Saint Nicholas

P.L is one of my friends in high school. He’s half German so he knows many cultures and folklore from there. He hasn’t been to German for that long, but his parents made it so he would be culturally involved.  He’s also lived in the States and Taiwan so he’s multi-culturally diverse.

P.L has given me a legend as folklore to use. This legend is about a figure known as Saint Nicholas. This would often be believed in Germany. During the night of December 5th, people would have to clean their boots and put them in front of the door, as P.L would do when he was young. Saint Nicholas would then visit during the nighttime after you fell asleep. If you are a good kid, Saint Nicholas would leave chocolate or toys in the boots. If you were a bad kid, Knecht Ruprecht, who is Saint Nicholas companion or servant, would carry a big sack to take the bad children away. Or he’ll leave wooden sticks for the parents to spank the children.

P.L shared me with this experience because of how he personally participate in this, and even got candy from it. His parents were the one who told him about it. He likes this legend, because when he believed in it, he would get candy, and he would also know to be a good boy in order to secure the candies.

The figures are prominent in this legend are Saint Nicholas and Knecht Ruprecht. These two figures act as the good and the evil, where Saint Nicholas is the good and Knecth Ruprecht is the bad. Saint Nicholas also acts as Santa Clause in the States, where he would give presents to only the well-behaving kids.

These two figures may have existed before, but they’re most likely not visiting the houses of every children and rewarding the good ones, while rewarding the bad ones. Like Santa Clause, I think Saint Nicholas is a good way to force the children to behave, so they would think that they would get presents.

Advent Calendar

P.L is one of my friends in high school. He’s half German so he knows many cultures and folklore from there. He hasn’t been to German for that long, but his parents made it so he would be culturally involved.  He’s also lived in the States and Taiwan so he’s multi-culturally diverse.

P.L told me about a tradition that people from Germany would use as folklore. Every December in Germany, the people would us an Advent Calendar instead of a regular one. These calendars would have treats in them, and as each day passes during December, you would be able to get one candy each day, but only until Christmas.

This tradition was done by every year, and P.L’s mom was the one who started it. P.L was very fond of this tradition because of the candies he received during Christmas. As a kid, he believed that Christmas or December was a time to be happy, and the candy encouraged this thought of it.

This tradition is heavily revolved around a Calendar. This Calendar can bring happiness during Christmas time and by adding only one thing. Candy, but candy each day. In a sense, this is a like reward system; everyone would “have” to be happy because they are getting treats every day in December until Christmas.

Personally, I never that there were a calendar just for a specific month. This is good thing in a sense that it reminds the people the significance of December and Christmas. The treats will definitely bring happiness to the family, and the celebration of Christmas should be a happy time, and with that I would think that this I also a folk celebration, only a different way to celebrate Christmas.

Bremer Stadtmusikanten

P.L is one of my friends in high school. He’s half German so he knows many cultures and folklore from there. He hasn’t been to German for that long, but his parents made it so he would be culturally involved.  He’s also lived in the States and Taiwan so he’s multi-culturally diverse.

A folklore he shared with me is a children’s fairy tale. The fairy tale is called Bremer Stadtmusikanten. Bremer Stadtmusikanten is originated from Germany. This children fairy tale revolves around four animals that were badly treated by its owner. The four animals are a dog, a cat, a donkey and a rooster. They decided to run away from their owners and decided to become musicians in Bremen since it was their dream to become one. While they were traveling to Bremen, they found a cottage and saw thieves inside. To scare the thieves away, the animals stood on top of each other to scare away the thieves. The rooster stood on top of the donkey which stood on top of the cat which stood on top of the dog. The pose the animals made becomes famous in Germany as many children imitate that pose.

P.L first heard of this story from his mother. This fairytale interested P.L because he like the story, and it was entertaining that the main characters of the fairytales were animals.  He also thought that the story inspired him to follow your dream and to don’t stay in an abusive relationship, because of how badly the animals were treated by their owners.

