Monthly Archives: May 2022

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Background: The informant grew up in Sleepy Hollow, New York, home to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Context: I asked him about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and he sent me a video telling it to the best of his memory.

“The story goes, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, there’s this place, like the pilgrims, ooo America, this undiscovered land, creepy, scary, lots of woods. There’s this one place called Sleepy Hollow, where it is now in New York. It’s haunted, there’s lots of ghosts there, it’s a quiet little grove, and then when you go in, there’s lots of spirits, it’s very scary. That’s the story.
That’s what’s happening there. But then scariest one of all, is supposedly there’s this guy called the Headless Horseman, who’s the ghost of a Hessian soldier during the Revolutionary War, whose head got shot off by a cannon, so at night he rides around looking for his lost head. And that’s the setting of the story. What happens is this guy named Ichabod Crane comes and he becomes a school teacher in Sleepy Hollow. He’s a very frail, skinny, skittish man, and after he teaches, he loves talking to the housewives about all the gossip, hearing all the gossip, and they start telling all these ghost stories. He is just so scared, he’s such a scared person- they really freak him out. He’s just living in Sleepy Hollow, hearing all these scary stories, being very scared.
He goes to this ball or something, or some town celebration, and he sees this girl who is the daughter of the wealthy family in town. I think her name is Katrina Von Tassel, and he instantly falls in love with her, I think wants to marry her, maybe he asks her to marry him and she’s like no. Whatever. So he’s beefing with this other guy, I don’t remember his name, he’s like the big man around town, he’s tall, strong, he’s like the manly man. They’re both fighting over Katrina. The other guy sees that Ichabod is into her and he doesn’t like that.
Later that night when Ichabod leaves the party to go home, he’s riding his old, slow, brown horse home through the dark woods at night in Sleepy Hollow. He hears a horse behind him. He’s looking, trying to see what it is, and then he sees this dark figure in the night. And it’s a black horse, and sitting on top of it is a man all covered in black with no head. He’s like ‘oh my god it’s the Headless Horseman!’ So he starts running, the horse is chasing him, he’s riding on his horse, the other horse is chasing him, they go over the famous Sleepy Hollow bridge, and then he’s like “aaa.”
The story ends and it’s basically up to you to decide whether that was the actual Headless Horseman chasing him or that was the guy who he was fighting with who also owns a black horse, who knows that Ichabod Crane is a scaredy cat, and was basically trying to intimidate him. “

Reflection: this legend reflects many of the values of the culture that produced and tells it. It tells that underdog stories are valuable–Ichabod is the protagonist, not the manly man. It also speaks to the fear of the unknown in Early America, and the nature of the Headless Horseman speaks to a trauma from war, in this case, the Revolutionary war. This legend is commonly known as an authored story written by Washington Irving. It has been told folklorically since it was written down, and it was likely inspired by folklore before it was penned.

For further reading, here is the text of Washington Irving’s story: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41/41-h/41-h.htm

The Jersey Devil

Background: the informant is a college student, originally from Central/Southern New Jersey. 

Context: we were goofing around, editing a film, and I asked if anyone had any folklore. The informant put on a dramatic, deepened, storytelling voice. 

“In the Great Pine Barrens of New Jersey, there once lay a woman, from whom borne the spawn of Satan. She lay eight children from her womb. One of them ate the rest. He stayed in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and became the Jersey Devil.”

Me: Is that why the hockey team is called [The Devils]?

Informant: Yeah. 

Reflection: this sounds a bit like an older, East Coast Puritanical legend. It reflects a culture that punishes women just for existing. I think all people like to think their home is a bit haunted in one way or another. That way, strange happenings can always be attributed to the devil, ghost or whomever it may be that is causing these strange happenings.

Further reading: https://pinelandsalliance.org/learn-about-the-pinelands/pinelands-history-and-culture/the-jersey-devil-and-folklore/

King Śibi and the Dove

This is the story of King Śibi in India, who was a uhh devout Buddhist, so uh in theory he was a devout Buddhist. … Umm one of the Kings of the gods, Indra, wanted to sort of test his faith and see how faithful he truly was. So he and a, and a companion got together and transformed themselves, one into a dove, one into a hawk. And the dove came into King Śibi’s house, palace, and uh and said “I need you to protect me” and he said “Of course I’ll protect you, that’s my role as a King”. Right afterwards the hawk comes in and says “Well I’m ready for my breakfast, where is my dove?” and he says “I can’t let you have the dove because I’m … because he’s under my protection now as the King”. And he says “Well if I don’t have the dove to eat then I’m going to die, I’ll starve to death. So why don’t you have to protect me too, do you have to do something to protect me as well?” And he says, “Well what if I give you … uh flesh off of my arm in the same amount, same weight as the dove?” This is where the pound of flesh came in Shakespeare comes from, an old Indian folklore actually. And umm said, “Ok that’s fine”. So he puts the dove on a scale, one of these scales like they have and he cuts off some of his flesh and puts it on the scale, but the dove is still too heavy. So he cuts the flesh off his other arm and puts it on the scale, the scale still doesn’t bounce. So he starts cutting off his leg flesh, and puts it up there and still the dove is heavier. And finally he somehow manages to raise himself up onto the scale, climbs into the scale himself and just at that moment, both the dove and the … and the hawk transform back into their, their um original form as gods and said, “This was simply a test”. And they restored him to his original health and his devotion was proven.

