Modern Analogs of Old Legends

[Umbran]

I was watching the "Taken" miniseries this week, when something simple occurred to me - the aliens depicted within the series are modern Fey.

They live in a place we cannot normally reach. They have powers beyond human ken. They and their methods and motives are inscruitable (even with a pretty intense scruit), and frequently carry a tinge of malevolence. They occasionally take a human into their world, and they're not really the same afterwards.

We frequently see "urban fantasy" pieces - King Arthur in NYC type stuff. And on occasion someone will specifically seek to "reinterpret" an old legend into a modern setting. But this isn't a deliberate act of an individual creating a fiction. It's more a sort of convergent mythological evolution.

Curious, no?

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

Many debate whether UFOs and aliens exist based on the evidence accumulated so far: pictures of lights in the night sky, stories of alien abduction, and various crop circles around the world. Some of the articles collected so far can be pretty convincing, and I, for one, would like to think we are not alone in the universe. However, I believe that modern UFO stories are needed in our lives because we, as humans, need stories. New problems arise in our society that create new legends, and it will probably always be so.

Storytelling gives us more scope for working out our dreamlike perceptions of life, for symbolically confronting its myriad opportunities and difficulties.

As our society has become more technologically advanced, we create stories that reflect our society. Science and reason gives way to magic. Aliens replace fairies.

Anyway, I think it is all very interesting. Oh, and I still believe in fairies.

 

[Samnell]

Carl Sagan did a rather extensive comparison of demonic possession stories and alien abduction stories in one of his books. He concluded that both were the same thing and both human fabrications.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Hey, good observation. Of course, a believer might say that aliens have visited us for millennia, and they were the basis for legends of faeries.

Fey-like aliens could be pretty cool in a Dragonstar campaign.

 

[Tonguez]

There was a Disney movie (one of the old ones from the 50's) - can't recall the name but it (someting about Little People) was about this old irish dude who was always talking about Leprechauns and then one day he caught the Leprechaun King etc etc

Anyway at the end the movies 'villain' (who never beleived a word the old man said) goes out of the pub and sees 'green men underneath a great glowing toadstool' and comes running back to the pub talking about 'Aliens and their glowing spaceship'

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Carl Sagan did a rather extensive comparison of demonic possession stories and alien abduction stories in one of his books. He concluded that both were the same thing and both human fabrications.

There is another similar thing (or maybe the same thing) that alien abduction can be atributed to a sort of dream paralysis that leaves you thinking you are awake and there are things around you. I am not sure what it is called but the condition is known in the scientific community. This is an old phenominon that before aliens was atributed to witches in the middle ages. There are even some old paintings showing the effect where people are captured and frozen by witches.

 

[WayneLigon]

There was a Disney movie (one of the old ones from the 50's) - can't recall the name but it (someting about Little People) was about this old irish dude who was always talking about Leprechauns and then one day he caught the Leprechaun King etc etc

Darby O'Gill and the Little People