that "there are at best two
mission] between the one who had the supernatural
tells it."12 This means that the transmission chain
members. Pentikaiinen has not found traditions comm
and it might well be that others would find none e
material to a similar kind of analysis. Hence-reserv
consider also as memorate those stories learned from
we take for granted that "normally" the communi
consists of four links. We believe we even know wh
Let us reflect for a while: what happened to M
heard from first, second, and third transmitters?
tikijinen. We should remember that Pentikiinen him
orate tradition. He is not disqualified in this capacit
viously, he has an affinity for folklore and is eager
through scholarly publications to others who also m
fession as folklorists on the basis of operotropism.1
O Christiansen, 5.
"o Gunnar Granberg, "Memorat und Sage. Einige methodis
chende Sagenforschung, ed. Leander Petzoldt (Darmstadt, I9
n Gotthilf Isler, Die Sennenpuppe (Basel, 1971), 24.
12 Juha Pentik~iinen, "Quellenanalytische Probleme der relig
(I970), 115.
" Lip6t Szondi, Experimentelle Triebdiagnostik (Bern, I947), I4 and elsewhere.
228 LINDA DEGH and ANDREW VAZSONYI
have preference for legends should not be

legend conduit in the multi-conduit system.
informants, J. W., a fourteen-year-old girl
story found in a folklore journal she happen
in the public library. The folklorist, then, q
but in some cases also as perpetuator. Howe
respondent, might be ready to tell her mem
lorist. Is it probable that the person who thus
transmission chain, in choosing which memora
has heard, decides on the basis of how man
reaching him? Hardly. Actually, since he is
technique introduced by Pentikdiinen,'" he
retell the story, the reason for his selection m
peals to him and he feels that the next mem
also like it. The legend thus follows "normal
of legend process through an unlimited num
ers." The memorate does not cease to exist on
sequence of four persons. What happens to
would be the answer, and as a matter of fac
fabulates: first-person stories become third
criteria of the two genres, mentioned alre
fabulates can be converted into memorates a
heard the story in the third person turns it in
telling. This is how "pseudo-memorates" an
phenomenon has also been noticed by Bausin
that "the fabulate or ordinary legend may
Peuckert lists examples to illustrate how an
to a third party was converted into an "I" an
eventually became switched back into the "th
recovery of a fading legend.
" Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, "Hypothesis o

lore," in Folklore, Performance and Communication
stein (The Hague, 1973) [in press]. In this essay w
Different messages, depending on their specific nature,
chains in society. That is to say, not like an enormou
rivulets separated from each other, the distinct messa
different speeds. We used the word conduit in form
conduit for denotation of the different communicative
system for the whole complex. (2) According to prev
carrying messages of a particular kind exhibit similar
conduits are composed of the more or less homogeneo
15 Pentik~iinen, "Quellenanalytische Probleme," 93.
16 Linda Degh and Andrew Vizsonyi, "Legend an
17 Cistov, 36.
18 Hermann Bausinger, Formen der 'Volkspoesie' (Berlin, 1968), 174.
19 Barbara Allen Woods, The Devil in Dog Form (Berkeley, 1959), 11.
20 Will-Erich Peuckert, Sagen: Geburt und Antwort der mythischen Welt (Berlin, 1965), 14-
I6. Furthermore (p. 36) he says that "a narrative already incorporated into tradition can again
transform into a subjective memory [when] the teller ascribes the event to himself or to a third
person, known to the listeners."
To be sure, some legends seemingly cannot be told

