Author Archives: Adam Woodnutt

Stopping a Thunderstorm

Informant: Valerie is a 61-year-old, born and raised in Dorking, England. She moved to Pennsylvania at 40, and to San Diego at 45. She still regularly visits England, where all her family still live. 

Main Piece: “Something that you’re always supposed to do when there’s a thunderstorm is yell back at it. If you’re scared because it’s loud, you just yell back and you’ll scare the thunderstorm too. You won’t be scared anymore, and the thunderstorm will stop.

Background Information about the Performance: The informant was instructed to do so as a child by her parents, and would later pass it on to her own child. 

Context of Performance: The piece is told to frightened children to calm them down.

Thoughts: I have received this advice when I was a child and know that I was very reassured by it. It seems to be a way of both boosting confidence and of stopping the thunderstorm. The idea that one should mimic a natural event in order to stop it from occuring seems prominent in other folkloric beliefs as well.

Guggle Muggle

Informant: B is a 20-year old born and raised in Southern California. He and his family are Jewish, and are all involved in theater.

Main Piece:
Informant: “My grandma used to, when we were sick, make this drink called guggle muggle. It was milk, honey, and egg.”

Interviewer: And it was supposed to cure sickness?

Informant: “Yeah, yeah, for things like a sore throat or a cold or whatever. You’d drink the guggle muggle, and usually it’d be warm. It was supposed to make you feel better.”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant was given this folk medicine by his grandmother when he was younger. He still will make it if he is feeling sick even though his grandmother has passed away.

Context of Performance: The medicine was given when suffering from a minor illness like a cold or a sore throat.

Thoughts: I know of other folk medicines that involve giving hearty but sweet food or drinks when sick, such as toast with jam for a sore throat. The informant actually made this for me, as I was sick at the time, and it tasted very much as one might expect.

Ghost Dog of Devon

Informant: Valerie is a 61-year-old, born and raised in Dorking, England. She moved to Pennsylvania at 40, and to San Diego at 45. She still regularly visits England, where all her family still live. Her father was from the county of Devon in England.

Main Piece: “When I was younger, my family and I would take trips to around Devon. And sometimes when it was nighttime, my dad would tell us about a big, black dog that would go around Devon. It was a ghost dog, and it would go around howling at night. Seeing it would be dangerous, so we always got very scared when we heard a dog howl around there.”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant was told this as a child by her father. She remembers having been scared by the story, and would go on to recount the story later when she visited Devon again.

Context of Performance: The piece is told as a scary story to children – and presumably others – around the Devon region.

Thoughts: The black dog story is common around Britain, and my father had heard a similar story around Leeds. I am reminded of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which takes place around Devon.

 

Lone Pine Mountain Devil

Informant: Meagan is a 23-year-old screenwriter, born and raised in San Diego. She is an active member of various ghosthunting and cryptid-related groups, although she admits that she is not sure if she fully believes in them.

Main Piece:
Informant: “There are certain types of cryptids that are known as ‘old-worldly’. They’re creatures that should be extinct but aren’t. Apparently, in the mountains of California, there’s a pterosaur-like creature with like…the head of a T-Rex.”

Interviewer: Is the head the same size as a T-Rex’s?

Informant: “No, no…here, let me draw it for you. It’s hard to explain.” See below for drawing. Some people say it has feathers, some say it doesn’t. But one thing’s for certain, and that’s that it’s carnivorous. It leaves very distinct bite marks on its prey. And sometimes it…sort of turns its prey inside out, but mostly it’s known for the bite marks.”

EPSON MFP image

Background Information about the Performance: The informant learned of this piece through various online communities of cryptozoologists. The informant noted that she was interested in hiking around the area where the cryptid has been sighted.

Context of Performance: Often, stories of this cryptid are told as personal experiences on online forums or cryptid-related books.

Thoughts: Upon further research, I learned that the Lone Pine Mountain Devil was created by a team of Youtubers for a video in 2010. However, it is important to note that it is still very widely believed by the crytozoologist community, showing how an authored work can become folklore. The informant also noted that the Lone Pine Mountain Devil and the Jersey Devil were often considered related in some way, showing how two separate elements of folklore can become tied together.

Hotel del Coronado Ghost

Informant: Meagan is a 23-year-old screenwriter, born and raised in San Diego. She is an active member of various ghosthunting and cryptid-related groups, although she admits that she is not sure if she fully believes in them. The Hotel del Coronado is a hotel on Coronado Island famous for being haunted.

Main Piece:
Informant: “This is what I remember: Kate and Tom Morgan were a married couple in the late 1800s. They were con artists. One day, they checked into the Hotel del Coronado. Tom was supposed to meet Kate, but she didn’t show up…because she was dead. They found her in Room 302, and now she haunts that room and the halls.”

Interviewer: How did she die?

Informant: “Nobody knows. Some historians say it was suicide, some say it was disease, and some say she was murdered by her husband. But nobody really knows.”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant first heard this piece from tour guides when visiting the hotel. After seeking more information online, she visited the Hotel del Coronado again with a friend and had an experience with the ghost, in which she saw it in the mirror and felt as though she had been scratched by it.

Context of Performance: The piece is told both by tour guides around the Hotel del Coronado and by members of various San Diego-based ghost hunter groups.

Thoughts: I know of this piece from visiting the Hotel del Coronado, but I have never experienced ghostly activity myself. I was also unaware of the background of the piece, knowing only that the hotel is haunted. The Hotel del Coronado promotes this haunting, and is part of various haunted house tours based in San Diego.