ABSTRACT
Given Palestine's exalted place in the sacred geography of the monotheistic religions, it is home to a rich lore of historical and religious legends as well as a highly developed tradition of folktales and fairy tales. The division of genres corresponds neatly with the division in gender. The women appropriate the folktale, which is associated with lies (fiction) and the imagination, and the men, the legend and other genres associated with truth and believability. The legends touch on local sites and holy men (awliya) as well as the major figures of all three faiths, including Abraham, Moses, Solomon, David, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, among others. In the folk imagination prophecy is connected with immortality. The Prophets Abraham and Moses, for example, were favored by God's letting them choose their hour of death. When the moment comes, however, each refuses to surrender his soul and has to be tricked into dying—Abraham by having the angel of death appear to him as a doddering old man, making him wish for death to avoid a similar fate; and Moses, when his eyes are permanently closed by Azrael after he lies down in a grave to resolve an argument about its size.
