Me contaba mi madre, que cuando ella era una adolecente, vivia en un pueblo donde tambien vivia una persona llamada El Cipitio. El Cipitio es un joven que esta muy enamorado de todas las muchachas. A ella (tu abuela) le tiraba flores y la seguia. Pero no solo a ella, sino a todas las otra muchachas del pueblo.  A la joven que le hacia

caso, la combertia en una mujer muy rica. Pero cuando esa se enamorada de otro hombre, El Cipitio se enojaba y la dejaba en peor pobreza.

My mom would tell me that when she was a teenager, she lived in a town where there also lived a person called El Cipitio. He was a young man in love with all the ladies. He would throw flowers and would follow your grandma. But not only your grandma, he also followed all the teens from the town. To the girl that would pay attention to him, he would give riches, but when she would fall in love with another man, he would get mad and leave her in a worst financial situation.

My mom told me that her mother, my grandmother, first told her this legend when she was about nine or ten years old. At the time, they were living in Cuscatancingo, El Salvador. She told me that my grandma had told her that this really happen to her. She also told me that this is a common legend in the area where they were living. In other parts of El Salvador, people say that El Cipitio is the son of La Siguanaba, another Salvadoran legendary figure. She said that this legend is usually told to kids of her age because is an interesting story and to give the advice to girls to be aware and not to pay attention to strangers. She believes that he really exists and that he is the son of La Siguanaba.

I think I would have to agree with my mom with this legend. It is a very interesting story and I believe it is also telling an important lesson. The lesson that is being portrayed in this legend is that woman should be faithful to their partners and if they aren’t, bad things will happen. In this case, girls are being left in a worst financial situation than at the beginning. I think it is great that they are telling kids these stories early on, so whenever they start dating they can look back and make better decisions because they are going to remember what El Cipitio did to girls that betrayed him. The story can be used in today’s society; whenever a marriage fails, people now usually go to court and try to separate their financial property. If the wife cheated, we see men brining them to court and trying to get as much money and property as possible. This legend should still be told to kids as it is part of their culture and delivers an important message.

The Legend of Ogo Pogo

I have heard people say that in the Okanagan Lake, Kelowna, BC Canada, there is a creature that is like a serpent and like a dragon. He lives way down in the caves of the deep water. It has been sighted for about 100 years, but I have never seen it. It is quite large; many people said that this creature is huge. Some people even describe him as being a cousin of the loch ness monster.

Joanne told me that this is a very common legend told around her town and other towns that surround the Okanagan Lake. She said that she first heard the legend recently after moving to Kelowna. She told me that the legend is usually told to tourist of the lake and the area in order to increase tourism. There are also some statues of what the creature is portrayed in a surrounding park. She says that although she has not seen it she still believes that the creature exists and she also believes that the loch ness monster exist as well. They are creatures that are strong and have survived all these years.

Although, it is an interesting legend I would have to say that I think that it is not true. I think that someone that had visited Loch Ness or knew about Loch Ness monster saw an animal or a creature in the Canandian and thought that he saw the same familiar monster. This legend is very familiar to the Loch Ness monster and it might have just migrated to this area, it is just an oicotype of the Loch Ness monster. The reason why I think that this monster is not real is that the first sighting was later than the Loch Ness monster and it just borrowed the idea, it was not really sighted. Other than that, I am sure that they are using this legend in order to attract some tourist and give the lake a little more personality.

Legend: Man with the Bag

“If you behave badly, the man with the bag is going to come and take you away. In the Netherlands, a Bavarian man would attack the Spaniards around the time when Spain had control over much of the world in the age of exploration. The man with the bag would come and kill Spaniards so that they would lose their control. The man with the bag would come and kidnap children if they misbehaved.”

According to Pablo, the man with the bag legend was known all throughout Spain. He said he heard it from his mother in Pamplona whenever his mom thought he misbehaved. She would always tell him that if he continued to cause trouble, the man with the bag would come and get him. All the children knew who this legend was so they were all deeply afraid of him. Whenever their parents told them that the man with the bag was coming, they usually stopped misbehaving. The man with the bag legend scared Pablo for much of his life as he always thought that if he got into trouble, he would be taken away from his family. He said this influenced him and other friends to act better in front of parents.

Pablo said his history teacher told him that the legend came from the time Spain was in the age of exploration. At that time, Spain was exploring the Americas and all over the world. In order to slow the exploration of the Spaniards, the Bavarian man would slaughter everyone he came across. Therefore, the man with the bag was feared throughout all of Spain.