first-person singular; their formal ingredient is that of
pseudo-memorate. In such cases it is not the regular
assumes the first-person version but the first-perso
Bericht form throughout the whole communicative
will help illuminate this point.
Some twenty years ago a trustworthy, middle-aged
to be an uncle of ours told about an extraordinary
came off a ferry boat and made his way through th
hand in his pocket, taking his gold watch. Grabbing the
"Give me the watch!" The man immediately obeyed.
pocket, Uncle Peter found two gold watches therein.
the same story, likewise in first-person singular, fro
trustworthy, middle-aged gentleman. He pursued an a
alleys and trapped him in a doorway, only to find la
emptying his pockets, that he had two watches instea
police to deposit the watch, where the loser of it, wh
the street, was just filing suit against his assailant.
We have encountered variants of this regular first-
times over the years and were surprised to hear it ag
a radio broadcast by Paul Harvey, the noted Chicago
a "true story." There was no time to record it, but t
version: On the subway during rush hour, someone fe
found his wallet gone. The train had just stopped at
the pickpocket getting off. "Give me that wallet," sai
the neck, who handed the wallet to him without a word.
man found the telephone ringing on his desk. It was h
had left his wallet at home. After hearing the old sto
to our friends at a party, whereupon someone noted,
to my uncle in C.!" It seems that this decades-old mig
reached the radio commentator. Whoever told it to h
pened to me" or "It happened to one of my acquaint
Another example is the modern urban redaction of a
"Runaway Grandmother,""' which has circulated for m
western world. The plot, in short, tells that a grandm
on a trip with her family; while the family briefly g
steals it with the dead body inside. Neither the thief
tents is ever found by the police.
The informant who first told us this story heard it fr
friend claimed it happened to personal acquaintances:
the next street." Shortly thereafter, we heard the sa
introduction: it happened to an acquaintance's friend
lived on "the next street." In the course of the years we
in Europe as well as in the United States. As a matter of
2 Linda Degh, "The Runaway Grandmother," Indiana Folklo
her: we asked our friends and colleagues to furnish us wi
they readily did. We collected more than a hundred va
Yugoslavia and from New York to California. It turn
mother is a very popular character on both continen
everywhere, on "the next street." Respondents would p
very little urging. Hearing about this narrative, a fell
sional meeting in Germany last fall called out in surp
deed? My daughter just came back from a vacation t
about it as a true event, and I believed it really happ
from a relatively small area, here are the introductory
Indiana variants: "Well, I heard this true story from
pened to her friend's family"; "It was supposed to have
of a local doctor and his family"; "His mother heard it
lady who was involved in the event"; "It happened
swears this story is true. She heard it from her cous
Parallel versions relate the event without reference to
al involvement (all quotations are from our ms. colle
cerns a fairly wealthy Polish couple" (Poland); "What
horrible but true story that can be found in a German
(Germany); "A married couple in West Germany .
Slovenian family traveled by auto . . ." (Croatia); "Shor
Second World War, when money for travel was very
bridegroom .. ." (England); "A young lawyer on his h
taking his mother-in-law along" (Switzerland). The eq
sonal and impersonal introductions to this story seem
spondents like to switch what they originally heard i
first. This means, in general terms, that some people like
if we admit that the "creative fantasy" is as important
the faithful transmission of oral materials, we also have t
who apply free variation to the received material act
poetica of its artistry. The members of the memorat
whom something is always happening. The memor
question travels through the appropriate "memorate-co
By now, it might be clear why we said that we know
could not find memorates traceable through more than
toire of Marina Takalo and why neither we, nor any
memorates, either. If a witness in a court of justice s
myself," his confession will be formally recognized as
only on his trustworthiness. If, however, his evidence
said that he saw it," its probative value is significantly
timony that "a friend said that his friend said" can
value at all in the court. Yet, testimony was not invented
or civil procedure; it was just applied by it as a tradit
of the human sense of justice. "Is there proof?" would
of the audience of every narrative labeled as "true."22
22 The proofs according to Peuckert (p. i i) are the testimonies o
earwitnesses of an event.
place, has to decide whether a story might be true

