Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Urban Legend: A Dead Body Hidden in a Hotel Mattress

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 29
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Northridge, CA
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English

 “Once there was a couple who decided to get away for a couple days.  They decided to stay at a motel and as soon as they entered their room, it smelled horrible, like maybe a rat died in there.  So, they complained to the front desk, but the concierge assured them that the room was just cleaned and the cleaning staff and even the previous occupant never complained about a smell.  The couple then asked to switch rooms, but the motel was in the middle of nowhere and completely booked.  There was nothing they could do about it, so they started to track down the smell for themselves.  The smell was coming from somewhere near the bed.  They looked under it, behind it, behind the bedside tables and still couldn’t locate the smell.  Finally, they decided just to check underneath the mattress.  When they pushed the mattress off, the found a rotting human body in the box spring.  The body was there for days, maybe weeks until it was found.”

 

My informant is from Pasadena, California and first heard the story when she was in grade school in the 1990s.  She heard it from her friends at school and also saw it in a comic book version of urban legends that she read when she was younger.  While researching this story, it turns out the story is very popular.  My informant’s version is very similar to other’s I came across online.  All the stories involve a couple, a foul smell, a search to find the smell and the discovery of the body.  However, other versions include different descriptions: the couple is on their honeymoon, the story takes place in Las Vegas, the cleaning staff cleans the room while the couple is off sightseeing (but the smell remains when they return) and sometimes there is no complaint, just a discovery.  The story of the body in the mattress has many different versions, but nonetheless, is the same story.

The most surprising and interesting discovery I made during my research was the fact that the exact same incident occurred at a Travelodge in Pasadena, CA in July 1996!  I first found this information on Snopes.com, which prides with the statement: “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.”  According to Snopes.com, the motel staff discovered a woman’s body ten days after her murder after multiple complaints from occupants.  In another source, the body was found by a Honolulu native, while she and her brother were on vacation (“The Body in the Bed”).  Although unreliable sources, the two websites illustrate common variants found in folklore.  In order to really confirm the urban legend from Pasadena, I went to the City of Pasadena’s online archive.  The archive only publishes the headlines of newspapers, but the title “Body found in motel room identified: Woman, 23, is named using dental records,” dated to August 2, 1996, verified this story.  The urban legend was most likely a popular story already, so the incident may have simply been a reenactment of the legend.  Furthermore, the event may have also revived the story, which is why my informant heard it while in grade school during the 1990s.

 

Emery, David. “The Body in The Bed.” About.com Urban Legends. 20 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/crime/a/body_in_bed.htm>.

Sharfstein, Daniel. “Body Found in Motel Room Identified : Woman, 23, Is Named Using Dental Records.” Pasadena Public Library. City of Pasadena. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/Library/PNI/pniAuthor.asp?page=1&pagesize=100&showAll=&calltype=sort&searchtype=&Pattern=&sortOn=subject&sqlQuery=qauthor+%27%25sharfstein%2C+daniel%25%27>.

“The Bawdy Under the Bed.” Snopes.com. 18 Mar. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/bodybed.asp>.

Legend

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 54
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 3/15/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

La Llorona.

There is an old legend about a beautiful woman who put her babies in a river to spite her ex husband that left her, then regretted her decision immediately after doing so. She cried to them to come back but they did not. The next day the mother was found dead and they buried her. Now if you go by the river where she put her babies, you can hear her crying for them eerily.

The story is much longer but that is the condensed version my father told me. This is a very well known and famous legend throughout the hispanic community all over the world. It can be found on hundreds of websites and books now, as well as being passed down from family to family throughout generations. The moral of this tale, other than being a classic ghost story, is again to warn children not to go where they aren’t supposed to and to make sure that they don’t go outside at night where it could potentially not be safe.

Russian Legend: The Tsar’s Gift for his Wife

Nationality: Russian, American
Age: 35
Occupation: Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16th, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English

Interview Extraction:

Interviewer: “You once told me a story about the Tsar, and how he did something very romantic for his wife?”

