To write a literary art legend, an author selects in history some period that he likes very much or some hero or heroine he has always admired, and notes down a number of facts that are connected with one another and with his subject; then he lets his imagination loose upon them. He uses terms and expressions of the age of which he is writing; phrases that now appear quaint add a flavor of reality to the tale. But he is careful, however, not to misuse words and thus commit what the critics call anachronism, by putting the idioms peculiar to one age or one people into the mouth of another. An occasional special touch is good, but too much straining for effect spoils a story. He gets rather into the mood of simple faith in greatness and goodness, and tells of brave deeds and generous actions that might well have happened. Dramatic truth there must be; literal truth, not necessarily. A working definition runs somewhat like this: [Working definition] Legend is a narrative partly true and partly imaginary, about a particular person, event, place or natural feature; a story that has the semblance of history, but is in reality almost altogether fanciful, since the basic fact is amplified, abridged, or wholly changed at the will of the narrator. =Kenach's Little Woman= As the holy season of Lent drew nigh the Abbot Kenach felt a longing such as a bird of passage feels in the south when the first little silvery buds on the willow begin here to break their ruddy sheaths, and the bird thinks tomorrow it will be time to fly over seas to the land where it builds its nest in pleasant croft or under the shelter of homely eaves. And Kenach said, "_Levabo oculos_--I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help," for every year it was his custom to leave his abbey and fare through the woods to the hermitage on the mountainside, so that he might spend the forty days in fasting and prayer in the heart of solitude. Now on the day which is called the Wednesday of Ashes he set out, but first he heard the mass of remembrance and led his monks to the altar steps, and knelt there in great humility to let the priest sign his forehead with a cross of ashes. And on the forehead of each of the monks the ashes were smeared in the form of a cross, and each time the priest made the sign he repeated the words, "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." So with the ashes still in his brow and with the remembrance of the end of earthly days in his soul, he bent his steps towards the hermitage; and as he was now an aged man and nowise strong, Diarmait, one of the younger brethren, accompanied him in case any mischance should befall.