In this fairytale, there were animals as the main characters to show more of an entertainment. It also has two sets of bad people, the owners and the thieves. The abusive owners were included to show that the primary struggles of the main characters and that they can overcome it. The thieves were included because of oh a block that prevented the animals from reaching the goals, but again, it allowed them to overcome the obstacles put before them.

I think this is a good, standard fairy tale as it has many of the ingredients of a fairytale. Obviously, this fairytale isn’t real, there weren’t ever talking animals would could play music. But this did have a moral behind it, in which it could be interpreted in many ways. I also think, along with P.L, that one of the morals is to never give up on your dream. This also has an entertainment valued as the posed that the animals made to scare away the thieves were played and imitated a lot by the children in Germany who heard the story.

For another version of this children’s fairytale, see The Bremen Town Musicians. Dir. Inessa Kovalevskaya. 1969.

Wisconsin Trees

Stephen S. is my friend in high school, and he is from Wisconsin. He was born and raised there, but moved to Taiwan for high school. He’s now back in Wisconsin for college.

Stephen told me a folklore that would pertained to a legend in Wisconsin. Stephen would hang out with his friend from a German class he took when he was a kid. One time when they were hiking up though a forest, his friend told him that if you stay in the forest for more than an hour, the trees will come alive and the tree spirits will start chasing or stalking you. And if you look back, you wouldn’t be able to see the trees chasing you. Out of curiosity, Stephen did look back once but didn’t see anything. He would always imagine that the spirt tree figures would be dark shadows.

Stephen’s friend from German class was the first one who told him about this legend, and Stephen assumed that his friend learned about this from his other friends, or from whoever lived near the forest. Stephen shared this particular folklore because of his remembrance of his friend who told him something scary about the forest. Growing up, Stephen thought that his friend was a “brat” for telling about this when they were young.

This legend revolves around the trees of the forest and their spirits. It also has a way to unlock the presence of the tree spirits. It’s also been told that no matter, you won’t know if it’s real, since if you look back the tree spirits will stop chasing you. This would make the truth value of this legend not really known. It could be true, but no one has really seen the tree spirits chasing them.

This legend could be true for all I know, but like I stated before, the way it’s told make it so the legend could always be possibly true. No one can ever know. I personally don’t believe it, but it may be true, I would never know. There could possibly be tree spirits who chases after people who stay in the forest for more than an hour, but I doubt it.

Wisconsin Chainsaw Man

Stephen S. is my friend in high school, and he is from Wisconsin. He was born and raised there, but moved to Taiwan for high school. He’s now back in Wisconsin for college.

One of the folklore that Stephen has given is a legend from when he was in elementary school in Wisconsin. This event would take place during Halloween and it would occur yearly. Their school would hold a small trick or treat trip with all the students. The groups of students would walk down a forest trick or treating along the houses that they walk by, and eventually, they would end up near a river. By the river, there would always be a chainsaw man with a mask on. (From this description, and seems like it would be “Jason,” a horror icon.) The chainsaw man would then turn on his chainsaw and run at the kids, but never were the kids injured by the chainsaw man. Eventually, after meeting with the chainsaw man, the kids would always be scared to go near the river. Even though the kids would only encounter him during Halloween, they would all believe that he would always be there. There would be a fence dividing the school and where they would see the chainsaw man, and whenever they accidently lost a ball beyond the fence, they would be too scared to fetch it back.

The chainsaw man would only be known by the elementary students and they would experience firsthand through the trip as did Stephen. He showed me this particular folklore because of how it reminded him of his childhood. This incident was also a reason why he doesn’t particularly like “scary stuff.”

The main figure of this incident is the chainsaw man. Stephen would only remember the chainsaw man and not really enjoying Halloween. This figure would also be only known as the students of the elementary school, and the teachers of the school I would assume.

I would think this as both a tradition and a legend. This was done yearly, so it was known to the school what was coming during Halloween. As a legend, the chainsaw man could be real or not. Growing up, Stephen realized that it was probably just a teacher dressing up as the chainsaw man. But the chainsaw man is only known by that one elementary school Stephen was in. It’s like a community legend for the school to bring in something in common for the students. They can all say that they encountered the chainsaw man.