Category Archives: Protection

Sir Francis Drakes Drum

–Informant Info–

Nationality: British

Age: 20

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as JV and the interviewer as K)

Background info: JV is a student who was born in Britain and moved to the United States 2 years ago for college. He told me this story as we walked down the road due to a band playing drums nearby.

K: Lemme ask you a few questions before you get into it, dude! What’s the title, how do you know it, and whats the context of the performance?

JV: *laughter* yea, right, sorry, it’s called uh, I guess Sir Francis Drake’s drum, and you just kinda hear about it everywhere, from your mum to even like a history class or what have you. It’s kind of like uh…national pride? Like the cherry tree thing you blokes have going on. *laughter*

K: George Washington cutting down the cherry tree??

JV: Mmhm! *laughter*]

K: *laughter* Ok, ok tell the story already

JV: There honestly isn’t much to tell uh…Sir Francis Drake was this dude who was uh who had magic and could turn into a dragon, ergo the “drake” part of his name. He raided a bunch of Spanish ports and ya know, good ol English racism makes that a good thing. Anyways, he had this drum that he always brought with him on his like adventures I guess, and when he died the drum became like…a legend. Like, you you hit the drum SIr Francis Drake would come to England when it was in peril. Or sometimes the drum will hit itself when England is in danger *laughter*. There’s always tales about how during like war or something people have heard the drum being struck, and I guess we’ve always won.

K: Except during the American Revolution, how do they explain that

JV: *laughter* People conveniently ignore that

Interpretation:
I loved the way this was told to me. I thought it was interesting how much humor the informant was able to bring to something with apparent national pride, which h showed me that the newer generation of British citizens possibly doesn’t take this tale as seriously;y as previous ones. The idea of a magic dragon coming to aid Britain when needed also speaks volumes about what the English adhere to most. Dragons are a motif in most of the UK, especially wales, where one is on their flag. Magic is also a feature in most of their folklore so it makes sense that it would make an appearance in something like this. I wonder in what regions it is told in still, as JV is from a smaller town in the countryside and didn’t know all the details.

Mezuzah Little Magic/Ritual

SB is an 18 year old college student from the East Coast. He says he has practiced this ritual/superstition for at least 10 years. Informant identifies as culturally Jewish and does not consider himself very religious.

Context: This ritual is performed inside his family’s home. He is strongly connected to it and has one attached to his door frame.

Transcript:

Collector: Can you tell me about the Mezuzah ritual?

SB: So basically a Mezuzah is a piece of scripture on paper in a protective case that is hung up by your door frame. You kiss it, my family kisses our fingers and touch it, and it gives you good luck for the day. You do it before you leave the house; my family does this whenever we pass it.

Collector: What does the Mezuzah mean to you?

SB: It makes me feel connected to my culture. It’s special to my family and it’s a part of what represents us as a people.

Analysis: The Mezuzah ritual, specifically being used as a good luck charm instead of to honor God, is strongly tied to Jewish culture. The scripture being written on paper compliments other Jewish magic rituals in which written magic is used. This is more of a little magic ritual rather than one done for religious purposes.

For other variations of the Mezuzah ritual, see:

Cohn, Yehudah B. “Mezuzah .” Shibboleth authentication request, October 26, 2012. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/doi/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah11167.

Cleland, Patrick. “Kissing The Mezuzah.” USC Digital Folklore Archives, May 14, 2013. http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/kissing-the-mezuzah/.

Russian Spit Luck

Description:

“So basically, my Russian great grandmother would spit in her daughter- my grandmother’s hair, for good luck. My grandmother then went and did it to my mom, which passed down the tradition to her. And then my mom would do it to me. It’s a little tiny spit in your hair, and she’d do it to me before I’d go in for any audition or big sports game. That sorta thing. I don’t know how far back it goes beyond my great grandma, but it’s always been present in my family.”

