Monthly Archives: May 2014

You do not speak of the Devil in Switzerland

Nationality: Switzerland
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Filmmaker
Residence: Los Angeles/Switzerland
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: French
Language: English, German

“En parlant du loup”

Trans: talking about the wolf

This is a piece of folk speech told to me by my friend from Switzeland.  It is used when someone appears who was just being talked about.  It is a very similar on the English phrase “speak of the devil”

The phrase is interesting because it villianizes the person who is appering by comparing them to a wolf.  This is interesting because the phrase is often used after two people have been gossiping, which is something that is societally “bad.”  Instead it bonds the two gossipers together in opposition to the bad person they were just talking about.

Mafia

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Preschool Teacher
Residence: Bronx, NY
Performance Date: 3/20/14
Primary Language: English

A group of people sit in a circle and close their eyes.  Someone is selected to play God.  God is the narrator of the game, and always someone who has played the game before.  God walks around the circle two times.  The first time he walks around he selects who will be the mafia by tapping a player once on the shoulder.  The second time around he selects the angel by tapping that person twice on the shoulder.

God then says “Mafia wake up?”  The mafia then chooses who they would like to kill by pointing at them. God then says “mafia go back to sleep”.  Then God tells the angel to wake up and asks “Angel who they would like to save”.  The angel can save anyone in the circle including themselves by pointing at them.  God then tells the angel to go back to sleep and the townspeople, which consists of everyone, including the mafia and the angel, to wake up.  God then tells a fictionalized version of the nights “events” where someone was murdered.  The person who was murdered is now out and no longer has to go to sleep when God tells the rest of the townsfolk to, so they learn who the mafia is, but must keep this information a secret.

If the angel chose to save the same person the mafia chose to kill, God will add on a twist ending where the person does not die.  God then narrates a town summit where the townspeople meet to arrest who they believe to be the mafia.  Everyone accuses who they believe to be the culprit and the town takes a vote.  After the vote the person who the town believes to be the mafia “put to death” in a narrative told by God and the townspeople are told to go back to sleep.

The game then repeats from the beginning with God telling the mafia to wake up, then the angel, then the townsfolk.  If the townspeople chose the actual mafia, no one is dead in the morning and the game is over, but if they chose the wrong mafia, another person dies and they rehold the town summit.  The game repeats until the true mafia has been put to death.

My friend used to play the game when she was in high school and they had substitute teachers but it was also a staple game at camps and in any large groups.  The target age are generally adolescents as the subject matter is much darker than other children’s games.

The game is very different from most other folklore that deals with mystery and death in that it turns the sinister topic into a game and makes it fun.  A town plagued by the mafia is not a light subject matter but in the contact of this game if becomes something fun.

Any Woman should be Lucky to Marry a Cornell Gentleman

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Preschool Teacher/Student on Leave
Residence: Bronx, NY
Performance Date: 3/20/14
Primary Language: English

Item: When you get married at the chapel at Cornell the building was not designed with a room for her to prepare and wait.  The only room separate from the main building is the crypt, which happens to also be the place where the founders are buried.  So the legend goes that if the bride gets cold feet, the ghosts of the founders will rise from their graves and escort her down the aisle because any woman should be honored to marry a cornell gentleman.

I first heard this story when I went on a college tour of Cornell, but I asked my friend about it, since she goes there.  She liked the story because along with being fun and mystical it makes her school look good, since any woman would be lucky to marry a man who went there.

I think this is an interesting superstition because it is very connected to the liminal aspect of the marriage ritual.  The legend is about the time right before the marriage occurs, while everything is still in flux and everything can still go wrong.

Red Rover

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Preschool Teacher
Residence: Bronx, NY
Performance Date: 3/20/14
Primary Language: English

Red Rover is a children’s game that I played as a kid and my friend, who works as a preschool teacher, told me about her students playing.

The game works like this:

Two groups of children stand opposite each other in an open space.  Each of the two groups form a line and grasp hands forming a chain.  The group that has been selected to go first will decide on a player from the opposite team and call out “Red Rover, Red Rover send (players name) right over.”  The player who has been called then runs from their side to the side that called them in an attempt to break the chain with the force of their body.  If they succeed in breaking the chain they return to the side they began on, but if they fail they join the other team.  The game ends when all players are on one side.

This folklore was significant to my friend because she played it as a child and she is witnessing other children playing the same game, which connects her with the children she teaches.

The game is interesting because although it is a game played on teams the teams change throughout the game, so there is no set opposing forces.  This most likely fosters unity between the group who take part in the game

Da Nile

Nationality: American/Jewish
Age: 48
Occupation: Doctor
Residence: New York City
Performance Date: 3/20/14
Primary Language: English

When I was pressuring my dad to give me folklore, he told me a proverb completely unrelated to our discussion:

“Denial (da-nile) ain’t just a river in Egypt”

I can’t remember the exact context, but I was being obtuse about something and he was teasing me while also imparting wisdom.

The phrase itself utilizes the way the word “the” is pronounced phonetical like slang.  It is therefore interesting from a class point of view, since the speaker, whether they are educated or not is speaking the way an uneducated person would so there is a sense of playing with class when it is spoken by my dad.  From an African American perspective there may be a small issue of heritage in there since the nile is located in africa.  The reference is vague at best since few African Americans are descendent of Egyptians, but the issue of heritage may still play a role.  The wisdom is still being imparted either way.  This phrase is therefore a good example of how a lesson is being learned through humor