-a joke, a Miirchen, or whatever--can be of intere
be expected to exist. The receiver of a memorate
the proof?" The more confirmation given by feasi
he is conditioned to believe at all), the more convin
of the story. "I have seen it with my own eyes" s
"My father told it, and he never told a lie" is stil
heard it from my grandfather" leaves a door open
Generally, if the chain of witnesses reaches a cer
last link in the four-part chain of Pentikiiinen-th
One is that the memorate succumbs as unlikely and un
the receiver-sender simplifies the situation and unw
givable "forgetfulness," bypasses one, two, or mo
transmission sequence. We have often attempted to
like "I heard it announced on the radio (or 'I've
I know the man to whom it happened" following
almost all cases it turned out that the informant d
the paper personally and the rumor really does not
but rather the friend of a friend, whose name he
story more credible and less ambiguous. The day-
observation of rumors in a military labor camp d
that rumors are mostly conceived as "brand new"
source," even if two hundred people passed them o
ally over a longer period of time."
People believe their own senses in the first place
trusted remains a question) and then immediate tes
monies, even if they are false or negative ("I hear
lieve it"), might represent, formally at least, evide
further the message is from its source of perception,
according to the unwritten folk-law of procedure
marked out by the fading of the personal element
perience, and ends at the appearance of the imperso
that "I saw it," "an acquaintance saw it" and "the ac
ance saw it" carry their proof in decreasing degree
more convincing than such references as "many p
talk about it." Legend introductions like "People
"Old people say" seem even to express a grain of d
the road is the Ich-Bericht (Ego-account), the mem
fabulate, the genre that is, according to accepted st
true expression of folk belief."5
Would this mean that folk belief is best expressed
credence by the folk? Or by the very genre which
" D6gh and Vizsonyi, "Hypothesis."
24 Heda Jason's "linear continuum" seems to emphasize a sim
sonal to impersonal formulation of legends ("Concerning the '
and Their Relatives," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE 8
25 Pertinent statements were recently summarized by Patric
Legend and Folk Belief," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLO
232 LINDA DEGH and ANDREW V/AZSONYI
prove its suggestions in this "de-magicised" (Max Weber's term) modern world
but which does not even try to do so? It would seem, then, that the folk, the
legend-bearing folk, might not totally accept the beliefs expressed in legends
and do not even try to convince anybody else to believe. But perhaps we should
not go that far.
Let us assume unconditionally that the folk do believe unconditionally in their
own folk belief. If this is so, there must be a reason for it. We are not talking
about the socio-psychological bases of folk belief but rather about its visible
structure, its mechanism. The believer, who gives credence to folk beliefs, super-
stitions and extraordinary events-a specific kind of "homo religiosus'""-thinks
or assumes that the subject of his belief is true, that is, attestable. What kind of
proof should be obtained? First-hand perception, above all; especially in relation
to "empirical beings.""27 However, how many people could possibly have seen,
for example, the hitchhiking female ghost in a white dress on East Chicago's
Cline Avenue?28 Certainly many fewer than those who have only heard the
fabulate about her and who, to some degree, gave credence to it and retold it to
others. What is the foundation of the belief of the majority, then? The evidence
of eyewitnesses who are, presumably, not known to everyone. Every believer as-
sumes that someone must necessarily have first-hand information about the
ghost, otherwise how could people have knowledge about her? Someone must
have seen her and reported to others his personal experience. Who can not rec-
ognize in this the decisive thesis of the definition of the memorate?
Von Sydow himself stated29 that the memorate often turns into a fabulate.
This was also confirmed by Granberg, who writes about the reciprocal influence
between the two genres, by Honko, and by R*hrich, who calls memorates the
"prelude to the legend.""3 The transformation of memorates into fabulates is,
of course, only a possibility, for memorates can meet diverse fates. It is a rule,
though, that each fabulate, as well as every other narrative that requires credence
or the pretense or at least the possibility of belief as its ingredient, is based on
either a truly existing or an assumed memorate, pseudo-memorate, quasi-memo-
rate, Ich-Bericht, Erinnerungssage, or something similar. An undemonstrable
legend is no legend at all. One must postulate that every fabulate is based on a
memorate. This postulative memorate we term the proto-memorate.
According to the Sydowian definition, the memorate has no "poetic charac-