Background:

The informant, CR, is an ashkenazi jew/russian-american college student who is pursuing acting. He often has performances and big events like this where, if he’s with his mom, she will spit on him for a little extra luck. He believes in the power of this superstition and thinks it to provide that boost of confidence that can make all the difference.

Context:

CR had brought up this ritual superstition and I inquired what the full picture was. Specifically asking where this practice emerged from and what he knows about it.

Thoughts:

Having noted how this was a practice on his Russian side of the family, I dug into the archives to see if there was any other occurrence of this strange little ritual and found that there was! In a post called “Spitting on the Devil,” a folklorist describes a tradition spitting over/on your shoulder three times to prevent the Devil from interfering with your good intentions. In this case, it’s a practice that follows the common superstition of “knocking on wood” when you say out loud a belief of good fortune so as to not “jinx it.” While CR’s example has deviated from the religious affiliation of this luck practice and anti-jinx, the lucky spit seems to be correlated.

Reference:

To read more on the spitting practice, check out the archive post linked below.

http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/russian-pessimism/

Feng Shui

Background:

Informant is a Malaysian international student with Chinese ancestry at USC.

Main Piece:

“I had my Feng Shui read by an old lady when I was there [hometown in Fujian]. I have fire, fire, fire, wood, so the Feng Shui master gave me a necklace that’s supposed to be water to balance it out.”

Context:

I was discussing Western astrology with a group of friends and my informant, who did not know much about zodiac astrology, started talking about Feng Shui.

Analysis:

Feng Shui is probably one of the most common pieces of Eastern folklore/pseudoscience known to a Western audience, but only in regards to architecture or interior placement (how to design your bedroom, how should your house be facing, etc.). My informant’s piece is more focused on personal astrology, which in its essence, is trying to look into an uncertain/sacred/”other” realm in order to understand oneself better. The necklace my informant receives is an example of a conversion superstition, where something is done to undo the bad luck an action can cause—in this case, to balance out my informant’s energies. While my informant got his necklace for free, selling objects with folk belief attached to them is an easy way to trap unsuspecting people (tourists especially) into buying the objects, especially if the belief attached has same form of connection to the sacred.

Knocking on Wood and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Background:

Informant (L) is studying at UC Berkeley and has lived in the US his whole life.

L: Well, I’m a big believer in knocking on wood.

I: Is there a reason you have a whole knocking on wood belief?

L: Yeah, because like, let’s say hypothetically, it’s not real. But if there’s a chance it’s real, wouldn’t you rather absolve yourself from spiritual anguish? It’s the same as like being agnostic, and your whatever beliefs on religion, it’s like if there’s a chance it’s real, you might as well. So like are you familiar with Einstein’s theory of relativity? When you like you say something, you kinda put it out to the universe, so if you put it out into the universe, “Oh, well I hope I don’t get into a car crash” then it’s out in the universe, so like you influence yourself subliminally to get into a car crash and you can undo that by knocking on wood three times. Or if there’s no wood available, you can do it on your head.

I: On your head?

L: Yeah, ‘cus it’s your head, your noggin. It’s like made out of wood, it’s funny.

Context:

I asked my informant about any beliefs or superstitions he had over a phone call. This was the first one he gave, so I asked for further elaboration.

Analysis:

Knocking on wood is perhaps one of the most common pieces of Western folklore in modern times. I found my informant’s sincere belief (which was further confirmed by his partner) in such a custom interesting, as my previous experiences with this piece of folklore have mostly been done in a joking manner. My informant rationalizes this Law of Contact with a scientific theory as support, which demonstrates the effect of empirical evidence on a belief in a custom. He argues that the physical act of touching something (either wood or one’s head) can undo an action, which is also an example of a conversion superstition. Knocking on wood undos the subliminal influence of what’s been put “out in the universe”, as my informant notes. The immense popularity of knocking on wood is a main factor as to why it still persists to this day, and because of how easy it is to do, people may do it as an extra safety precaution.