Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Legend – Hairy Man Road – Texas

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Construction
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

Legend – Texas – Hairy Man Road

“There’s this old country road in Round Rock, Texas outside of Austin… it’s not really a country road anymore.. it’s kind of suburban now. But anyway, they say this road has been there since, like, covered wagon times. Apparently there’s a Hairy Man who lived in the area there for years… my uncle used to tell me he saw him when he was a young boy. Apparently this hairy man fell off a wagon back in the day and was raised by animals or just, uh, raised himself in the wilderness… but he would harass people passing through because he was like an animal.. and unusually hairy. They say now his ghost haunts the road and that’s what people will see when they say that they’ve seen him. I’ve driven on the road but I’ve never seen anything unusual.”

The informant seems to believe this legend since his uncle has lived near the road for over thirty years and claims to have seen the ghost. I, being from Austin, have heard that the Hairy Man was actually a homeless man that was killed by a group of high school students in their car on the way to prom. Either way, this legend has become extremely well known in the Austin area, to the extent that this road was officially named “Hairy Man Road.” I find it interesting that this legend mixes different types of legendary creatures. The hairy man seems to be part Sasquatch, part savage man, and now a ghost. It’s interesting how different types of folklore can intermix to create legends such as this one. Furthermore, the high school prom variation that I have personally heard seems to exemplify a liminal time, but also a rite of passage. In this respect, the legend seems to represent the uneasiness that the transition from adolescence into adulthood can create. Perhaps it is even more interesting that this story has made the road itself a legend, as almost everybody in Austin knows what it is. Furthermore, the legend contributes to the identity of Round Rock residents, and they have even started having an annual Hairy Man Festival. In effect, the legend serves as a way for locals to form their own identities as citizens of this town. It gives them something unique to celebrate and discuss.

Legend – Giant Man Eating Catfish – Texas

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Construction
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

Legend – Giant Man-Eating Catfish in Lake Travis

“I’ve heard my whole life that there are catfish in Lake Travis that are the size of Volkswagens. Right by Mansfield Dam the water gets to be like 200 feet deep, so they say the catfish down there have just had years to grow so large. Apparently divers have gone down there and seen these giant catfish… they’re so big that they could just swallow a full-grown man. I mean, catfish don’t eat people, but if you accidently, like, swam under them and they were sucking something up, they could swallow a human. At least that’s what they say.”

The informant is fifty years old and grew up on this lake in Austin, Texas. Catfish as a meal is very popular in this area, and there have been instances of big catfish being caught, though not as big as the ones that are said to dwell at the bottom of the lake. This legend, in many ways, is similar to the legends of the Loch Ness Monster and Giant Squids in the ocean. It seems that, wherever there is a large body of water that is generally untouchable by humans, a legend like this is formed. It is as if all areas undeveloped and untouched by humans are somehow savage and monstrous, almost to prehistoric extremes. Uncertainty is, apparently, a breeding ground for folklore. There was an article about this legend written in a local hill country newspaper, in which the journalist attempted to debunk the legend. According to this article, a local man made jokes to tourists, which they apparently they took seriously, and the legend of giant catfish in Lake Travis began. Also, the article addresses the fact that the water at that depth contains too little air to sustain fish, so all the fish stay closer to the surface. Overall, this seems to be just another legend of a monstrous sea creature, but adapted to the culture of Central Texas.

Annotation:
Williams, John. “A Body in Mansfield Dam? Man-eating Catfish in Lake Travis? Are These Stories True, or Are They Urban Legends?” The Hills of Lakeway Messenger [Lakeway, Texas] Feb. 2008, 2nd ed., sec. 2. Print.

Legend – Jake’s Hill – Ghosts

Nationality: American
Age: 29
Occupation: Treasury Dept., ex-military
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

