folk hero

• folk-hero

folk hero (plural folk heroes)

1. A real or mythical person who is widely revered by ordinary people, for championing their interests, values, or aspirations.
   • 1966 June 10, “Vocational Education: Cowhand School”, in Time‎:

     That hallowed American folk hero, the lean cowboy with six-gun at hip, swinging smoothly into the saddle—somehow he never had to go to school to learn that stuff.

   • 1996, Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, →ISBN, page 571:

     Deuladeu Martins is a woman folk-hero dating from the 12th century; she is thought of as a hugely tall and strong woman whose actions were so feared by invaders that, because of her, the country of Portugal itself came into being.

   • 2012 August 18, Lawrence Downes, “As Woody Turns 100, We Protest Too Little”, in New York Times‎, retrieved 2013-04-16:

     The American folk hero Woody Guthrie will be honored at the Kennedy Center, but rabble-rousing, not respectability, was his goal.

• culture hero

• folk hero on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “folk hero”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.