Talk:Cessair

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Folklore versus Pseudohistory

It's tiring to see people devaluing folklore stories and mythologies as pseudohistory just because it's not a quantitative fact based story. folklore does not have to be a real story with archaeological facts to back it to be a historical document. society is starting to break down with this silliness. Anyone with a working brain knows the terms pseudohistory (or pseudoarcheology, etc.) is meant to be destructive of the targeted topic the term is being attached to. SeaScholar (talk) 23:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was called "pseudohistory" because it was claimed to be history, but was crafted by monks in the Middle Ages. However, "legendary history" is probably a better term, so I've changed it to that. – Asarrlaí ^(talk) 15:56, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would have gone with something like 'unsupported folklore' or some term like that, but I think that is a fair compromise and a good description of the information. SeaScholar (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thing is, we only have it as a literary tradition, so we can't call it folklore. --Nicknack009 (talk) 09:05, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Asarlaí I would advise against the word "legendary" if we are talking about medieval European culture. In any other context, fine, because we all know what the word "legend" means today. But in medieval Europe it had a different and much more specific meaning, which is actually its original meaning, and we medieval specialists feel the hairs rising on the backs of our knecks when medieval stories are loosely called legenda when they technically are not. The word legend actually means "reading", and applies to a spiritually uplifting account of the life of a saint. Cessair was not a saint, and if you call his story a legend, well you're not wrong, but you're using terminology in a way that shows you are not into the material. Doric Loon (talk) 23:04, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's an etymological fallacy. Wikipedia is written for the modern reader, not the medieval one, and the general reader, not the specialist. Using words in a precise technical manner that only a specialist would understand defeats the purpose of an encyclopedia. --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nicknack009 It's certainly not an etymological fallacy: I mentioned the Latin origin of the word as context, not my rationale. How technical language should be is a matter of opinion. Of course, it's possible to be too technical, but in this case I don't see how using some other word like "myth" or "folklore" would mean only the specialist could understand it. In this case, the danger is the opposite, not being aware of issues. We're talking about medieval literature here, and if you don't want to be sloppy, it is a good idea to listen to what experts in that field say. Doric Loon (talk) 10:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do. I've done quite a bit of reading in this field, and I'm aware of how the word "legend" is used by folklorists, and it's the appropriate term for this kind of material. "Myth" is inappropriate here because it's not a myth - it has no religious or cosmological significance. It's also not "folklore", as I've said, because it's literary. See Legend. Words have multiple meanings. Your usage is specific to the field of hagiography, and is not familiar to the general reader. --Nicknack009 (talk) 14:19, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]