A legend is a very old story from ancient times passing down from generation to generation. Not all the legends are alway true but each legend does come with lessons to teach people about moral qualities. “El Enano”, written by Charles J. Finger, is a legend describing a greedy evil monster, El Enano. An old kind woman mistakes El Enano for a poor baby. El Enano lands doom on the village by eating all the food and he refuses to leave. The wise silver fox comes up with an idea to trick El Enano by having him eat some hot coals. El Enano then explodes and goes away forever. “Dragon, Dragon”, written by John Gardner, is another legend talking about a villainous dragon who messes up a kingdom. The king offers the princess's hand in marriage, and offers half of the kingdom, as the reward of killing the dragon. The three sons of a wise old cobbler try but only the youngest son who listens to his intelligent father’s advice defeats the dragon. Let’s talk about legends with details by analyzing these two above-mentioned stories.
There always exists one main theme for all the legends: Good person does good thing while bad person does bad thing and the consequence of their individual actions. In “El Enano”, the vicious monster El Enano eats all the food in the village. At the end, El Enano bursts into pieces for eating red hot coals. The old kind woman saves a poor baby pretended by El Enano. Later, she got help from the silver fox to get rid of annoyed El Enaon. This clearly teaches people that when bad people do bad things, bad consequences will happen to them. The bad people eventually will get the punishment that he deserved; it is just a matter of time. The same opposite reasoning is true for good people. In “Dragon, Dragon” the destructive dragon messes up roads and breaks up everything, making people’s lives in the kingdom difficult. Later it is killed by the cobbler’s youngest son. He defeats the dragon and saves the whole kingdom, which wins the king’s daughter and becomes the next king. If people do something nice, they will have positive results; if people do something terrible, they will have negative results. This is how things work in society. Reflected on this, people should always do good things and have good thoughts. Every legend delivers an obvious theme, that is, being a person with good morals and doing wise actions.
The common feature of legends is that they always have protagonists and antagonists, they always have a happy ending, and the good always defeats the bad. In “El Enano”, the silver fox defeats El Enano. The silver fox outwits the annoying El Enano. He tricks El Enano into eating hot coals. El Enano, with his stomach hurting, drinks a lot of water, which later explodes in a thousand pieces and never bothers the village again. This explains that each legend includes a good person and a bad person. The bad person creates problems or conflicts and the good person thinks of a solution to fight with the bad person. Legends then ends with the fact that a good person defeats a bad person, which is a happy ending. In “Dragon, Dragon”, the cobbler’s youngest son successfully kills the evil dragon. He follows the advice from his wise old father of reciting a poem in a loud strong voice. He defeats the dragon using his cumbersome sword with his anger to slice off the dragon’s throat. Lessons from legends are that good will always prevail over evil. When people behave well with good thoughts, they tend to have a happy life. Oppositely, when people behave unruly with bad thoughts, they tend to end with a miserable life. Every legend emphasizes the importance of an evil person being never able to win against a kind person and giving a happy ending.
Despite the major theme legends present, there are also many other minor themes that people can learn from. In “El Enano”, the monster El Enano transforms himself into a baby and deceives the old woman. She brings the baby back into her village. He eats everything in the village and keeps requiring food every minute without noticing his actions causing people to starve. The kindness of the old woman caused a big problem not only to herself but also to the people in the village. So don’t believe someone easily. Instead, people should observe what you are doing and think about the consequences before any action is taken. As for El Enano, he could still be alive if he does not do non-stop asking for food from the villagers. His greediness is the main cause for his own death. So being greedy brings negative consequences and people need to learn how to control their own desires. In “Dragon, Dragon”, the first two sons of the cobbler are very self-centered and do not listen to their father; therefore they both fail to kill the dragon. However, the youngest son of the cobbler is very obedient. He always listens to the elders. He follows his father’s advice and kills the dragon. When the elders give people advice, people need to listen and take them into consideration. After all, the elders experienced more things and they could see more aspects of the matter that people might not think of at that moment, which might be beneficial for the working progress. As a result, people should always listen to their elders and follow instructions. There is not just one theme of legends but many themes, despite the fact that a lot of legends contain the same themes.
People nowadays think that legends are fantasy and nonsense. Although legends may have come a long way, legends still exist for entertainment purposes. Many people still enjoy legends, especially children, because legends always end with good happy results. The common feature of all legends is that good forces always defeat bad forces. Legends also serve educational purposes. The main theme of every legend is that a good person does good things and has good results while a bad person does bad things and has bad results. Legends are used as a reference to teach people good lessons about being a nice and good person. At the same, legends provide people an opportunity to look into different cultures since legends are from all over the world. There are also minor themes people could learn from the legends.
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