Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Demon sighting

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

This is a story about my informant’s Uncle Carlos.

“This one time, when he was a kid, uh, he was home alone. And in his room it was pitch black and he wakes up to the sound of someone whispering in his ear, like, ‘Carlos, look, look!’ At first he thought he was just, like, he was dreaming until he came to and he was, like, ‘Wait, what the hell is that?’ From his perspective, he turns around and from his doorway he sees, like, these two, these two diamond shaped eyes. And it’s, like, perched, like, you could see, like, there’s something perched, like, at the top of the corner, like, right there and he’s just kinda trying to wake up just kinda like, ‘What the hell?’ And the more he’s looking at it, the more he starts to feel like something’s literally looking right at him and there’s just, like, this eerie feeling, like, ‘What the hell is that?’ And, at this point, he’s just completely paralyzed, he has no— just out of pure fear. He doesn’t know what to do. And he manages to break out of the fear and turn on the light. Like, he gets up and turns on the light. For a solid three seconds, he saw this thing… The way he described it, it looked like a bat, a bat with—a brown bat with a lot of fur and this, just huge, just wing. You could see it flapping, like that, and it just it flapped and it went through, like, the hallway and it went back into the dark.” Laughs.

“And he got up and he looked at it and from the door, from the other um, doorway, he saw it perched there again. And from there, he, literally, just, he’s screaming, just turning on all the lights, every single light in the house and my grandparents finally get back and he’s probably thirteen, fourteen, and my grandparents, are like—having all the lights on in the house, in the middle of the night are you fucking crazy? So he comes—The way that my grandma told me, like, he—my grandma saw my uncle Carlos in the living room like this…”

(pulls knees to chest and wraps arms around shins )

“Just waiting for them to get back. And he was just, he felt it like, it was, like, in the house, just like staring at him. He had no idea what it was, but he said, like, ‘[informant’s name], it was this thing this, like a demon.’ And he didn’t know exactly what it was… you know, but, like, for him, there’s no bullshit. This, for him, it happened. It was there. You know, he still remembers it. And it was just really traumatizing.”

 

My informant seems to trust the word of his uncle Carlos and believes that this demon animal actually exists. My informant can’t explain how this could have happened, but his family is very open to the supernatural and he loves hearing about and sharing these stories.

This is a very specific example of an appearance of a demon. This is another common motif in legends about the devil.

Legend- Irish Dancing

Nationality: Irish, German, French, Czechoslovakian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Siobhan was very active in Irish Dancing from age 5 to age 18. She explained the legend about the origin of Irish dance:

 

“I’m not sure if this is like proven or whatever, but I think like the um discussed cause of Irish Dancing is um… like Irish people in their houses, there was a rule that they couldn’t dance and it was like, the English monarchy or whatever was like ‘Yea, you can’t dance’ and like had rules for it. So like the Irish people were… they would like keep this upright posture so that if you look in the window it looked like they weren’t dancing, but their feet would just be like dancing, and they’d be dancing with each other. So that’s like, where the really rigid posture came about and that’s like stayed in Irish dance. It’s like flying feet everywhere but you have this rigid posture the whole time. So that’s…. where the roots come from.”

 

With this narrative in mind, Irish dance may be a source of national pride for Irish people, as it distinguishes them from the English. Not only is it an attempt to explain the aesthetics of the dance, including fast-paced foot movement with a rigid, upright posture, but it explains national ties.

Duke Family Haunted Basement

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Providence, Rhode Island
Performance Date: 4/18/13
Primary Language: English

The informant details the story of her aunt’s haunted basement.  The basement is located in Vermont.  The informant details that this story has been shared through her relatives and friends.  The urban legend of the haunted basement goes as follows:

A woman was down in her basement doing laundry one, calm summer night.  As the woman was doing her laundry she suddenly hear a really loud, deep maniacal sounding laugh.  The laugh roared, “MUAHAHAHAHAHA, MUAHAHAHAHA,” much similar to a cartoon villain laugh.  The woman nervously yelled to her older brother, “Tommy, stop fooling around!” The woman thought her brother was playing an old trick on her, but the laughing continued and the brother didn’t respond.  Once more the laugh rang out: “MUAHAHAHAHAHA, MUAHAHAHAHAHA.”  The woman now utterly frightened rushed upstairs, yelling for people, but there was no one in the house.  She decided to run straight to the beach outside of the house and the whole family was at the beach.  To this day it is believed that the basement is haunted with whatever creature had that the maniacal laugh.

Images of stereotypical scary movies popped into my head when I hear this story.  A woman, alone, is completing a simple innocent task such as laundry.  A scary villain arriving to create havoc and instil fear in the woman and the woman finally deciding to leave the place and get help.  Luckily in this story the woman escapes free, unlike most scary movies.  I think this story captures the listener’s interest as most people can relate to instances of hearing something and wondering if what is heard is real.

The Legend of Chief Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe and his Indian tribe

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English

The informant describes the legend of Chief Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe; a legend from his Jewish summer camp that he went to in the valley of Colorado.  The Jewish camp is for campers ranging from ages eight to sixteen.  This tradition has value for him because he has partaken in it for many years and holds it as a fond memory of camp.  The story is also meant to promote cooperation between campers and unity.

There is a big rock formation out of nowhere that appears to have been placed there near his camp.  The story goes that there was an Indian tribe that lived there and the chief had three sons.  Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe was the chief and he left the kingdom to his three sons who each was skilled in a different thing.  After the chief left the sons argued and battled for power over the kingdom.  In the end the three sons ended up cooperating.  It is believed that the spirit of Chief Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe will always bring the camp together. 

After the legend of Chief Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe is told the entire camp yells together: “Waaaaaaa-taaaaaa-hoteeeee-a-hoeeeee.”  Then a counselor goes way behind a cave and ten seconds later gives a response of: “Waaaa-taaa-hoteee-a-hoeee.”

The story of Chief Wa-ta-hote-a-hoe demonstrates the purposes of legends to sometimes promote positive ideas for a group of people.  It is evident that the summer camp uses the story of the chief to instill the idea of cooperation and unity into the campers.  It is interesting to note that the camp uses a physical piece of its landscape to develop stories around it.  It is interesting to note that the legend is effective with younger children.

Haunted House with German Shepherd

Nationality: American
Age: 57
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

The informant explains that as a young girl growing up in Fullerton, California there was a house near her home that all the neighborhood kids believed to be haunted.  She recalls that the house was always had extremely overgrown, wild grass on the front lawn and was also completely dark.  All the neighborhood kids were afraid of the house because the owners were believed to be extremely scary and low-life’s, but more frighteningly owned a ferocious German shepherd.  There was a legend of the German shepherd once being able jump over the fence and bite a young girl who was simply passing by the house.  This story enhanced the fear of the house tenfold and made one wonder and create stories about the power of the German shepherd in that house.

The informant’s story of the haunted house is interesting as is displays children’s fascination with scary stories and ability to embellish stories.  In all likelihood the owners of the house were rather normal people with a German shepherd with normal strength and abilities, but the fascination of the story leaves children intrigued and curious.