Category Archives: Myths

Sacred narratives

The Old Man At The Beginning

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/24/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a folk myth that my friend told me. We both went to school together in Oregon, from middle school through high school so I’ve known him for a while. My friend is still at home for college so I asked him to tell me a folk story that he had heard in his childhood. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Story

“Okay, this is one of the only good folk stories I actually know. So I’m just a little bit Native American right, a little bit of the Crow tribe from the Wyoming area I think. This is the only story that I think I ever heard about… probably because it’s pretty important, you know, creation stories and all that. It goes like this. In the beginning the world was just covered in water. And then there was this old guy, I think he was just named Old Man in the story for some reason, not important enough to give an actual name I guess. Anyway, he was looking around, I don’t know if he had a boat or something, but he saw some ducks off in the distance. For some reason the ducks had red eyes, don’t ask me why, I just remember it cause like, why do ducks have red eyes. Anyway he goes up to them and is like ‘is there only water in this world?’ 

And the ducks are like, ‘that’s all we’ve seen but you could try checking underneath.’ 

Then the Old Man tells the youngest duck to dive down and look for land. The youngest duck is down there for a while so the Old Man says, ‘he must have drowned.’

But then the younger duck comes back up and has a ball of mud in his bill. The old guy takes the mud and blows on it three times. They say that the mud grew and filled the earth and that’s how the land got there. I think they believe the Old Man made the land for them.”

Analysis

Of the three folklore pieces that I got from my friend, this was the only one that I didn’t have prior knowledge of going into it. And when I say I don’t have a clue what he was talking about, I mean I thought he was just telling me some made up story. He didn’t know the name of the story, so I had to do some digging into what it might be called. After a while of searching, I found that the Crow people had a deity they would call Old Man Coyote, and that was the man in this story. 

To the Crow people, this was a story that described how the land came to be. To us nowadays, we would see this as a piece of folklore categorized as myth. The Crow people took this story as something that probably actually happened, though my friend obviously does not believe it to be true. Because of this importance in their religion, the Old Man At The Beginning can be considered a sacred narrative of the people. In all my searching for this story, I could only find about three other sources of the story. Despite its rarity, my friend actually told a decent retelling of the story, only missing a few things from the other sources. For another reference, see https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/OldManattheBeginning-Crow.html.

The Leprechaun

Nationality: Irish, Chinese
Age: 19
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/29/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a description and story about Leprechauns in Ireland. My friend first heard the story from his parents, specifically his dad who is Irish. I have known this friend since elementary school. I knew that he had heard many stories about where his parents are from so I asked him to tell me about a few of them. I recorded this over the phone as he was very busy and couldn’t find a time to meet up (also COVID). This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Story

“Leprechauns are, they’re like, think of them as like fairies. And you know, a lot of them are like Central European and Northern European, not considering the UK or Norway or Sweden. They have fairies and that’s kinda where you get your traditional Lord of the Rings, type fairies, like D&D and that kind of stuff. But basically Leprechauns are Irish fairies. Traditionally they’re shoemakers or distillers, so they make shoes or they make drinks. And the Leprechaun, at least from my knowledge, it started, at least the folklore and myths of them used to come up more and more during the Irish famine. The reason for that is because during that time the middle class and Ireland was really heavily affected because that was their whole thing. They were just potato farmers. And the great Irish famine happened with the potatoes so they had this idealistic thing that represents in my way of seeing it, the famine. And it’s kind of because, I don’t know what you know about Leprechauns, but it’s basically how they’re inherently evil creatures. They try to trick you and it’s kinda like a Rumplestiltskin type thing. So basically what happens is… the whole tradition of finding the pot at the end of the rainbow, that type meme, that’s where Leprechauns keep all their gold, keep all their wealth. They come out during nighttime, and typically they are like, more known with kids. And kids were told this story because during this time it was really really hard in Ireland. And they wanted to give their children, parents wanted to give their children hope for this. So they’re like ‘hey, the only way to get what you want in life is to outsmart people.’ And that’s kinda where this traditional Leprechaun story came from. It’s like, there’s gonna be really bad people in life, that happens and they’re gonna try and trick you, so you have to be smarter. And that’s kinda where the heart of the Leprechaun story comes from. 

