Author Archives: eliseeva

Toshidensetsu:

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 23
Residence: Inglewood, CA
Performance Date: April 2nd, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

Context:

The informant is a 23 year old Japanese male. He was born in Nagoya, Japan where he spent the first half of his life. When he was 13, he came to the United States to attend high school and has been living in California ever since. The informant currently resides in Inglewood, CA and works in animation.

Toshi means city and densetsu means legends. These are very specific to cities. Basically there are scary stories that people pass on. There are a few famous ones. There is Toire no Hanako which is Hanako of the bathroom. This is a ghost that lives in the bathroom. There was a popular myth or something where it’s either from the left or the right, the third bathroom stall over is where she lives. These are just stories to obviously scare people a bit when they go to the bathroom. There has been a lot of interesting Japanese folklore that is attached to bathrooms. I believe Hanako is a ghost, and I could be wrong, but she asked for either red paper or blue paper, and if you answer red paper, your body is drained from all it’s blood and if you ask for blue paper, you are suffocated and your body turns blue. 

Analysis:This is an example of urban folklore. It has a more recognizable terminus post quem, meaning that this piece of folklore could only have originated after public bathroom stalls became widespread in Japan, so likely no more than one or two centuries ago. It is an interesting location to place such a piece of folklore in, possibly because when we are using a bathroom, we are quite vulnerable, and expect it to be a place of privacy – even if it is a public toilet, the stalls give the illusion of privacy. It is therefore that much more terrifying when we fear that a ghost may appear while we are using the restroom intending to cause us great harm.

Domovoi and Barabashka

Nationality: Russian
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English

Context:

The informant is my father. He is a 55-year old white male and spent the first 26 years of his life in the Soviet Union (Moscow). He, like many others in the USSR was raised as an atheist, and his whole family (including himself) has a background in the sciences; therefore he is a very logical, analytical individual. 

The following conversation took place as a part of a larger conversation about Russian folklore during a road trip from Southern Utah to Las Vegas.

Transcribed and translated from an interview held in Russian

“The idea of home-dwelling ghosts is not very popular in Russian. But in older fairy tales, like from the pagan times there is the character of Domovoi. It’s this small creature, that you can’t really see – or can’t see at all – but it lives in the house and does all kinds of unexpected things”

Unexpected how?

“Honestly, I cannot really remember…he’s definitely more of a mischievous character, wreaking all kinds of havoc.”

“In later Soviet times, a more common character was Barabashka. Barabashka was like a Domovoi, but he doesn’t really do anything that’s bad or good, you can just hear him sometimes. And if you hear a sound coming from somewhere at home, they say that it’s the Barabashka making that noise”

Is it Barabashka because it sounds like the word baraban (drums)?

“Probably, yeah. But you see, because in the Soviet Union, people didn’t really own houses, unless it was in the country-side somewhere, the concepts of “ghosts haunting a castle” or something weren’t really a thing.”

Analysis:

Due to the political ideologies of the Soviet Union, it was uncommon to openly believe in religious or mythical stories or superstitions. This did not completely stop people from spreading folklore, but what it did do was make the resort to folklore from a pre-Soviet, even pre-Christian Russia, making pagan folk figures some of the most popular in Russian folklore in the late 20th century.

Leshiy, Rusalka and Kikimora

Context:

The informant is my father. He is a 55-year old white male and spent the first 26 years of his life in the Soviet Union (Moscow). He, like many others in the USSR, was raised as an atheist, and his whole family (including himself) has a background in the sciences; therefore he is a very logical, analytical individual. 

The following conversation took place as a part of a larger conversation about Russian folklore during a road trip from Southern Utah to Las Vegas.

Transcribed and translated from an interview held in Russian

“In ancient folklore, dating back to the pre-Christian, pagan times, there were a lot of beliefs about forest creatures. For example, Leshiy and Rusalka. Rusalka is essentially just a mermaid. Leshiy is this type of creature that lives in the forest. He was often depicted in paintings resembling a dry tree. So like this essense of the forest, who acts as its caretaker/ guardian who’s invisible.There is also this creature called Kikimora. I think she lived in swamps. Like a swamp mermaid, if I am not mistaken. Leshiy and Kikimora are two very popular creatures in pagan folklore. These creatures were located in the countryside, rather than cities, which is why fairy tales about them usually stemmed from small villages”.

Analysis:

A lot of Russian folklore got lost, hidden, or pushed to the outskirts during the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, folklore from pre-Soviet times, especially surrounding less populated areas like forests, swamps, lakes and other natural areas remained prominent particularly in smaller villages. It was much harder for the government to forcibly ban or eliminate folklore in such areas, seeing as the folklore had been around for so long and there was no way to really control it, especially in more rural areas.

Five Petal Lilac

Context:

The informant is my father. He is a 55-year old white male and spent the first 26 years of his life in the Soviet Union (Moscow). He, like many others in the USSR was raised as an atheist, and his whole family (including himself) has a background in the sciences; therefore he is a very logical, analytical individual. 

The following conversation took place as a part of a larger conversation about Russian folklore during a road trip from Southern Utah to Las Vegas.

Transcribed and translated from an interview held in Russian

“A silly superstition that was common among students – though it was mostly my family, my mother, that did it often, kind of as a joke but kind of not – was that you take lilac – a flower with four petals and on rare occasion you find one with five petals- and it was considered that if you find a lilac with five petals right before an exam then you’ll perform well.”

Analysis:

This was the only piece of folklore my Dad could think of when asked about folklore surrounding school or university superstitions or legends. While I’m sure there was more that he couldn’t remember, he pointed out that because he was surrounded by young, non-superstitious people studying subjects in the STEM field, it may also just be the case that there was less folklore to spread because of the logical, evidence-based nature of the scientific field.

Ilya Muromets

Content:

The informant is a Russian-American-Bulgarian woman who spent the first half of her life in Russia. She currently resides in Boston, MA and the interview took place over zoom in which I interviewed her about the Russian folklore that she grew up with and that she feels represents the Russian people and culture.

Transcribed and translated from an interview held in Russian

“One story is that of Ilya Muromets. He was a bogatyr (a character in older folklore equivalent to medieval knights) who spent the first 33 years of his life just sleeping on this stone oven not doing anything. Then came a moment where he had to help protect the country from invaders and it turned out that he was in fact this strong, brave, capable warrior. This story shows a trope in Russian folklore that the Russian people may not be really useful in everyday, mundane tasks but are very effective in extreme circumstances.”

She then proceeded to go into more detail of the typical bogatyr character in folklore

Bogatyr is a common character in Russian folklore. Like I said, they are often compared to medieval knights, but they do differ in some important ways. First off, the knights always served their king, but a bogatyr is more of an independent folk hero. Usually a very strong one (physically).  It is also important to note: knights were real, bogatyr wasn’t. Just a piece of Russian folklore.

Analysis:

The version of the character of Ilya Muromets can be found in folklore throughout the world. Other notable oicotypes are Lancelot, Heracles, and many more.

This does reflect an actual tendency of the Russian people. Historically, Russians have been very successful when it came to protecting themselves in wars where their land was being attacked. The two most famous examples being when Napoleon and Hitler tried to attack Russia and failed.