Informant: “Oh yeah. He was trying to impress his wife because he knew she loved the winter, and he knew that her birthday is during the summer. I think it was in July. So he kept it as a secret, but he built a very very beautiful palace outside of St. Petersburg. And he hired hundreds of people who would like, make you know like cotton balls? But of course they didn’t have cotton balls, but they were the same substance. So they had to rip that stuff into small pieces and put it on the trees. So when it was her birthday the Tsar actually took his wife to that palace and the whole place looked like it was winter time.”

Analysis:

The palace my information spoke of is Peterhof Palace, which is also known as ‘The Russian Versallies’.  Peter the Great built this palace in the early 18th century.  In my research I did not find any connection to the construction of this palace being a gift to his second wife, Catherine I.  My informant first heard this story from her mother, which suggests that this story has been passed down through the generations.  Perhaps the reason why this story has endured over time is because Peter the Great holds a place of high respect in the minds of the Russian people due to the enormous contributions he made to the country, such as the modernization of Russia.  Thus, this story serves as a connection to a major time period in Russian history.  This story serves as a way to preserve the grand image of Peter the Great in people’s minds.  It also gives the ruler a romantic side that lends the legend a more sentimental touch, making this major historical figure more relatable to people today due to the emotional connection this story makes.

My informant was born in 1977, Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia).  On completing her undergraduate education in Moscow, she moved to California to earn her graduate degree in theatrical design from Cal State Long Beach.  She now works as a faculty member for the USC School for Dramatic Arts.  She became a US citizen in 2012.

Annotation: For more information and photos of Peterhof, St. Petersburg, check out this website.
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/peterhof/

 

 

Ukrainian Legend: “You Steal My Pig, You Choke On It!”

Nationality: Russian, American
Age: 35
Occupation: Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16th, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “My grandma who was living in Ukraine had many domestic animals. And one day one of her neighbors stole one of her pigs.  And she says, ‘Well it’s my pig. Just give it to me back.’ And he said ‘Nope. I went to the market, like farmers market during the weekend and I got it.’ And she said ‘No you didn’t. Because that is how my pig looked like.’ And the dude was refusing to give the pig back and grandma made a kind of, she just said like ‘Well, when you will eat my pig. You will choke on that.’ And that is exactly what happened like several- the dude died. And after that everybody in the village thought that my grandma was a witch, you know? Or that she had extra powers. So everybody was scared to upset grandma. And that’s actually coincidence you know, but it’s kind of… She said it with that intention you know, so like because you stole it and you are not admitting it that, and you are not giving my pig back it means my family will not have enough food for the winter. So it’s kind of you will eat it, but you will choke on it.”

Analysis:

The legend my informant mentioned reflects the strong belief in superstitions and in the supernatural people of Slavic origin have. This strong belief comes from the fact that historically life in the Slavic countries such as the Ukraine has been very difficult, due to political and environmental factors.  There is a basic human desire to try and make life’s events logical, especially when things seem to beyond your control.  As my informant mentioned perviously in the  interview where she talked about Russian superstitions, people want to feel safe and find the reason behind why good things and bad things happen.  Therefore people use superstitious beliefs to set up a system of rules to follow, which gives them the illusion that they have more control over their lives than they actually do.

My informant’s grandmother probably wasn’t cursing the man who stole her pig, she was saying that he will choke on the pig because her family might starve if they don’t have enough food for the winter, therefore the act of causing the pain of others will reflect back on him.  It is possible that when the man was eating the pig, he was thinking about the ‘curse’ that the informant’s grandmother had said and in this kind of homeopathic thinking he actually choked.  This kind of event  seemed to strange to the village people because it was such a coincidence, therefore in trying to make sense of the situation they believed that the most logical response was that my informant’s grandmother was a witch.  Not only did the woman say that he would die with such conviction, but it also came true.  This added to the legend’s believability.  Wither or not my informant’s grandmother was actually a witch depends on what you believe, but the fact that this story has endured with my informant’s family reflects a fascination with the supernatural.

My informant was born in 1977, Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia).  On completing her undergraduate education in Moscow, she moved to California to earn her graduate degree in theatrical design from Cal State Long Beach.  She now works as a faculty member for the USC School for Dramatic Arts.  She became a US citizen in 2012.

