Folklore, fairy tales, legends, and all forms of story telling
akin to these are comprehended, in the terminology of the
post-Biblical literature of the Jews, under the inclusive
description Haggadah, a name that can be explained by a
circumlocution, but cannot be translated. Whatever it is applied
to is thereby characterized first as being derived from the Holy
Scriptures, and then as being of the nature of a story. And, in
point of fact, this dualism sums up the distinguishing features
of Jewish Legend. More than eighteen centuries ago the Jewish
historian Josephus observed that "though we be deprived of our
wealth, of our cities, or of the other advantages we have, our
law continues immortal." The word he meant to use was not law,
but Torah, only he could not find an equivalent for it in Greek.
A singer of the Synagogue a thousand years after Josephus, who
expressed his sentiments in Hebrew, uttered the same thought:
"The Holy City and all her daughter cities are violated, they lie
in ruins, despoiled of their ornaments, their splendor darkened
from sight. Naught is left to us save one eternal treasure
alone--the Holy Torah." The sadder the life of the Jewish people,
the more it felt the need of taking refuge in its past. The
Scripture, or, to use the Jewish term, the Torah, was the only
remnant of its former national independence, and the Torah was
the magic means of making a sordid actuality recede before a
glorious memory. To the Scripture was assigned the task of
supplying nourishment to the mind as well as the soul, to the
intellect as well as the imagination, and the result is the
Halakah and the Haggadah.

The fancy of the people did not die out in the post-Biblical