Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

El Cucuy

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California

Age: 18
Date of Performance: 3/30/2025
Language: English
Nationality: American
Occupation: University Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: Los Angeles, California

Legend Text:
“Today, I’m going to tell you about El Cucuy—also known as the Boogeyman. It’s a Spanish legend about a tall, shadowy figure who scares misbehaving children. In Spanish culture, they say El Cucuy watches you from outside your window, or even hides in your room under the bed. If you weren’t behaving, you had to run and hide in your room or he’d get you.”

Context:
The informant heard this story from older family members during gatherings, particularly when the kids were restless and waiting for food. It served both as a form of entertainment and discipline, using fear to encourage good behavior.

Analysis:
El Cucuy is a classic example of child-disciplining legends across cultures, akin to the American “Boogeyman.” In Latino households, it is commonly used to instill fear-based obedience. The figure of El Cucuy embodies abstract fear and serves as a warning against moral or behavioral failure. This version shares traits with global “dark watcher” figures like Slenderman, showing how traditional folklore adapts to modern imagery. The use of “under the bed” or “outside the window” roots the fear in a child’s intimate spaces.

Kate the Burger Murderer

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Hayward, California

Age: 18
Date of Performance: 3/25/2025
Language: English
Nationality: American
Occupation: University Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: Hayward, California

Legend Text:
“Once upon a time, there was a Bay Area woman named Kate. She was secretly a serial killer, though no one knew. Much like Jeffrey Dahmer, she lured victims into her home and murdered them. Afterward, she allegedly ran a burger shop—this is what we heard as kids—where she sold burgers made of 70% human meat and 30% beef. She managed to make a living this way for 34 years until she was finally caught in her mid-50s. According to the legend, she owned the now-abandoned burger joint on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.”

Context:
The informant first heard this story as a child on the playground during elementary school recess. It was shared between classmates as a spooky urban legend tied to a local location, enhancing the eeriness and making it more believable for children. The real abandoned burger shop added a tangible anchor to the tale.

Analysis:
This legend appears to be a locally adapted variation of cannibalistic folklore, reminiscent of real-life serial killers like Joe Metheny, who allegedly served human flesh in food. The informant suggests that a classmate may have blended true crime details with imagination to create a personalized Bay Area legend. The location-based element (Telegraph Avenue) helps localize the horror and make it culturally relevant for young listeners. This legend functions as both cautionary tale and urban myth, warning of hidden danger beneath everyday appearances.

The Quran-Reading Jinn

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student

Informant Information:

Age: 18
Date of Performance: 4/01/2025
Language: English
Nationality: American
Occupation: University Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: Los Angeles, California

Legend Text:
“Aight so lemme tell you this story I heard from a Sheikh, right? He was talkin’ about this boy who went to some Islamic boarding school. Real quiet dude—didn’t really vibe with nobody. Like, he’d just be sittin’ by himself all the time, barely said a word to anybody. Never played, never joked, nothin’. Just… there.

But here’s where it gets weird. At night, the other boys start hearin’ this scratchin’—like real scratchin’, on the walls, the floor, soundin’ like somethin’ tryna claw its way through or somethin’. And it wasn’t no small sound either—loud enough to wake ‘em up. So they all freak out, runnin’ to the teachers all panicked like, “Yo! There’s somethin’ in the room!” But every time the teachers came, it was just silence. Nothin’ there. No marks, no animals, nothin’.

Now guess who never woke up? That boy. Slept through all of it like a baby. No tossing, no turning—just peaceful as ever, like he ain’t hear nothin’. And that’s when folks started whisperin’—sayin’ maybe he was possessed or some jinn was up in him. But like, they couldn’t prove nothin’, so it was just rumors.

Then one night, one of the teachers starts recitin’ Quran out loud, tryna bless the room or calm folks down or whatever. And boom—the quiet kid just sits up outta nowhere and starts recitin’ too. But the crazy part? He was killin’ it. Like, word-for-word, smooth, no stumbles. Dude was recitin’ like he’d been doin’ it his whole life, maybe even better than the teacher. Everybody just froze. Like, how you doin’ that with no practice, barely even talkin’ during the day?

So now everybody really trippin’. Cuz now they don’t know—is he just mad gifted? Like, maybe God really blessed him with that kind of talent? Or is it somethin’ else? Cuz the way he spoke, man… it ain’t sound regular. It ain’t sound human. Gave folks goosebumps. After that, nobody really knew what to think. Was it a miracle? Or was it the jinn speakin’ through him?”

