supernatural
The myths are narratives that have a strong symbolic component. Since people from old civilizations could not explain the phenomena of nature, through scientific explanations, they created myths to give meaning to phenomenon of the world, often to mysterious or supernatural events.
Myths are also a way of passing on knowledge and warning people about dangers or problems and qualities of the human being. Gods, heroes, and supernatural characters, which are part of the fantastic world, mix with historical and real facts to give meaning to life and the world.
Folklore legends are a set of myths and characters that were born from the collective imagination of a people. Most Brazilian legends are of indigenous origin but were influenced by myths and stories brought from Portuguese and Africans.
According to the writer Luís da Câmara Cascudo, folklore "does not consist in obedience to the picturesque, to the anecdotal sertanejismo, to the amateurism of the caricatured and the comic, in a monotonous hunt for the pseudo typical, industrializing the popular. It is a science of collective psychology, with its research processes, its methods of classification, its purpose in psychiatry, education, history, sociology, anthropology, administration, politics, and religion."
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In the early 19th century, the Brazilian arts were going through Romanticism, being many of the Brazilian legends represented in poems, books, and paintings due to the nationalist movement that occurred in this period. In this moment, the author Monteiro Lobato publishes his children's work, the collection of Sítio do Pica-pau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker’s Farm), in which some Brazilian legends are presented.
The use of folklore elements in literary works helped to popularize the characters. Among the Brazilian authors who most portray folklore in their works are Monteiro Lobato, Ariano Suassuna, Cecília Meireles, and Mário de Andrade.
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