Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

The myth of The Pied Piper

Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“This is the story of the pied piper. The Piper is a man who one day just shows up in a kingdom and the king has a rat problem. The king is trying to figure out how to get all the rats to go away and the pied piper says, “Well if I play my flute and get all the rats to go away if you let me stay in your kingdom.” The king agrees but he has now idea how the piper is going to do that. Well, the piper plays his flute and every time he plays his flute the rats follow him. So what the piper does is he plays his flute  and gets the rats to all simultaneously jump off a cliff. What happens then is that the king doesn’t keep his end of the bargain and so the pied piper was supposed to get money and he was supposed to be able stay in the kingdom and when he learns he cant do that he plays a song on his flute and freezes the whole kingdom but the children and stole the children and now no one knows where they went. and now we have the story of the lender man who is this big man showering a tuxedo who is said to be seven Feet tall and he takes children.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “This was a story I learned when I was little because my mom owned a picture book of midivil short stories and in one of them was the story of the pied piper and I thought he was really creepy and then later when I started hearing about the whole modern internet folklore Slender man it reminded me of the original story.”

Final thoughts: Again this story features a monster taking away children however this story focuses a great deal on the fears of a parent. Rather then focusing on scaring a child into saying put this story seems to be accessing the fear that parents have that their children could be taken away from them at any moment without warning. This fear is meant to teach people that they need to keep an eye on their kids and keep them safe. As such this folklore is designed for a older audience then some of the other monster stealing children tales.

Annotation: For another version of this legend read The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, London & New York, Frederick Warne and Co., 1910.

The Proud Eagle

Nationality: Iranian-American
Age: 77
Occupation: Small Business Owner
Residence: La Canada, CA, USA
Performance Date: March 12, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian/Farsi

“This is a story about an eagle and the issue of pride that has been, uhh… told generations after generations to caution the young generations about not to be too proud of themselves and be humble. I’ll say this story in Farsi first, and then translate it in English. [Tells story in Farsi]

Now translate in English, the story about a proud, extremely proud eagle. And as he was flying, I… says to himself, ‘I’m so proud of myself, and my power, and how I can see things, and I’m the strongerest, the strongest eagle on Earth, and anything down there, if it moves, I can tell, I can sense it.’

As he was flying, a hunter down below, using bow and arrow, aimed at her… uhh… and sh… sh…, you know, aimed an arrow at her. Uhh… so causes the eagle to start falling. As… he was, uhh… I’m sorry, I changed my pronouns! You know, I went from he and she; can we redo that?”

No, it’s fine, you can keep going!

“[Laughs] Okay. As he was falling down, uhh, he was looking at the arrow that caused him to fall, and noticed that the, uhh, the important thing that was guiding the arrow was a feather of another eagle. That caused his fall. And eventually his demise.

So the story goes to explain that, uhh, most of the things that are happening to us, are as a result of some of the things we’re doing, uhh, due to our neglect, due to our incompetence, that’s happening to us.”

 

Analysis: This story is very similar to tales and proverbs in other parts of the world relating to pride. I am reminded of the English phrase, “Pride comes before the fall,” which is itself derived from the Bible. It seems to be a very common belief that excess pride often results in one’s own misfortune, but it is interesting to note that in this case, the story is told from the perspective of the Eagle. Not only this, but the hunter is not seen as good or evil, he is instead a merely neutral actor. This places all of the responsibility for wrongdoing on the Eagle’s pride, instead of the entity that caused the Eagle direct harm.

‘Animas’ Ghosts in Rural Mexico

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: Middle-Aged
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“People talk so much about ‘animas,’ like means ‘spirits,’ about the point when they die, they come back.

 

So… My grandma always was telling us, ‘Oh, I feel like, umm… A ghost, an anima, that comes with me every night. I feel it here, walking. I saw her walking.’ My grandma said it was a… a… woman.

 

So, sometimes, at home, when we were at home, we hear womans, old womans, walking to us, too. Because we believe what my grandma says, and we were thinking ‘Oh, it’s true what my grandma said. There’s someone walking at night near to us!’

 

And also when we were not sleep before 11:00 p.m., we were, umm… we were in our bed, six girls in the same room, and suddenly outside we started hearing a horse. Ehh… We can hear the, it looks like a humongous horse, it comes from outside the window, and we hear the noises, and we hear that the… chew… horse, very strong about the horse. And so many people in our village talk about that. And we said, ‘oh my god, that is a scary!’ So we don’t open doors and we went to sleep very fast, because we were afraid to this man on the horse.

 

And then also, about the, umm… The money. We hear that where is there flame on the floor, there is some money, too. So some people starts… scraping the dirt in this place, so some people, what they found was, uhh… bones from some skeleton or from some other people, so… they said if you see this, this flame, it can be a dead man or a, or a… golden pot.

 

So it was, uhh… it was kind of… strange? But it, it was like that.”

