Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Blonde and the Tickle-Me-Elmos

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The Joke:

A blonde girl was hired at a Tickle-Me-Elmo factory. The owner of the factory told the girl to tickle each of the finished Elmos twice before sending them out to be packaged. Later that day, the owner heard howls of laughter coming from the room the girl was assigned. When he went back to check what was going on, he saw the girl attaching two marbles in between the legs of the Elmos. As he started chastising her, she replied, “But you told me to give them two test-tickles.”

Analysis:

The informant claimed she remembered this joke from having performed it for an audition to MC a sixth grade talent show. She had learned it from her two older siblings who are 4 and 5 years older than she is.

That the informant had even understood the humor of this joke when she was 11 is rather astonishing. When asked why she finds the joke funny, the informant admitted that part of the humor for her now rests in how the joke is embedded in the memory of the experience, of knowing that the joke was inappropriate and yet telling it to a teacher, who had given her permission, anyway. In this situation, it seems there are multiple interactions at play: on one level, the lore is tied personally to the informant through the particular memory of having rebelled against decorum and on another, perhaps the lore itself has become how she has adapted the memory into the telling of the joke. In performing it as a sixth grader, the informant illustrated the use of humor – puns, innuendos – to subvert the rules she grew up on. Performing it now, the informant reveals how the performance of folklore can affect future performances of the piece. By telling the story in full with the joke weaved into it, the informant has the opportunity to not only entertain, but also share her experience of having grown up with older siblings and whatever other details she chooses to include. In short, this informant exemplifies that one’s experience in performing folklore can be the focus of the experience as a whole in and of itself.

Toenails and the Rats that Steal Your Soul

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/2014
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Jean is an international student attending USC. She grew up in Korea and moved to the United States when she was 12.

 

Informant:

“Hmmm…….the first one that comes to mind is that my parents used to say don’t cut your toenails at night or else rats will come eat them and turn human.. Apparently the mice/rats will take your form and even steal your soul. It’s a pretty common Korean superstition that my parents told me since I was young. I don’t even know what the point of it was. Probably just to scare kids away from them – there’s tons of rats all over Korea. I mean obviously I knew it wasn’t true but I remember being terrified of rats because of it.”

 

Analysis:

I found this superstition to be particularly strange and interesting. Maintaining good hygiene leads to rats stealing your soul? It seemed very counter-intuitive to me. From what Jean described, it seemed like a useful fear tactic used to keep little kids away from rats – instilling a deep fear that they would take over your body, it ensured that curious little kids wouldn’t be playing with gutter rats and picking up germs – but I didn’t understand the connection to the toenail cutting in the dark. So I did a little background research.

Apparently this superstition goes back to before Korea had electricity, so at night it would be hard to see something like nail clippings in the dark. It was ill-advised to trim your nails at night because, with the prevalence of rats, while trying to collect the clippings in the dark you might run into one and pick up diseases.

Devil’s Tramping Ground

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Vienna, Virginia
Performance Date: 3/20/2014
Primary Language: English

Hannah is a good friend of mine from high school who attends University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her family is from North Carolina and knows the local area well. 

Informant:

“There’s this place not far from where my sister lives in Chatham County that’s called the Devil’s Tramping Ground. It’s this huge circle in the middle of a forest where everything is just dead, like this huge barren circle carved right out of the woods. It’s pretty big, I dunno, fifty feet maybe, and literally nothing will grow there. Not even grass. A perfect circle. Weird right? People say it’s where the devil walks at night, just pacing around in circles plotting how to bring more human souls down with him to hell. Apparently it goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War… I dunno I always thought it was kinda stupid, just another ghost story you know, but one time I went there with her and just seeing that circle I got kinda creeped out. But what was even weirder is that we brought Rosie (their dog) and she started acting really strange… whimpering and stuff. Rosie’s normally pretty chill but she wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t go anywhere near the circle. I don’t normally buy into that type of crap – and I still don’t think it’s cause that’s where the devil goes every night to plot the downfall of humanity – but the way Rosie was acting kinda convinced me something about that place isn’t right.”

Analysis:

There have always been legends surrounding crop circles – UFOs, aliens; strange urban legends have often been used to describe strange phenomena in nature. But the fact that this perfectly barren circle appears within an otherwise heavily wooded area is even more eerie, and calls for a legend more extreme. And what could be more extreme than assigning it as the place where the devil ascends to every night to plot the demise of the human race? The devil is closely associated with fire, destruction, death, so attributing the inability of any natural life to grow there to Satan is not a far stretch. Yet the Devil’s Tramping ground is not simply a legend about the circle – this patch of land, bare since the time of the Revolutionary War, contributes to the legend of Satan himself, emphasizing his pure evil and desire for destruction as he has paced there night after night for hundreds of years.

Supposedly dating back to the Revolutionary War, the stories surrounding the legend of Devil’s Tramping Ground have been many, and have drawn people from all over local counties to this patch of land in the hills of North Carolina. In modern day, though individuals may hold strong superstitious beliefs, the overwhelming perspective on ghost stories and similar phenomena is, generally, that belief in such is laughable, almost stupid. Hannah expressed a similar view on the Tramping Grounds before having visited it, and I found it interesting that while her skepticism wavered slightly upon seeing the circle for the first time, it wasn’t until she saw the reaction of her dog that she trusted her own animalistic instinct of fear. Do the Tramping Grounds actually carry an eerie aura, or does the legend surrounding the barren circle create a sense of fear in the visitors, which further perpetuates the legend’s survival and legitimacy. 

