Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Great-Grandfather’s Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Nashville, TN
Performance Date: 3/23/2013
Primary Language: English

“My grandmother’s father died when she was 18 months old which left my mom’s mother’s mother widowed with nine children in the Great Depression. He died of a heart attack suddenly and was found by his son in the barn.  Grammy (her great-grandmother) didn’t know what to do or how she was going to live.  One day, she woke up and saw her grandfather standing at the edge of the bed and his ghost said ‘Lilly, don’t worry.’  It gave her the strength to do it.  I don’t know how you would raise nine kids without money.

My aunt Martha, Grammy’s sister, had kids when she was already 40.  People would tease her daughter that her parents would die before she became an adult.  One night the daughter had a dream where she thought she saw Jesus.  Jesus said that he was going to take care of her and that her parents wouldn’t die before she became an adult.

A little while ago, the family was going through a photo album.  The girl who had had the dream pointed to a picture and said, ‘That’s Jesus.  I saw him in my dream.'”

The picture was of the same great-grandfather who had visited his wife.  The little girl had heard the story of the ghost but had never seen a picture before.

The informant had heard the story from her mother and grandmother and Aunt Martha.  They tend to tell the story when a large group of their family is around.  It is a story that she has been told many time.  The informant believes in the story strongly, and she says that it influenced her belief in angels and ghosts.  Once she was asked if she believed in ghosts and because of the story, she immediately replied yes.

This family legend is believable because of her close connection and trust in the storyteller, and the legend itself fosters belief in ghosts and spirits that protect rather than haunt.  The legend gives hope to those within the story and those who are merely the audience.  It is nice to have something to believe in, which is why I think this legend has held its credibility in her family through the generations.

Belmont Ghost Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Nashvile, TN
Performance Date: 3/23/2013
Primary Language: English

At Belmont University, in the 1960s out in front of Wright Hall (the girls side of building that I lived in), there’s a small field out in front where you can have a picnic.  It was kind of like a quad.  One night, a girl was coming home alone, and it was dark.  She was a resident of Wright though they don’t remember what floor or room she lived in.  These two guys came up to her.  One approached her from the front to make her back up, and the other shot her.  It was the only confirmed violence on campus.  It happened around December or November, during finals time.  The girl who had been killed was very studious.

The whole legend was that around that time you would see the girl wandering through the halls.  She would come up behind you and poke you or do something to you because she had been devoting herself to school and was taken away.

“One night, my roommate and I were in our room on the third floor.  My roommate and I were asleep probably around …I tell the time later.  I was laying down and my eyes burst open.  I had felt something in my ear like heard someone say hey. I felt something like breath in my ear.  I checked if the air was on. (waves hands around showing what she did)  Then I got up and checked.  There was no air conditioning, and my roommate was dead to the world, snoring.  She checked in the hall and saw no one.  It was about  2 in the morning.”

Her roommate had experienced something similar, but they didn’t remember the legend until they were talking.  They realized it had happened right around the time finals were starting.

“It was weird. I told it to my mom and my grandma.  I was literally sitting on the edge of the bed so confused.  I thought it was a waking dream at first then I remembered I felt breath, like someone blowing in your ear.”

The informant heard the legend on a campus tour when the tour guide was showing them the dorm that they would be living in.  She thought, “Great, we are going to be living in a murder house.”  The informant believes that the legend is told half to scare people who are easy to scare, but it is also just one of the ten stories that have really stuck with the campus through the years.

The informant’s story is a good example of a memorate.  She had heard the legend previously so when the experience happened she connected the dots.  The informant  believes the legend more than before she had had the experience because she formed a personal connection with it.  Perhaps if she had never heard the legend, the breath in her ear would still be a mystery.  The legend also seems like a cautionary tale, telling students to be aware of their surroundings so that they do not end up like the girl who was murdered.

La Llorona

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend spent part of her childhood growing up in Mexico, and she would hear this story of La Llorona from other kids.

