Legend

A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. The working distinctions: legends star humans and often have some historical basis, where myth stars gods and supernatural origins; Jacob Grimm's contrast is that the fairy tale is poetic and the legend historic; and stories that exceed the bounds of realism are fables, not legends. Legends live in uncertainty, never entirely believed by their participants but never resolutely doubted, and they anchor to real places and personages; the urban legend is the modern branch.

For worldbuilders, legend is the believable layer of a story world: the local hero, the haunted bridge, the founder the town argues about. Inventing one deliberately is part of mythopoeia, and the discipline is keeping the historical core fixed while the tellings vary.