A Wrestler’s Role: Duality Represented through Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Wrestler/Wrestling Coach
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: German

Nick is a sophomore at USC, founder of the Club Wrestling Team here on campus, and has been awarded the All-American title at the National Wrestling Tournament two years in a row.

 

Informant:

“I always follow the same pre-match routine. It’s pretty standard for wrestlers to have their own weird superstitions about going into a match – we’re a team but it’s still an individual sport so that puts a lot of pressure on you and having little rituals you do every time helps you take your mind off it. So yeah my routine… after weigh-ins, the first thing I consume is a sugar free energy drink. Same kind every time – Monster, the green flavor. I wear the same pair of boxers for every competition. It doesn’t matter if I wrestled the day before and they’re dirty. Kinda gross, but they’re the pair I won fourth place at states in during my sophomore year of high school, and so they’re kinda my good luck charm – I can’t go into a match without them. Twenty minutes prior to my match, I listen to the same Shwayze playlist on repeat. It’s pretty old school but I only listen to it before a match, so it always gets me into the same mindset. As soon as I get on the mat, I make sure to put my ankleband on on the edge of the mat. Once it is on, I face away from the mat and bounce a multiple of 4 times (4,8,12, etc). Only when the referee calls me to the center do I turn around and bounce another multiple of 4 times. Then, I bend over, tap the mat 2 times and run to the center to shake hands with my opponent. And then we wrestle. And usually I win.

By following the same routine before every match, I’m able to compete in the same mindset every single time. I know that these little routines will get me mentally ready. There’ve been times where circumstances kept me from following the routines, and I try not to let that distract me, but honestly when that happens it really throws me off.”

 

 

Analysis:

It’s not unusual for sports teams to take part in rituals before competitions, but the practice of pre-match rituals within the wrestling community is almost inherent part of the sport. The duality of competing as an individual while also competing for a team is reflected in the way wrestlers carry this out. While in general rituals are carried out by a group of people, wrestlers’ pre-match rituals are extremely individualized and solitary, in the same way that he will enter the mat to face his competitor alone. For wrestlers, each team-member having his own unique set of superstitions and practices to execute constitutes the larger overall ritual that the whole team takes part in. The importance doesn’t so much lie in the specific content of each wrestler’s routine; the importance is in simply having one.

Fitting with this idea, no specific part of Nick’s pre-match ritual seemed overwhelmingly significant other than to provide repetition before each match to ‘get into the right mindset’. The dirty boxers serve as a sort of contagious-magic totem of good luck: it was in these that he won his first major competition, and he continues to wear them with the belief that this success is somehow weaved into their threads and that in wearing them he will, again, succeed.

As we studied in class, properly executing the ritual is necessary for the success of whatever you are trying to accomplish. Being an individual sport, all success – and all failure – is on the individual competing. These sorts of rituals are so prevalent in the wrestling community because it is perhaps easier to blame a lost match on the inability to carry out one’s ritual properly than to admit you were simply ill-prepared or over-matched.  

The Weir of Palomar Mountain

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Phoenix, AZ
Performance Date: 4/17/2014
Primary Language: English

Sam is a sophomore at USC who grew up in Escondido, California, about an hour or so south of Los Angeles. His father was a park ranger at the nearby Palomar State park, which often catered to middle-school field trips from schools in the surrounding area. Sam shared with me one of the legends of the mountain that he learned from his father.

 

Informant:

“So… the legend of the weir… The word “weir” actually means a low damn that helps to regulate the water flow of a river. At Palomar Mountain there is an actual “weir,” which is like this small mortar and stone type-looking tower on one of the trails that loops around the park- right on the edge of a creek. Legend has it, the Weir – the man this time – is occasionally sighted there for brief moments before taking off. He’s a recluse, a man of the mountain itself, and almost looks a part of the elements – dark mud-caked skin, small plants and flora growing off the top of his head, etc. For the most part he remains a rumor more than anything, but every once in awhile a story will come out in which the Weir has been said to have saved someone – rescuing a boy from drowning during a particular rainy season when the creek is over-flowing or distracting a predatory creature so that someone can escape.

But, regardless of the heroics, he disappears as soon as whoever he’s assisting is safe…”

 

Analysis:

The legend of the mountain man is nothing new: from Big-Foot to the Weir, this sort of elusive live-off-the-land figure has been talked about in stories for hundreds of years. Unlike some more violent versions of this character, however, the Weir is a benevolent figure who only  separates from nature and risks exposing himself in order to help those in a time of need. His elusiveness is attributed to shyness and fear of the civilized world, but in actuality this quality more strongly serves to perpetuate the legend surrounding him.

The legend of a benevolent nature-man watching over the mountain, aside from being a good campfire story, would be a useful tool for a park ranger who must often lead visiting children over trails throughout the expansive nature reserve. A quiet, watchful figure like the Weir who knows the mountain well, keeps to himself and always appears at the first sign of danger to provide help serves to inspire a sense of safety and confidence within the children that no harm will come to them while hiking over the mountain. Because of the Weir’s ability to blend in with the natural elements surrounding him, the story may even inspire a trust in nature itself.