ter." At this juncture, we do not propose to resolve the millennial puzzle, what
is "poetic character?" There is no simple answer that a meta-butterfly collector
(hommage a Dundes)," that is to say, the critic of a classificatory system, could
utilize in his investigations. "Poetic character" is one of those slippery, noncir-
cumscribable expressions that are seemingly unavoidable in the humanities. This
term, as with others of its kind, just hints at an inadequately clarified and per-
28 Lauri Honko, Geisterglaube in Ingermanland (Helsinki, 1962), 120-125.
27 Honko, Geisterglaube, 88, and "Memorates," i o.
* Philip Brandt George, "The Cline Avenue Ghost," Indiana Folklore 5 (1972), 56-91.
29 In a verbal communication; Peuckert, ii.
0 Granberg, 93; Honko, "Memorates," 12; Lutz R6hrich, "Die deutsche Volkssage," Ver-
gleichende Sagenforschung, 223.
31 Alan Dundes, "Metafolklore and Oral Literary Criticism," The Monist 50 (1966), 505.
haps not even existing general knowledge without ben

tion of its meaning. However, in the case of mem
"poetic character" denotes some objectively recogn
pears in the definition as one of the traits which
memorate from that "poetic creation" or "poetry o
the definition that characterizes the memorate is corr
attribute missing from the memorate but contained i
be recognized, isolated, and described. If so, what
relation to the fabulate and memorate?
Elucidation of the problem is impeded because aes
in general have not been sufficiently researched."
regarded as nonartistic, but legend in its entirety
granted to the other oral literary genres. Most folklo
eral guidelines of the Grimm brothers that "tales
are more historical" and that "the fairy tale flies,
your door; the one can draw freely out of the full
almost the authority of history." The oversimplifi
devastating effect on the philosophy of collectin
this day.
Friedrich-Wilhelm Schmidt," the first to consider the aesthetic value of the
folk legend, complained about the scarcity of authentically recorded texts. He
could not find usable materials for his study and had to do fieldwork of his own
because the focus of earlier collectors was on the abstract of content and not the
exact formulation. For one and a half centuries legend studies were prepared on
the basis of texts reworked at the desks of scholars. Legend collections con-
tained only schematic texts that showed uniformity in their artificial formula-
tion." The creators of the anthologies, faithful to the Grimms, set the example
by selecting the most attractive topics of religious, local, historical, and etiologi-
cal narratives and molding the "imperfect" variants into smooth, proportionate
wholes by means of their own artistic inspiration. What did not fit into the rec-
ognized classes of legendry never gained admittance into the collections com-
piled by amateur folklore enthusiasts or for professional folklorists. Oral leg-
ends, thus, were evaluated according to fabricated patterns that did not allow
for memorates. The stylistically unpolished, hesitant, fragmentary, or topically
more earthbound and pedestrian memorates stayed within the realm of everyday
life and did not approximate the scholars' arbitrary standard of aesthetics. For a
long time, memorates were not even recorded because they did not fit into any
recognized folklore category. In exceptional cases, some memorates were added
to chapters of miscellany in "tale," "joke" or "tradition" collections because
they were not properly identified. As a rule, however, they were published as
"superstitions," "beliefs," or "customs," extracted by the collector, who, because
folklorists were not interested in the "garrulity" of the tellers, stripped the nar-
" Wayland D. Hand, "Status of European and American Legend Study," Current Anthropol-
