Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

The Jersey Devil

Context: This testimony is from a GP who lives in Connecticut. She shared this legend with me that she was told by her 4th grade teacher in an English class. GP shared with me childhood trauma that stemmed from the telling of the tale on the Jersey Devil and exemplified for me the lasting impact that haunted mythic characters can make on younger audiences.

Text: “In 4th grade I learned about the Jersey Devil from my teacher. The story involved this lady who had 7 kids and fell pregnant. It was a painful pregnancy and when she had the kid it was demonic and went into the fireplace, came out of the chimney and haunts New Jersey to this day. When I heard about this I was terrified of going to New Jersey but my family friends were having a New Years eve party in New Jersey and my parents forced me to go and I was terrified the entire car ride over.”

Analysis: I believe this testimony illustrates the emotional and psychological impact that folklore can have on young minds. The Jersey Devil has eerie supernatural elements whilst still being tied to an existing geographical location. GP’s reaction to the story induced a real fear of the state of New Jersey. Additionally the introduction of the legend from a teacher, a figure of authority, amplifies the credibility for children and the fear being experienced as it seems true.

Slenderman

  LH is a student who currently lives in Los Angeles. She is a comedian and has spent a lot of time on the internet throughout her life.

LH- So back in the day, when Creepypastas were popular and I was young on the internet, the stories used to all really scare me even though I knew it wasn’t real. When I first heard about Slenderman when I was in 5th grade, it really instilled a fear in my heart unlike no other. I remember after seeing it late at night I would always imagine him by my window, keeping me up every night. At one point someone made some badly photoshopped photos of Slenderman next to some kids at a park, and lurking in the woods, and I was stupid and you enough to believe it. It really frightened me deeply. I didn’t like ghosts or ghouls or scary stories as a kid, so the idea of a tall, omnipresent man lurking in the corner whenever it was dark really stuck with me. Then, a few years later, those 2 girls almost killed their friend in the name of Slenderman, and suddenly the fear became a lot more real, and less focused on the abstract suited figure, but also the people around me who could be under his control. If he doesn’t kill me then someone in his posse will. 

I first heard of Slenderman when I was in elementary school. I saw the original Creepypasta post and continued to see mentions and references to him on the internet for years. Slenderman was a tall disfigured German ghoul with long tentacles who would lurk around playgrounds and use its long spindly limbs to snatch up lonely kids. He appears at night, in dark lonely places, normally hiding out in the forest. Even though I heard of Slenderman by the chances of the internet, it does seem like the type of story parents would make up to scare their kids away from going to places alone or at night. Um, but the fear tactics of the Slenderman story were entirely imposed by myself. Seeing the Creepypasta scared me into not wanting to go out without my parents, and developing a slight fear of the dark. He followed me, in my subconscious, wherever I went. I was 10, I wasn’t bright, I believed everything I saw on the internet. It was definitely heightened by the internet because everyone was posting about it. 

On a psychological note, your brain has the same reaction to the feelings of excitement and fear, so a part of me thinks kids enjoy scary things because it gives them that little kick of adrenaline. Also, being a kid and having unlimited access to the internet makes you want to seek out scary and adult things, but being so young and naive makes it easy to be tricked. And people on the internet prey on the stupidity of others. Honestly, I also had a very unique childhood in the sense that my parents heavily monitored the TV and movies I watched, I wasn’t able to watch R rated movies for a very very long time, but I had unlimited access to the internet. They didn’t know what the internet was capable of, so they just let me run free with it, and I took what little freedom I had and wanted to make the most of it. 

ANALYSIS

I think Slenderman became such a popular ghostly figure on the internet because of its simplicity. As a kid, you’re taught all about stranger danger, and the scariest thing in the world is some untraceable stranger coming up and taking you away. Slenderman is a visual representation of that childhood fear of strangers and the dark and scary unknown. It frightened and captivated so many children because it was a representation of a concept everyone was familiar with. 

The design of Slenderman is an important factor in the figure’s popularity. Making Slenderman this very simple man with no face and long limbs in a classic black and white tuxedo made it very easy for others to create content for this creature. Even 10 years ago, photoshopping a Slenderman hidden in the woods on a random photo was not only easy but could look quite realistic. The simple design allowed for it to spread quickly, as more and more people created images and stories about him, convincing young kids everywhere. 

