Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Stealing Ham Urban Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: 04/24/12
Primary Language: English

Transcribed Text:

“My friend told me this story. He said his friend was working at this grocery store, and this very large, borderline obese African American woman is walking towards the exit, and her body seems especially lumpy? More so than it would be for a normal obese woman. And all of a sudden, out of her shirt, on to the ground, falls a ham. A big ol’ ham, like you’d have for Christmas dinner. And – and she looks around, and she goes “who threw that at me?” (said in a very sassy voice). And- and it was very obvious that it had just fallen out of her shirt, but she proceeds to play it off like someone just threw a ham at her. And she reacts, and I guess this would supposedly be an appropriate reaction for having a ham thrown at you, by saying “nuh uh. Ya bettta don’t” (said in a very sassy voice with left hand on hip and right hand waving with the index finger. Head bobbing right and left while phrase is said). And, and then she just walks out. And the ham is on the floor and the employees were just standing there, mouth agape”

The informant currently attends the University of Southern California as a student. He says that he heard this story from a friend in high school in New Jersey. It has become a friend of a friend story, and he has told many of his friends the story several times. He normally tells the story after he uses the phrase “nuh uh. Ya betta don’t” in some conversation, and the people who do not know the context of that phrase ask him about it. I first saw him use it when it came up in a conversation on facebook where somebody refused to go look for their wallet to pay for a ticket that was going to be sold out within a few hours. The informant replied to that comment with “Sarah just tried to pull the same shit. Nuh uh. Ya betta don’t” to which he received many questions as to what that meant. Ever since then, he has repeated the story many times, each time receiving laughter regardless of if the audience has heard it before or not.

It is obvious by the way the informant tells the story that he is an active bearer of this now legend. Every time he repeats the story, there are fixed phrases and beats to the narrative. He makes use of the oral formulaic theory also with the final phrase where he imitates the woman. The audience, regardless of if they themselves repeat the story or not, the phrase “nuh uh. Ya betta don’t” has become a phrase that many people have started repeating and using within this group of friends at least. This story is a very amusing narrative, but it is also a bit racist. When the informant was describing how to properly say the phrase, he said that one has to do it with a proper ghetto accent and sass. This plays on the stereotype of African Americans that exists in the USA today, where it is normal and almost expected of the group to talk with a certain accent. This piece of folklore is an urban legend that makes use of the oral formulaic theory in the method that it is performed and Blason Populaire with the content that it contains.

 

 

 

 

The Botanist

Nationality: caucasion
Age: ~70
Occupation: Retiree (Former College Alumni Director)
Residence: Altadena, CA
Performance Date: Apr 14
Primary Language: English

This is a legend the informant tells when reminded of either botany or memories. She learned it at some point while working in the administration of a college (she cannot recall which)

Story:

Okay, so the story is that there was a um… botanist who was a professor at Stanford university, and he became president of the university, and in his inauguration he said that he was going to learn the names off all the students on campus. So, the first few months, he went around campus, shaking hands with all of the students and trying to learn their names and working very hard at it. And then after a few months, his staff noticed that he’d kind of stopped doing that. And, so, they ask him very gently uh “Professor, why have you stopped doing this?” And he says, “Well, I’m a botanist and the trouble is, every time I learned the name of a student, I forgot the name of a plant!”

The informant told the story after I had mentioned that I used to remember certain things that I had since forgotten. She likely told it to inform as to the importance of prioritizing what one memorizes because the mind only has room for so much information.

The Glass Eye

Nationality: White / Jewish
Age: 30s
Occupation: Actor/Acting Teacher
Performance Date: March 6, 2012
Primary Language: English

The informant has been a professional actor for many years and runs an acting school in Hollywood. He here recounts a few pieces of interconnected folklore which he shares with his class every year. Contained in this are both a legend and a prank.

He begins by explaining how he does voice over acting at his agency (by going in, waiting in the hall, then going into a sound booth) then he launches into…

The story:

On this particular day, I was standing in line and in front of me, waiting to go in the booth, which was across the hall, was Hil Huber with her, ya know, glass eye. And I say “Hey Hil, how ya doin’? How ya doin’?”

