Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Horror Stories from El Salvador

Nationality: El Salvadorian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 17, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

This story was told at midnight. The lights were off, and it was during a horror-story telling game. The windows were open, and a small lamp was on in the middle of the room. There was no moon. There was a window in the room as it was being told, and the lamp was reflected clearly. The stories are meant to be told for fun, according to the speaker. They were stories heard from the speaker’s mother, who had heard them herself when she was young. The stories have not changed over time, and are fun stories meant to amuse and frighten young children.

Ziguanaba

This story takes place back in the time before Western civilization arrived in the southern peninsula and took over with their new customs and traditions. In that location,  there lived a tribe that was apparently somewhat similar to Aztecs. At this point in time, their names were forgotten, but the tribe was definitely said to have existed. Apparently, the chief of the tribe would go out and start wars on a whim, because that was his nature. He would go out and fight wars with the neighboring tribes according to his whim and leave his wife at home. Supposedly, his wife was very beautiful, and they had a son together. However, what would end up happening was that while he was away, his wife would cheat on him. He was often away, constantly fighting wars, so he was not home enough to fulfill her desires. This happened on for quite a long time, until one day he found out. As soon as he found out, upon his return, he had her taken out of the village and had her killed near a river. It was a violent death, because she constantly returns as a ghost to haunt men and lead them around.  When men approached rivers, apparently she would appear to men as a beautiful woman. She would proceed to seduce them, and most of the men would be unable to escape her charms. Additionally, once she had them seduced, she would stupefy them. Once they were found by the other villagers, the villagers would see that the men were all brain dead. Ziguanaba continues to appear to men who approach the rivers, and if they are not careful, then they will also end up brain dead just as the men who fell to Ziguanaba’s allures were.

Ziguanaba’s Child

Ziguanaba had a child with the chieftain of the tribe before she cheated on him and died. Apparently his name is Zipitio. He was not good looking, and therefore could not find love, because nobody would look at him. He was incredibly short with a large pot belly and always wore big hats. Unfortunately for him, he easily fell in love with the beautiful girls of the village, but they never spared a glance at him because he was so ugly. However, when he falls in love with a girl, be becomes incredibly frightening. He throws flowers at them and leaves flowers for them no matter where they go. He is a jealous type though, because if they have a boyfriend, he is known to get really angry. If he sees the girl that is the subject of his affection with her boyfriend, he will get angry with her and begin throwing his own fecal matter at them. Throughout his short life, he was unable to be loved by a girl, and that strong desire keeps him alive as a ghost even now. He will still appear and fall in love with beautiful girls that pass by. He will try to grab their attention by throwing flowers at them and presenting them with flowers at every turn. However, if they have a boyfriend, then problems will occur due to his incredibly petty jealousy. In the event that the girl that caught his eye and her boyfriend are together in front of him, he will throw foul matter at them to express his displeasure even now.

La Llorona

In a small village, there was a married couple. In the beginning, they were very happy with each other as the image of a perfect husband and wife. Indeed, they even had children together who she cared about very deeply and loved to take care of. However, as time passed, she found that she did not truly love her husband anymore and she became bored with him. As a result, she cheated on her husband all the time. Nobody said anything out loud, but rumors spread about her promiscuity, thinly veiled behind vague analogies and metaphors. One day the husband found out about the rumors and confronted her about them. She had no choice but to admit to it privately before it became a village wide scandal. That was precisely what happened. Although people were not inclined to say anything originally, as soon as she was discovered by her own husband, the townspeople were very willing to call her out for her supposed crime. For being a harlot, she was given a very painful death sentence. The village decided that the appropriate punishment for a harlot was to be stoned to death. When the day came, all the villagers banded together and killed her. The last thought on her mind was her regret that she could no longer take care of her children. She did not regret cheating on her husband, because he was a bore to her. But her beloved children who had done nothing wrong were to be without a mother. Now, it is said to not walk around alone in the dark. If you are not careful, she will appear before you and cry out “Where are my children?”

