Tag Archives: devil

The Devil at the Dance

Informant KJ is a sophomore studying cinematic art at the University of Southern California. He is of French-Canadian descent from the region of Quebec. Here, he discusses traditional Canadian folklore that has been known in his family for several generations:

KJ: “So there’s this other French-Canadian legend called “The Devil at the Dance” and it’s about this young couple who fall in love with each other, but they have opposing religious beliefs and the girl’s parents refuse their daughter to be involved with him because he is a Christian and they’re not. The daughter professes her love for the Christian boy, but her parents refuse to accept their daughter’s claims. The mother even says that she would rather have her daughter associated with the devil himself rather than a boy like hi. Then one day, the devil knocked on the family’s door. The family was so afraid that they asked a priest to convert them to Christianity. Once the family and the daughter were officially converted, the Christian boy and the young girl got married, both now as official members of Christianity.”

How did you learn about this legend?

KJ: “It’s just another French-Canadian tale that I’ve heard over the years from my grandparents.”

In what context would you share this legend?

KJ: “Well, my grandparents would share this story with me and other cousins mostly when I was younger and it was usually at our family gatherings.”

Does this legend have any significance to you?

KJ: “Um ya kind of because it was something that was always told from older members of my family like my grandparents and they made it fun, so ya it does.”

Analysis:

This French-Canadian tale exhibits the influence the devil had in the reinforcement of Christian ideals by scaring the non-believing family into converting into Christianity. The image and representation of the devil is quite common among French-Canadian tales, as he is known to make deals and to trick people. The devil is a prominent ancestral fixture in French-Canadian folklore and continues to be in modern society.

 

Honduran Family Legend

Legend- Honduras

 

Nationality- Honduras

Primary Language- Spanish

Occupation- Factory Worker

Residence- Los Angeles, CA

Date of Performance- 3/11/16

One night when it was raining, a few days after your uncle marisio was born, your grandmother heard a strong knocking on the door. Your grandpa was still out working so she was uncertain if she should open the door. The baby was sound asleep and the knocking did not sleep so she decided to go see who it was. When she looked out a window, she saw a tall man with a black hoodie and coat getting soaked outside right in front of the door. When she went around to ask who it was, the man said “Let me see you baby”. Your grandma became frightened and said “No!”. The man then said that if she did not let him see the baby, in 18 years she would pay severely. The man kept knocking harder and then Marisio began to cry. Your grandma made sure the door was locked and ran to comfort Marisio. He would not stop crying and the man would not stop knocking. After a few minutes your grandma heard a horse hooves walking around the house. After half an hour of circling the house with a horse, the noise was gone and the baby stopped crying. 18 years later, your brother became mentally ill and has never recovered since then.

The person who told me this story was my mother. She is from Honduras and currently resides in Los Angeles. She learned this story from my grandmother who told her because she says it actually happened to her. Her brother has been ill ever since he turned 18. She believes that a reason he is “sick” is because it has something to do with the devil. Either because of this event or another possible reason that has to do with witchcraft. This is important to her because it taught her how evil and powerful the devil is and to always confide in God because he is where all good resides. She also learned that she should not ever open the door to any stranger, to always look through the window first, because you never know ehn the devil may be knocking. To my mother, it is an answer to an unknow. When my family in Honduras did not know why or how this happened to Marisio, they simply blamed it on the devil and realized it was a sane answer. She has had several spiritual rituals performed on him but to no avail, making her think that it is too late and the devil it too powerful.

The context of the story was serious, mysterious, but calm. Her tone was not with an intent to be ominous or scary because that was not the point of the story. She told me in broad daylight, in our living room when i asked her how did my uncle get sick. Her objective was to tell a story and give me a lesson, not just to scare me.

When my mother first told me the story, I was frightened. I was only 10 years old and the thought of the devil almost coming in contact with my family was crazy. I made sure to never open the door unless I knew who it was or if it was safe to do so. It also made me fear the devil and what he could do. When I turned 13, my mother was so cautious because of what happened that she gave me pills that would smoothen out my puberty process. She believed that it may help me and prevent anything similar to what happened to Marisio happen to me. Of course back when I turned 13 i thought that her methods were unorthodox but i could not really debate against her since she was my mother. Nothing terrible happened to me but it made me realize how religion and faith could really affect someone’s thoughts. I realized that with a lack of knowledge, people can become very afraid of the unknown and turn to their religion or God for answers. In Honduran culture, people believe that the devil rides with a horse and has unbelievable power and that anyone who is sick or evil is under the control or influence of the devil. Stories like these increase their beliefs because sometimes they have nothing else to believe in.

 

Devil in Disguise

I collected this piece of folklore from my dad while he was visiting. We ended up just sitting in the car in a parking lot while he shared some more Chilean folklore with me.

Dad: “When we were little, my mom and my dad were very busy, so they left the Nana with us. The empleada.

Me: “Yeah.”

