ABSTRACT
Many local legends are the outcome of optical illusions, peculiar to a certain locality, repeated time and again and finally assuming definite shape and form. Local legends are attached to a definite locality, where they arose at a time not easy to determine off-hand and where they linger on for centuries. Local legends are transmitted from generation to generation in that neighbourhood, with little or no modification. Of certain other types of local legends folklorists definitely know the origin, which is anything but historical. In local legends reporting the destruction of cities Sodom and Gomorrah furnished the prototype, and it is to be suspected that if the wickedness of the inhabitants of such overwhelmed sites is emphasized, the Biblical story has more to do with it than any factor, historical or other. Local legends often explain rites which have fallen into disuse and are apt to throw an important light on their nature.
