Category Archives: Narrative

Stonehenge energy

Text:

Informant: When I visited Stonehenge, I very much felt that there was something about that place that was charged with energy- it just felt different- more than any other place I had been to before. Unfortunately I was with a tour group so I couldn’t hang out. I would’ve loved to have been able to, y’know, hang out and feet that feeling.

…

Interviewer: Do you remember anything else that happened around the time you went to stonehenge? Like how the trip was, when you were going up there and when you were coming back and stuff like that?

Informant: We were on a tour group, I was in high school, so it was just a bus ride in, y’know, a walk around a little bit, and then a bus ride out. There was no dramatic lead up to it.


Interviewer: Do you still remember feeling that energy?

Informant: Yeah, I still remember feeling that there was something about the place, I would have loved to get closer, and like I said it just felt charged with energy. And when I asked the people around me, they didn’t necessarily agree. It was me picking up on that.

Interviewer: Do you think there’s any particular reason for that?

Informant: I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, it’s never happened to me in any other place. I don’t know if it was- what do you call it- a family memory? Genetic memory?

Context:

This account takes place during a time when the informant was in high school. They grew up in the United States, but note that they have Scottish, English, Germanic, and Norwegian ancestry.

Analysis:

As mentioned in the interview, there isn’t too much out of the ordinary regarding the lead up to the visit to Stonehenge, with it just being a school trip. This could very well explain the more nonchalant reaction to the site for the other students visiting, compared to the informant, as it may be harder to connect with a historical site personally when the reasons for doing so are more institutional. The informant themself mentions having some Scottish ancestry, so there is a chance that they were aware of such a connection before the trip. The “energy” which they felt could very well be the result of the informant being one of the few people there with an ancestry that connected them to this particular place.

Aïcha Kandicha Jinia

Text

“Every summer, we used to visit grandma house in Morocco. At night, my cousins and I loved all the mystical stories that she used to tells us. One in particular was the mystical legend of Aïcha Kandicha Jinia. She appeared to her victims as a beautiful woman with very long hair that flowed behind. She had an enchanting voice that give her magical power to lures who ever come cross her to their doom. One day, in Atlas mountain a group of men was walking at night when she appeared to them. They were lured by her beauty. When they approached her, they realized her feet were not human but animal feet.  They were so petrified, looking at her goat feet that some went mad to death and others run away and survived. My grandma told us only the  men with a pure Heart survived and their soul were free from being possessed and haunted by her. As much we were fascinated by the story, we were all scared by the name of Aïcha Kandicha. 😂”

Analysis:

The tale of Aicha Kandicha Jinia is similar to the tale of La Llorona. This is because La Llorona is usually also an otherworldly woman luring men to their demise because of her beauty. I believe this story is fit to be a tale in order to be suitable for kids but scary enough to have them not trust a stranger for their safety. I also read in other sources that sometimes they depict her having a snake tail for legs. Goats are the most common animals in the Atlas mountains though, which is probably why that is the chosen variation of her depiction. This is a case of polygenesis, meaning that the folklore has independent origins. This is because the supposed origin point of La Llorona was the aftermath of Spanish colonization, which happened in North America. However, there could be a possibility of a similar archetype story from Spain to Morocco, since they are neighboring countries. My mom is an example of a passive bearer as she didn’t tell me this story. It is a story very much related to the Atlas mountains for her, and that’s not where I grew up (a city in the states). I believe it is also a tale of the countryside or rural areas. Perhaps it is even demonizing the women there, or more specifically the Amazigh women, as they (the indigenous people of Morocco) have been alienated from urban and Islamic life for the most part. After further research though, apparently she was a person who resisted Portuguese occupation in the 16th century by luring the soldiers and having her accomplices kill them. She was thus given the name “La Contessa”, which sounds the same as Kandicha. She was heartbroken after the death of her fiancé in the hands of the Portuguese, so she vowed to kill any soldier she saw. Thus, the tale has evolved to killing any man she sees, in which her spirit lingers there for eternity to haunt people.

Svatební Košile/The Wedding Shirt

 Name: Emma

Text: 

“A girl prays to St. Mary to bring her fiancé back from war.  He comes back and knocks on her door at Vespers, and she suspects something to be off, but it’s dark, and she’s in love with him, so she goes with him into the darkening night, taking the wedding shirts her mother sewed for their impending marriage along with her. As the night passes, each time the clock strikes, he convinces her to throw away another thing connecting her to her religion/culture– first, her rosary– it’s too heavy, he says, as they trudge through the mud, on the way to the church to get married.  Second, her prayer book, because it’s weighing her down. Third, her pendant of St. Mary; she looks into his eyes, and they look dead, then looks around her, seeing they are at the church’s gates– but not the front gates, rather the gates to the cemetery. He looks away, then looks back, asking if she’s thrown her pendant away; Yes, she lies. He asks her to throw the wedding shirts over the fence, and she does, in fear; then, he helps her climb over.  In the center of the cemetery, lit with a ghostly light, is an empty grave. Her fiance takes her by the hand and leads her closer; she looks at the gravestone, and both their names are on it. He pushes her into the grave, as the light of day begins to creep upon them, and she sees him, standing above her– visibly dead, and shaking under the creeping light. Quick, he says, and she prays to St. Mary as he throws the first shovel of dirt over her; her horrifying realization striking her that her lover has come back: dead. Her prayer is answered as the sun rises, and at the crow of the rooster, he burns and crumbles to dust before her with a scream, leaving just the girl and the wedding shirts.”

