Bishop's General Storehouse in Salt Lake City. Utah State Historical Society photograph by Charles R. Savage.
The Great and Dreadful Day: Mormon Folklore of the Apocalypse BY S U S A N
JLN A RECENT DISCUSSION
PETERSON
of folk legends, Linda Degh and Andrew
Vazsonyi stated: The legend remains one of the most characteristic and expressive folklore products of contemporary rural and industrial society. It is a sensitive and immediate indicator of social conditions within small groups of society.1
If this statement is valid, then one of the best ways to learn what is going on in the minds of the Mormon people, to understand their subtle desires, their attitudes, and their tensions, is to look at their legends, at the stories they are currently telling, and at the beliefs that lie behind them. In Miss Peterson is a graduate student in English at Brigham Young University. 1 Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, " T h e Dialectics of the Legend," Folklore Series 1:6 ( 1 9 7 3 ) , p. 48.
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