Informant: My dad used to say this to my sister and I when we where younger and asked for a pet, specifically a cat
Original Script: ” we can’t have a cat, they lick the butter”
Thoughts: When I was a little girl and asked my parents for pets specifically, a cat my dad would say they licked the butter, when i got older I asked him why they licked the butter? He just started laughing and said he made it up, that he just saw it on a t.v show.
Informant: An elderly man told my mom when she was young
Original Script: “because you are left-handed you owed the devil as days work”
Background: This is a old belief that if someone is left handed they are on the devil’s side because of the phrase ‘the right hand of God’. The right hand was perceived as good and holy, while the left hand is perceived as evil and hateful.
Informant: My mom was told by her grandmother
Original Script: ” Pregnant women, should never talk about someone else’s kids because your kid will look just like them”
Background: The proverb is saying to never call someone’s child ugly because your child will look just like the child you talked about.
Thoughts: This old saying is just to warn women not to have a nasty attitude.
Informant: My friend who is Russian
Original Script: ” A Russian scary witch that lives in a house in the woods with chicken feet on it who tortured kids and my mom would tell if I misbehaved she would send me to her”
Background: This is is an old Russian folktale that parents told their kids scare them into behaving
Annotate: For another version of Babayaga see, Forrester, Sileban. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi , 2013. Print.
Informant: A family friend that lived in Timpson, Texas when she was younger and her grandmother would do this when combing girls hair in the 50’s.
Original Script: “When you would brush you hair, you never throw your hair outside, you had to burn it in the fire or in the iron heater because if someone didn’t like you they could get your hair and hoodoo ( the southern version the word voodoo) you which is put a spell on you”