Fictional King of Morocco is mythical figure of Biblical proportions, herald of Apocalypse, usually associated with prophetical songs of Tolerance Sectarians from eastern Bohemia. Presented article deals with the motif of King of Morocco in these songs and tries to analyze its origin. Various sources of this oral tradition are discussed, like great influence of Protestant political prophecies, heterodox prophecies and folklore narratives of the period. The character of King of Morocco represents an affiliated motif to a specific corpus of oral traditions, consisting of apocalyptical narrative pattern about the Judgment Day. Origin of the motif of King of Morocco remains obscure; however, the popular reception of diplomatic visit of envoy of Sultan of Morocco to Vienna in 1783, combined with misinterpreted news about Tolerance Decree, seems to be the most probable source. Although associated with oral culture of Tolerance Sectarians, the whole narrative pattern was disseminated more widely and lived on in Czech oral tradition at least until 1848.
Presented article analyzes oral narratives usually defined as contemporary (urban) legends with emphasis on their main characteristics as a folklore genre. The article focuses on definition, terminology and presentation of history of International and Czech research of contemporary legends along with examples of local contemporary narratives. Czech contemporary legends can be characterized as showing clear parallels with East European as well as global folklore repertoire. The most popular Czech cautionary legend was legendary “Black Ambulance”, narrative about mysterious black ambulance kidnapping children, current mainly in 1988 and 1989. Widespread is corpus of comical narratives (“Hilarious Accidents”), in Czech oral transmission popular at least from the 1960s. Narratives showing clear parallels with traditional Czech folklore are relatively lacking in the contemporary Czech repertoire - single exception being cycle of legends about undead Nazi soldier Hagen, popular in tramping movement since the 1980s. Czech contemporary xenophobic narratives deals mainly with Romani (Gypsy) people, “Chinese Restaurant Legends” from global repertoire and anti-Turkish legends from repertoire of German-speaking countries. Newer narratives current from the end of the 1990s show more parallels with international contemporary legends.