Cadejo Blanco/ Cadejo Negro

Be careful when it’s dark out! The forces of life have a special interest in rewarding or punishing you depending on what kind of life you have lived. If you are a good person a white dog will show up. Its name is Cadejo blanco. It is a sacred protector, but it will only manifest its presence during the night. It will wander around you, and it will ensure that you are safe along your way.  It will ward off evil spirits and it will keep harm away from you. However, it is mandatory that you are by yourself. If you are walking about with other people, then it will not appear. However, it has its own form of danger, because it cannot protect you from itself. You are forbidden from looking directly at it. If you do look directly at it, then you will fall asleep and never wake up with irreversible brain damage. Otherwise, it will do you no harm. As said before, this will only appear if you are a good person. If you are a wicked person, then a black dog will appear. Its name is Cadejo negro, and it will also appear only at nighttime. However, it does the opposite of Cadejo blanco. It does not protect you. It does not necessarily bring harm to you, but it is possible that it will. If it feels like it, then it will attack you or curse you so that evil spirits will haunt you continually. It will follow you until you reach sacred ground or the sun rises.

As the collector, I see these stories as meant to amuse or to frighten. They are rather fun vignettes with small morals embedded, such as living a chaste life or living an honorable life. Other than that, these stories are ghost stories that seem to have multiple versions, as I have heard some of them before. This also seems to reflect how historical occurrences may shift and become the subject of rumors and folklore, often becoming more fantastical in nature. Interestingly enough, the basic features of a horror story seem common to many cultures, rather than being limited strictly to a few. I suppose in a way, these stories are not horror stories at all. Although they do involve ghosts, they are more cautionary than actually frightening stories.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

This story was told outside at 10 p.m. when the moon was clearly visible. It was not a special holiday, but it was dark with only the moon as a visible light source. The outside air was very still and peaceful. The speaker wished to illustrate a story that was very important to him because it is part of his culture.  It reflects the importance of filial piety, and how wit is important in making decisions tactfully and meaningfully. It also shows how good actions will bring good karma and good fortune will follow, while evil will be repaid with punishment and other problems. This story was learned from the speaker’s parents as he was growing up, and they would constantly tell this story to both teach him to honor his parents and to fill in his identity as a Japanese-American.

