**LEGEND **

 Not only a conversation could be colourful but life itself.
 Economic calculation, accuracy and orderliness of home in a family must take a symbolic, poetic form. Nevertheless, elements of fiction are not alien to traditional poetics. Signs and divinations, accurate and fantastic, alternated, succeeded each other during the days, weeks, and finally the year.
 Of course, nobody would necessarily firmly and irrevocably believe that a guest is coming if a piece of coal fell out of the burning stove. A magpie flying in the morning to the house, too, heralds the visit or the arrival of someone from the family. But even the most inveterate rationalist would have thought of the married daughter in a distant village or his son, taken to war. And suddenly, it happens sometimes just pies removed from the oven, as at the porch snorted a horse, creaked the sleigh runners.
    So, how not believe in omens after that! However, people do not trust them, but prophecies remain in people's everyday lives. And would be without them our experience them blander?
 A hen singing like a rooster is a terrible omen, which forebodes death in the house. Men seldom believe in such signs, but still, take the axe and chop the singing hen's head. On the surface of the action is ordinary rationalism (it is unnatural when hens sing). By the form, it is a fantastic image, almost a ritual (the death of the twisted hen substituted possible death of someone close). It may not necessarily be a person who sincerely believes in bad omens ...

 The poetry of everyday life is accompanied by rest, work, and conversations. For example, does one of the reasonable men, who came to the windmill, believe that the wind may be called in by soft whistling? But they whistle, even in jest.
    One cannot allow having the floor swiped around your feet when you sit on the bench; the sign is you will not be able to marry. In this charming stupidity, few believed but were still trying to put feet away.
 Examples of symbolic ritual may serve a somersault in the first thunder, wedding signs, firing the stove in the bathhouse ... Even ways to harness the horse and how it behaves during harnessing exhibit ritual, imaginative, poetic details.

 But out of such details builds a life.

 The imagery of everyday life did not depend on the symbolism of the speech; instead, it is the opposite. In such circumstances, even dumb and tongue-tied enjoyed many images and augmented these riches. Therefore, what can I say about those who make up the majority, who have the greatest and happiest gift - the gift of speech?

 Poetic processing of actual events figurative exaggeration in the depiction of everyday occasions is already noticeable in the conversation. A saga, a legend, a tale are born out of an actual event. When passed through the mouths of thousands, this event becomes an image. A myth that lived more than one generation grows like a pearl in its shell, losing all the boring and random.

 One of the peculiarities of the legend genre is the free mixing of reality and fantasy, their excellent symbiosis.

 Legends, beginning with familial legends, perfectly illustrate the geography of the entire state. In each village, there is one legend, such as those associated with the "scary" places, with love stories, and a name's origin. Then, in parishes, and even around the county, are known legends about more global events associated with war, pestilence, or unique natural phenomena, such as the legend of the stone rain that has fallen under the Great Ustyug. Finally, these stories were related to the life of the entire state, for example, about the war of the city of Novgorod to the town of Ustyug.

 Novgorodians supposedly sailed to Ustyug and demanded a ransom not to be taken on a spear. Ustyug did not give up, and then Novgorodians started looting around the city. They took the icon from the Odigetria Posad church and wanted to sail away, but the boat with the icon could not budge no matter what. Then the old Novgorodian Lyapunov said:

 - A taken prisoner will not go unrestrained into someone else's land.

 They tied the icon with jute and only then pushed it off. Then, according to legend, many Novgorodians on the road began to writhe; some went blind. Finally, Novgorod's bishop commanded to return the icon and the loot, which was done.

 The famous legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh can also be classified as a nationwide one.

 The artistic strength of local legends often is no less than full-blooded. However, their themes are highly varied. These stories are often about true love and the punishment for treason, the stories about local bandits and foreign invaders. Thus, in almost every region of the vast Russian North are living legends about the Time of Troubles, the Lisowski gang, the miraculous deliverance of villages and hamlets of the murderous attacks of enemies.

 Fascinating legends were about famous people, such as Tsar Peter, sailing the tremendous Northern rivers - Sukhona and the Dvina.

 One can mention oral stories from the legends born relatively recently, such as the pilot Chkalov.
 Legends about the skill of artisans and trade people who described such an excellent writer as Pavel Bazhov exist everywhere, including in the North. Carpenter Nester, who threw his axe in the Onega, the blacksmith who forged iron legs to his brother wounded in the war, the blind lace-maker are all the characters of old and new stories.