Category Archives: Narrative

A Rattlesnake’s Rattle Has the Devil in It 

Text: The belief: the rattle of a rattlesnake is associated with the devil. You should never keep one. The legend that authorizes it: a man once found a rattle in the brush, thought it looked cool, and slipped it into his pocket. He carried it with him for some time. It made him slowly insane. He could not sleep well and would sometimes hear the rattle shaking in his pocket when no one else could hear it. One night he got up in the middle of the night, took a knife, and killed his entire family. He was found in the morning on his porch, rattle in hand, without memory of what he had done. 

Context: Told to me by my roommate JS, who attributes the story to his grandmother. JS’s grandmother is a devout Catholic and Tejano, who grew up in Texas. The legend, as his grandmother framed it, is a general cautionary tale, not something that happened to anyone she knew personally. JS does not believe the rattle is cursed but says he would not pick one up. 

Analysis: This is a classic example of a folkloric rule and a story that demonstrates the consequences of breaking it. The underlying idea is that the rattlesnake’s danger does not leave when the snake dies. The rattle keeps it, and whoever picks it up carries it home. The legend’s shape (find, want, keep, lose your mind, lose your family) is familiar among Latin American cursed-object stories, where the trouble begins whenever someone takes home an object that should have been left where it was. The story’s real work is what it did to JS, and through him to me: neither of us believes a rattle is literally dangerous, and yet neither of us would ever pick one up. The “devil” reading the grandmother gives the rattle is a Catholic name for an older unease, as the rattlesnake as a charged figure predates even the arrival of Catholics to the new world. The geography is also significant: the Texas-Mexico border is where the snakes have a real material presence, and Anglo and Tejano traditions have been swapping folkloric material about them for some time. The dangers of a live rattlesnake are clear, but the story extends the good form of avoiding them even to dead rattlesnakes. 

The Watchman and the Haunted Vaudeville Theater

Text:

AB: My hometown, I come from, like, Northwest, a little outside Seattle, in Washington. And there’s a lot of ghost stories. We used to be a mining town, I think. We’re definitely a cow town. So there’s a lot of ghost stories. My theater was haunted. There’s a lot of generations that’ll tell stories of being alone in the theater, walking across the stage, and then hearing footsteps behind them, and then those footsteps pass them. 

There’s a story that someone was down on the stage while everyone else was in the booth, and they saw a man up there. They were like, why did they let a random old man up there? So they went up to the booth and were like, hey guys, you cannot let people into the theater, and you definitely can’t let them into the booth. And the people in the booth were like, there’s been no one. What do you mean?

Interviewer: Was there a story behind why it was haunted?

AB: It used to be a vaudeville theater, I believe, like a talent show, just a lot of different acts. So I think a lot of the ghosts came from that. The old man up in the booth was called The Watchman. I think probably a couple of people died around there. But also when I was researching this for my paper, I searched it up, and apparently a lot of theaters are haunted. A lot of theater people come up with the story that it’s haunted. So, very superstitious.

Interviewer: Did you ever go alone with the express purpose of trying to see one?

AB: No. The story goes that they were gone by the time I was old enough to actually do anything. The theater that was haunted was rebuilt, when I was around six, my parents remodeled it. My dad designed it. So there weren’t any ghosts anymore. Though we did have a Furby that might have been haunting. The legend was that there weren’t any batteries in it. If you touched it during the show, or if you tried to move it between the girls’ and boys’ dressing room beds, the show was cursed.

Context: AB is a USC student originally from a small town in northwest Washington State, several hours outside Seattle, a former mining and ranching town with a long-standing vaudeville-era theater. Her family is closely tied to the theater (her father, an architect, designed the rebuild when she was six). AB also recounted several supernatural stories from her family: a non-biological aunt who was pushed down the stairs by a ghost, a report of her toddler-self seeing “people eating” in a room with just herself and her mother, and her father reporting figures standing outside the house before AB was born. All framed matter-of-factly as part of growing up in the Pacific Northwest.

Analysis: The haunted theater is one of the most stable folk-narrative formats in American performance culture: many theaters have a ghost, many theater people can tell you about it, and the story is reliably transmitted from older performers to younger ones as part of the threshold of becoming a theater person. The Watchman is a precise manifestation of a haunting and notably sets the story apart from more diffuse haunted atmospheres typical of larger urban theaters. The vaudeville-era origin point, the architectural rebuild that “fixed” the haunting, and the displacement of the supernatural onto a battery-less Furby in the new building together shows the resilience of a haunted place legend to a changing physical environment: I thought it very interesting that the haunting relocates into the next available vessel rather than dissipating with the original site, thereby preserving a valuable performance and experience for theater posterity. 

Tale of the Selkies

Text:

Selkies are mythical female figures who live as seals in the ocean but transform into gorgeous humans when shedding their seal skin.

One day, a Selkie falls in love with a human fisherman and has a baby with him. After the baby is born, the Selkie steals her seal skin back and swims back to the ocean.

While the above version is the Irish tale—the most commonly known version of the story, there are multiple variations of the story of Selkies.

In the Icelandic version, the Selkies are human women who have suicided and thus become seals in the sea. There is also a much darker version of the story: One day, the Selkie brings her kid (who is also somehow a Selkie) in the form of seals to swim back to the fisherman. However, the fisherman, not knowing they are returning, hunts for seals, who are in fact his wife and kid, and eats them all.