Once upon a time, there was an old bamboo cutter who, while walking home, saw a faint white light in the distance. And as he came closer to it, he saw that it was coming from this shining stalk of bamboo and he decided to cut it open. Inside it, there was a small little baby girl who was only a few inches tall but very beautiful. And the old man was very surprised and did not want to leave her there, so he decided to take her home to his wife. The old couple was glad because they didn’t have any children so they decided to raise her as their own and named her Kaguya-hime. And from that day on, every time the old man went to cut bamboo, he’d find a small piece of gold inside each bamboo stalk. And so the family became very rich. And eventually, as Kaguya-hime grew, she became extremely beautiful and news of her beauty quickly spread talking about how she was more beautiful than any princess ever. Eventually five princes came and thought that whenever they saw Kaguya-hime, she was the most beautiful person ever, and decided to try and get her hand in marriage. Each of the princes wrote to the father of Kaguya-hime asking for her hand in marriage but he didn’t know what to do because all the letters actually came at the same time and he thought that if he chose one of the princes the rest would became angry. He decided to ask Kaguya-hime to decide. But Kaguya-hime was not every interested in marriage and did not want to actually marry any of them and just wanted to stay with her parents. So she carefully planned and had all the princes come to the house. And so on a certain day the five princes would come to the house of the bamboo cutter and each one of them thought that they would be able to marry her. Kaguya-hime decided that if they wanted to be able to marry her they would try to accomplish one of these missions that she would give to them. These five princes were to retrieve these rare artifacts. The first prince was to go to India and find the great stone bowl of Buddha. The second prince was to bring a branch from the jewel trees that grew on the floating mountains of Hourai. The third prince was to bring a robe made from the skins of the fire rats. The fourth was to bring the shell which the swallows keep hidden in their nests. And the 5th prince was to bring a jewel from the neck of the sea dragon The princes hurried off hoping that they would be able to retrieve the item as fast as possible and be able to achieve Kaguya-hime’s hand in marriage. The first prince was supposed to retrieve the great stone bowl which was hidden in India that belonged to the great god Buddha, and the bowl supposedly gleamed and sparked as if set with the most beautiful gems and it was hidden in some great temple. Now the first prince was trying to go to India but he was very lazy and decided that he didn’t actually want to India and so he decided to try to come up with a clever plan to try and trick Kaguya-hime. He asked the sailors how long it would take to go to India, and the sailors said it would take about 3 years. And so he decided that he wasn’t going to go and he decided to go to another city, stay for a few years, and find an old stone bowl and try and dress it up as if it were the great stone bowl that was in India. When Kaguya hime received the bowl, she opened it up and found that it was made of common stone and saw that the prince had tried to trick her. She was very angry and did not want to even see the prince when he came. The second prince who had to find the branch of the jewel tree also thought that he could outsmart Kaguya-hime. He didn’t actually believe that there was a floating mountain called Hourai and didn’t believe that her were actually trees of gold with jewels for leaves. So he decided to actually make it himself. Nobody really saw the second prince for about 3 years and he would just appear out of nowhere with a beautiful branch of gold with blossoms and leaves with all these colored jewels. And so Kaguya-hime decided to ask the prince of his journey, and so the prince talked about how he had seen many different things like these beautiful cities and strange countries, how these great sea dragons and sea serpents and saw these strange birds, and he talked about how he struggled through these fierce storms and sometimes he had neither food nor water, but eventually he was able to reach the great mountain of Hourai and retrieve the branch of the jewel tree. And after the prince told the story, 3 men came in and asked for payment for making the jewel branch. And the prince had tried to drive them away, but Kaguya-hime asked them to stay and asked why they were there. And the three men talked about how they had been working for 3 years to make this beautiful golden branch and that they wanted their pay. And Kaguya-hime found out that the prince had just lied to her, so the second prince went home dejected. And Kaguya-hime gave the three men the jeweled branch to pay for their years of hard work. And they went off happy and praised the princess for her kindness. The third prince had a very difficult task as well and he was to find the fire robe. He was very rich and had friends all around the world, and he had one friend that lived in China and sent him a messenger with a great bag of gold asking him to find the robe made of the skins of fire rats. The friend did not know what to do because he had never heard of this thing before, but he decided to try his best. He sent messengers all around china looking for this robe, but they could never find it.  He went to every temple and asked about it, but he could never find it. And they had never even heard of it before. He even asked all the merchants as well. At last he decided that he would just send the gold back to the prince and say that he was unable to find it. But the next morning he saw a group of beggars passing by and decided to ask them about the fire robe. And they were very surprised about all this. And the friend asked them about the fire robe. Some of them laughed at his face because they didn’t think that it existed. One of them thought that they had heard of it but that it was only a story and that it didn’t actually exist. After all but one beggar left, there was one old man who told them a story about how when he was a child his grandfather talked about this fire robe that was kept in this temple on top of a mountain hundreds of miles away from this place. The friend was very delighted but was wondering why the messengers had never found it. So he went to look for the temple and sent a messenger there but the messenger said that there actually wasn’t a temple on the mountain. The beggar said that there was a temple during his grandfather’s time. So the messenger searched the mountain and tried to look for the temple and couldn’t find it and said they only found a couple of stones. And they searched around a long time and eventually they actually found a large iron box that was buried underneath the stones. They opened the box and within it wrapped in many folds of rich silk, a strange beautiful fur robe. They carried it home joyfully to the friend who was very glad to receive it and sent