Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Willow Man

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Residence: Marin County, CA
Primary Language: English

Type: Legend

  1. “In elementary school there was a big urban myth I guess is what I would call it. So near my elementary school there was a willow tree, and there was this whole willow man myth. All the kids were scared of it. Kids were not supposed to go near the tree but we did anyway. There was a forest next to my elementary school and the only way to get in was to go under the willow tree because the grass was too tall. Yeah we weren’t supposed to but we all would, go run around, and explore the forest. There was this urban legend of the willow man, I guess he lived in the forest and if you went into the forest you would see him sometime. It was a creepy thing but there was no explanation, no ‘take you away’ it was just the willow man. He was just there, living in the forest near the willow tree and he just would creep us all out.”
  2. I obtained this piece of folklore from my cousin Clay. Clay is a year older than me, and grew up in Mill Valley California, which is located in Marin County (just North of San Francisco). Marin County is nationally famous for its breathtaking natural elements (forest, beaches, lakes etc.), and all his schools as well as his home is surrounded by forest basically.
  3. This piece of folklore, according to Clay, is incredibly popular among the kids at his elementary school. It is passed down grade to grade and is therefore kept “alive.” Now that he and his friends are older, they no longer believe in the willow man myth, as their age and height allows them to explore the forest and it is no longer scary for him and them. This legend is unique to Clay’s school, and therefore will probably not exists in other schools to this exact detail, but I and he is sure that other schools probably have similar legends.
  4. I never had never heard of any legends like this when I was in elementary school, but in high school I had many legends about teachers and substitute teachers. None of which were scary or frightening like the willow man legend. Either way, I think that these types of legends like the willow man bring students closer, and they establish a unique basis for communication within this specific community.

The Moth Man

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Residence: Marin County, CA
Primary Language: English

Type: Legend

  1. “Well I always was scared of the Moth Man, he’s a legend or myth or something. It’s basically a shadowy figure or silhouette that would appear right before something bad or terrible would happen. The Moth Man, driving or something. So if you’re driving at night and you see the silhouette of a man on a corner, or on a tree, or something, you’ll crash your car. Something like that. I was scared of him as a little kid and still when I go camping or backpacking someone will tell a story about the Moth Man. He is in many different ghost stories/scary stories that you tell around a campfire.”
  2. I obtained this piece of folklore from my cousin Clay. Clay is a year older than me, and grew up in Mill Valley California, which is located in Marin County (just North of San Francisco). Clay spends a lot of his free time outdoors: camping, hiking, backpacking, kayaking etc. Him and I also spent many camping trips together when we were younger, and we told each other ghost stories. Clay said he heard the Moth Man legend from kids at school, and from friends around the campfire.
  3. Clay grew up in a forested, suburban environment, and the legend of the Moth Man seems to be unique to his hometown (but it may not be). Shadow figures in the forest are much more frightening than a shadowy figure in a big city against city sky scrapers. From what Clay told me, this is something that is told around campfires and younger kids, not so much something that is passed around adult communities.
  4. This piece of folklore confuses me but it also intrigues me. I am drawn to the concept of seeing something as a warning, but I am frightened by the silhouette shadowy figure. I have never heard of this before and therefore do not believe it, although, apart of me wants to believe this.

9/11: The TRUTH

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English

Context: I was chatting with my roommate about his time in marching band in high school, and the following is one of the encounters he had during one of his festival trips.

Background: My roommate is a psychology minor, and one of the aspects of the subject he’s always been interested in is the part of the human brain that induces paranoia. Because of this, he’s been invested in conspiracy theories for a long time.

Dialogue: (Note: C denotes myself, B denotes my roommate)

C: So what about the van?

B: Oh, 9/11!

C: 9/11, tell me about 9/11!

B: OK! First of all, inside job. Second of all, I was in Victoria, British Columbia on a band trip, and, um, we were getting ready to march in this parade, and we saw this van driving around the– the– I guess the Parliament building? Um, and it said on the side of it, “9/11 was an inside job.” It was like a 9/11 truther van. And I thought, “Why… do you care? You’re in Canada… 9/11 did not happen in Canada.” I just thought that was interesting. I had a lot of questions, first of all… “What?” Second of all, um, like like like are these Americans doing this? Uh, if so, why are they in Canada, why are they in Victoria, British Columbia? Um… you know you’re not even near New York at this point!