 

Analysis: Much like her husband’s ghost story, the informant’s ghost story is notable for its apparently-widespread belief in an otherwise deeply religious culture that would normally reject the existence of such spirits. And yet, the presence of ghosts is considered a normal enough occurrence that they may enter and live inside of houses without too much hubbub. Also worth noting is the expansion on the flaming ground concept from the informant’s husband’s story. Evidently, flaming ground that signifies good or bad luck is a common belief. Additionally, the chance to discover a long-lost skeleton may be related to the ghosts of people that the informant claimed to have run into first-hand, as it would appear that being buried far away from anything in particular may trigger a spirit’s restlessness from improper burial, a taboo in Judeo-Christian culture.

The Dog at the Gate

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: Middle-Aged
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“It came to my mind, one of those legends, It was more, more like, kind of warning from our parents not to do something. But, uhh, in a way, the kind of worked out. The, the way they did it is the following.

 

They told us that curfew time for us was between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. every day. No exceptions. Uhh… When you were under 16 years old, that was an uhh, unwritten rule. So… uhh… They said that, uhh, instead of punishing us for not coming on time home from wherever we were, they came up with this little legend.

 

It was told to their parents, it was told to them by their parents also, so they scared the heck out of us. They said, when you were walking on these little trails next to the trees, next to the river, invariably you had to cross one of these stone fences. That’s the properties, that was always a little gate. Or sometimes it was just open there, the, the, the rocks were removed from that stone gate, that stone fence, and uhh… people had to walk through those, uhh, those openings no matter what.

 

They said, you were coming after 10:30, between 10:30 and 12:00, it was going to be really dangerous because there was going to be a big, ferocious black dog with red eyes guarding that, uhh, specific opening on the fence. And you wouldn’t be able to cross. And the only way would be to just go back to where you came from, you have to gather at least another 3 people to go with you, otherwise you would find the dog every single time there.

 

Of course we never saw the dog! [laughs] But we got home on time every single time! We were never late, because we never wanted to see that dog! [laughs]

 

So, that was a thing that scared the heck out of us for years and years. Now, when we became adults, you know, we knew it was just a little hoax, it was a little old saying, you know, but… but it worked!”

 

Analysis: Like many tales, this one seemed to be told with the purpose of instilling obedience in children. The informant made it clear that the telling of the story was so scary that it inspired him, even as a young adult, to never break curfew out of fear of consequences – not from his parents, but from the uncontrollable force of the guard dog. It should also be noted that the guard dog would not attack if the individual was in a large enough group, implying that social functions were acceptable late-night activities, but lonesome wandering (or, possibly, philandering) were not.

Shim Chung

Nationality: Korean
Age: 47
Occupation: computer programmer
Residence: LA
Performance Date: 2017-4-25
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

심청은 태어나자 마자 어머니를 여의고, 맹인 심학규의 딸로 홀로 아버지를 극진히 모시며 살아간다. 어느 날 심봉사는 실수로 개천에 빠져 허우적거리는 것을 지나가던 한 스님이 구해주고, 그 스님에게 부처님에게 공양하면 눈을 뜰 수 있다는  말에 넘어가 절에 공양미 300석을 바치겠다고 약속한다.

 

심청은 중국과 조선을 오고 가며 장사를 하던 상인들이 물살이 심해 사고가 자주 발생하는 인당수 지역에 용왕님을 달래기 위한 인신공양으로 바칠 사람을 찾고 있다는 소문을 듣고, 아버지의 눈을 뜨기 위해 자신이 그 제물이 되기로 작정하고 공양미 300석을 받고 인당수로 몸을 던지는데…

 

이에 감복한 하늘에 의해 용궁을 거쳐 다시 지상으로 올라가 황후가 되고 맹인 잔치를 벌여 아버지를 찾게 되었으며, 딸과 재회한 기쁨에 심봉사도 눈을 뜨게 된다는 내용.

 

Shim Chung lost her mother as soon as she was born, and lived alone with her father, Shim Hak-gyu, who was blind. One day, Shim Hak-gyu fell into a river and saved by a Buddhist priest and promised him that he would give 300 bags of rice to the temple, for which Buddha would fix his blindness.

 

Shim Chung heard rumors that the merchants who went to China and Chosun and went to the market looking for a person to serve as a human sacrifice in order to appease the King Yongdang in the frequent occurrence of accidents. In order to open his father’s eyes, she determined to become this, and take the 300 bags of rice throwing herself into the sea.

 

When she threw herself into the sea, the heavenly god was moved and saved her. She became the wife of a king and the King provided a party for blind people and her father was invited there and met her daughter. Surprised and pleased, he opened his eyes.

 

Background Information:

 

This story emphasizes serving one’s parents with devotion which is very important in Korean culture. This story is in children’s book and learned at elementary school.

 

Context:

 

This is mostly performed as Korean traditional opera.

Personal Analysis:

This story shows that Korean people care about respecting elders. It’s a part of their culture that respect is given as a default unlike in America where respect should be earned. The happy ending seems a bit unrealistic, but it shows the daughter doing her duty to serve her dad as well as the blessings that came because of it.