Legend – Jake’s Hill – Ghosts

“There’s a bridge in Hutto, Texas where if you go there at night in your car, park on the bridge, put your car in neutral, and turn off your lights, the ghosts of children will push your car across the bridge. I’ve heard of people who put flour on their car and then they can see the handprints of the kids after they leave. We didn’t want to put flour on the car, so I dunno about that. But I went with three friends during high school and did it, and our car did move across the bridge. And then we were followed by this truck that put on it’s brights… it tailgated us for a few miles and then just.. kind of.. disappeared… there wasn’t even a road. That’s another part of the legend.. they say a truck will fly around the corner and chase you away from the bridge. I dunno if this was a coincidence, but I won’t lie, it scared me. So the story… apparently back in the 1800’s or something there was this dude that was a cotton farmer… and his family was hit by a drought and went broke. Then, story goes, he murdered his wife and kids on the bridge and then committed suicide. They say the ghost kids are pushing your car away from the bridge to save you from their father. Another story I’ve heard is that a school bus full of kids drove off the bridge and everybody died.. so the kids push your car away from the bridge because they are protecting you from driving off. I dunno which is true. And I have no idea where the truck part of the legend came from. All I know is that this worked when I went, and I haven’t been back.”
The first variation of this legend seems to reflect the importance of farming in this area in the past, and even today to an extent. The fact that it is children makes the legend that much more disturbing, because children are the embodiment of innocence. The part of this story that struck me was that the informant went and investigated this legend during high school, and was with his male friend and two girls. There seems to be an aspect of liminality in that they were in high school and about to graduate, so they were sort of exploring their independence. There also seems to be a sexual or romantic aspect in taking two girls with them. It is similar to horror movies, where the young woman will seek protection and comfort in the young man out of fear. In reality, both parties are perfectly aware that they are merely finding excuses to be close to each other. Overall, the investigation of this legend exemplifies these young peoples’ transition into adulthood, and the uneasiness that comes with that. Additionally, the social aspect of doing this with friends is notable. By sharing emotional experiences such as this, people build commonality and bonds with their friends.

Contemporary Legend – Ghosts – Texas

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: March 2011
Primary Language: English

Contemporary Legend – Ghost Story

“My dad lives in a big, old house in the country outside of Austin, Texas. The house was built in the 1850’s, and sits on fifteen acres of land that are pretty much in the middle of nowhere. After we moved into the house, nothing happened for a while, but one night it was storming really bad. I remember it very vividly. The roof was made of metal, so the sound of the rain scared me. I went downstairs and slept on the couch because it was closer to my older brother’s room, and because the TV was on. I even remember what was playing on TV, it was a marathon of that movie ‘Teaching Ms. Tingle.’ Anyway, besides the point. I fell asleep, and for some reason I woke up in the middle of the night.. and kneeling right in front of my face on the floor in front of the couch was a little boy.. around 12. He was transparent, had messy clothes and hair, and was wearing overalls.. he looked like a farm boy. I rubbed my eyes thinking I was imagining it, but he was still there. After a few seconds, he slowly vanished. Not believing what I saw, I fell back asleep eventually. After that, we began hearing noises all over the house on a regular basis. Doors rattled, stations would change by themselves on the TV, and sometimes we could hear an office chair rolling around upstairs. The creepiest thing was when you could hear somebody walking down the stairs, but nobody was there. My whole family heard these things… even my dad got spooked a few times and searched the house with a gun, thinking there was a burglar. One night when he was home alone, he says all the sudden all the doors in the house starting rattling and sounded like somebody was beating on them. Sometimes my sister would see the boy standing at the top of the stairs by her bedroom door. All this was fine.. we accepted that the house was haunted… but then we met an old man who knew the family that used to own the house.. he said he played there as a child. Anyway, he told us that a young boy and an older woman with a bun of gray hair haunt the house. He said this without us saying anything about the house being haunted.. and he basically confirmed that a young boy haunted the house. There was also this one time when a little girl was at our house and we thought she was talking to herself… when her mother asked who she was talking to, the little girl said that she was talking to the boy standing next to her… but there was nobody standing next to her!”

This story describes the supposed haunting of the informant’s house in Texas. She was extremely effective at telling me the story, and was very believable. I honestly believe that she wholeheartedly believes that this house is haunted. It is freakishly believable, and I have a hard time disbelieving myself. That being said, the story serves a very important social purpose for the family. They often host parties with hundreds of people, and everybody knows this story. I spent a lot of time with the informant growing up, and she often told these stories to groups of friends, and usually at night in a creepy setting. The story provides a very strong case in support of belief in ghosts in general, especially considering the story from the old man, who allegedly was unfamiliar with the family’s firsthand experiences in the house. Although this story began as a personal story within this family, it has expanded to the small town community around them and has become somewhat of a local legend. It is also interesting that this legend exists in such an old house and in such a rural area that is not inhabited by many people. In some ways, it seems to reflect how much of folklore stems from human uncertainty and the unknown.

