Author Archives: Charlie Blecker

The myth of the city of Safed

Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“This is a Jewish myth that has to do with the city of Safed which is a famous city and the birthplace of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is the mystical side of Judaism and the entire city of Safed is painted teal, every single thing. The City of Safed is said to be the most mystical place because when Safed was created was painted blue to trick the demons into thinking the ground was the sky and the sky was the ground and so the demons wouldn’t know where to go and the demons would not be able to disrupt the temples in Safed.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “A lot of jewish tradition has to do with clothing and with color. One tradition related to colors is Jews, we usually wear a light blue just like ceramic bead and what this comes from is from the city of Safed. The city of Safed in Israel is said to be the most spiritual place in Israel because it’s where the Kabbalah comes from and actually Kabbalahists where this as well.”

Final Thoughts: This piece brings up one of the most important parts of Jewish folklore, the Kabbalah. The mystical side of Judaism is often under represented but much of Jewish folklore comes from this book. The myth of the city of Safed is also an example of location based folklore where in the story despite being a myth can be traced back to and actual physical location in the real world which is rare because usually stories like this take place before or outside of the real world.

annotation: To read more about the mythology connected to the city of Safed read Safed: The Mystical City by Dovid Rossoff.

The myth of The Pied Piper

Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“This is the story of the pied piper. The Piper is a man who one day just shows up in a kingdom and the king has a rat problem. The king is trying to figure out how to get all the rats to go away and the pied piper says, “Well if I play my flute and get all the rats to go away if you let me stay in your kingdom.” The king agrees but he has now idea how the piper is going to do that. Well, the piper plays his flute and every time he plays his flute the rats follow him. So what the piper does is he plays his flute  and gets the rats to all simultaneously jump off a cliff. What happens then is that the king doesn’t keep his end of the bargain and so the pied piper was supposed to get money and he was supposed to be able stay in the kingdom and when he learns he cant do that he plays a song on his flute and freezes the whole kingdom but the children and stole the children and now no one knows where they went. and now we have the story of the lender man who is this big man showering a tuxedo who is said to be seven Feet tall and he takes children.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “This was a story I learned when I was little because my mom owned a picture book of midivil short stories and in one of them was the story of the pied piper and I thought he was really creepy and then later when I started hearing about the whole modern internet folklore Slender man it reminded me of the original story.”

Final thoughts: Again this story features a monster taking away children however this story focuses a great deal on the fears of a parent. Rather then focusing on scaring a child into saying put this story seems to be accessing the fear that parents have that their children could be taken away from them at any moment without warning. This fear is meant to teach people that they need to keep an eye on their kids and keep them safe. As such this folklore is designed for a older audience then some of the other monster stealing children tales.

Annotation: For another version of this legend read The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, London & New York, Frederick Warne and Co., 1910.

Bulgarian Torbalan tale

Nationality: Bulgarian
Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“There is a creature, a midivil creature in Bulgaria thats called Torbalan. The legend is that he has a huge bag and he puts children in there. He steals children and puts them in there and then he dismembers them and makes bread out of them.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “My grandmother always if I didn’t do something my grandmother wanted me to do she would always say, “I’ll give you to Torbalan if you don’t do this.” So I never said anything against my grandmother. I did everything she said as you can imagine. I am not aware if that story exists in other parts of the country but it definitely did in my village.”

Final Thoughts: This is one of several pieces of folklore I have collected that deals with using fictional monsters to discipline children. These stories seem to exist to teach children to be afraid of the outside world. These stories let children know that the outside world is a dangerous place that can and will hurt them if the children travel into it unprepared. The stories also hold an unspoken social contract between the child and the parent telling the story. The parent will protect the child from the monster as long as the child does what the parent says. this is one of the earliest social contracts a growing person will make and is an important part of a child’s development.

Bulgarian folk Kookari ritual

Nationality: Bulgarian
Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“One tradition that we have in Bulgaria, and in my village we do it around Easter but in other places that do it for New Years. It’s a very interesting kind of tradition. People dress up in goat skin and they put those huge bells on them and you like have to make the noise with the bells  and they go all over the village and it is considered to chase the evil spirits and cleans the village and get you ready for good things. The people dressed in the goat skin they are called Kookari and it is considered a huge honor to have them come by your house and kind of cleanse your house.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “I grew up with that tradition. In the village I was raised in it happens for Easter every year. Mostly I remember that as a child I was extremely scared of them because they really look scary. They have like scary masks and I understand now that the idea is to scare bad evil kind of spirits but as a child I was mortified and I refused to leave the house on that day.”

Final thoughts: There are a lot of rituals over the world that have to do with scaring away spirits.  The technique of dressing up and attempting to be as scary as possible is something that people like doing quite a lot even here in America we have Halloween. Another common trope that is present in this tradition is the idea of using noise to help scare the spirits.

The Ekeko

Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: San Francisco

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“This is actually a piece of Peruvian folklore. It’s more of a good luck folklore story item. It’s called the Ekeko and it’s actually from the Sierra Mountains which is the mountainous area of Peru. They are little men, figurines of men dressed up in your typical Peruvian clothing with you know the little hats and moe of the mountainous clothing The Ekeko are dressed differently depending on what areas of Peru they are from. Most of them are fro the And is which his why they are wearing their little hats made of alpaca wool. They are all carrying a variety of different items. They are all carrying fake items but the goal is they are carrying riches and it is for abundance. You keep them at home and what happens is every Friday you put a cigarette… Thats why its mouth is semi open. you put a cigarette in there every Friday and then if the cigarette goes all the way, if it smokes on its own all the way then it means that the Ekeko is going to bring you all the stuff thats in there and it’s going to be abundant but if the cigarette doesn’t, if the cigarette only burns halfway and then stops then there might be some problems. The thing is there is a bad connotation not the Ekeko. If you have a teenage daughter the Ekeko could fall in love with the teenage daughter and scare away anyone who may fall in love with her. If that were to happen then the Ekeko is no longer bringing happiness into your home so you have to get rid of the Ekeko. So if you’re a young woman and your boyfriends are running away its because the Ekeko might be scaring him.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “So the reason why it was told or why I was told it is that it’s just…a way to bring…that men can bring this into the home and bring goodness into the home and its just something thats really interesting is what women learn from it. When I got married for instance my aunt gave me an Ekeko and so now my family has our own Eekeko at home but we down do the cigarette part anymore because we forget and we down have cigarettes at home. So we got it as a gift so out home will be filled with abundance and riches and just kind of happiness. And that is a piece of folklore which I really like having because it is part of my families culture.”

Final thoughts: This sort of cultural good luck charm is something very common in many cultures. The idea is strongly connected with magical thinking  and the belief in concepts like luck. An Ekeko can also just serve as a cultural item which can help family bond over a shared ritual.