Creepypastas are a very interesting aspect of early Internet culture. Ghost stories have always been prevalent in youth culture, often being a rite of passage for the older, wiser kids to pass the stories down to more gullible children. As the internet grew in popularity, especially among young generations, many playground traditions evolved to fit the internet age. Creepypastas were the new ghost stories, scaring children into thinking it was real and allowing the people in the know to perpetuate and entertain. Kids also often were drawn towards Slenderman and other Creepypastas as a way to be ‘adult’. In the 2000s and early 2010s, most adults didn’t fully understand the capabilities of the internet, and would often not be aware of the type of content that their kid was consuming. Kids want to prove themselves to be grown up, and one way to do that is by rebelling against their parents by exploring things that seem ‘scary’ or ‘adult’. These scary stories perfectly captured the children’s imaginations while also making the kids feel braver and more grown up. Creepypastas were a fascinating phenomenon that showcases the ways our traditions evolve with us. 

The Lost Dutchman

‘ This story is a true folklore story, at least for Arizona, and like all folklore, at least I believe, it has molded and changed over generations. This is the permutation that I learned and now recall… which is certainly probably not even close to the original form of this tale. In Arizona, back in the mid-1800s, there was a miner, a gold miner. This takes place in an area called the Superstition Mountains, directly east of Phoenix. Beautiful red rocks with huge buttress cliffs. On the north side, there is a place called Weaver’s needle which is a huge spike of sandstone sticking out of the desert. When the Apache’s lived in this area, there was a Dutchman and his partner… he was German and not Dutch, but back then everyone referred to Germans as Dutchmen. The Dutchman was portrayed as being an old, grizzled man with a long beard and a mule or donkey with saddle bags and a pickaxe. They were out prospecting for gold, and the Apache were living in this area. The Dutchman and his partner had gone into this area that the Apache considered sacred… a sacred burial and hunting ground. No one was supposed to go in there, but the Dutchman and his partner did. They found gold and created a gold mine. At one point, he and his partner brought out a few of the gold nuggets to have them assayed and confirmed that it was real gold, not fool’s gold. It turned out to be 100% 24 carat gold… so they went back to the mine and began mining out all of the gold. They buried the treasure nearby and took as much as they could. The legend has it that the Apache found out about this and killed the Dutchman and his partner for invading their sacred lands. The Dutchman and his partner never told anyone where this mine was, and awhile later, the remains of the Dutchman was found, but never of his partner… The idea was where was the mine? So, legend has it that the mine was found within the shadows of weaver’s needle. We don’t know if its morning shadows, evening, afternoon… For many years, people would go searching for the gold mine and treasure, and often when the prospectors got close to finding this mine, they mysteriously disappeared. The Apache would tell no one what truly happened… that they know nothing about this… but hundreds of people went missing. The legend goes that the ghosts of the Dutchman and his partner would kill and hide the prospectors when they got close to the gold.’ – PB

When PB was growing up, him, his brother, and his dad would go hiking and camping all around the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. His dad would tell them stories about the lost Dutchman… PB recalls that he cannot remember if they were the stories his dad learned growing up, or perhaps they got mixed up with stories he had mixed ups from the tales told during campfire nights with the scouts. PB’s dad would tell him this story whenever they would go camping in the shadows of Weaver’s Needle, and of course PB would get up to go look around for the gold mine. He grew up learning about this legend, and everyone in his scout group did too. He would often tell and recount these tales on hikes and around the campfires with his friends while being at the Superstition mountains.

While I have been to the Superstition Mountains many time growing up, I had never heard this legend before, but I knew of many ghost stories surrounding the history of the Native American peoples who lived in this area of Arizona. This piece of folklore fits well into the oral tradition that much of folklore embodies. This tale has been passed down throughout diverse communities for over a century. It combines cultural beliefs and important historical characteristics allowing for the imagination of story tellers to further spread and most definitely adapt this tale, as PB recalled his version is most likely very different from the one he heard decades ago, and especially from the original narrative. This legend also uses the supernatural to provide moral understandings for the disappearances of many and the cultural significance of the land. This piece of folklore has been an integral part of the folklore surrounding this part of Arizona, and the seemingly well-named Superstition Mountains. It is a tale I will now pass through to my peers and family when going back to visit this beautiful desert.

Apache Tear Mountain

‘ In Arizona, there is a mountain called Apache Tear Mountain. Back in the mid and late 1800s, the Apache people lived around this mountain. They were peace-loving and wonderful people. They raised their families in this area, but at one point, the Apache that lived around there went to war with another Native American tribe. The tale goes that the warriors of the Apache tribe met and fought the other tribe on top of the mountain. They fought and fought and fought… Many warriors of the Apache tribe were killed. At the end of the battle, the wives and daughters went to the top of the mountain and saw their family members… grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and brothers… dead from battle. The women wept and cried, and as they cried their tears fell down the mountain and turned to beautiful black glassy stone which then turned into obsidian… the Apache tears.’ – PB

Growing up, PB and his dad would travel to Pima, a town in central Arizona. It was on this drive his dad would always remind him of this legend that many people in Arizona know and share with others. His dad learned this from his father, who was actually a miner in central Arizona, mining silver, copper, tin, and manganese. PB remembers when he would travel to Apache Tear Mountain, he would ask for Apache Tears and would be brought beautiful black stones, stones of obsidian. He even went into the mountain on hikes and trips, and recalls that when he would dig in the soil, it would unearth even more beautiful obsidian. While he learned this from his father, PB has also shared this tale with his own family and children, taking them to the exact spot he grew up going.

