Category Archives: Narrative

Familial Witch Legend

Age: 19
Hometown: Rifle, Colorado
Location: Mexico

Context: My friends family lives in Mexico. His family has passed down this story for years, with his mom eventually telling him the story.

Legend:

Interviewer: “Can you tell me about the with legend that has been passed down in your family.”

Interviewee: “They lived in Mexico my great aunt my grandma’s sister and I think she’s always had diabetes or something and they used to go to a witch and then she would like do prayers or whatever, over her so she could get better.

But she wasn’t getting any better so then they were like we need to go see someone else like this girl is false. So they went to go see someone else and the second witch told her the reason you’re not getting better is because the first which she had was doing harm to her. She was actually like making spells against you. And then they were like the only way you can get rid of this is if you kill her (the witch).

So my grandma and my great aunt and my great uncle were like OK well she needs to get better so we’re gonna kill her. They asked her to come over to do a prayer worship and my great uncle murdered her with a machete. And then I think he fled to the US and she stayed and she went to jail for like conspiracy and then like authorities found him in the US and sent him back to Mexico and he like went to jail and stuff. And like I know they got out like on good behavior or something.”

Analysis:

This legend reflects how traditional healing beliefs and the fear of harm from the supernatural can influence real-life decisions. Feelings of trust and desperation are also present, as there is a need to explain illness with no clear solution.

The Legend of Elmer (Pinecrest Lake)

Age: 38
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Location: Pinecrest, CA

Context:
Since the 1930s there has been a tradition to call out the name “Elmer” in the Pinecrest Lake/Camping ground. The real identity is debated with some thinking Elmer is a lost child, hiker, or even a bear. Although there is no confirmed missing persons case of someone named Elmer, the tradition continues through generations just like it has with my mom and our family.

Content:
Interviewer: “Can you tell me about the legend of Elmer you taught me when we went camping?”

Interviewee: “When we were kids my Dad used to take me and our family to Pinecrest, CA and there was legend of a lost boy from about 100 years ago. Every evening we would all shout out “Elmer!” And other campers from farther away would chime in, which made it such a fun tradition.

I always looked forward to doing it as a kid, which is why I continued the tradition with you.”

Analysis:
This example is a place-based legend that is sustained through participation in the tradition. The story of Elmer reflects characteristics of a legend because it is potentially true but doesn’t have any confirmed evidence. Its tie to a specific location also allows the story to gain meaning and the act of calling out the name transforms the story into a performance. This performance has created a sense of community among campers and residents of the area helping to pass down the tradition and legend through generations.

“Dracula is Real”

Context: While in discussion a student and I were talking about monsters and creatures that the whole town believed in. We ended up talking about the infamous Dracula, to which she explained that that was no tale in her country (Romania). People defended and protected themselves from a king that practiced many of Dracula’s methods.

Text:

“Dracula is real. I think you can google this, but there was basically a king a long time ago named Dracula. He thought that if he drank the blood of his citizens he would live forever. He would kill people in the town and like bathe in their blood or drink the blood, or eat the heart or liver. That’s where the story of the vampire came from. But for us it’s not a story, it’s like real. Even in our food, there’s so much garlic or onions. I don’t think it’s the breath, like I think it does affect your insides so that they wouldn’t want your blood or something.

My parents, when they eat, they will bite out of onions, which is part of the culture.”

Analysis:

It was very interesting to talk to someone whose country followed the practices to protect itself from a monster. When I think of Dracula or vampires in general, I’ve never imagined them as actual people, which led me to wonder whether monsters are monsters at all. It would be interesting to see whether there is greater recognition of the source of monsters, and whether people from the places they originated from see them differently. We’ve modernized so many creatures in our own image in films and TV that I think it blurs the root of where the supernatural actually spawns from.

The Electrician’s House

Context: While in a class discussion, the student told me about an eerie experience she had at her old house in Connecticut, previously owned by an electrician.

Text:

“My house is pretty old in Connecticut and it was created by an electrician — and so there’s like seven outlets in my room alone. There’s so many places to charge things, which is actually very useful, but there’s a lot of switches in the house that don’t do anything. Obviously they connect to something, but we’re not sure what they connect to.

There’s two different switches for the fan on my ceiling. One of them doesn’t really do anything, but the other is a sliding switch so you can choose how fast the fan moves. There was one night where the fan kept spinning on its own. And so I turned it on and turned it back on, and I went to my parents’ room and told them the fan was spinning. I said that I feel like there’s something weird. I feel like there’s something in my room.

My parents were like it’s probably a ghost, cause we believe in that stuff a lot. My mom was like ‘go in and tell the ghost that you know that you’re here and you know something’s the matter. I need to go to bed and you have to go. You are not welcome here.’

I go back and jump into bed and I’m under my covers. I’m sitting there look up at the fan and I say all that stuff. And then the fan stops.”

Analysis:

One thing that I found so interesting about this story was the similarity we shared in our interactions with weird phenomena in our spaces. I had shared my own story about telling a possible spirit to “stop,” which was followed by a complete cessation of action. The student and I shared that the scariest part about that situation was when the mysterious force halted. As she told me the interaction, it was alarming to imagine something listening to her fears and realizing that they were finally getting a reaction. I’m curious to see if other people who have had ghost stories where they were scared and decided to face it head-on ended up having similar responses.

As Cowdell notes in the article on scary folk elements, “folk horror is a feeling.” Stories like these are passed through performance and the thrill of imagining oneself in that type of situation.

Haunted School

Age: 22

Context: My friend told me about how, in Spain, kids would make up rumors about the school being haunted.

Text:

“People would say that my, like, the school when I lived in Spain, people said that the school was haunted. Um, because it was a really old building, but I don’t know if I believed all that. But this one girl was like really like specific about it and she was like, oh yeah, I saw ghosts going down the stairs one time, but she was just drinking a glass of water menacingly. And I was like, bro, that’s not even scary.

There was like legends about the school, I think. Someone said that it was a peanut factory, and another person said that people who have peanut allergies don’t go to our school, because of the peanut factory.

The other one was, we were like, we were like 8 or 9. But some other people said it was like a hotel for royal people, like royal people that stay at the building. It had like a courtyard. I think it had like tiles and stuff.”

Analysis:

I’m humored by this story because of its drastic variations of the same setting. As we discussed, it’s wild how legends become so imaginative and varied. These children grew up believing these stories, and it sounds like some of them even went out of their way to justify their beliefs by tracking the buildings’ history. Following the theory of diffusion, it’s clear that this has possibly evolved and slightly changed through word of mouth, with each class entering and exiting the school. I’d be curious to hear the current legends of the school today to see if any of them sound similar to what my friend shared.