Legends are tales recounting extraordinary events, in which the listener is invited to believe or debate the truth of the story.. The Legend is often similar to the tall tale, which as Carl Lindahl pointed out is "a joke masquerading as a true story." If a story about unusual events becomes comically outlandish we refer to it as a tall tale. But if it's told as though it's true, and it remains believeable; or if the teller appears to believe it; or if the teller invites the listener to believe it or to debate its veracity, we're likely to call it legend. Sometimes legends are darker than tall tales, and address people's fears: legends often tell of murders and other crimes, fatal accidents, contaminated food, and other horrors. Conversations about legends, including introductory remarks or closing remarks by legend tellers, frequently revolve around whether the events of the legend really happened.

Some legends involve belief in the supernatural. Such belief stories in AFC's archival collections are most often about ghosts, witches, or the Devil. Ghosts go by many names in the archives: boogies, haints, hants, spirits, or simply ghosts. Witches and the Devil can be characters in magic tales, but they also show up in the house down the road or out in the forest. Some of the tellers in the AFC collections believe in ghosts and witches, but many start their tales with a phrase like "Now, I wouldn't believe this story, but..." or "I don't believe in ghosts, but they say..." These phrases open up an implied conversation about the story's truth value, but leave it with the listener to decide what's true and what's not.

Jim Michael Wills tells stories about the phantom horses that appear from time to time on Rock Creek (AFC 1999/008: CRF-MH-A162). He begins the story by saying, "Now this story, I think like many stories, is partially true and partially fantasy..." This recording can be found online in the digital collection Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia. 

Herbert Faulk tells ghost and witch stories in Toast, NC on  August 17, 1978. After each story, he asks the interviewers Patrick B. Mullen and Blanton Owen, "Now what do you think of that?" This recording is available online in the digital collection Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project.