Trades and professions help define people and, by extension, the stories told about them. Folklore preserves tales of travelling tailors who went from house to house mending clothes for a few coins, musicians who encountered wolves on the road between village festivals, smiths who learned their craft from beings that were not entirely human, and woodland occupations such as shepherds, charcoal burners and woodcutters, forever in contact with the wild. Contemporary legends continue the pattern with truck drivers, security guards, surgeons and many other modern professions.