Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Turkish Mountain Ghost Story

Background Information: 

The informant is an older person who grew up in Central Turkey in the 40s and 50s. They have now been living in the US for the last 30 years. They are describing things from their childhood. 

Main Content: 

ME: So could you tell me about the time you saw a ghost on the mountain, that you told me about a few years ago? 

NA: So one day me, my brother, and my father went to visit a farm that my father owned in a different village. We had to walk about 2-3 hours through very mountainous terrain to get there. We stayed there for a few hours and be the time we were leaving it started to get really dark. However, the people who worked on the farm insisted that we didn’t go, simply begging not to leave, they were telling us that the weather was going to be really bad, but my father said that we had to leave. The worker insisted that he let his son take us back on two horses, and my father said fine. We stated climbing on the mountains and it started raining, my father sends the son back with the horses because he was scared that something would happen to him or the horses. Anyways, me and my brother and my father kept going on foot. If there wasn’t any lightning, we couldn’t see in front of our step, and it was lightning constantly. We say two, well I remember seeing one person on a horse, but my father says that there was two. I’m not sure if it was just imagine or real, but they were behind these rocks. My father started yelling at them, and he used two speak all of the Kurdish languages. He used to speak two of them real good and the other one not so good. There was a lot of Kurds in this area, he was in touch with them all day every day, he lived with them for many, many years. The horsemen were not that far away, and he spoke with them in all three languages, and he still didn’t get no answer. Maybe there was nobody, but we all saw them multiple times in the lightning, and all of the sudden they disappeared. There was also a lot of hail, hail as big as eggs, pounding on our heads. 

ME: Wow that sounds incredibly scary, do you think that it was ghosts that you saw? 

NA: I don’t know exactly if they were ghosts, but they were not people. They would have responded to my father otherwise. The road was maybe as wide as a coach, its not even a real road, maybe like a trail, trail is even wider than that, so it was almost impossible for there to be anybody. Maybe it was just a hallucination, but we definitely saw something. Afterwards, my father sacrificed two lambs because we got out of that trouble. 

Context: 

This conversation happened over a Facetime call. 

Thoughts: 

This story sounds like a classic example of a horror story. The dark, rain, thunder, and even hail. On top of that, they didn’t even have cars, the whole experience was either on horseback or by foot. It is so reminiscent of a generic scary story. Besides that, it is incredible that the informant still has such a vivid memory of what seems to be a relatively insignificant incident from almost 60 years ago. This leads me to believe that whatever the informant had seen that night was very convincing. Maybe it is possible that they saw the spirits of dead or lost travelers through the mountains, but it’s impossible to know. I think it is also interesting that their father sacrificed a lamb afterwards to thank Allah for getting them out of that situation. I’m not sure if he was more concerned with the weather or the ghosts, but either way it goes to prove that they found this to be a particularly dire situation. 

Turkish Haunted House

Background Information: 

The informant is an older person who grew up in Central Turkey in the 40s and 50s. They have now been living in the US for the last 30 years. They are describing things from their childhood. The informant remembers part of this story and was told the rest by her siblings and parents. 

Main Content: 

ME: Could you tell me about the haunted house that you lived in?

NA: Yeah, so when I was a little kid we used to live in this house. And after the lights went off at night, they would hear something on the walls, it also sounded like there was something in the house, and my father used to get up and get the, those days, there was no electricity I guess, and would get the lamps and go around the house. He couldn’t find anything, the windows were closed, the doors were closed, nobody was there. They used to tell this to the Imam, and the Imam, they know everything (laugh), they say “Oh, these are Jinn (Evil Spirits from the Quran)”. And then you know Uncle Jengis? Uncle Jengis’s mother she used to tell us that she was seeing the Jinn and spanking them, but it didn’t work. How could this happen? I’m thinkinking now that she must have had a nightmare. 

ME: Yeah, who knows? Did you guys do anything else to try and get rid of the Jinn. 

NA: Well, I mean, I was very young, and I hardly remember, but they were very scared. They couldn’t get rid of them, so we moved. They couldn’t take it anymore and moved. And then I think after that, my father used to rent out the house. 

Context: 

This conversation happened over a Facetime call.

Thoughts:

It sounds to me that these stories are very legitimate, especially if the informant’s family decided to move out because of the Jinn. Especially in a small town, this would be incredibly unsettling and scary, and I understand why they would want to leave, especially after the Imam couldn’t get rid of the Jinn. I also think that its interesting that the Imam described the ghosts in the house as Jinn, which are included in the Quran, but they originated as Pre-Islamic Arabic folklore. The actions of this Jinn fit the bill of what is described in the Quran. In the Quran, Jinn are often described as possessive beings that will take over houses and start occupying them, causing terror on it’s inhabitants during the nightime. It also makes sense that the Imam didn’t really try to do anything to get rid of the Jinn, because there are no described ways to get rid of them in the Quran. 

Australian Bunyip Legend

Background Information: 

The informant was born and raised in Australia but has roots in Czechia. She is describing her childhood in Sydney.

Main Content: 

ME: Hey, would you mind telling me about the Bunyip? 

SP: Yeah, sooo the Bunyip is an Australian story that came from indigenous Australian people, and it was like I think a way that our parents got us to stay away from the water when we were little, to not like wander near rivers and ponds and like dams and billabongs and like drown. So if it was like if you go too close to the water the Bunyip, which is a really scary creature who lives in the bottom of the dam, will come out and grab you and you will disappear into the water forever. 

ME: So where did you find out about the Bunyip? 

SP: I think the Bunyip came from my parents… telling me not to go near the water, but all of my memories from it are from my grandparents because their farm had this really scary billabong, which is like a mini-lake, and it looked like really dark and scary and I just remember my grandma telling me not to go to close otherwise the Bunyip would get ya. 