I’m just gonna go ahead and do a brief thing of what the story was like when I was younger. Basically it’s, when you’re a kid, you can get visited by this Leprechaun, or you can get visited by many Leprechauns. They’ll come to you in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping and you’ll wake up and you’ll see it, and then it would go off into the garden or into the forest. And typically the kid would chase it. So they chase it and find this little hut. In the hut they would be either making shoes or brewing, brewing beer or whatever. Since this is some sort of magical creature the kid would be like ‘what kind of magical powers do you have. Or what can you offer me. So the Leprechaun tells the kid about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But then there’s like favors involved. They’re like, ‘oh I need leather so I can make more shoes or I need wheat and barley so I can brew more beer.’ So it’s an exchange of sort, but the exchange goes back to hard working mentality, like everything comes with a price. But it also comes to outsmarting the person you’re working with, in this case the Leprechaun. It is really a story about the real world. And it is flavored in this fun-loving and semi-dark fairy tale. In the end sometimes the Leprechaun will die, or he will get murdered by the kid or something. But that’s the story of the Leprechaun.”

Analysis

Hearing what Leprechauns actually were to the Irish people was really fascinating for many reasons. For one, I never thought of Leprechauns as anything more than Saint Patrick’s Day, rainbows, and Lucky Charms (though I did know they had significance to the Irish, I’m not that ignorant). Learning how Leprechauns were actually the Irish version of fairies and the handful of lessons that they taught to kids was really interesting. I think a creature like this and the non-specific of the story would classify it as a myth. I also thought it was funny how my friend threw in the part about the kids killing the Leprechauns so casually. Stories like this are probably important to him because they were probably stories he heard a lot growing up.

La Mano Peluda

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: April 19th, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

MR: So La Mano Peluda translates to “hairy hand.” It’s basically an old legend that my parents used to scare me with when I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, like not taking out the trash or doing chores. So I would literally crawl into a ball at night and make sure that my legs weren’t hanging out of the covers because I genuinely thought that this terrifying hand would come out from under my bed and drag me by my ankles out of my room to who knows where.

HR: Hahahaha. So how old were you when you heard this story?

MR: It went back to when I was probably like 5 or 6. Because I was in school already, and if I didn’t do my homework my mom would be like, “If you don’t do your homework La Mano Peluda is gonna come and get you!”

HR: And do you know where this legend came from?

MR: Well my mom got the tradition from her family in Mexico, but after you asked me about it I did a little googling. Apparently, it was a man’s hand that had survived from the Spanish Inquisition. He wanted to seek revenge on the people who had pillaged his home or something like that. But when I was little, I didn’t really care about the origin and just got freaked out when I thought about an old hand hiding under my bed.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She used to be intimidated by the legend of La Mano Peluda as a young child but grew to see it as a funny way that her parents made her do her chores. 

Context: 

The legend of La Mano Peluda was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. She had told me about the legend before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. 

Thoughts:

The story of La Mano Peluda is a classic legend that is prominent across a wide range of Latin-American cultures. I would equate it to classic American campfire stories where the goal is to scare and entertain the audience. I have heard multiple recollections of this folk tale and they all seem to stem from having a fear of something hiding under one’s bed. For particularly young children, the legend of La Mano Peluda is used as a sort of scare tactic to get them to do their chores, while in older adolecents it is seen as an entertaining folk tale. What is interesting is that there is a pattern of “hairy hand” stories across the globe.

For another “hairy hand” story, see:

Mary Curtis Special to The Star. “Dartmoor Nights and Scary Tales Stir Imagination: SA2 Edition.” Toronto Star, Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, 1990.

El Cucuy

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: 4/14/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

HS: So tell me about El Cucuy.

MR: El Cucuy was a lot like other legends that my friends and parents used to scare me when I was little. A lot like La Mano Peluda, my parents would say things like, “El Cucuy is going to come and get you!” When I was really little, probably 5 or 6, I would be scared to get clothes out of my closet at night because that’s where I was told El Cucuy was waiting to get me and eat me. I honestly don’t even know anything about El Cucuy, he was kind of just like a boogeyman type thing that I use now to scare kids into behaving.

