Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Folk Narrative: Legend – Char-Man

  1. Text: Ojai is a rural city in California, located to the northeast of Los Angeles. While the city is quaint and loveable, it is not without its share of daunting lore, the most famous of which may be the legend of the Char-Man. As the story goes, there is a unpopulated part of the city, a back road titled creek road where very little life is to be found. The area is windy, riddled with animals and generally desolate. On creek road there existed a single house which was host to a very grouchy old man. It’s not entirely known for what reason this old man was a grouch, but many suspect he grew bitter and spiteful after his son died. This grouchy old man always made a habit of yelling at passerby children who roamed through his neighborhood. One day, these same children decided that they wanted to prank the old man and get back at him for all the times he’d tried to yell at them or get them in trouble. These group of children had one of their dogs poop on a lawn. The kids scooped up the poop with a sock. They quietly snuck up to his house, and once they had arrived at the doormat they dropped the sock of poop, lighting it on fire. The children rang the doorbell aggressively and then ran as fast as their legs would allow. The children thought the old man would rush out and stomp out the flame, causing the feces to explode everywhere – but the old man was in a deep sleep. The fire caught hold of the house, burning the old man alive. He didn’t die though – the old man survived, disfigured and forever damaged. As the legend has it, the old man now resides around the creek road bridge, patiently waiting for bad children to come his way, allowing him the opportunity to exact his brutal revenge. In some iterations of the story, the char-man burnt because of wildfires that were started by children.
  2. Informants Context: Once you reached a certain age, probably sometime within middle school, you inevitably find out who the Char-Man is. It’s the most popular scary story of Ojai, or at least it was at my school. If you found yourself on a bus ride telling scary stories, the char-man came up. If you found yourself at a sleepover, trying to terrify some of your friends and say something gnarly, the char-man came up. If you wanted to scare a girl, bring up the char-man. All this aside, the biggest reason why young people came into contact with the char-man was because of a rite of passage event that basically everyone participated in at one point or another. Again, late middle school, probably early high school once you have a drivers license. The ritual is as follows – you drive to creek road after dark. You get on the bridge, get out of your car. Then, alongside your friends, you call out for the char-man. You usually just yell his name, sometimes people cry for help. I did this with my buddies after a night of drinking. In all honesty, we got out, quickly called his name and then got the hell out of there because it actually was pretty freaky. There’s not much light and it feels like you could actually get jumped at any moment. That’s usually the extent of most peoples stories. Every now and then though, you’ll have someone who comes back from the bridge and claims they saw a shadowy, deformed figure emerge from the forest, walking toward them. Tough to say what’s true. Ultimately, I think Char-Man just represents a rite of passage for young kids. It’s the kind of lore and event that everyone looks forward to participating in once in their life. Everyone bonds with their friends while it’s happening, you create lasting memories. You also quickly find out who is and isn’t a wuss. It’s something that unites a common sense of identity for the city. It’s a scary story, but it’s a scary story that we collectively own and know about with each other. There’s something very nice about that.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: The Char-Man is a clear example of folk legend storytelling at its most fun and pulp. It can clearly be defined as a legend as the story revolves around circumstances and locations that are part of our actual history and life. The entire thrill of the informants described rite of passage is dependent on them not truly knowing whether the story is real or not. Insofar as Char-Man fits into the greater values of the community of Ojai, the informant told me about one iteration where the old man burned from getting caught in a wildfire started by children. This speaks to dual values. Firstly, this wildfire variation could represent values in favor of environmental preservation. There is a traumatic communal history surrounding wildfires in Ojai, as there often with California locations. The Char-Man is a cautionary tale, a lingering shadow of the collective trauma that develops when people don’t take care of the environment. More obviously, the Char-Man is also clearly a folk legend that’s meant to inspire children into behaving. He is watching, embodying the lingering consequences of tomfoolery and hooligan behavior gone too far.

