LEGENDS OF LOVERS
[[153]]
LEGENDS OF LOVERS
Legends of lovers are almost as numerous as those of treasure; in Texas, at least, the lovers are generally hapless and are nearly always associated with precipitous cliffs. Indeed, legends of lovers’ leaps principally make up this group. Some well known legends, such as those about the Lovers’ Leap at Waco and about the Lovers’ Leap at Denison, have been omitted. Reference to them is made in the bibliography near the end of this volume. On the other hand, various versions of certain other legends of lovers’ leaps are given in detail that the manner of legend growth may be fully illustrated. The lovers’ leap legend was popular in the time of Sappho (see Spectator paper Number 33, by Addison), and probably had vogue for as many years before her time as have passed since. A feature to be remarked about the lovers’ leap legends of Texas is that seemingly all of them purport to be of Indian derivation. The state is yet so young that to go back to anything like remoteness one must go to the time of the Indian—and all legend runs to remoteness. One need not be learned in Indian lore, however, to know that in many instances the basic customs of Indian marriage are violated in these legends; the attributing of his own customs of love-making and marriage by the white man to the Indian is indeed naive.[1] As a class, I should say that of all our Texas legends these of lovers are least indigenous and least varied.—J. F. D.
[1] An adequate treatment, in a brief space, of the marriage customs of the Plains Indians is to be found in Chapter II of North American Indians of the Plains, by Clark Wissler, published by the American Museum of Natural History. The volume includes a good bibliography of works on Indian life. [↑]
THE ENCHANTED ROCK IN LLANO COUNTY
By Julia Estill