MR: *Googles El Cucuy on her phone for the first time*

MR: Oh wow. This story is crazy weird. Hahahaha. Apparently, a father was cursed after forgetting that he left his kids locked in the closet while their barn burned down, so all his kids were killed. After years of looking for his kids in other families’ closets, he grew an appetite for them? That makes no sense but it’s nice to finally know where the story of El Cucuy came from after all these years.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She comes from a devout Catholic family and has taught me a lot of traditions that I didn’t know pertain to Catholicism, seeing as to the fact that I myself was raised in a Catholic family. She also knows a lot of Mexican urban legends and ghost stories from her childhood.

Context:

This story was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. We had just finished talking about La Mano Peluda and other legends such as El Chupacabra. She had told me about these traditions before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. In a lot of the audio recordings, you can hear us having a conversation and then stopping abruptly because a customer walks in.

Thoughts:

Something that I found interesting, and I don’t know if this applies on a broader scale, is that there was a significant difference in my coworker’s response to talking about El Cucuy as opposed to other legends. In the case of La Mano Peluda, she recited many childhood experiences where she was genuinely afraid of it, along with talking about her scare-filled experiences of searching for El Chupacabra. She was not as passionate or enthusiastic about El Cucuy, perhaps because the legend wasn’t as effective at scaring her as a child or because it wasn’t used by her parents as much. Regardless, El Cucuy is a typical urban legend. My coworker’s comment on how El Cucuy is similar to the boogeyman made me realize that, like many other legends, it is part of a global pattern of stories made up to scare children into behaving.

To see how El Cucuy links with these other boogeyman stories, read:

Hayes, Joe., and Honorio. Robledo. El Cucuy! : a Bogeyman Cuento . 1st ed., Cinco Puntos Press, 2001.

The Lake Arrowhead Hand

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my friend/informant (DS).

HS: So what’s your take on The Hand?

DS: Alright so first of all we’ve gotta explain how this lake story came to be. In water skiing, there are different ways of holding the cable that are more efficient than other ways. In some cases, some ways of holding the cable are more dangerous than others. So there’s this way of holding it where you kind of wrap it around your back, but it’s really risky because there’s a risk of you losing your hand if things go wrong. So back in the 1980s, there was this girl who was water skiing in that risky position, right. And she messed up and her hand came right off. My parents talk about this story all the time and I’m pretty sure that it is a true story. The girl even lost her wedding ring because she was wearing it on the hand that she had lost.

HS: So what stories did people start to tell after she lost her hand?

DS: It kind of turned into a ghost story. People around the lake have reported seeing walking hands and all that kind of crazy stuff. They see the old, rusted wedding ring on the hand. They say the hand is still trying to find the body that it used to be a part of. It haunts all night swimmers at Lake Arrowhead and whenever you’re out on the lake at night, and you see a sparkle off in the distance, people wonder if it’s the shine of the ring on the walking hand.

Background:

My informant is a friend that I went to high school and now college with. He spends a lot of his summer in Lake Arrowhead and has a lot of folk stories and traditions that he has gotten from the area.

Context:

So I was visiting my informant up in Arrowhead last summer and I was with him and seven or eight other people. It was late at night and we were all on a boat in the middle of the lake. Besides us, there was no sound coming from anywhere- complete silence out on the water. It was also almost pitch black, with only small amounts of light coming from the surrounding docks. We were all winding down for the night, kind of relaxed sort of vibe. We all started telling ghost stories and legends that we knew in an attempt to scare one another. Amongst the stories was that of the Lake Arrowhead hand. A year later, I was in need of folklore stories and so I asked my friend to act as an informant for me.

Thoughts:

This is the second collection that I have done regarding ghost stories that involve hands, which is an interesting coincidence. I’ve gotten the chance to do a decent amount of reading on the subject of ghost hands in the process and found this example to be compelling for a few reasons. First, this folklore is unique to a small, concentrated population that lives on the crest of Lake Arrowhead. But even though it is local folklore, it still had properties of similar legends from around the world. It is almost as if we take stories from a predisposed list and then augment them to fit our local context, which is a trend that I found to be extremely interesting. I also found it interesting that these folk stories can be generated from true events. The fact that a woman lost her hand in Lake Arrowhead was true, but for some reason, we as humans find it fascinating to add all of this superstition to scary events. Why is that?