Dad: “And she used to sit with us and tell us all these scary happenings, like, she used to say there were sometimes babies abandoned in the middle of the road at night, and you walk and you hear this noise, a crying baby, and if you hold the baby, the baby is so sweet, and you get, ‘Oh! Poor little baby!’ But in reality, it was the Diablo (devil). The Diablo, who became a baby, to catch your attention and get out goodness out of you, and you feel compassion and then, a lot of bad things start happen to you if you hold that baby. Then the baby disappear and you cannot explain what happened, and then in one way, the baby choose, make you fall down in that trap, and because you became good with the baby, but the baby was bad. Then a lot of bad things start happen to you like, you can lose your job, your income, some relative dies, you know, all of this stuffs.”

Me: “It’s a bad omen. Can you reverse the omen?”

Dad: “The omen?”

Me: “Can you reverse the bad luck?”

Dad: “Ah, I guess, you know, the religious mentality show you that if you carry a cross with you, you are free of this devil, bad things that can happen to you.”

Me: “Oh, so the point is to try to get everyone to wear crosses.” (laugh)

Dad: “Exactly, well that is the idea.” (laugh) “Kind of. So in reality, a lot of Chileans without education, well even with education, you believe that a cross, that mean Jesus Christ, keep all this bad energy far away from you.”

Me: “So it’s to keep people in the religion?”

Dad: “Yeah, well, it’s probably an idea to keep everyone scared, and then if it doesn’t happen…”

Background and Analysis

My dad was raised in Rancagua, Chile, which is a city outside of Santiago in the 1950s and early 1960s. Back then and still today, religion has a very strong presence in Chile. When he was a young boy, my dad’s Nana would tell him and his brothers these stories, and at that age they believed it all, of course.

Going off of the legend, my dad also describes how, as a child, he was always told that when anything bad happened, if you just wore a cross or made a cross, everything would be okay. But to him, it’s all mostly psychological. This is very true, in that if you believe in something, it probably will happen. If you envision bad things happening, they will happen to you. If you envision good things happening, they can occur as well. What the legend is pushing is that religion can save you, even from the devil, but the mind is just as powerful a weapon.

A Deal With the Devil

I collected this piece of folklore from my dad while he was visiting. We ended up just sitting in the car in a parking lot while he shared some more Chilean folklore with me.

Original script 

“Un pacto con el Diablo”

Transliteration

” a deal with the devil”

Translation

You use this whenever you see someone in Chile doing very well. Especially someone young and very successful with lots of wealth. They think that people can sell their soul to the devil, and make a trade. If you’re poor and not doing well, you can ask the devil for help, and he will offer you whatever you want , but it will only be temporary, and in the end, the price to pay is often an early death.

My dad was raised in Rancagua, Chile, which is a city outside of Santiago in the 1950s and early 1960s. Back then and still today, religion has a very strong presence in Chile.

This saying can be seen as rooted in jealousy over what you don’t have, and in a way, is kind of like cursing someone for being  successful when you aren’t. This saying is well-known and used a lot in Chile.

Jersey Devil

*Note about informant: Laura Zucker is my mother. She grew up in New Jersey.

 

INFORMANT: “So I grew up in Highland Park, New Jersey, and in the southern part of the state of New Jersey, there’s a place called the Pine Barrens, which is a big expanse… uninhabited expanse of pine trees and forest. And there has, for … 200 years been this legend of something called the Jersey Devil that lives down there. And the story is… I mean, it’s kind of like a Bigfoot/Sasquatch thing, but … um, it’s said to be this creature with the head of a horse or a goat and bat wings, and it emits this shrieky… loud, scary, shrieky sound. I don’t know if it eats people or just scares the pee out of them, but it’s, you know, why you don’t want to stay in the Pine Barrens alone by yourself at night.”

COLLECTOR (myself): “Who told you about it?”

INFORMANT: “You know, it was just one of those things that you grew up knowing about. I don’t remember anybody telling me, it was just sort of part of the world that we swam in because we lived in New Jersey.”

—

Before I posted this, I saw that a student from last year’s class had published a post also called “Jersey Devil,” so I gave it a look and wasn’t entirely surprised to find that my mom’s version of the story and the other informant’s version were pretty different. Some elements stayed the same, like the bat wings and goat/sheep/horse head, but the back stories and the informants’ opinions on the underlying message were very different. While the other informant had a detailed back story about a promiscuous woman, my mom’s version has no such back story – the creature simply exists, and that’s the way it’s always been. The other informant saw the Devil as a warning to women not to be promiscuous, while my mom saw the Devil as a warning for children and others not to spend time alone in the Pine Barrens. I thought it was interesting that the other informant had a more detailed back story, because if I remember correctly, that informant was from Delaware, not NJ. You’d think that my mom, as a Jersey local, would have a richer understanding of the legend than an outsider.

The Jersey Devil is a great example of folklore because the origin of the story is absolutely unknown. My mother can’t even recall a person telling her the story – she says it was just part of the general context of her hometown and her growing up, that it was almost known and understood by default because it was so ingrained in the local lore.