Context:

“The original written version of the story is a poem written by Karen Jaromir Erben (the same guy who wrote the vodnik down). They’re both in Kytice which means golden wreath or something like that but it was a book of Czech mythology that was banned during the communist takeover for being too nationalist and a lot of the stories the way they’re written are subtly anti communist basically. Like the reason that they feel like they’re warning against what was about to culturally happen is cuz they were. Like this story is obviously like. Supposed to imply that she’s being strung along to throw away these elements of her Czech religious culture and identity for ultimately nothing. In the same way that I think the vodnik was a warning of what it would be like to defect to a different place lol or at least why I always related to it because I grew up like feeling in between water and land / with a loss of national identity because I am neither really Czech or American yk, like it’s about the experience of diaspora. The vodnik is the fish man who has to steal the woman from earth against her will in order to have companionship bc he’s repulsive and lowkey nobody would consensually be with him. And he’s not able to walk on earth without his jacket dripping bc he’s like a fish man. But he can’t find companionship amongst fish bc he’s smart like a person. So it’s lowkey kind of tragic, he’s like a Frankenstein character. Like a character who does horrible stuff but it’s lowkey like You feel sorry for him bc he got made like that. The Kytice (by Eben) is key to Czech national identity. ”

Analysis:

Similar to the ghost memorate of the lady after the USSR occupation, the tale has largely to do with possessions that cannot be taken away that represents the self or more broadly put, to represent not relinquishing Czech national identity as Emma said. This can be seen through the Christian motifs throughout the tale, as different religions were not allowed under communism. Additionally, it mentions wedding artifacts such as the wedding shirt and the church gates. Terminating the wedding and only being a fiancé represents the perpetual liminal identity of individuals in limbo within those two phases caused by death – in a larger sense, the imposing political state of the country and its effects on the identity of individuals. The idea of ghosts or death could be considered an allomotif of communism in this case.

Diwali – Festival of Lights

Name: Diya 

Text:

“Diwali is the Indian festival of lights celebrated because the Lord Rama returned home, taking 14 days after the defeat of the demon Ravana. The whole town was dark, so they lit up lamps (Diyas!) so that he could find his way home. This is why on Diwali, the festival of lights, we celebrate by using oil lamps and colorful decorations.”

Context

“I heard this from my mom when I was young”

Analysis:
A festival is an event that happens during a specific time/place, and includes rituals to represent a right of passage. One thing to note after research is that Diwali occurs on the darkest night of the month Kartik, or rather the New moon. This year, it will be on Nov 1, 2024. This, I suppose, makes the most sense as the darkest time emphasizes the contrasting light present to carry out an even stronger message of hope, return and safety amongst the unknown. In addition, I researched that Diwali usually celebrates two different Lords – Shiva in the North and Rama in the South. There was one variation that illustrates Lord Rama, his wife and his brother returning from a 14 year long exile. I suppose the 14 is the cognate element that is consistent in these two versions, and is a case of monogenesis where it originated somewhere in India and diffused to different regions that created different variations as a result.

Angel visitation

Name: Elsa 

Text: 

“When my grandmother was sick in the hospital, she was in a lot of pain. She had glaucoma, and due to a mistake at the hospital, she got an infection from the surgery. This is ultimately how she passed.

I never met her, but a story I’ve heard circulated many times is the night she met angels. One day in the hospital, she was in an extreme amount of pain. She thought she was going to die that night. She fell asleep, and woke up to the sound of two voices, and a very bright light. The two voices conversed about it “not being her time yet,” and a hand reached out and touched her back. Her pain immediately subsided, and she fell asleep. 

Although she passed away shortly after, she had enough time to spend with her family.”

Context:

I heard this from my father, who is her son. I think this story is not only a cool supernatural story but one of hope and healing. It was comforting to my dad to hear that she was protected, and hopefully still is by those angels who helped her.

Analysis:

This story is a legend. It can’t be disputed or proven as that is in the experience of the person experiencing it. This genre is often used to showcase a potential truth value that is unknown, and it is not as easily spread. It also highly depends which one is believed and not believed as it is socially negotiated. In Ireland they believe in fairies, but in the states they believe in Aliens. Objectively, the two are the same. In this case, Elsa’s family is from Pakistan. However, the idea of seeing an angel visit someone as they died/about to die/die and come back is quite common. I suppose the connotation of the word “angel” is an Abrahamic perspective of categorizing the being that visited her grandma. The legend of angels are socially non negotiable in America because of its inherent Christian ties. However, the idea of something visiting is quite universal.