Background: The informant was previously a monk turned professor of buddhism. They learned this story in their studies of Indian buddhism and through researching and writing papers on the topic. They mainly know about Korean Zen buddhism having spent time as a monk in Korea, however they know about Indian buddhism as well. They picked up this text in their studies of Indian buddhism.

Interpretation: This text lays out and reinforces the fundamental belief in Buddhism that one should give up attachments to their worldly possessions. In this case the Buddhist in question ends up being willing to sacrifice his life in order to save the life of an animal. This act also shows equality in all things, with the human being willing to sacrifice his life for the life of the dove. It also shows this by having the dove weigh the same as the human on the set of scales. Similar motifs can be found in tales such as the tale of the Buddhist monk that throws himself off a cliff in order to feed a starving family of tigers. Another version of the text where a monk feeds himself to tigers is found here. (Wu, Ming-Kuo  (2018, May 7). Jataka tale: Prince Mahasattva. Dunhuang Foundation. http://dunhuangfoundation.us/blog/2018/3/7/jataka-tale-prince-mahasattva).

Paștile Blajinilor (The Easter of the Gentle People)

This first story is about what we would call here (Romania) Easter of the Gentle People. Gentle as in nice, kind, you know? And one week after Orthodox Easter, uh during the first Sunday, people come out, out of their homes, and they go in the fields and spread uhhhh eggs and they try to make as much noise as possible because apparently they say that there is such a people, the gentle people, that lives in an unseen area. And these people are incapable to harm anyone. So all the, the whole country, this is a umm I don’t know, this is present everywhere in the country, not only in one specific area. So the only problem that they have is that they cannot calculate the date of Easter. So that is why people must make a lot of noise to signify that this is finally Easter day. In Romania it is called Paștile Blajinilor. It means gentle, kind, nice, sweet. 

Background: This informant has lived in Romania their whole life and is very interested in the folk traditions of various countries. They found this piece of folklore from other people in Romania.

Interpretation: This tale shows the blending of religious tradition with folk tradition. The tradition of Easter Sunday is blended with folk belief about fairies in order to create this holiday. The reason that the gentle people in the story cannot calculate the date of Easter could be connected to how in many tales about fairies, time moves differently in the land of the fairies than on earth. This may be the result of christianization of local folk belief in fairies in order to show that even they believe in Easter and affirm Christianity.

The Ielele

The second story is about some uhh formidable female creatures that are called the Shees. It is kind of a plural but in Romanian, instead of saying she and the plural is they, you make a strange plural in Romanian too. In Romanian it’s Ielele. And these are fantastic female creatures that on the night of June 24th, which is Summer Solstice, come out of nowhere, out of thin air and dance. And dance is extremely beautiful, and uh all people are forbidden, they are not allowed to see this dance. Of course, following to this interdiction, everybody wants to see this dance. So people go out into the woods, and crazy people try to see the dance of the Iele, but if they see, they go crazy. And these ieles are very nice creatures except for this sequence, the dance sequence. But if you bother them and don’t respect them and don’t show them admiration for their fantastic beauty, although you are not supposed to see them dance. They will come and bring water from the fount. And the first person that drinks water from the fountain after the Iele will drop dead. So people take very great care on the night of June 24th umm, somehow ambivalently to see the ieles, but not see them dance and not make them upset, but thinking of them in very nice terms. And again they have another name, also very nice in Romanian. They are called either the Iele or sânziene which means, it’s the name of a flower, a yellow flower called in English Sweet Woodruff. 

Background: This informant has lived in Romania their whole life and is very interested in the folk traditions of various countries. They found this piece of folklore from other people in Romania.

Interpretation: The connection between these spirits and the Summer Solstice shows a way of marking the passing of time. The Summer Solstice could have been chosen as the time for this event to mark the change of seasons. The tale also ascribes power to these women who can use magic to deal with any men that bother them. This phenomena could be due to the incredibly hot and muggy nature of the Romanian summers. People could have retreated to the forest for shade, and potentially hallucinated or tried to make sense of something that happened. Sunstroke may also be a reason for the association with death and madness if you witness the Ielele. The informant and I both believe that this story is a way of making sense of nature in the blistering heat of mid-summer. More info on the Ielele can be found at (Mafa, A. (2021, November 4). Ielele, the magic beings of the Romanian folklore. ImperialTransilvania. https://www.imperialtransilvania.com/2021/11/05/read-more/argomenti/events-1/articolo/ielele-the-magic-beings-of-the-romanian-folklore.html)