Context: 

This interview happened in-person at my apartment.  

Thoughts: 

A classic example of a legend that is trying to teach children to stay away from dangerous things. The informant told me that especially in Australia, there are a lot of waterways that kids could drown in, as well as dangerous animals that often live in the waterways. Scaring children that there is a dangerous monster that lives in the water is much more effective way to get them to stay away than actually telling them the truth. There are plenty of stories like this, such as the Inuit tale of the Qallupilluit, which talks of a monster who kidnaps children who wander out onto frozen ice in the Arctic Ocean. To learn more about this story, read here: “Inuit Stories – Qallupilluit.” Tia and Piujuq, 14 Mar. 2019, https://tiaandpiujuq.com/qalluipilluit/. For a different account of the Bunyip legend, read here: Pfeifle, Tess. “The Bunyip.” Astonishing Legends, Astonishing Legends, 15 Feb. 2018, https://www.astonishinglegends.com/astonishing-legends/2018/2/15/the-bunyip. 

The legend behind zongzi

Background:

L. is a 19-year-old Chinese-American college student currently studying in Los Angeles, California. He grew up his whole life in the D.C., Maryland, Virginia Area, colloquially known as the DMV Area, and as such, feels connected to the local east coast culture. He attributes his connection to his Chinese culture through his family, not so much Chinese media.

Context:

This legend in Chinese folklore and culture serves to explain why a certain food
(zongzi) dating from long ago is still eaten so prominently today. It involves human conflict and unique usage of the zongzi with a recurring but never fully complete end to the story.

Main piece: 

Q: “Can you tell me more about the legend behind zongzi?”

A: “Alright, zongzi are wrapped up in banana leaves and made of sticky rice with filling in the middle like meat, mushrooms, and salted egg mixed in together along with peanuts and other beans too. They’re wrapped into the shape of a triangular pyramid. The reason why they started is according to Chinese legend, there used to be a famous Chinese poet, scholar, and government politician who lived a long time ago during the warring states period. So he was very respected, very wise, and everybody loved him, but unfortunately, the court did not because while he had the best interests of the people at heart, they did not and just wanted to fill their pockets. The court officials slandered him and decided to banish him. Now that he was exiled, the court made more and more stupid decisions as he was forced to watch from afar. Seeing this, he felt so sad and decided to end it all by killing himself. He jumped into a river and drowned, sunk beneath the waves. But everybody loved him and wanted to keep his body safe, so they tossed zongzi into the river so the fish would eat those instead of his body. As long as the fish are fed with zongzi, his body will be safe in the riverbed. That is why people today eat zongzi.”

Analysis:

This story behind the zongzi cultural food item can be categorized as a legend within the context of folklore studies because there is understood truth value to its real world history. The warring states period was a formative era in ancient Chinese history, so it is natural that folk legends propagated from it to this day. While not exactly a myth, this legend through the lens of Levi-Strauss’s paradigmatic structuralism can help to uncover the key binary oppositions present throughout the story. Some of these key binary oppositions include individualism versus collectivism and hope versus surrender. Being a man of the people, the protagonist of this legend embodied collectivism and was diametrically opposed to the other greedy officials who represented the flip side of individualism. However, despite his upstanding character, eventually he lost all hope of enacting lasting reform and so, committed suicide as an ultimate act of surrender. Even after this, his supporters sought to preserve his body from being desecrated by the fish, demonstrating their hope to continue championing their cause even after their leader had fallen.

Annotation:

For another version collected by a Chinese scholar, see 

Jennifer Lim. (1996). Zongzi and Its Story. Women of China, 5, 52–52.

Domovoy

Um, in Russia, we believe that there is a little gnome-like creature living in your house, and you have to, if you’re like, if you are, if you got robbed or something like that, or, if something bad happened to your house or you don’t have enough money or something like that, or you keep losing stuff that’s the main thing, then, uh, you have to like bribe the little gnome guy and everything’s gonna be ok, he’s gonna protect your house. And, I believed in him until I was like 13. Because, when I was like 11 or 12, I was in a camp, in a summer camp, and there was like uh, like I’m pretty sure it was a fire extinguishing door, like you know, like, just was like a little door on the wall, right? I’m pretty sure the fire extinguisher was stored there or something, but it could never open. And I believed that the little gnome, I thought that the little gnome guy lived there, and one day, I leaved – I left. I left, um, little snacks below the door, and the snacks disappeared and I was like, oh my god, it was the gnome guy.

People are looking for explanations for things they can’t explain, like. My mom still, or like even I, even I still do it I can’t get rid of it. When something disappears, like when I can’t find something I say, “Devil devil, you played with it, can you please give it back now.” And, in Russian, and like, just because, the moment when you say it you’re already desperate enough and you’ve looked for so long, that there’s a big chance you’ll actually find it, after saying the phrase. So because of that, it’s like, it almost has a 100% success rate so you continue doing it. And like, when I’m on a call with my mom and I say I lost something she’s like, oh have you have you tried saying the phrase yet?

Background: My informant is a recent immigrant from Russia. They recall having always had this knowledge and having continued the tradition of appealing to the Domovoy (a name which they later provided to me) until the present.

Домовой

Domovoy

Context: This piece was collected in an in-person conversation in my apartment.

My thoughts: This legend reminds me of several other “house spirits” that I am familiar with. I was surprised at the benevolence which my informant described this creature as having. The invocation of this creature whenever an object is lost seems to be an extension of what my informant called “explanations for things they can’t explain,” a cry for supernatural aid when all natural means of finding a thing have been exhausted. I was interested to hear about my informant’s own encounter with the gnome – their brief story is a wonderful example of a memorate, of their witnessing their snacks disappearing and fitting that occurrence into their existing belief in this creature.