Fields

AGE: 22

Date_of_performance: May 9, 2025

Informant Name: (Confidential)

Language: English

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: United States of America

Folk Narrative: Tale – The Bridge of Arta

  1. Text: In the city of Arta there was once a master builder. He was brilliant – he could craft anything he desired, he only had to put his mind to it. One day, he was made responsible for building a bridge over the Arachtos River. This was a necessary construction as this bridge was to be the connecting point between two different cities. The master builder began immediately in his efforts to craft the bridge – and he soon completed it. The morning afterward though, the builder discovered the bridge had been destroyed by the river. The master builder and his crew of workers labored tirelessly to construct the bridge. Every day they did, and every morning they would discover it destroyed by the river. Spiraling into despair, the master builder was soon visited by a supernatural figure, a fairy of some kind. This creature revealed to the builder that he would not succeed in building the bridge unless a human sacrifice was made. Not just any human being – but his very wife. The builder was shocked at this proposal and found himself at a crossroads. Ultimately, the builder made the choice to lure his wife to the place of construction. From there, his workers grabbed the master builders wife and started building around her. Despite her dismay, the bridge was built with her at the foundation. Before they built her in, the wife cursed the bridge to break. Her husband, the builder, repelled her curse by claiming this would only ever happen in the event that her brother crossed the bridge, an occurrence unlikely to ever transpire. The Bridge of Arta still stands to this day
  2. Informants Context: Myself, my sisters and my parents travelled throughout the mainland of Greece when we were young. My father, an immigrant of Greece, loved to show us the country and travel by car. He wanted to impart wisdom on us, not just in life but also about the homeland and its history. This was an opportunity for him to get close to us. Ultimately, we travelled to the midpart of Greece until we finally arrived at the Bridge of Arta. The actual structure itself was immensely beautiful. The arches were incredible. It was only after myself and my sisters spent a few minutes admiring the construction that our dad revealed the folkloric story behind its creation. Naturally, my siblings and I were flabbergasted. My mother simply rolled her eyeballs. My father laughed at our reaction. Once he’d had the laugh, he impressed onto us a lesson – the tale was a microcosm for what life and ambition. Nothing strong and reliable comes with ease. Those things which are good come at the cost of deep sacrifice. To leave something great behind in this world, one must be ready to give up their pound of flesh.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: The tale of the Bridge of Arta is an extremely dark and heavy-handed tale that at the core of it has themes relating to sacrifice, the power of the human oath and persistence. The father of the informant correctly perceives the Arta bridge to be a testament to the need for sacrifice. The story metabolizes the concept that all durable qualities and achievements are strictly a result of great personal costs to the person who gained the achievement. The story reflects how human oaths are forces of nature decide the trajectory of all things. By promising that the bridge would never break unless her brother would cross it, the builder guaranteed the stability of the construction. So long as the bridge stands, his oath remains uncompromised. Moreover, the story raises questions about the morality of what it means to be “great”. Is the cost of immortal recognition too high? Is the folklore making a statement about how many of histories most accomplished people are morally compromised? I would lean towards answering yes to that question. The folklore is recognizing the immorality of ambition obsessed men but it is not condemning them. It is simply recognizing that greatness comes at a deep personal and moral cost. As all these ideas relate back to Greek culture, one should assume that the continued existence of the bridge has only reinforced the folk tales themes in the minds and culture of all Greeks who have witnessed the structure.

Fields

AGE: 50

Date_of_performance: May 9, 2025

Language: English

Nationality: Greek/Canadian

Occupation: Teacher

Primary Language: English

Residence: Canada

Voodoo Village (St. Peter’s Church)

Informant

ET is a Memphis, Tennessee resident who recalls this particular supernatural urban legend he heard from his social groups as a teenager. This is a classic case of teenagers passing rumors along orally.

Text

The Free Masons are a religious secret society. The informant’s mom’s friend is supposedly a member of the Free Masons. They are a cult characterized by chapters across the world and secret handshakes and unique vernacular. They have certain symbols and calls & response that can be recognized by outsiders, but their secret nature encourages conspiracy. Apparently, the requirements to join isn’t high, but faith in a specific God is necessary. A rural neighborhood in memphis referring to themselves as the Church of St. Peter, but everyone else regards them as Voodoo Village due to the vast amount of Masonic imagery desplayed around the neighborhood. It’s located near the backwoods with few ever visiting or residing there, but plenty of rumors come out of it from visits driving through or by. These include:

  • Dead cats and dogs hanging from trees
  • Cars breaking down in the middle of town
  • Hearing whispers following you around
  • Getting chased by crazy people with baseball bats
  • A van is parked by a dead end street that will supposedly pull over and block you in if you enter the street
  • Weird bonfires and spells during the Satanic Panic

It is not advised to exit your car while passing through, but teenagers often dare each other to visit or visit together as a legendary quest, especially on Halloween.