Context:
The informant is Muslim and heard this story during Ramadan, a spiritually heightened time when discussions of the supernatural are common in Muslim households. She believed it was told to create awe, fear, and moral reflection.

Analysis:
This legend explores the mysterious boundaries between divine giftedness and supernatural interference. The Jinn here is not malevolent in the traditional sense but instead creates confusion around spiritual authenticity. It highlights the complex role Jinns play in Muslim culture—not just as spirits of fear but as beings capable of deep religious knowledge. The setting in a Quranic school emphasizes the sacred nature of the space and the high stakes of interpreting spiritual phenomena.

Blue the Glue Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: University Student

Informant Information:

Age: 18
Date of Performance: 3/25/2025
Language: English
Nationality: American
Occupation: University Student
Primary Language: English
Residence: Hayward, California

Text:

“Once upon a time, there was a ghost named Blue who would steal people’s shoes. Every time he did, he left a trail of glue behind. The police followed these sticky clues from house to house and apartment to apartment until, after three weeks of shoe thefts, they finally found Blue. When they caught him, he was released back into the spirit world. And that was the end of Blue.”

Context:

The informant recalled that her mother used to tell her this tale before bed. It served as a form of childhood entertainment and likely helped ease the transition into sleep with its mysterious yet harmless narrative. She believes her mother created the story herself, indicating a form of generational oral creativity.

Analysis:

“Blue the Glue Ghost” functions as a bedtime folktale with mild suspense and whimsical absurdity. It demonstrates the creativity of parental storytelling and the way minor mischief (stealing shoes) is framed through a playful ghost figure. The use of rhyme and alliteration (Blue/glue/clue) adds charm and memorability, making it ideal for oral transmission. Though it lacks the typical “moral” of traditional tales, it emphasizes curiosity and resolution, which keeps children engaged.

Sporty Superstitions

My sister is a sailor on the Stanford women’s team, the number one ranked women’s sailing team in the country. She’s starting in regattas as a freshman, so one would assume she knows what she’s doing. Although I couldn’t get any specific advice on how to make that happen—sorry to those hoping—I did manage to squeeze out some of what she considers to be a part of her “luck” factor. Before any race, and whenever she’s feeling nervous on the water, she does a specific breathing exercise that her coach introduced to the team.

This breathing exercise, which she plainly calls “our breathing exercise,” is recorded online as “5-in-5-out.” Funnily enough, she never really learned it “formally,” she told me:

“It’s just something that our coach told us one day. No real explanation, no official name—I don’t even think he gave us instructions beyond ‘do this when it feels right.’”

Still, from what I found online, the method follows the exact same steps she described:

  1. Sit up straight or cross-legged.
  2. Relax your shoulders.
  3. Inhale quietly through your nose for a count of five.
  4. Hold your breath for a count of five.
  5. Exhale quietly through your nose for a count of five.
  6. Repeat for 10 minutes.

She did however note minimal flexibility in how she practices it:

“I don’t really care about sitting a certain way or how long I do it for. Most of it is just up to whatever I think is best at the moment.”

At the end of the day, she does it however and whenever she feels she needs it.

Breathing exercises are one of those things that I’m not sure folklore has fully claimed yet. I feel as though it is typically regarded as more medicinal than folkloric, but we all know those two things go hand in hand. If I had to classify it, I’d say this kind of ritual has two hands in the folklore cookie jar—one reaching into sports superstitions, the other into traditional yoga and meditative medicinal practices.

When it comes to luck in sports, superstitions are everywhere. Baseball players wear the same jersey without washing it, Serena Williams famously wears the same pair of socks throughout a tournament, and my sister practices this breathing ritual before racing. It’s fascinating that humans try to “cheat” natural physical systems by invoking rituals, almost like tapping into forces beyond the physical—maybe an over-dramatization, but I think my point stands.

The interesting thing is that these seemingly kooky practices often have real benefits. If you believe you are lucky, you can sometimes manifest that luck into something real, whether it be confidence, composure, or performance.

Historically, these breathing techniques have deep roots. The Box Breathing method—famously taught to Navy SEAL snipers to maintain calm and focus—is a modern example. Yet, these practices aren’t new. Yogis developed Box Breathing over 5,000 years ago, originally calling it Sama Vritti Pranayama.

Despite their very real effects, breathing exercises like Box Breathing and 5-in-5-out don’t quite fit within traditional academic “science.” They exist in that murky space between folk wisdom, practical ritual, and physiological effect.

I’ve always loved the idea of trying to cheat chance and manifest luck. Whether it’s for tests, sports, or life in general, it’s only human to strive for perfection and victory by any means necessary—no matter how strange.