Analysis: I actually debated with myself over what to categorize this piece as. The central bit of folklore revolves around a conspiracy theory regarding what “really” happened on 9/11, which is a tragic day in American history. However, the countless people who insist that 9/11 was an “inside job” (AKA a disaster orchestrated by the US government itself) have put such ridiculous and unreal theories out there, that it’s nearly impossible not to laugh at something like a “9/11 truther van” driving around. Because of this, and because of the fact that this theory is a belief shared in online communities without consideration for reality, I decided to categorize it as both Humor and as a Folk Belief.

Annotation: My roommate’s encounter is not nearly the first instance where the “9/11 was an inside job” belief popped up. In fact, in the same conversation, my roommate mentioned the documentary Loose Change as a good place to go deeper into the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

Joshua the Apocalyptic Prophet

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 3/25/17
Primary Language: English

Context: When I told my roommate about how I was collecting folklore, he offered to talk about some of the stories he’d heard over the course of his life.

Background: This is something my roommate heard in his religious studies class this semester.

Dialogue: (Note: C denotes myself, B denotes my roommate)

B: …And I think especially the Jesus story is folklore.

C: Based on what your professor told you.

B: Yeah, um… He told me — not me personally but he told my class, uh, because we were studying the origins of Christianity at the time — that there was a man living somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, I think, name Joshua bar Joseph, and he [the professor] was like, “Joshua bar Joseph was an apocalyptic prophet,” meaning, he went around saying that the end was near, and that if people didn’t follow him, that they will die, and they would be s— very sad, and their life would be over. BUT— Wait did I say “if?” Sorry. If they didn’t follow him, they would die die, damnation, whatever. But if they DID follow him, uh, they would go to Paradise when they died, y’know. “The Apocalypse is coming, but, if you follow me, you’re gonna go to heaven.” Um, and then he’s [the professor] like, “Does this sound familiar?” and we’re like, “YEAH IT’S JESUS” and he’s like, “EXACTLY, Jesus was just an apocalyptic cult leader!” Um, and I’m like, “Well THAT makes sense.” So, yeah, that’s what my professor told me. But, I guess that means the Bible’s folklore.

Analysis: This is a really good example at how religion is deeply tied with folklore. From my roommate’s perspective and the perspective of the professor who gave him this narrative, the Bible is considered the alternative way of telling their story, where it would be commonly thought of as the “correct” way of telling the stories contained within. The fact that the story of Jesus allows for such variations—I’ve personally also heard the names “Joshua ben Joseph” and “Jeshua ben Joseph” ascribed to Jesus outside of Biblical context—attests to the fact that the Bible can be seen as merely another, more popular form of  a certain folk belief.

Going to Hell in High School

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: La Crescenta, CA
Performance Date: 3/12/17
Primary Language: English

Context: I collected this from a high school friend when we were on a camping trip together over Spring Break.

Background: My friend and I were part of our high school’s marching band.

Dialogue: (Note: C denotes myself, J denotes my friend)

J: When I first went to CV [high school] they— We did the tour thing with the band, and they were like “This is the stairs to Hell! There’s a bomb shelter down there.” Which… fuck knows.

C: There’s a bomb shelter?

J: Yeah, apparently there’s a bomb shelter in CV. It was built in the 60s, it makes sense, y’know. I’ve never looked at the blueprints.

C: I was never told there was a bomb shelter.

J: Um, but I don’t know where that is. I’ve always assumed it was down in Hell, um, but… A couple years after that, uh, I was told by… someone, that a hobo used to live down in Hell and just kind of… slept there, cuz y’know, shelter I guess, and that one day administration found that hobo dead in Hell. So that sucks— Well it’s not really in Hell, cuz Hell you get to from the inside of the auditorium, you gotta go down the stairs from the Jazz Cave, but this was like— you know the stairs behind the auditorium, that go down and are like, sketchy and dark?

C: The spiral ones?

J: N0, the spirals are in the Jazz Cave. The ones that are, like, if you’re going from the Band Room up to the quad, and instead of going up the stairs you go around the stairs, and then there’s stairs down. If you go down those stairs.

C: Okay.

J: That’s where I was told that the hobo died.

C: Oh! Yeah, yeah.

J: And it’s like dark there and shit, so… it would make sense that no one found him there for a while.

Analysis: This is almost my own piece of folklore too, since I went to high school in the same place and knew about the same locations. In this instance, however, comparing my own knowledge about “Hell” (a basement area underneath our school’s auditorium) to what my friend knew showed some variation: I had never heard of the bomb shelter existing before, nor did I know that the specific staircase my friend had spoken about was supposed to be an “entrance to Hell,” as we would have put it back in the day.