Monthly Archives: May 2017

The House with the Blue Gate

Nationality: American/Filipino
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: 2/17/19
Primary Language: English

My informant is a 19 year old student studying neuroscience at USC.

“Um okay so, my first story is about this house on my street growing up that always was like a little bit – I just always had a weird feeling about it because…um. Basically my neighborhood has like, four, not four, maybe like, six different like basic housing plans and then like each house in the neighborhood is just like some variation or mirrored design of those different options. But there is one house on my street that was just like, looked very different than the rest and had this very ornate gate that led into their courtyard. It was like very, I don’t even know how to explain it. It was like this iron-cast gate that had very swirly-like type metal, uh. I don’t know like Medieval looking, but not Medieval. And it was painted royal blue. And basically never saw anyone going in or out of the house. And, even on Halloween, all the houses, you know, they usually leave their porch-light if they’re home and want people to trick-or-treat. This house never, uh, had the porch-light on and never had anyone home for trick-or-treating. And so it was always just this very mysterious house, uh, I just – we didn’t really know actually who lived in it. Um… except for one year, on Halloween the porch-light was on. And so I figured, okay, this..this is interesting because now we can trick-or-treat there. Um, and so, we go, and we trick-or-treat and then the people that answer the door – it’s like kind of this maybe twenty something year old guy with like his girlfriend, um. And so, yeah, they give us the candy, whatever, we leave. Um, and that was the only time that I ever saw anyone in that house. And I lived in my house like my whole life, so this is like, you, ten years that I’d never seen anyone in the house before. Basically then, so in middle school, so fast-forward like two or three years or whatever, um. There – I’m driving home from school, and, or my mom is, and the entire street is like, coned off. There’s police cars and caution tape across the road. Um, you can only get to my house by going, like, this opposite way, ‘cause we’re on the other end of the street. And basically what happened was I guess a woman was actually – an older woman – was the one who owned the house and she had been murdered … by her son – who, now, retrospectively, looking back, I think, was the guy that was there that one night for Halloween trick-or-treating. And basically, he killed his mom, who was living at the house alone. And killed her and cut her into pieces and put her in the freezer – in the fridge, of like her refrigerator – very gross. Um, so yeah, I feel like that house is like scary, and always got weird vibes from it, and then very bad stuff happened there. And that’s that. And obviously the house was foreclosed, and someone else bought it, and they redid the entire house and took out the gate and now it’s like a young family living there so. Hopefully, it’s like not … scary.”

The informant would perform this in a setting where everyone is telling some sort of strange or scary story.

Analysis:

People are afraid of the strange or unknown and assign these things supernatural or paranormal powers. My informant, as a young child, noticed something out of the ordinary and naturally labeled it as a bad thing. This time, she was right.

Cóiste Bodhar

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English
Language: German

My informant is a 23 year old student who is heavily interested in mythology and myths of other cultures.

 

“Okay so there’s one little tidbit that I know. So in Ireland, kind of related to the banshees, is the death coach. The Irish is like um, “Cóiste Bodhar.” But it’s kind of, it’s driven by a headless horseman and once it comes, like once it leaves the heavens or comes to earth or whatever, it’s not allowed to return empty. So it has to uh… someone has to get in the death coach. It’s like, it’s a symbol for the inevitability of death – like banshees. That’s why I say they’re related. They’re both symbols of imminent death. So that’s the death coach – Cóiste Bodhar.”

In his own words, the informant explains why this mythology is important to him: “My knowledge of Irish folklore is important because although I’m not mainly ethnically Irish, I am partly. Ireland also has one of the most unique european mythologies due to their relative isolation.”

He learned this myth through research of his own volition.

Analysis:

My informant uses this mythology to connect himself to the culture he partly grew up in. His grandmother is completely Irish and tried to impart certain traditions and my informant and his relatives. He uses this folklore to further connect back to his ethnicity and he is heavily intrigued by mythologies of all kinds.

 

Selkies

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/12/17
Primary Language: English
Language: German

My informant is a 23 year old student who is heavily interested in mythology and myths of other cultures.

“So there are these creatures called “Selkies” and selkies are a mythological creature, so you know like unicorns and griffins and stuff. Anyways, a selkie is essentially an Irish mermaid, except that they are not like fish. Like in water they turn into seals. And then they can come up onto land and appear as beautiful women. And I’m not sure if I, I think I might be mixing up this with classical mermaids where they kind of invite people to their death. I don’t think that’s right. I think a selkie is, they kind of, um, they lure sailors in and then they kind of, they drag the sailor underwater but they live with the sailor and give them eternal happiness, instead of the more morbid mermaid-type thing where they eat sailors. So yeah, selkies are like a, a benevolent, beautiful seal-mermaid instead of the evil version of mermaids that are more like sirens, you know in Greek mythology.”