She says, “Oh hi David how are you?”

“Good, good.”

And then my buddy Ogie came in and stood next to me. And Ogie’s been a friend of mine for, oh god, like 15 years. And so, we’re sitting there and we started doing this little nudging thing like “You’re too close to me man. You’re too close. You’re too close.” Before you know it, it somehow escalated into a game of capoeira. Do you know what capoeira is? It’s kind of that Brazilian “Oh, I chop at you; I get out of the way; I come back over; windmill kick” kind of thing. [He mimes these moves as he says them.] We don’t really know capoeira but we were kind of in the hallway pretending that we did.

So, me and Ogie are doing the fake fighting thing in slow motion in the hallway, and Hillary Huber is there watching. …with her good eye. [Class laughs.] Uh, and the door to the booth opens and out of the booth comes Kenny Campbell. Kenny Campbell is about six foot five, three-hudred-and-eighty pounds of man.And as he walks out of the booth, I am here, and I’m doing like a chop at Ogie. [Mimed.] And he’s doing like “I get out of the way” like this. [Ducks and spreads his arms.] And he’s down with his leg extended. [Slaps the extended leg for emphasis.]

Kenny doesn’t see. Kenny comes out, trips over the leg, falls shoulder first, the full three hundred and eighty pounds of him, into the sternum of Hillary Huber.

Hillary’s eye pops out. It bounces off the wall in front of me, bounces off the wall behind me, and comes to rest at the center of the hallway. [Nervous laugher from the class.]

And Hillary goes, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Where is it!? Where is it!?” [Clasping his hand over his right eye.]

I’m looking right at it. And it’s looking right at me. But I don’t want to pick it up. Because it was just in her face man! But I feel like I have to so I go “I’ve got it. I got it.” and as I bend to pick it up, I kick the eye. And the eye goes rolling down the hallway and gets lodged under a huge piece of sound equipment at the back of the hall. [This whole bit is mimed.]

At which time Hillary goes, “Oh my god. They know. They all know!” And she runs out of the agency. [Mimed]

Now of course none of that is true you fools! [Uproarious laughter from the class. as well as a cry of “What?!”

There is also a prank involved with the legend:

As I say, Ogie and I have been friends and been at this agency for 15 years. So we know all the people there because at a voice over agency you go in every day. And, when it’s just me and ogie in the waiting room, which happens every week or so, and one of the new people who’ve been there for oh, a week or a month or so comes in and sits down in the waiting room, I look at Ogie and he looks at me and we both know without saying a word… it’s on.

And I say to Ogie “Dude, don’t fuckin’ talk about it.”

He goes “Dude, I couldn’t stop think…”

“Ogie, you’ll get us in trouble.”

“Not gonna get us in trouble. Everybody knows”

“Everybody doesn’t know!”

Until the new person says, “everybody knows what?”

At which point I will turn to them and say,  “well, you know Hillary Huber right?” And then we launch into the story, me telling half, him telling half, it getting more outrageous with every telling. And the person never suspects what kind of a sick fuck would lie about something like that. They never suspect that it’s all bullshit.

He then goes on to explain his reasoning:

He explains that the point of the story is that when someone is lying, they are at their most adamant and sincere because they don’t want to be caught in it. He uses the story as an example of how, when you are auditioning for a detective show you should always play the roll as though you were innocent because liars sound believable.

The story and prank are also examples of liminal folklore in that weather you believe the story/fall for the prank is a measure of how long you have known the informant. If you have heard it before, you laugh along with him as he tells it because you are in his circle.

 

The Roast

Nationality: American
Age: ~70
Occupation: Retiree
Residence: Altadena, CA
Performance Date: April 8, 2012
Primary Language: English

The informant recounted the legend on Easter in the context of telling family stories. She acknowledges that it isn’t specifically tied to her family but could be from anyone’s family.

Story:
A mother is teaching her daughter how to cook a ham, and when she cuts the end off, and puts it aside, and puts the ham in the oven and bakes it. [The informant mimes these actions as she tells the story.]