ogy 4 (1965), 443; Tillhagen, 9.
3 Vilmos Voigt, A folkldr esztitikdj'irdl [On the Esthetics of Folklore] (Budapest, 1972).
* "Die Volkssage als Kunstwerk," Niederdeutsche Zeitschrift fir Volkskunde 7 (1929), 129-
143, 230-244. Reprinted in Vergleichende Sagenforschung, 21-65.
35 Ibid., 56.
234 LINDA DEGH and ANDREW VdAZSONYI
rative part, reducing the often lengthy stories to their "es
wonders what precious material has been mercilessly discard
filled voluminous books and archive drawers with "superstiti
deprived of their identity. These items, retold by the collector
emasculated fabulates, are practically useless for any kind of
ation, but they allow the legend specialist to recognize the r
tual narratives. Here are two examples.
Mrs. Montgomery remembered what an old servant of theirs in
The servant, Aunty Jenny, lived near a graveyard, and she would
so tired because the witches came out of the graveyard at night a
long."8
The brother of one of my informants is a living example of people who can see
hants. One night he and a friend were walking down the road, when he looked up
ahead and saw the hant of a person who recently died. He started edging over to the
side of the road, telling his companion that Old Man Smith had to pass. His com-
panion did not believe that Smith's hant was walking down the road. When, however,
my informant's brother said that the hant was passed by, and that his companion could
see him by looking over his left shoulder, the doubting person declined. Thus we miss
corroborating testimony from another observer."8
Through this kind of publication philosophy a vicious circle was created, from
which the memorate could not escape. Because the memorate was not approached
as artistic folk poesy, it was carelessly recorded and, consequently, these frag-
mentary notations do not exhibit artistic skills. Therefore, a search for the cri-
teria of poetical character will be unsuccessful unless more recent, authentic col-
lections are consulted. Unfortunately, even today not enough reliable verbatim
legend recordings reflect the style of the folk rather than the artistic and scholar-
ly competence of the folklorist, but at least the rare authentic collections do
not exhibit the bleak, poor view of the early decades of the century. Even so,
Cistov is still reluctant to find a place for the legend among the truly artistic
expressions of the folk. He compares this genre to the applied fine arts that
create artistic exteriors for practical objects."
In our endeavor we consulted about a dozen of the more reliable legend col-
lections, concentrating all our sensitivity on the discernment of poetic features in
the fabulates and the determination of their absence from the memorates. One of
the texts reads, "I was a little boy at that time," and contains the experience of
the neighbor. It is a very brief memorate, six lines in all, with no real trace of
artistry in it.'" In another text, the event is temporally placed in the vague
"6 Linda Degh, "The Systematic Ordering of the Hungarian Legends," Tagung der "Interna-
tional Society of Folk Narrative Research" (Antwerp, 1963), 66-67. Also Lauri Honko, "On the
Functional Analysis of Folk-Beliefs," IV. International Congress for Folk Narrative Research,
ed. G. A. Megas (Athens, 1965), 168-178.
" Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina, ed. Wayland D. Hand, in The
Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, vol. 7 (Durham, 1964), II5.
88 Ray B. Browne, Popular Beliefs and Practices from Alabama (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1958), 196.
9 Cistov, 33.
40 Lauri Simonsuuri and Pirkko-Liisa Rausmaa, Finnische Volkserzihlungen (Berlin, 1968),
No. 173.
"once," and the spatial location is not given. Its conte

