Category Archives: Narrative

Willy’s Story

Age: 22

Text:

Interviewee:
The story is kind of a monster-ghost story from my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California. It’s about Willy, the moster.

There is this forest area behind my neighbor’s house, and they always warn their kids “Don’t go in the forest after dark, because there is a monster in the woods named Willy, and he’s gonna grab you.”  Willy was like a old, mean, adult figure that’s kind of a spirit in a sense, and he came with a cane. Then, this story got circulated around my neighborhood, and all the kids know this story.

Essentially, if kids disobeyed, like went into the forest, they would get taken. It’s kind of like the classic, like, be weary of stranger danger story. So yeah, that basically is the gist of the story itself. All the kids in my neighborhood know this story. We always tease each other, “Be careful of Willy, don’t go in the forest.” It kind of has that local legend feel, which is kind of interesting.

I was never brave enough to go in the forest and check on that, like I didn’t want to be the person to see that Willy’s real, you know, so I trusted everyone’s judgement.


Interviewer: This story kind of reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood, like don’t go off the track.
Interviewee: Yeah, yeah. Otherwise you will get into trouble.


Interviewer: Is there a prototype, or, is there someone who was actually taken, that you know of?
Interviewee: Lucky for my neighborhood—no. No one got taken by the monster. It was more of
just a cautionary tale. There is no specific people who got taken, but my parents would joke around and, like, have items being taken from my backyard, when I was like, “Oh where did my ball go?” They’d be like, “Oh, Willy took it,” and they probably just donated it or something.

Context:

When the interviewee was growing up, around 8 to 9 years old, he was told this story by his parents. All the kids in his neighborhood know this story, and some of the parents even brought this up too——according to the interviewee, “I think that’s actually where it originated, a friend’s parent told them this story.”

Analysis:

“Stranger Danger” Cautionary Tale: Willy’s Story is a local cautionary tale. This tale functions to regulate children’s behavior. Willy is an archetype of the stranger danger—an outsider who is dangerous and must be avoided by the children. On an emotional level, this stranger, who is old and carries a cane, contrasts with the safe domestic environment in which children grow up. Children are told this story because parents would like them to be cautious of the outside world, the strangers, and the forest.

Transmission: According to the informant, a parent in the neighborhood started telling this story to their kids, and then “all the kids (in his neighborhood) know this story,” and sometimes parents know too. This represents a vernacular transmission that is local and informal, and it is also one that goes in various directions. For instance, first it was transmitted in a top-down way, but it was later transmitted peer-to-peer by the children.

Reuben Sandwich

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J: So, in my family, um, my grandmother says — told me that uh, that her uncle invented the Reuben sandwich before it was called the Reuben sandwich. It didn’t have a name. And-but she would eat the same sandwich when she was a kid… at the– at her uncle’s deli a- in New York City and, uh, after school she would go and he would make her the sandwich and um, and that she claimed that Aurther Reuben worked at this deli when he was young and that then, when he went off and made his own deli, that he took… that sandwich and then put his name on it and made the Reuben… as we know it. But it was really not called that before when– so the-the family, you know my-my grandmother believes that our family invented the Reuben sandwich.

Interviewer: What’s in the Reuben sandwich?

J: I don’t even know. *laughs* no, no it’s something with Russian dressing… I can’t remember actually what’s in the Reuben sandwich so I feel a-very ashamed that I don’t even know my family’s sandwich. But — and I’ve never had a Reuben sandwich… obviously.

Context

J: I just remember when [informant’s grandmother] was telling me that story and then I — you know, there’s no way to actually to you know, to actually find evidence of this, but… my grandma tends to be… on the money with most things, so I — all of her stories that I have been able to confirm have checked out pretty much to the t, so I’m inclined to believe it, but I have no evidence to actually believe that it all actually was true. But we like to go with it because it’s a fun story to tell and, you know, it’s-to me it’s become some family, you know, it’s our- you know, it’s part of our family folklore I guess you could say.

The informant and his family have been New York City residents for many generations.

Analysis

This story is much less about the food itself, and more about the legend that surrounds it. In fact, the informant has never made a Reuben sandwich, much less eaten one. This suggests that the legend has a deeper purpose than to simply pass on a family recipe. In this case, I suspect that this story serves to connect the informant and his family to the greater history of New York City and the United States.

Folklore is a way to communicate identity, and since the informant does not claim Russian or Irish heritage, the heritage he is identifying with can only be his family’s identity as New Yorkers (even though the region of origin of the Reuben sandwich is generally disputed). Having a story that connects the family to the history of the city through a family deli allows for a greater claim on the place where they have lived for generations.

Alligators in the Sewers in New York City

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J: I believe there are alligators roaming around our sewers. And I think this because I know that there was a time when there were a lot of uh, kids that used to have alligators as pets. There used to be kids with alligators as pets. My mom’s cousin B— was one of those that used to get the little alligators down in Florida, they’d bring ‘em up, and they’d be tiny. Bring ‘em to New York, and they’d make cute little pets until they started to grow too big. And then, they would flush them down the toilet. Now this is exactly what cousin B— did this, actually flushed his down the toilet, and so-

Interviewer: And the idea is that they survive?

