ABSTRACT
Helmut Fischer started recording contemporary legends from oral sources in 1975. His anthology, Der Rattenhund: Sagen der Gegenwart (Cologne: Rheinland Verlag, 1991), contains 165 texts and, along with the several contemporary legend compilations published by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich since 1990 (Die Spinne in der Yucca-Palme, Die Maus im Jumbo-Jet etc.), provides a useful overview of legends being transmitted in Germany today. Fischer’s book concludes with thirty-six oral versions of “The Mexican Pet.” This story is also the subject of his essay “Der Rattenhund: Das Beispiel einer neuen Sage” which presents and analyzes twenty-five oral versions of the story, all but one of which were collected in a single year and in the same region. The essay begins with an overview which contrasts conservative and innovative approaches to the study of legend, and ends with a discussion of the meaning of the tale of the “rat dog” and its relevance as contemporary folklore. Of special interest for students of legend are the numerous small changes which emerge in the twenty-five versions as storytellers struggle to remember the details and reconcile the events to logic and likelihood. The essay was first published in the Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 26 (1985–86): 177–95. The version below is the first English translation, made specially for this volume by Jack Hall.