the attributes of a fabulate. Nevertheless, it lacks artistr
mentioned six-line memorate by only one line." Yet
teller of this story saw some twenty years ago. .. ."
fabulate? Neither. Obviously it is the arbitrary, condens
and, of course, has no aesthetic values. We read of a
Hotel Room": "One afternoon we were waiting for t
sounds like a memorate, but it is quite unusual, becau
person account joins it at a certain point in the narra
asking the children if they would like to hear a scary st
gins, "Well, when I was a good deal younger. ...."43 Th
quality of the story. Yet, unlike the seven-line fabulate,
pages. Does it show poetic features? By virtue of its u
turation, which is reminiscent of oriental frame tale
his memorate, inserted in the frame), it does more th
a modest memorate. There are also other elements in
gestive similes, dialect quotations, tasteful humor, r
proximating the standard known as "poetic." Would it
consider this narrative a fabulate? Or would it be mo
memorates occasionally rival fabulates in poesy?
About eighteen hundred texts are published in a vol
examined for significant difference between the leng
lates. "Poetic character" in folk prose, after all, is usually
tive featuring of details, use of epic patterns, artistic ve
that extend the core of the narrative. We found sev
memorates," and also many fabulates of the same size
was no trace of poesy in either group. In a Norwegian
lates barely an inch long! One is about church-buildi
the wanderings of the soul in the shape of a fly, and
ling."' These well-known, traditional, and itinerant th
embroidery; nevertheless, they remain on the level of dr
essential facts. On the other hand, real virtuosity of n
cycle of herdsmen's memorates" and in a three-and-a-
tion of how Jinos learned magic at a crossroad, told b
With equal skill, structured dialogues underscore the dra
nant stories in K. Briggs's collection."
,' Ibid.
'* Ibid.
No.,"92.
Leonard Roberts, South from Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Tales (Lexington, 1955),
" Nos.
eifel 4061966).
(Bonn, and lo83, for example, in Matthias Zender, Sagen und Geschichten aus der West-
" Ibid., Nos. 1041, 1o48, 1113, and 1124.
, Reidar Th. Christiansen, Folktales of Norway (Chicago, 1964), Nos. 9C, 22B, and 41.
,7 Linda Degh, Folktales of Hungary (Chicago, 1965), Nos. 45, 46, and 50.
' Ibid., No. 55.
'" Katherine Briggs, A Dictionary of British Folk Tales (Bloomington, Ind., 1971), part B.
Folk Legends, vol. i, 363-365.
236 LINDA DfIGH and ANDREW VAZSONYI
This random selection from an enormous body of material was
than a spot check to help answer the question, "Is it feasible to
aesthetic-value distinction between the fabulate and the memora
in all honesty, was negative, because none could be produced. It d
to substantiate what we had already guessed: identification and
ment of "poetic character" depend greatly on personal taste and
of mind. As coauthors we tried to come to agreement through
sions and inconclusive arguments, until we had to give in and
futility of tracking down objective criteria through subjective appr
Yet, we have found many irregular fabulates and memorates
them, although the introductory words "Once upon a time" prom
al tale, a lege artis fabulate follows this Miirchen invocation. Oth
like perfectly regular memorates, with scrupulous reference to the
chain of informants, only to find a third-person story of the third
chain following the memorate introduction. We have read a fab
cludes with this comment: "I heard it from my aunt"; would this st
the story retroactively into a memorate? We have also encounte
whose teller gives the word to someone else, who recounts a f
frame of the memorate. Many raconteurs began their stories wi
said that in the cemetery of N . . ." and, finishing the event, co
have heard this so many times that I decided to go and see for m
a legend account is verbalized in so many ways, it is difficult to pla
lar narratives that defy definition. As long as society needs lege
ways discover new transitional forms and uncommon conglome
also invent new names for each. Faithful to folkloristic tradition
gest the terms memorato-fabulate or fabulato-memorate, perha
late, quasi-fabulate, local fabulate, migratory memorate, but with re
fear someone might find them appealing.
"Poetical character," however, is not the only postulate in the
nition and possibly not even the most important. Let us conside
postulates. If there are narratives that conform to all postulates
poetic character, it will be easy to find out what "poetic charac
it will be what is absent in all those narratives considered to be memorates in
agreement with the other postulates. However, as we already saw, the "personal
experience" postulate-maybe because of an improvement in collecting methods
or a reconsideration of earlier principles--came to a crisis. The "personal ex-
perience" became liberalized and turned into the experience of twice, thrice, or
four-times removed individuals. Plausibly the transmission chain might consist
of a much greater number of persons, whose number could not even be deter-
mined. Therefore, "personal experience" is not acceptable as a valid determinant.
Luckily, however, there are other criteria in the definition besides these two, and
they perhaps will prove more reliable and more helpful in an attempt to rescue
the Sydowian definition from total devastation. With their clarity one might be
able to reconstruct the meaning of its obscure parts.
Let us scrutinize von Sydow's definition further. The memorate is not only
someone's "own experience," it is also the "purely personal" (rein persinlich)
relation of the experience. What does "purely personal" mean? Something that
is not collective at all. Should it be understood that th