According to Pablo, this legend helps him treasure his family to the fullest, whether or not the man with the bag is real. He doesn’t know if it is true or not but it helps him realize that his mother is looking out for him by telling him to behave. Most kids like to disobey their parents but this legend helped him listen to his mom in all aspects because he was scared the man with the bag would come and get him. Because of this, he usually would do anything she told him to do.

I believe this legend helps parents have more control of their children. By telling them that an evil man with the bag is going to come and capture them, the children will behave appropriately. Children are easily scared by unknown forces. By threatening them with the man with the bag story, the children will do whatever their parents tell them to do. Additionally, I think this legend represents the Spanish culture because it came from their age of exploration. It shows that although civilizations can try to gain absolute power, there will always be a force slowing them down, like the man in the bag in this case.

Legend: Ridgerunner

“Early in the 1900s when they were cleaning out the trees in Yosemite, a group of lumberjacks got stuck in a snowstorm, real bad. They had to stay and survive off the land for a couple of weeks until the snow came out. The snow was so bad that no rescue team could go in after them. So, they decided we’re gonna try and make it on our own. So they went off, trying to make it back to somewhere they could find the rest of their team. Somehow, they got split up and one of the guys got lost. And, the rest of them ended up making it out. So, the one guy who was lost was never found. The legend goes that he hunts animals and even people. The way people have recognized him to even this day is they hear him walking in this very unique walking pattern. It sounds like ‘thump’ and then a ‘drag.’ ‘Thump’ and ‘drag.’ They say this is because he has been running on these ridges in Yosemite where it’s a very steep slant. So, his legs have adapted to running on a slant. So, one leg has kind of decreased in size. When he’s walking on an even surface, he’s got one leg to walk on and one to drag. There have been reports of random people gone missing and they haven’t found them and animals have been killed and looked like they’ve been eaten raw. So, these little things get related back to the Ridgerunner once in awhile.”

Steve said he learned this legend whenever he went on a backpacking trip to Yosemite the summer between fifth and sixth grade. He said that this was one of the stories the camp leaders told him and the other backpackers about the history of Yosemite. The leaders told them that there were many newspaper articles about the Ridgerunner that go way back to the early 1900s where the legend came from. He didn’t look up the article but he said the legend scared him at first because of how young he was. Steve said that many other children hear this legend as well as others whenever they go on these trips with backpacking leaders. It helps them really enjoy the experience by always being on the lookout for a man that walks with a thump and a drag.

Steve said that this legend is primarily performed around a campfire at night with a large group of people. At least, this is the way he heard it. His leaders played a trick on the rest of the kids. Whenever one camp leader finished performing the legend, another came up from behind the campers and made the thump and drag sound, frightening all of the children for the rest of the night. Steve even told himself that he was never going back to Yosemite. The reason he said he was scared was due to the context of how it was told. At night, with a bunch of children huddling around the campfire, his leader used a creepy whispering voice to perform the legend. Then, when it came to thump and drag part, he raised his voice to frighten all of the children. This fear only intensified as the other leader scared them at the end. Steve said that the performance kept most of the campers up for quite awhile as they all feared the Ridgerunner.

Whenever I asked Steve what this legend meant to him, he responded “it scared the living crapp out of me.” However, at his current age, he said it helped remind him of the trip as well as his childhood. I guess at the time, the leaders told the campers that the Ridgerunner had been a lumberjack seventy years ago. Therefore, he is probably around one hundred years old now. Steve said that after hearing that, he is pretty sure he could fight a hundred year old man. In Steve’s mind, this legend represents the way children react to stories. It scared him so much at the time that it has made an impact on his life. He never wanted to go back to Yosemite after he heard it. But, now that he is much older, he said that it was a great legend because it scared the kids in an exciting, adventurous way.

I think that this legend is performed in order to help excite children on camping trips to Yosemite. I’m sure that all camp leaders hear this story and perform it in the most enthusiastic ways possible so that it scares the children. At that age, kids will believe anything an elder role model tells them. Therefore, it impacts their life as they are consistently on the lookout for the Ridgerunner. Also, I think this legend represents other camp stories that are told throughout the country. I know that when I was kid, I went to camps just like the one Steve went to. And, just like the camp leaders in Yosemite told Steve a legend that would frighten him, my leaders told us about an old man who abducted children in the woods whenever they were sitting by a campfire roasting marshmallows. At that time, it scared me because I was doing that exact same thing. The rest of the night, I was looking around the woods just waiting for and old man to come get me. That’s why I think these legends are great because they make the camping experience exciting.