it to the third prince who was very excited. He took it out of the box, and looked at it, and it was very beautiful, and remarked how Kaguya-hime would look beautiful in it and he remembered that every time the fire robe was put into the fire, it would be more bright and silvery than it was before, and so he put it in, but before he could snatch it from the fire, the fire quickly consumed up the robe and left nothing but silvery smoke. And the 3rd prince was suddenly heartbroken. He decided to write to Kaguya-hime telling her all about what had happened and the truth and decided to leave forever. And once Kaguya-hime received the letter, she knew that he was telling the truth and wanted him to come to her but he had gone away forever and Kaguya-hime never heard or saw of him ever again. The prince who was to find the shell in the swallow’s nest decided that he would ask the servants and everyone he knew about the shells that the swallows kept in their nests. None of the servants knew about it or the gardeners or any of the people that he had known so he decided to ask the children. A little boy thought that he had seen one inside some nests and while he was in the roof of the kitchen looking for swallow’s eggs he thought he saw this supposed shell and thought it was the shell the prince wanted. The prince was delighted and ordered his men to go search the swallow’s nest on the roof of the kitchen to look for the shell but they couldn’t reach it. So the men spent about three days trying to climb up and get it but they failed. So their final solution was to get a rope and a basket to drop a man and look into the nest, but they couldn’t find a shell. At last the prince grew impatient and decided to go up to the kitchen and into the basket and look for a shell himself. But the men told him how dangerous it was but they decided not to refuse and brought him up and the prince decided to look into the nest. But the swallows began to peck at him. They didn’t want to have their eggs broken so they attacked the prince multiple times until he fell off of the basket and onto a stove and was just badly bruised and burned and eventually he just gave up. He didn’t want to look for the shell and forgot about Kaguya-hime. In the end, he would never climb up and look into the swallow’s nest from that day on. The last prince was to bring the dragon jewel, but while he was very rich, he was only a great boaster and a coward as well. He was going to get the dragon jewel but he didn’t want to get it himself so he called up a great number of servants and soldiers and told them they were to look for the dragon jewel. He would give them a bunch of money and they weren’t to come back until they found it, but they took the money and left because they didn’t believe that it existed. So the last prince decided to go look for it himself. And he took a few men and set off on a boat. It was okay for the first couple of days, but eventually there was a great giant storm. The storm was very dangerous and could potentially destroy the boat and kill them all. So the prince went up to the captain and asked what he should do and the captain responded that the dragon had probably heard he was going to kill it and take the jewel, so he had sent the storm to try and kill him. So the prince, fearing for his life, promised that he would never ever touch the dragon and eventually the storm died down and the prince came to land down elsewhere. And the prince was so scared for his life that once he had touched the ground he vowed that he would never leave the solid piece of ground and he would spend the rest of his life on an island far away. Many years passed and Kaguya-hime took very good care of her old father and mother. The mother and father finally realized why Kaguya-hime had asked the princes to do such impossible things and that Kaguya-hime had just wanted to stay with her parents. And Kaguya-hime knew that if she refused to marry them, they might cause trouble and attack and harm the family. And as each day passed, Kaguya-hime would grow more and more beautiful and kinder and gentler and eventually when she was 20 years old her mother died and she became very sad. And whenever the full moon rose to show, she would go by herself and weep. One evening late in the summer, Kaguya-hime was sitting on a balcony looking at the moon and was crying very much. Her old father would come up to her and ask what the problem was and Kaguya-hime replied that she knew that one day she would eventually leave him and that her home was actually in the moon; she was sent down to earth to take care of them but eventually the time would come where she had to leave. She did not want to leave them but she must. She said that when the next full moon came, the people from the moon would come and get her. The father was very sad to hear this but thought that he would be able to keep her there by asking the emperor for some help. Kaguya-hime replied that it would be no use and that no one could keep her there when the time was to come. The father thought that he could do something about this and went to the emperor and told him the entire story. The emperor was touched by Kaguya-hime’s story and decided to send a whole army to guard the house when the time came. The old bamboo cutter went home cheerful but Kaguya-hime was sadder than ever. Eventually the old moon faded away and the few nights would show only the blue lights of the heaven and the gold of the stars, and a tiny silver thread showed just after sunset which eventually widened and brightened. Kaguya-hime would grow sadder and sadder. On the first night of the full moon the emperor’s men stood guard all around the house and Kaguya-hime waited on the balcony for the moon to rise. Eventually, slowly over the tops of the trees of the mountain rose this great white silver ball and every sound hushed. Kaguya-hime went to her father who had lied down as if he were asleep. When Kaguya-hime came near he opened his eyes and said, “I see now why you must go. It is because I am going too. Thank you my daughter for all the happiness you have brought to us,” and the old man closed his eyes and Kaguya-hime saw that he was dead. The moon rose higher and higher and eventually a line of light like a bridge reached from heaven to earth and down this bridge came many soldiers with shining armor. There was no sound and no wind, but they came. The emperor’s soldiers stood as if they had turned to stone and could not do anything. Kaguya-hime went to the leader of these heavenly visitors and said that she was ready. The leader handed her a cup with the elixir of immortality and she drank from it and she would no longer be mortal. She would become a princess of the moon and live on forever. Kaguya-hime and the others would eventually rise up like the morning mists, passing on to Mount Fuji, the sacred mountain of Japan, and eventually reach the silver gates of the moon city where everything was all happiness and peace. Men say that now a small soft white wreath of smoke that curls up around the crown of Mt. Fuji comes up like a floating bridge to that city in the moon far off in the sky.