form of a memorate is unique, that no one else had a
experience ever existed, which hardly seems possible,
proven. And, as it cannot be proven, it is also irrelevan
the recipient of an experience if a person or a group ap
lar experience that could in no way ever reach him. On
significance: whether the experience regarded by the m
him the memorate-investigator, as "purely personal"
subconscious recall or in memory fragments in the mind o
true that folklore (and also folk belief as the vital ba
projection of basic polygenetic human emotions,"? the
concretely manifested form of expression is already
ample, elementary fears and desires generated the Elem
dead haunt the living"; but the notion that in Blooming
fraternity house on North Jordan, babies cry in the basem
cause this was the scene of their demise by the hand of an
had his office there, is already a social product. The person
had to obtain his information from some concrete source.
sumptive proto-memorate who saw the occurrence wi
exception, either. It makes no difference whether we
teller's epileptic "Diimmerzustand" (semi-consciousnes
mood of "Homo narrans,"52 or to a kind of parapsycho
we would have "no sufficient reason . . . to deny a prio
quired the whole vision, or at least its elements, from c
way of tradition. Most modern scholars would more o
cording to Honko, tradition is already present in the
Haavio's observation that "there are much fewer memo
inently of personal elements than those in which the mem
general folk tradition.""' The memorate might also assu
patterns such as, for example, that of Dorson's Sagame
says that "although the formulation is individual, the
legend motifs.""6 Obviously, tradition is the building m
ination does not amount to much more than the specifi
native capability of an individual human brain. Dreams
even craze follow well-trodden paths. For those who hol
ty of the creative imagination and the soaring flights o
sounds disillusioning indeed.
At the beginning of its life, almost immediately at th
" Kurt Ranke, "Einfache Formen," Internationaler Kongress der V

Kiel und Kopenhagen (Berlin, 1961I), III ; English translation: Jour
4 (I967), 17-31.
II.
5' Friedrich Ranke, "Grundfragen der Volkssagenforschung," Ver
52 Kurt Ranke, "Kategorienprobleme der Volksprosa," Fa

6 Isler, 3.
4 Honko, Geisterglaube, 133.
15 Richard M. Dorson, Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers. Folk Tradition of the Upper Peninsula
(Cambridge, Mass., 1952), 249-272.
5" Granberg, 92.
ment, the memorate touches society for the second time.
ger, "the Erlebnisbericht (experience report) is form
the available collective concepts.""' Each experience r
censorship that immediately blue-pencils the antitradition
orate. As Honko claims, "those who are more familiar
narrator and force him to seek the proper referential fr
0 . . It is clear, that such a checking process has a gr
idiosyncratic motifs from the experience reports of
might easily happen that both the attempt of violatio
rection is performed by the same socially controlled p
ponent himself.
Clearly the meaning of "tradition" undergoes conti
which bears a conservative-sounding name, keeps sur
times. The two meanings of tradition, "culture passe
passing on of culture," increasingly approximate each
transportation and news communication, the penetrati
everyday life, around the clock, undermined the traditio
This definition, "Culture (elements) handed down fr
other,'"" is applicable to our modern culture only wit
vacs of East Chicago recalls a youthful personal memo
of a TV show she has just seen, she will simply reach f
the number of her friend, Mrs. Kiss, in Gary, who is
ural accounts as herself, and communicate the story imm
to her. She need not keep the story to herself for lack
nor need she wait for the chance to pass it "from one
via her offspring, if it does not slip from her mind i
addition, the new traditions created by the subcultures
the multitudinous groups of teenagers, college student
gathered sometimes under the pretense of an ideolog
freaks-are to a large extent only negatively contiguou
previous generations. The pluralistic counter-culture th
mensions of supernatural legend elements, often in the f
not spread from fathers to sons but from high school to
of the dropouts, from street corner to street corner and
of generations, but within hours. The rise and the diss
almost simultaneous."1
These facts call for the revaluation of the term tradition. The time of its ori-
gin has to be moved from the distant past and sought for in the immediate past,
" Bausinger, 173.

