Context: “When I was a kid, there was a scary old lady in my neighborhood. [Amongst the kids] the story was that she was a witch. Whenever we used to go out [on our] bikes, we would never ride by her house. A couple months later, there was a kid we knew that just stopped coming to school. We were told he moved but [the local kids and I] always thought that he [had] biked by the old lady’s house and was kidnapped by the witch.”

Analysis: This legend exemplifies the idea of “children’s folklore.” As kids, we all have a less complete understanding of the world than most adults. As such, fantastical beliefs can easily disseminate to explain  certain things. In this case, to explain how an old lady could be scary and grumpy, the informant and his friends theorized and believed that she was a witch. To a child, someone randomly acting angrily or maliciously towards them is just as inexplicable as mystical lights coming from over a hill. While, as adults, we may look at this lady and think that she’s a widow or that she simply was having a bad day, the kids took this inexplicable demeanor and concluded that she had to be a witch. And as kids turned up with more and more stories of her meanness, they were transformed into memorates of the scary witch. This idea of memorates extends further into the story when the kid “disappeared.” In all likelihood, he did just move away without telling anyone; maybe there were certain circumstances in his life that he just didn’t share with others. However, this sudden disappearance was inexplicable in the minds of children. Thus, they turned to the familiar narrative of the evil witch to explain his disappearance, forming yet another memorate. Especially in the eyes of children who lack a robust understanding of the world, these folk beliefs and memorates allow them to make some sense of the world, regardless of how flawed that understanding ends up being.