LEGEND

(Rr. legende: Lat. legend a, from legere, to read), originally the term applied to a narrative of a religious kind in the early days of Christianity, and hence used for portions of scripture and lives of the saints as read in public worship. The word later came to be applied to a story, without any foundation in history, but popularly supposed to be true, handed down from one generation to another. These L’s. were at first brief and simple, but gradually developed into long and imaginative tales of a more and more exaggerated description, so that by degrees the word came to mean a narrative, profe edly historical, but in reality only traditional. The famous Golden Legend, a medieval collection of the lives of the saints, was composed towards the end of the 13th century by Jacobus de Voraigne. The word L, is also used in connection with coats of arms and shields, and by numismatists for inscriptions or mottoes on coins or medals.