The tale of the Selkies also inspired modern media productions, like the 2014 animation film Song of the Sea.

Context: The interviewee learned this folktale after watching Song of the Sea in 2014 and became curious to find out the original story the film’s plot is based on. She then searched up the Irish version of the story online, while also learning its variations.

Analysis:

Domestic Roles: The Selkie’s story, at its core, reflects the tension between one’s true self and their performance of specific domestic roles, and the cost of choosing one over the other. For example, in the tale, the seal skin is a symbol of the Selkie’s true self, and the ocean symbolizes where she belongs. However, the “human world” is where she performs her domestic roles as the wife of the fisherman and the mother of her child. Selkie’s longing for the sea and stealing her seal skin back becomes a coded articulation of desires for autonomy. However, in this story, choosing one over another (true self vs. domestic roles) has certain costs: choosing to go back to the ocean—to her true self—means leaving her children and family.

Death and Liminality: In the Icelandic Version, where Selkies are suicided women, carries the idea that death is not the termination, but rather a metamorphosis—human women who have suicided continue to exist, just in a different form, apart of the human world.

Hanako-San

Text:

Interviewee: Hanako-San’s story is an urban legend in Japan, widely spread among children. While I believe it began spreading among people in the mid-20th century, it has been passed down to this day.

Hanako-San is a young girl who wears a red skirt or dress. According to this tale, when you go to a lavatory at night, Hanako-San will haunt you when you are using it.

If you knock a closed toilet stall door three times, Hanako-San will appear. In some versions, it has been told that after Hanako-San’s appearing, if you look up, there will be a ghost looking at you. In other versions of the story, a hand—Hanako-San’s hand, will appear, and Hanako-San will kill you.

There are some versions of the story that have a good ending. For instance, in one version of the tale, when Hanako-San appears, she will play game with you. And this is typically a good ending.

Interviewer: Why is Hanako-San there (in the lavatory)? Any suspicions?

Interviewee: There are sayings about how Hanako-San became a ghost. Some people say she was threatened, frightened, and bullied, and so she hid in a school’s lavatory and died there. Some others say that Hanako-San’s death was caused by air raids in World War II, which makes sense given when the story was first told.

Context:

My interviewee learned Hanako-San’s story when listening to a Chinese podcast. The host of that podcast specializes in Japanese horror stories. My interviewee thinks of this story as a “typical childhood ghost story.” She also uses this legend as a way to learn about Japanese culture and society—their history (such as WWII being alluded to in this legend) and ideologies, etc.

Analysis:

  • Psychoanalytic interpretation: This urban legend can be interpreted using psychoanalytic theory. At its core, this legend functions as an externalization of repressed anxieties in Japanese society: fears that the Japanese society couldn’t openly confront, such as child mortality, wartime trauma, and school bullying.
  • Spatial symbolism: Toilet rooms are typically very small and confined. Their confinement targets people’s fear and mirrors their repressed anxiety.
  • Social issues / Wartime origin: Though this is only one variation of the story, the wartime origin (Hanako-San dying of WWII air raids) connects to Japan’s generational, collective trauma and guilt (this legend was first spread around 1950, not long after WWII). This embodies people’s way of processing this war, as well as the historical violence.

Kuchisake-Onna

Kuchisake-Onna

Text:

When you are walking on a street in Japan, you will likely encounter a woman who wears a white mask that covers her face, white clothes, and a white cap or hat. She is Kunchisae-Onna.
If you ever encounter her on the road, she will ask you,
“Am I beautiful?”

If you answer “Yes,” she will take off her mask, and you will see that there is a huge scar on her face.

After having you see the scar, she will ask you again,

“Am I beautiful?”

If you answer “Yes”—she will use a pair of scissors to cut you to death.

If you answer “No”—she will use a pair of scissors to cut you to death, too!


This story was so widespread that it once evoked a national fear in Japan. Press were even writing to the public in order to clear the air.

People also say that there are some ways to “counter” the deadly consequences when encountering Kuchisake-Onna. For example, you can answer “it’s okay”, “meh” or just not answer or say something nonsensical (like “tires” or “candy”), and she’ll let you off the hook.


Context:

The interviewee learned this folktale when listening to a Chinese podcast (name of the podcast: VG 聊天室). She uses this piece of folklore as a way to understand Japanese society. The interviewee thinks this legend reveals Japanese women’s social anxiety and anxiety about their appearance. She also thinks Kunchisae-Onna’s behavior represents her vanity.

Analysis:

  • The Scar and Cultural Anxiety: from a psychoanalytic perspective, the scar of Kunchisae-Onna represents a repressed cultural anxiety about beauty and fitting in Japanese societal beauty standards.
  • Female Rage: The fact that Kuchisake-Onna kills regardless of how you answer—whether you say “yes” or “no”—is a manifestation of female rage. Specifically, it is Kunchisae-Onna’s rage for the societal beauty standards and her impossibility of fitting in. The public’s fear of Kunchisae-Onna, and finding ways to “escape” the deadly consequences, is representative of the social fear of female rage. Kunchisae-Onna is not a monster, but she is portrayed as a monstrous, mad person and somebody to be cautious of—this speaks to the social fear of female rage.
  • National Anxiety: The fact that this legend spread nationally, widely enough, that it required press intervention itself speaks to how effectively the legend tapped into pre-existing, widely shared anxieties among Japanese individuals.