As the one recording this tale, I had the same reaction as the speaker did. By looking at the moon in the darkness and listening to the tale, it seemed much more convincing and meaningful. It was a reminder to treasure loved ones and to act wisely so as to stop harm from following. It teaches good moral lessons such as protecting things that are unable to project themselves and to live honestly. More broadly, the story indicates to me that Japanese culture prioritizes family and morality.

This story is also mentioned in a scientific article:

Folktales Commonly Told American and Japanese Children: Ethical Themes of Omission and Commission
Betty B. Lanham and Masao Shimura
The Journal of American Folklore , Vol. 80, No. 315 (Jan. – Mar., 1967), pp. 33-48

Crazy Peacock Guy

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Palos Verdes, California
Performance Date: April 29th, 2013
Primary Language: English
  1. “This story was definitely changed by children trying to make it scary… There was a guy who lived a few houses down from my friend. In Palos Verdes we have a lot of peacocks; that’s like our animal, the peacock. She had heard that he would kidnap the peacocks and place them in cages in his house and that he was arrested for doing so. He was definitely arrested for something, but I don’t know if that was real.  He like was crazy.”
  2. A local legend which circulated among children in Palos Verdes, California, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The man certainly existed, but whether or not he kept illegal pet peacocks and was crazy is questionable.

The Doll (Version 2)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Palos Verdes, California
Performance Date: April 29th, 2013
Primary Language: English

 

  1. “My friend told me this ghost story and then after she made me credit her for the story but that has nothing to do with it: ok so um I might get it wrong cuz I haven’t told it in a while- -there’s a little, girl and she’s a spoiled brat and she sees an old toy store and goes in with her mother and she’s looking at all these toys, but she’s not interested cuz she’s spoiled and then she sees a clown and the clown is sitting like (at this point she held up two fingers on each hand and rocked from side to side with a creepy smile on her face) Remember two fingers cuz that’s very important.  So she wants this clown so she asks the toy store guy “Can I have the clown?” but he says “It’s not for sale.” and she says “Seriously, I’ll give you everything in the world for this clown.” but he said” No.” So I think she broke into the store and stole the doll, but I don’t really remember but I’ll go with that, but they got this doll, and they go home um so she plays with the doll and she’s having fun, goes to sleep, she put the doll on her dresser on the side of the room, so she wakes up in the middle of the night ad sees that the doll is no longer on the dresser, it’s sitting by her feet, so it scares her of course, so she’s like whatever and puts the doll back on the dresser, so she goes to sleep again, wakes up and the dolls at her knees, now she’s gettin’ really creeped out she doesn’t know what the hell’s goin on so she throws it out the window and locks the window, goes back to sleep.  She wakes up and the doll’s by her face. Only this time it has a knife. So he killed her. The next morning, the maid comes in, and sees the mutilated body of this child, scratch that, so the mother sees, the police come and takes the body away, so the maid is cleaning up the room ,and she sees this doll on the dresser, and she thinks oh I can give it to my daughter, so she takes the doll off, but instead of holding up two, it holds up three fingers. (As she said the last line she again rocked from side to side, this time holding up three fingers instead of two.)”

