Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Haunted 4th Floor

Age: 21
Language: English

“I remember being told this story by my 9th-grade Spanish teacher. The story goes that sometime in the 80s or 90s there was a janitor who got super obsessed with one of the cheerleaders. He ended up stalking her and talking to her any time he saw her. After school one day, when she was alone, he asked her for help with something on the 4th floor. He ended up killing her, scalping her, then leaving her body on the 4th floor. Legend says that now it’s haunted because they left her body up there, which is why it was also boarded up and no one is allowed to go up there”. 

[Why would you hear this type of story from your Spanish teacher? Do you believe it?]

“It wasn’t just me she told it to, but the whole class during a kind of like Halloween storytime thing that she did every year. The scalping thing was something I heard from someone else. I’m not sure if it actually happened, but I could believe that someone could have died in our school at some point.” 

Analysis: 

Due to the inclusion of the years 80s/90s, we know that this particular story must have emerged from around that time or after (terminus ante quem), and that it could possibly have originated from this particular Spanish teacher. The legend is part of a larger, yearly ritual where she creates a more laid-back environment for her students during Halloween by telling stories. I think this story has succeeded in its purpose to have fun and bring students together due to the variation and addition of students creating their own theories and parts of the story (like the addition of the girl possibly being scalped). Besides this, in a more serious sense, it serves as a warning to incoming female students entering high school about the dangers that exist in the world.
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Nahuales/Nagual: “Shapeshifter”

Language: Spanish

“When I was younger, I remember hearing this story from older adults when I was an elementary student. Nahuales, who are people who have made a deal with the devil in order to become a shapeshifter. They shapeshift into animals or anything of their choosing in order to lure kids and cause harm. The first time I heard it was from a friend who said she heard of someone’s family who returned home to find a turkey standing in the middle of the room. The mother, sensing that something was off, smacked the turkey with a broom to try to get it out of the house, but to no avail, the turkey stayed. The daughter tried to pull the mom away from the turkey, and finally, when she did, the turkey left the house and shape-shifted back into its human form.”

Analysis:

Nauguals seem to serve 2 purposes: to warn children of dangers, and to warn them of the devil. This informant remarks that she heard this originally from older adults, but most commonly told stories between her friends. I think that this goes to show how folklore can range within a single community, dependent on your social groups: as a child, she was able to bond with her friends by telling these stories about this mutual creature they knew and feared, but the adults of her community more so used it as a way to try and keep their children safe.

La Lechuza

Language: Spanish

“La Lechuza is an old woman who people seek out to make deals with. The tale is, if you want to cause harm to someone, you can send the witch to carry out the action. You bring a photograph of your target and a personal item, like a piece of hair or a toothbrush, and the witch will transform into an owl and spy on your target. The owl will then follow the person and curse them. If anyone has unexpected illness or misfortune like losing all their money or job, that is said to be her work as well. If someone dies with no apparent cause or unexplainable illness, that is her work as well. I remember hearing it from some older kids in my neighborhood when I was younger.”

Analysis:

While I was listening to my informant, I got the idea that this type of legend would be used to explain a train of misfortune that someone could face, but when I asked my informant how they viewed this legend, they responded that they recalled that it was mostly used as a cautionary tale for when dispersing property among families or not to cross others. I thought that this was really interesting, as La Lechuza represents both misfortune that’s unexplainable and misfortune that you could receive as “karma”. Unlike other childhood legends I’ve heard, this one seems to follow you into adulthood, rather than just being a children’s warning.

Ratoncito Pérez

Language: Spanish

“I don’t remember the story super well, but it’s kind of like a version of the tooth fairy. The story goes that there once was a mouse that wanted to be a dentist, but couldn’t find any teeth to use. He then saw that children’s teeth would fall out, so he would go to collect them during the night. He felt bad for just stealing the teeth, so he would leave money or candy behind as sort of like a “thank you” for being able to keep the teeth. After that, children would leave their teeth underneath their pillows for the mouse”

Analysis:

I think it’s so cool that there are so many versions of “leaving your teeth for a creature to collect for money” around the world. When I think back on it, I think that losing teeth as a child can be an incredibly traumatic thing, so involving a reward and a mythical creature of some kind definitely makes it a lot easier for younger children to understand. I also think the inclusion of him being a dentist is beneficial, as since children (and even many adults!) fear the dentist so much, having kids feel like they’re “helping them out” may help them overcome some of these fears.

Don’t cross your eyes!

Nationality: American

Age: 22

Occupation: Student 

Residence: Orange County, CA, USA

Date: 04/05/2025 

Language: English

Description: 

When I was a kid and still now, because now my mom just finds it funny. But when I was a kid, it was like a pretty serious topic. She used to say that if I cross my eyes and someone slaps you on the back, then your eyes would stay crossed that way. And so sometimes, like when I was joking about it as a kid about across my eyes she’d threate to like, come back up and like, uh, hit my back. Not in like an abusive way, but in, like, a funny way. She would tell me how she had this one friend. This boy. And he was like making fun of that or something, and was like walking around crossing his eyes being, like, see, see, like, you can’t get me because it’s not real. And then, he was crossing his eyes, and someone came up and hit him on the back, and he stayed cross-eyed, and she would say he stayed cross-eyed forever, and he could never go to school, he could never do his work, because he couldn’t see straight. And glass never fixed it, and you can’t get surgery to fix it. And it was like something she used to tell me a lot. So, now sometimes we have a bit where I cross my eyes and she’ll come back and then hit me on the back and then I get all nervous about it still. Like, I still get nervous that my eyes are gonna stay that way.

Subject’s Opinion 

Subject: I don’t know who told her that story. It had to have been like, a friend of a friend. It was like, probably one of those things you know where you hear down the grapevine. 

Analysis 

This cautionary tale, as the subject points out, becomes legend as it’s spread through parents to inform each other’s children about the “dangers” of crossing your eyes. In this case, the form of ostention the subject’s mother participates in to this day led me to consider the lingering effects of these cautionary legends. Even though the subject, now an adult, no longer believes in the legend, she still has some anxiety when the ritualistic slap is performed. This indicates that since the subject once believed in the legend, it’s difficult to dispel the belief completely, which in turn reminds me of ritualistic practices that reverse or undo these legendary effects.