Chinese Legend- Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and National Disasters

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 25th, 2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

The informant is an eighteen-year old student from Los Angeles. He was born in Taipei and received schooling in America. He had been studying in Taipei before moving back to the United States for university. He speaks Chinese and English and will be referred to in this transcript as “GS.”

GS: Okay, so, uh, this is something that my grandmother said during a family gathering ‘cause, like, I guess in Chinese culture everybody look after our their elders, it’s a dominant belief, so, like, uh we have family gatherings every week at our house, there’s always someone over at our house. So this is during a family gathering and we’re sitting around the living room. And she, uh, tells us about how- I don’t exactly remember the context, but she mentions how back in um, when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s time, when Mao Zedong passed away, there was a great earthquake in China. She mentions the great earthquake, but what I think she’s referring to is the Tangshang Earthquake in 1976, and when Mao Zedong passed away that big earthquake happened and because, uh, he was actually a turtle spirit, the reincarnate of a turtle spirit from heaven. So when he passed away he made a big ruckus. That was Mao Zedong, but Chiang Kai-shek is a sky spirit, he’s like a dragon or an eagle, like a sky spirit, so when Chiang Kai-shek passed away, there was a great storm. There was a great storm in Taiwan and my grandmother describes it as all of a sudden, she said she was, at the time, she was in the living room, and then all of a sudden everyone heard and all of a sudden this great storm, there was peace and then a great storm, and the next day the news reports that Chiang Kai-shek died in the night yesterday. And she like, really said okay, Chiang Kai-shek died, that storm, he caused it ‘cause he passed away to heaven, making a ruckus as he left, as he went into the sky. And uh, interestingly, my mother and my father both remember this, they both remember, of course, cause the Tangshang Earthquake is, you know, infamous in how many lives it took, they remember the Tangshang Earthquake and said yes, this is about the time that Mao Zedong died, and they also remember the great storm that came all of a sudden in the dead of the night when Chiang Kai-shek passed away, uh, it’s interesting cause I wanted to tell you this so I just searched it up, but the Tangshang Earthquake, was in a, uh, it was in June, it, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, (he laughs, as he’s trying to fix a problem on his phone), in June, 1976, or July, 1976, but Mao Zedong passed away in September of 1976…  (indistinguishable) ever most known strangely associate this happen together. I’m not sure when Chiang Kai-shek passed away because that storm isn’t that as notorious as the earthquake. But this is this belief that these two people were so historically, like they changed the, uh, East Asia so much historically because one is an earth spirit and one is a sky spirit, and they fought each other.

Interviewer: And so what’s the significance of that story?

GS: I, I think, it’s just uh, for Asians they or, not just Asians, Chinese, but like my background Chinese and Alamanese, they think that great historical figures are often like, like, uh, reincarnates or descendents of some kind of celestial being so they would say, you know Mao Zedong is an earth spirit, and then they would say, uh, Chiang Kai-shek is a sky spirit because of how much change they did to the world.

Interviewer: Cool.

GS: Just like, another belief in like the supernatural for the Chinese.

As a person born into Chinese culture and educated in the United States, GS offered some interesting insight into this and other of the stories he shared. As he explained, for older Chinese generations, this story happened literally: His grandmother immediately attributed both the earthquake and the storm to the death of Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek respectively. GS explains that grand political figures were associated with celestial bodies that affected life on earth. For the modern generation, he felt the story was more symbolic than a literal story as told by his grandmother. Nonetheless, while not always associated with the powers of the heavens, the deaths of political figures are usually seen as major social upheavals even in our own society. Consider the international mourning of Princess Diana or It seems that when a figure has life as powerful and influential as that of Mao Zedong or Chiang Kai-shek, their people felt that their deaths could only be matched by just as devastating a force. Because of the belief in the eternity of the spirit in China, it is no surprise that the work of an influential figure is far from done after death.

Annotation-

Cheater, A. P. “Death Ritual as Political Trickster in the People’s Republic of China.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 26th ser. (1991): 67-97. JSTOR. Web.

The relation between people’s reaction to Mao Zedong’s death and the Tangshan Earthquake is discussed in this article, albeit it in a reversed context from the one GS related. While GS only heard the story in positive terms (always that Mao was “influential” and “powerful,” never “ruthless”), it is clear that some people did not hold him in high regard. As stated by Cheater in the article, “When the Tangshan earthquake preceded Mao’s death by less than three months, some invoked the ‘feudal’ notion that the Mandate of Heaven was slipping” (80-81). Here, while his death and the earthquake are connected, it is more in the context of criticizing him.