58 Honko, Geisterglaube, 126.
" Ake Hultkrantz, General Ethnological Concepts (Copenhagen, I96O), 229.
* Linda Degh, "Two Old-World Storytellers in Urban Setting," Kontakte und Grenzen.
Probleme der Volks-, Kultur-, und Sozialforschung. Festschrift fiir Gerhard Heilfurth zum 6o.
Geburtstag (G6ttingen, 1969), 71-86.
61 "Today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time. We actually live mythi-
cally and integrally, as it were, but we continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time
patterns of the pre-electric age." Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extension of
Man (New York, 1964), 20.
almost in the present. The recognition of traditional ele

and in the experience-communicating memorate, wou
those who are equally well-versed in both the old and
true even if it is found that many of the new motifs are
tional motifs disguised, sometimes in blue jeans. If som
them, supplementary volumes to motif indexes would have
The supposition that the memorate is not traditional, a
elaborated in it are "purely personal," has to be discar
sigh because this was the last hope for an eventual valid
inition. How can we tell, then, which story is a memora
At the end of our journey around the Sydowian memo
admit that we have lost hope of validating any part o
avoid the direct questions any longer: Is there any essen
memorate and fabulate after all? Does von Sydow's m
there any scholarly need to determine which is the me
fabulate with the same excited joy as newborn babes ar
ing to sex?
It is obvious that all memorates might eventually turn into fabulates. Likewise
it is obvious that each fabulate necessarily presupposes a memorate-a real one
(as in so many cases) or an inferential one, which we named proto-memorate.
We might also add that the fabulate is preceded not only by the evidence-giving
memorate but by every formally credibility-seeking utterance like folk belief it-
self that facilitates the formation of the legend, for example, memorate and
fabulate. "Our legends are the result of our belief."62 And what is the basis of
belief? The memorate. According to Honko, "Belief ... is founded not upon
speculation, but upon concrete, personal experiences.""6 Thus, belief presupposes
personal experience-memorate-provided it is not founded on revelation.
Or even so. When Moses descended from Mount Sinai he immediately com-
municated his memorate to the people.
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
" Peuckert, 39.

" Honko, "Memorates," o0.

Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi - Memorate and Proto Memorate

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The Memorate and the Proto-Memorate

Author(s): Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi

The Memorate and the Proto-Memorate

planned legend catalog because they do not const

Carl Herman Tillhagen, "Was ist eine Sage?" Acta Ethnog

ible. Christiansen, more liberal, found memorates

have preference for legends should not be

" Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, "Hypothesis o

To be sure, some legends seemingly cannot be told

2 Linda Degh, "The Runaway Grandmother," Indiana Folklo

place, has to decide whether a story might be true

According to the Sydowian definition, the memorate has no "poetic charac-

haps not even existing general knowledge without ben

"once," and the spatial location is not given. Its conte

is not collective at all. Should it be understood that th

" Kurt Ranke, "Einfache Formen," Internationaler Kongress der V

52 Kurt Ranke, "Kategorienprobleme der Volksprosa," Fa

" Bausinger, 173.

almost in the present. The recognition of traditional ele

" Peuckert, 39.

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