I asked my friend if she knew any scary stories, and creepily enough she gave me this, a different version of the one my little sister gave me. The two are different ages, from different parts of the country, and have never met. Yet both knew stories of creepy killer dolls. I imagine it’s a side effect of being a young girl who plays with dolls. My informant’s friend “Adrian Hartley” actually claims authorship or the tale, though clearly her friend did not invent the story.

The Midnight Dare

Nationality: Thai
Age: 25
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 21st, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Thai

Informant Background: The individual was born in Bangkok, Thailand. She grew up there and still has family in Thailand. She said her family origin is Chinese. Her family still performs a lot of Chinese traditions such as: Chinese New Year, Ancestry Day, etc. Being in Thailand her family also practice a lot of the Thai traditions. She does not speak Chinese but she does speak Thai and English. She currently lives in Los Angeles to go to school. She has been travelling back and forth between the United States and Thailand constantly throughout the years because her family still resides in Bangkok.

 

If you want to know who you were in your past life…You light a candle, turn off all the lights…And then at midnight you stared into the mirror…then your reflection will be what you looked like before this life. I tried this once with my sisters. We stayed up when we were in elementary school and went to our bathroom and looked at the mirror. We all ran away from the mirror before it’s midnight because we were all too scared.

The informant said that this is a dare many kids were told in school by their classmates in Bangkok. While growing up she was told about this game by her classmates at school and her older relatives. It is a dare usually done in groups and usually takes place in the bathroom. It was a test of courage among young children, and sometimes even adults. It is one of the sleepover dare or camp dare. Sometimes it is a dare told at school and then some individual try it at his/her own home. Most of the time the majority would run away before the clock strikes midnight from fear of the unknown. She said according to the dare some people who tried it and stayed passed the midnight mark said they saw shadows, silhouette of a person, or even blood dripping on the mirror.

This also becomes a belief among some people. The informant stated that she avoid looking into the mirror at midnight herself until this day just because of the dare. She said even though she did not stayed until midnight to see the alternate reflection the fear still lingers constantly.

 

 

This shows how fear plays a part in belief and how it interferes and shapes a person’s daily life routine. I think that this dare, similar to the concept of legend, is kept alive by certain “friend of a friend” memorate. An alternate reflection does not have to happen every time but if it happened to someone once in a while the story can continues. It is similar to the “Bloody Mary” dare that children do because both challenge the idea of fear. It is also a bonding experience for groups of people under scary unknown circumstance.

Turning off the lights while having the only one light as a single candle emphasizes this idea where many ghost stories are relating more to primitive objects rather than contemporary objects. Candles are barely used in everyday life and mostly used in religious and spiritual settings.

This dare also shows the fear and the unknown concept at the liminal period in a certain time line or cycle. In this case the liminality, or the in between state, is at mid night which is the in-between state of two days, night and morning.

Since Thailand is a Buddhist country, the majority of the people believe in reincarnation. So to be able to see your past life is to see who you were before, which is unknown. It challenges the concept of beliefs and fear of knowing what you’ve done before this life.

The fear around mirror and mirror reflection echoes in Western Traditions as well: a vampire has no reflection, ghost does not appear in the mirror, ghost only appears in mirror, etc. The idea of mirror as another realm or reflection as a parallel world is a common theme that resonates in many cultures.