“La Llorona was a beautiful young woman, as every young woman is in stories, uh… who, like, married this man, and uh… had like beautiful children and… I don’t know, there were like six or something, and…then… he cheated on her, and she got super angry, and killed the kids by drowning them in a river.  And, uh, the legend goes that if you’re a bad child, or if you, like, don’t do something that you’re supposed to do, uh, when you’re a kid, like… the threat of La Llorona is that… um, she’ll come and like, steal you away or something, and there’s like, this legend that she’s still wandering around in riverbeds going like ‘mi secos, mi secos!’”

My friend didn’t believe in La Llorona as she grew up.  Her friends often did, however, and would cite the danger of being caught by La Llorona as reasons to not cause mischief.  I think there’s a different effect when kids tell the stories their parents tell.  I often think of stories such as this as cautionary tales created by parents to warn children to be on good behavior.  For my friend, hearing that other children believed in it made her think the stories were rather silly.  My friend points out that “La Llorona was a beautiful woman, as every young woman is in stories”… I think that she notices there’s a motif in which someone/something beautiful becomes spoiled.  And this ruination of somebody causes them to somehow haunt this world.  I do agree with her; I think La Llorona is not the only ghost story that involves ghosts somehow beginning beautiful and ending as abominations after their actions.  The ghost of La Llorona also hangs around riverbeds, which makes me believe that her existence as a ghost comes as a form of punishment for drowning her children.  It’s interesting that the story that my friend knows of does not really emphasize on the husband.  Instead of a tale of infidelity, La Llorona ends up as a ghost story about a homicidal mother that intends to scare children into compliance.  On the other hand, there might be something more about the husband in other versions – other than the elements my friend finds kind of silly or fascinating, she doesn’t remember too much of a specific narrative.

Always Check the Backseat

Nationality: Taiwanese American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/10/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Click here for video.

“So there is this story about a girl at a gas station filling up and she sees [a gas station attendant] and this person is being really odd and waving and trying to get her to come to him and stuff so she gets scared and gets in her car and drives off. But apparently the attendant was trying to get her to leave the car because the attendant saw someone hiding in her backseat. And I think I heard this from my sister or something and apparently it might have been inspired by something that might have been true. And that’s why my sister tells me to always look in the backseat before I climb into my car because she’s scared someone will try to kidnap me. Either that or kill me, but I think I don’t know.”


The informants sister told her this piece of folklore. I have heard this piece of folklore many times. From what I can gather, there are two main versions of this piece of folklore. There is a version with a gas station attendant and a version with a motorist. Usually, in the gas station version, the attendant sees a would-be killer hide in the backseat of the woman’s car. The attendant then finds a reason to call the woman over to his office. The reason can vary a lot ranging from claiming the woman provided him with counterfeit money to telling her that her car needs an oil change. When the woman enters the attendant’s office and the woman is told discreetly that there is someone hiding in her backseat while the attendant locks the door and calls the police.

In the motorist version, a passing driver sees the killer rise out of the back seat while the woman is driving. This prompts the driver to flash his lights at the woman, trying to warn her. However, all the woman sees is that there is a car following her flashing its lights and panics. Eventually she stops somewhere in a panic, calling for police and the driver of the other car points out the would-be killer.

In both of these stories, the almost victim is always a woman. Perhaps this is popular because as a society we believe women to be vulnerable and in need of saving. Additionally, both versions hit home the idea that things are not always what they seem. In both cases, the strangers trying to help the women both seem like they represent trouble of some kind. When, in reality they were trying to save the woman. This piece of folklore also serves as a warning to women to be cautious when out and about alone, as the woman would have been murdered had a stranger not intervened.


Both versions and more information can be found in the following:

Brunvand, Jan H. Encyclopedia of urban legends. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Print. 358-351

Special Bath for Cuban Women

Nationality: Cuban
Age: 44
Occupation: Publicist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: May, 1, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

 

According to my informant Cuban women are told to take a bath with gardenia and honey. The bath is supposed to sweeten them and give them a good fragrance. The bath is supposed to make men attracted to them and help them find a husband. My informant jokingly said her