Analysis

This urban legend feels very classic, modern Americana to me from the Satanic Panic to the car breaking down being a very American horror, set in a largely white state with “that one part of town” nobody dares goes to, likely reflecting a marginalized, poor, neglected, and harrassed, lower-class minority neighborhood. It feels akin to the classic Act 1 setup for a 2000s teen movie that would be used as Propp’s 2nd Function, the interdiction warning the hero against something while letting the audience know that’s where the story is headed. Additionally, Tennessee is a highly religious state prone to superstitions as reflected by the Satanic Panic the informant mentioned, and as it’s not exactly a state known for a lot of attractions, the Midwest Blues of “nothing to do” compels the teenagers to seek out thrills such as legendary questing the local devil-town rumors. It represents the “other world” heroes must exit the safety of their home to enter shown by many models of narratives, even Campbell’s hero’s journey, and its attunement on Halloween further reflects how it serves as a space of inversal where the usual norms and rules are no longer in place. This becomes even more true when it is Halloween. The social implications of this location likely being a marginalized and neglected neighborhood somewhat reflects the American south’s xenophobia toward anything that doesn’t match their ideal of a neighborhood.

Baseball Curses

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text:
“There are tons of curses in baseball but the two main ones are the Curse of the Billy Goat and the Curse of the Bambino. The Curse of the Billy Goat was placed on the Chicago Cubs after a man brought his pet goat to Wrigley for a world series game. The goat was annoying the fans sitting around him so security very reasonably tried to kick the guy and his goat out. This enraged the man, who declared that the Cubs would never win the World Series ever again. It took 108 years but the Cubs finally broke the curse in 2016. The other major curse is the curse of the Bambino, which happened to the Boston Red Sox after they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It’s impossible to know why they would even consider trading the greatest player ever to their arch rivals, and after making the trade in 1920 they didn’t win the World Series until 2004.”

Context:

My friend described both of these curses as if they were fact, which he later justified by saying that there’s no way a team could go 108 years without winning a World Series unless they had been cursed. In general my friend takes a very analytical approach to baseball, and he is very interested in advanced statistics and sabermetrics, which made it more surprising he would accept superstition as fact. He said that the baseball community overall accepts both of these curses as being real, undeniable things that happened. When I asked him more about this he brought up multiple incidents that were “proof” that the curses were real. For the Red Sox he mentioned the Bucky F. Dent incident, where the worst hitter on the Yankees hit a home run to eliminate the Red Sox, and the Bill Buckner incident where a horrible error by the Red Sox’s first baseman allowed the Mets to beat the Red Sox in the World Series. For the Cubs he mentioned the Steve Bartman incident, where a Cubs fan interfered with play which led to a late inning meltdown eliminating the Cubs from the playoffs. Despite my friend being focused on the analytical, statistically backed aspects of baseball he firmly believes that these curses are real.

Analysis:

Like my friend, I am also interested in statistics. Out of curiosity I calculated the odds of a team going 108 years without winning a World Series because on the surface that feels like an impossibly long drought. Surprisingly, the odds of any one team not winning over a 108 year stretch is 57%, meaning that it is more likely than not for a team to suffer that long of a drought. This statistical quirk, combined with the incidents my friend listed when I questioned him, reveal a lot about how superstitions form. First, it feels impossible for a team to go 108 years without winning (even though the opposite is true), which leads to people questioning how that can happen. This leads to a theory being formed, in this case the theory being that these teams are cursed. Once the theory is formed, confirmation bias leads to random events being attributed to the curse. So many superstitions spawn from a desire to have a better understanding of the world, and in this case the superstitions appeared out of a desire to understand counterintuitive statistics.

Dongpo Rou (东坡肉), Braised Pork Belly

Text:
Dongpo Rou is a Hangzhou-style braised pork belly named after the Song dynasty poet, official, and gastronome Su Dongpo (苏东坡). It is a classic dish in Zhejiang cuisine, especially Hangzhou.

Context:
It is informant’s favorite dish as a child until they were tricked into believing it is called Dongpo Rou (Rou, meaning meat in Chinese) because it is actually Su Dongpo’s flesh and meat.
According the informant’s later research, Su Dongpo created or inspired this dish during his political exile in Huangzhou. He gifted pork to laborers who helped build a dam. Instead of boiling it, he braised it slowly, that is why it has a succulent and layered texture.

Analysis:
This origin story behind the fish mythologizes Dongpo Rou as a culinary monument to resilience, giving it folkloric and moral weight. Su Dongpo was a Confucian scholar and Daoist poet, his identity elevates the dish from rural fare to intellectual heritage.