Family Legends (raised by wolves, the seventh child, and the gay gene)

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Manager at a web company
Residence: Santa Clara, CA
Performance Date: March 18, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: some Spanish

Family Legends

Location collected: Informant’s bedroom

Text:

Informant (I): Like I think one of Grandpa’s aunts was a nun actually, at the hospital…which is…why…I think Noni’s side of the family…yeah, but anyways he did used to tell us that he was raised by wolves until the nuns took care of him. But somehow he still grew up in Chicago with, with our grandparents, I don’t know…And then Uncle Dennis, he said used to be given by…raised by wolves too and that they found both Uncle Dennis and my mom in the forest…our mom in the forest. And then…what was the other one? Oh, that there used to be a seventh child and you didn’t know what happened to him, and that was always like the punishment, was you…the alligator belt or do you want to be the seventh kid! *laughing* And then Grandma was the wicked witch of the west…And Aunt Cici was the wicked blimp of the East…This tree just doesn’t look the same as it did before (Referencing the craft project)…The Uncle Raymond gene is by far the biggest joke in our family

C: Ok, let’s hear it.

I: Ok, so, I…it’s so funny telling you these things because I know that you already know them. Ok, Uncle Raymond gene. Uncle Raymond was gay. It was a touchy subject for a while, not so much anymore, but anyways. *Laughing* So uncle Raymond was gay, and he was a minister because they wouldn’t let him be a catholic priest…um, and yeah, that was the big joke, is who was going to get the Uncle Raymond gene. For a while it was like oh, Uncle Dennis is going to get it, for a while we were saying Robert or John (informant’s brothers) were going to get it. We don’t know. But the Uncle Raymond gene is out there…and that that’s what it means…if you’re gay you have the Uncle Raymond gene.

C: And it always skips a generation

I: Yeah…that was…I…yeah, is that what we said? No?

C: When no one in the first generation had it, it’s what we said

I: Yeah, well, so we think

C: But hey, Uncle Dennis got divorced so you never know

I: *laughing* no. He likes, he like the Asian girls…that’s really like his type it’s so obvious I just love it…Yeah maybe Uncle Tom has it. Maybe it skipped over ungenetically *laughs*…I’m just kidding. Don’t let Uncle Tom know I ever said that.

Meaning/belief/why perform:

The informant finds the Uncle Raymond Gene story funny. Uncle Raymond did actually exist and was gay and if someone else ends up being gay then she said would definitely blame the Uncle Raymond gene. She knows that homosexuality does not have any known heritable gene associated with it and she does not actually believe that if someone in the family is gay then it will run in the family, but she will still accredit the “Uncle Raymond gene” For the other jokes it is the family joking around with little kids.  The way that her grandfather was raised is his way of saying he is a saint raised by wolves and nuns and he is the head honcho. The other stories such as the seventh kid are ways to make children behave and to scare them. If they misbehave it is because they were raised by wolves, not the parents. It’s not the parents fault. She does not believe that any family members were raised by wolves but gladly propagates the stories

Analysis:

The family stories are good ways for the family to connect and joke around with each other. I agree with the informant about the function of the stories regarding the seventh child and the being raised by wolves. The seventh child is a scare tactic and the being raised by wolves is a variant on saying someone was raised in a barn. The Uncle Raymond gene joke most likely started as a coping mechanism as the informant admits that there was some tension regarding his homosexuality originally. However, I believe that the joke no longer reflects such tension as the informant herself has no homophobia yet still participates in the joke and she say family member all claim they would have no issues if a family member ended up being homosexual. It is interesting to note that the family always guesses a male will get the gene which shows an idea that the Uncle Raymond gene is a male gene. Also, the knowledge that homosexuality is not actually passed on by those mean (or at least as it is currently understood) is seen by the joke that maybe a male on the other side of the family who is not genetically related to Uncle Raymond received the gene. The more religious overtone of that side of the family is reflected in the informant’s comment that Uncle Tom not be told of the comment.

Annotation: Many of the family legends above can be found in authored literature. One would be the story of being raised by wolves. This can be seen clearly in The Jungle Book.

Kipling, Rudyard, and Jerry Pinkney. The Jungle Book: The Mowgli Stories. New York: William Morrow, 1995. Print.