This legend was told to me as a child, and has been a story I share with friends on road trips throughout the Arizona deserts. This piece of folklore follows many of the trends that lore is known for. It latches on to the cultural beliefs of the Native American peoples in Arizona and combines it with the legends that were told among these communities. While it can be assumed that these legends were adapted as they flowed through the many diverse communities who told them, this is still a key aspect of folklore; the adaptation of the tradition as it follows through many cultures. Furthermore, this legend combines the tradition and cultural beliefs with an origin for a mineral formed among a mountain, allowing the imagination to give reason as to why and how obsidian was created there in the first place. This tale also allows these communities to uphold the sacred connection to the land in central Arizona. History and legends are combined into one, giving a unique oral tradition to a tale told thousands of times.

Salem Witches

‘ As an anthropologist, I spent decades interviewing people in the Mayan highlands, throughout central America and Mexico, and the Andes all about their folklore, ghost stories, and witch stories… but I want to tell you the one that I grew up with in New England, a piece of folklore so important to me it changed the way I live. When we were kids, the histories and the stories of the Salem Witch Trials are something that everybody was taught. We were told these stories from our first grammar school class. I grew up during a period in the 70s where there was a whole revitalization of interest in witches. Because of the feminist movement, there was a retelling of who these women were. It is said that in 1692, the craze started… it went for a full year. Anyone who was considered an outcast or spoke out, were all accused of being witches. Here, in these little towns of New England, people were paranoid beyond belief. They were having heavy winters, people were starving, they were jealous of each other… there was so much religious belief that the devil was constantly surrounding them… he’s in the goats… he’s in your neighbor… he’s everywhere. So, in the late 1600s, this group of girls sitting around the fire, with a Caribbean woman named Tituba and the girls asked her to tell them a story to pass the time. Her story was about the devil, and the devil turning girls into witches. This got in the little girls’ heads, and before long, all of them start to have these visions of witches… that people are having paralytic attacks, epileptic attacks, visions and hallucinations, sleepwalking… They say this was all because of the witches. During this brutal Winter, the town of Salem used a book written by a British King called “How to Tell a Witch”, and they used this book to identify the ‘witches’. Over 200 people had been accused as witches. So, when I was growing up, I grew up with pictures of the Devil with puritanical etchings, pictures of the devil riding goats in the churches… These things were in my brain as real things that really happened. I was taught that the history is in my house, my clothes, the furniture, everywhere. Somehow, I am connected to them. So, I grew up with this belief that witches were our friends… that witches were these falsely accused woman… not falsely accused because witches don’t exist… we believed they did, and that they were killed because they were smart woman who spoke out and killed for that. Many of us identified as witches growing up… I did. So many of us growing up during this time thought we were witches and led a life to resemble the tales we heard of our ancestors.” – JB

JB has a personal connection to the tales of the Salem Witch Trials, specifically to the tales that were revitalized during the 70s. JB grew up very close to Salem Town, in which the trials happened. They were passed down to her throughout her childhood in places like school, or from friends and their parents. She felt so strongly about these tales and memmorates that she began to live a life similar to that of a witch. She believed she was one, she decided that her and her friends were the “new witches” and with that she prayed to the trees, the rivers, and to something much older than any religion she knew. JB recalls that the story she tells now, the tales she passes down to her own family are intertwined with those of the Salem Witches.

To me, this piece of JB’s life was very interesting, as I also grew up learning about the Salem Witch Trials, but not during a time where these stories were regenerated and strengthened. I learned about it more in the historical sense, what my teachers believed to be factual events during this time period. I was not told any tales or legends of these times. JB’s recounting of her experience shows how much historical folklore can be passed down through generations and continue to take effect on those who hear them, as it did to her and her peers. Additionally, the cultural beliefs of these legends have continued to adapt and be passed down to many audiences across the world. The adaptation can even be seen in JB’s interpretation of the legends, as in the 70s, the theme had changed to show the power of the women, rather than the ‘sin’ many past tales condemned them to have. It can also be assumed that these tales in the late 1800s and early 1900s were performed for audiences, as much folklore is. This folklore also took hold in shaping many communities throughout the last centuries, growing over time and bringing people together, fostering a sense of connection to such historical events.