 

In his own words, the informant explains why this mythology is important to him: “My knowledge of Irish folklore is important because although I’m not mainly ethnically Irish, I am partly. Ireland also has one of the most unique european mythologies due to their relative isolation.”

He learned this myth through research of his own volition.

Analysis:

My informant uses this mythology to connect himself to the culture he partly grew up in. His grandmother is completely Irish and tried to impart certain traditions and my informant and his relatives. He uses this folklore to further connect back to his ethnicity and he is heavily intrigued by mythologies of all kinds.

 

 

The Banshees

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/10/17
Primary Language: English
Language: German

My informant is a 23 year old student who is heavily interested in mythology and myths of other cultures.

“So another tidbit of Irish folklore, uh, one of their big spirit-type things, is, you’ve probably heard of this before, the Banshee, right. Um and, so banshees aren’t malevolent spirits really. Um, they’re considered bad luck though because you hear their screams, like the banshee screams, because it’s a herald for death. So if death is on its way, then you start hearing the banshee scream and that’s why they’re… kind of have that ill-omen attached to them. But they themselves, the banshees, they’re not malevolent. They’re usually, like um, incestual… kind of things. So like, um, there are stories where they help out. There’s also stories where they do like, uh, they do harm. But they’re not like you know, quid pro quo malevolent. It’s just, it depends on the banshee I guess. So yeah, they’re heralds of death ‘cause that’s when they do the famous banshee scream. Banshees are one of the big things in Irish mythology that’s carried over to modern um, video games and pop culture and everything. If you haven’t heard of a banshee before outside of  like an Irish movie, it’d be kind of surprising because it’s so iconic. Like um, they’re a big thing in World of Warcraft, for instance, and other, um, other fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons has banshees also and so on and so forth.”

In his own words, the informant explains why this mythology is important to him: “My knowledge of Irish folklore is important because although I’m not mainly ethnically Irish, I am partly. Ireland also has one of the most unique european mythologies due to their relative isolation.”

He learned this myth through research of his own volition.

Analysis:

My informant uses this mythology to connect himself to the culture he partly grew up in. His grandmother is completely Irish and tried to impart certain traditions and my informant and his relatives. He uses this folklore to further connect back to his ethnicity and he is heavily intrigued by mythologies of all kinds.

 

For more information on this myth, click here.

 

Cú Chulainn

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/10/17
Primary Language: English
Language: German

My informant is a 23 year old student who is heavily interested in mythology and myths of other cultures.

“Okay, so the big bad of Irish mythology is a guy called Cú Chulainn, and he is the Irish equivalent of Hercules. He actually shares a lot of similarities with Hercules too. Um, first off, he’s a demigod. I can’t remember the name of the Irish god that he was born to. But, kind of like Jesus, he’s considered the son of the god while at the same time kind of being an incarnation of him. Anyway, so, he’s a half-god. Um, he was born Setanta, I think is his … born-name. But, um, he became known as Cú Chulainn because he killed the dog – the guard-dog of a king called Chulainn. Cú means hound. So he became known as the hound of Chulainn because, like, by his young honor – ‘cause he was only like, toddler or something at the time – he’s like ‘I’ll replace your guard-dog for you until you get a new one.’ And so he became known as the hound of Chulainn because he spent like ten years of his life guarding that king… as like, a child, essentially. But um, kind of like Hercules also, he can go into a mad rage. Like Hercules is cursed by Hera and when he went into a mad rage he killed his wife and children. That’s a big aspect of the Herculean mythology. But um, Cú Chulainn goes into, like, a madness that’s known as “warp spasm” – and it’s such a weird fucking name for it. The, ‘cause it’s an Irish word and there’s not like a perfect translation in English. So, warp spasm, where he kind of – he Hulks out – he turns into literally a giant, muscly beast, and fucking kills everything around him, like a boss. Um, which he used that ability in like – his biggest thing was that he single-handedly fought off an entire invading army. Like um, I mean this is Irish mythology, so it’d be like, it’d be a couple hundred to a few hundred men. That’s still, like single-handedly fighting off an army. So, yeah, that’s Cú Chulainn. He’s the big… uh, hero. He’d be equivalent to, like, uh – Hercules is the biggest equivalency that you can see. Um also, another good example of an equivalent would be Roland for French mythology, or Lancelot for English mythology. He’s the big hero.”

 

In his own words, the informant explains why this mythology is important to him: “My knowledge of Irish folklore is important because although I’m not mainly ethnically Irish, I am partly. Ireland also has one of the most unique european mythologies due to their relative isolation.”

He learned this myth through research of his own volition.

Analysis:

My informant uses this mythology to connect himself to the culture he partly grew up in. His grandmother is completely Irish and tried to impart certain traditions and my informant and his relatives. He uses this folklore to further connect back to his ethnicity and he is heavily intrigued by mythologies of all kinds.

 

More on this myth can be found here.