And the daughter says: ‘Why did you do that?’

And she says: ‘Oh, I don’t know, because my mother did.’

So, the daughter goes to the grandma and she says: ‘Grandma, why did you do that?’

And she says: ‘I don’t know, because my mother did.’

And so, she goes to the great-grandma and she says: ‘Grandma, why did you do that?’

And she says: ‘Cuz I had a small pan!’

[Everyone at the table chuckles.]

Me: And when would you tell that story?

Informant: To your granddaughter? I don’t know. When you’re eating ham? [laughs] When someone asks “why?”.

 

Analysis:

This exists both as a general funny story to tell to the family but also as a piece of meta-folklore explaining how traditions come to be. It also follows the rule of three from Olrik’s epic laws. The daughter has to ask three mothers to get her answer about the tradition.

The Unprepared Sailor

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 2, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

The informant related a legend his Sailing professor told him as an example of why one should always be prepared when going sailing.

Story:

There’s this guy and he’s leaving from Long Beach and he’s only going to Catalina which you can actually see when, um, you, um, leave the harbor over there and, ha, so, ya know, he… he’s a novice. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. But he thinks Oh, it’s just Catalina, I can see it um, ya know, what could go wrong?  Haha. And whenever you say that ya know, you know there’s gonna be a story after that. Um.

So anyway, um. What ends up happening was he had this um GPS system which ended up not working, um. I think what happened was first, his propeller went out. And so, his onboard battery only lasted a certain amount of hours before his GPS died. So after that died, he had no way of knowing where he was. And he had no, no motor. And after that point he didn’t really know how to sail cuz he wasn’t an expert on that ya know. He just knew how to use his, his motor.

And, uh, long story short, he wasn’t prepared at all. Only had enough for maybe lunch. Uh, couple gallons of water. And uh, after, after a while he decided he needed to start saving his food. He like had a stack of crackers that was left. [Gestures to represent about a one foot stack of crackers.] And he was out to see for probably three months. So um, he got by and survived. But um, basically what happened was maybe half of his stack of crackers went by. He was eating ya know, like one or two a day. He, he started reasoning oh, ya know, I should start using this to hunt. And, when you’re on a boat and you don’t have a fishing line the only thing you can really hunt is seagulls. So he would set out maybe like, a piece of a cracker out and hide, wait for the seagull to come then he’d take his oar and like whack it. [Mimes braining a gull with an oar.]

And uh, our teacher said that seagull meat is the worst meat to eat. It’s such salty meat and it tastes terrible. So that’s why we don’t eat seagulls. But this guy had to eat it. He, um ya know, ran out of water so the only water he was drinking was small doses of sea water which would make you go insane cuz you would dehydrate you, uh, make you hallucinate, do all kinds of crazy things.

At the end of the story, they found him three months later. He was in Costa Rica. Off the shore. And uh, so, ya know, a small ship or a small journey to Catalina ended up being this looooong journey to Costa Rica. And uh, when they found him, they said he was crazy. He was out of his mind. He thought that, that the rescuers were there to steal his food, which he didn’t really have much of. So he, when they came on board he was trying to fight them and he attacked them [Shadowboxes.] biting them and stuff. So they had to wrestle him down, restrain him, put him in one of those, like a, one of those jackets. [Wraps his arms as though in a straightjacket.]

And uh, you know, he eventually regained his senses. They got him healthy, fed him food, gave him water, got him all shaved up, ya know he had a long beard.

Uh, that’s all I really know from the story my professor told me but uh, the point of the story is: Be Prepared.

Annotation:

The popular graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons appears to have used a similar story as inspiration for one of its subplots. In the graphic novel, a character reads a comic book called Tales of the Black Freighter in which a sailor is shipwrecked and makes a raft out of his fallen comrades to sail home. In the process, he is driven mad by starvation and heat and ends up catching and eating the gulls that come to feast on his raft.

This is interesting in that the Graphic novel was written in 1986, well before the advent of GPS, showing that the story has likely evolved into its current version from something slightly different. The core however is still there.