Legend Tripping

A Contemporary Legend Casebook

By: Lynne S. McNeill, Elizabeth Tucker

Narrated by: Lisa S. Ware

Legend Tripping: A Contemporary Legend Casebook explores the practice of legend tripping, wherein individuals or groups travel to a site where a legend is thought to have taken place. Legend tripping is a common, informal practice, depicted in epics, stories, novels, and film, throughout both contemporary and historical vernacular culture. In this collection, contributors show how legend trips can express humanity’s interest in the frontier between life and death, and the fascination with the possibility of personal contact with the supernatural, or spiritual.

The volume presents both insightful research and useful pedagogy, making this an invaluable resource in the classroom. Selected major articles on legend tripping, with introductory sections written by the editors, are followed by discussion questions, and projects designed to inspire listeners to engage critically with legend traditions and customs of legend tripping, and to explore possible meanings and symbolism at work. Suggested projects incorporate digital technology, as it appears both in legends, and in modes of legend tripping.

The book is published by Utah State University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2018 University Press of Colorado (P)2022 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An important contribution to the topic of legend tripping, to the broader subject of contemporary legend, and to the development of folkloristic pedagogies." (Folklore)

"A valuable tool...breaks new ground and shows practical applications of theory and place in the creation of a genre within the study of legends.” (Trevor J. Blank, State University of New York at Potsdam)

Admirably meets the stated goals...to provide 'thorough and up-to-date studies that showcase a variety of scholarly approaches to contemporary legends." (Journal of Folklore Research)