J: Yup, yup. And that they live in the sewers. And so-

Interviewer: And they get really big or they’re tiny?

J: No, they get big, so that there are big-that there are you know, adult sized alligators in the sewers in New York City and there’s a lot of food down there for them to eat because there’s a lot of rats and a lot of various things that people throw into the sewers and so, anyway, yeah, I think it’s totally possible and um there’s even uh, a statue that somebody made recently, um, that, uh represents the alligators in the sewers down near union square, so anyways, I think it’s a real thing. I think there’re alligators down there.

Context

The informant and his mother were both born and raised in New York City. He shared this story over dinner after I questioned a claim he made about there being alligators living in the sewers of New York City.

Analysis

This story is an example of a legend and the specific memorate of the informant. In this case, the story of the mother’s cousin receiving a small pet alligator as a gift from Florida and flushing it down the toilet is the memorate that connects the informant to the larger legend of the alligators that live in the sewers of New York City. Whether or not the events of the story are true, it is likely that other New York City residents have similar memorates to this one that make the legend more personal and pervasive.

The Backrooms

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C: “originally, I th- it was off of a seemingly random 4-chan post. I think it was a 4-chan post. Um… where it was an image of this oddly yellow, liminal space, seemingly going on forever, where it was captioned something along the lines of detailing these wet – these damp, musty floors, the flickering and the drone of the fluorescent lights. And this almost established a medium or a vessel for many many creatives to then come forth and expand on it in ways never thought imaginable. Um… there are – there is a highly expansive backrooms wiki, um, going across how this first yellow, um maze-like interior was the first level of the backrooms going areas such as um, tunnels with piping, hotels, uh, office buildings, pastures with houses, um, birthday parties, carnivals, any sort of environment where things are presented that are seemingly infinite and just not right, incredibly uncanny in their description and existence. Though beyond that, I feel the most interesting aspect of it is how um.. Esp– like beyond just the image or, uh, text-based creatives, how a lot of visual, how a lot of content creators have taken it to make games about it. I, being one of them myself. Um… Or cane pixels probably making the most, uh, kind of canonizing the backrooms in a way. Being a person to establish these foundations that explore the backrooms, the systems for which they operate aswell as now, later, making a movie about it aswell.

Amost related to it in a sense, before the backrooms were a thing, before they were massively popularized, the internet equivalent of it prior would definitely be the SCP archive or Secure, Contain and Protect where a completely open database or wiki where people, creatives, um… writers who’d effectively go into this archive, write a creature entry, a entity entry for any of these things, whether it’s safe, hard to contain, or incredibly dangerous, um, based off of like what it is, what it does, and all these within the lore of SCP have a place, have an existence because the binding agent is what brings it all together and similar to that, the backrooms — many people can go and make different levels, make level 666, make level 1, make level fun, all these different iterations off of the same start that then now have a breath of air to breath this kind of truth, which is fascinating that, in a way, this fictitious thing is a way for creative minds to bring about how they feel in a medium from back then to the present day”

Context

A fellow folklore scholar told me about their experience with the backrooms during a conversation about digital legends.

Analysis

Legends like this one that grown on the internet are unique in that the collaboration between contributors is recorded in great detail. This means that those who develop the folklore are able to take partial ownership over the role they played in “creating” a legend. You can even see in the informant’s language about “text-based creatives” and “content creators” that there is significantly more agency given to these performers of the legend than the storytellers of the past. On the internet, parts of folklore can be “authored” as the legend continues to grow and morph in new ways.

Spirit of the Woods

Text:
KK: So, in high school, I used to live in a neighborhood that was known for having a soccer field, right? And the soccer field–I never did this, of course–in high school, a lot of people would go to the soccer field late at night to host these things that they would call “wood parties.” Basically, at the end of the soccer field there’s this long path, and you go straight into the woods from there. And people would go into the woods and they’d basically have this free-for-all where they’d drink, they’d do a lot of things, they’d hook up with people, whatever. Late at night, towards the end of my senior year, one of my friends went to one of these wood parties, and she said that there was this person in the woods that would follow the people who would stray from the group. And they could hear, like, the crunching of leaves, and they would hear, like–I don’t know what it was, but they would describe it as this wood spirit, or something, that would follow them if they were not in their group.”

Context:
KK: The context, I would think–I’m not saying she made it up, but– I’m pretty sure that, I think they were nervous cuz they would go pretty deep into the woods to hide from cops and stuff like that (laughs). So, I’m not sure if this wood spirit was maybe like, a manifestation of their fears towards getting caught by authority. But they would say that it would like, take their drinks and it would do certain things–but um, it was interesting cuz I think they were afraid of getting caught so they were very anxious. So people would say that they would notice certain things going on at their wood parties. You know, it was also a bunch of drunk teenagers, so. I don’t know.

Analysis: I think there’s definitely some value to KK’s theories about why this spirit was believed in. For high schoolers rebelling by drinking in the woods, it makes complete sense that superstitions surrounding a spirit of the forest would arise–it’s a very common set-up to spooky stories and horror movies, and the anxiety is understandable. I also think most forests and wooded areas tend to hold a bit of fear and/or mysticism for humans, and the idea of a spirit of the woods is also extremely common.