Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

The Aswang/Tik Tik

Context:

My informant is a member of my family.

My informant said that the Aswang and the Tik Tik are stories about evil entities that live in the provinces in the Philippines. They are very rare that these stories of these entities are in Manila.

But her neighbors around would always talk about the aswang and the tik tik especially when there’s a pregnant woman in the neighborhood. Neighbors would speculate that this person or somebody in the household is pregnant because they saw the Tiktik/aswang lurking on the rooftop. Though they are similar because they can be both seen as Filipino vampires. The difference between them mostly come from the noise that the tik tik makes, which is the same as its name.

She said that when she was pregnant she would always kept a scissors under her pillow. “Because I wasn’t sure if l dreamt of it or if it was real, but I had a feeling that there was a tik tik Outside my window. The tik tik goes on the rooftop and is able to know if someone is pregnant or not. They will open their mouth and let their ling tongue penetrate the roofing until they reach the pregnant belly of the mom and eat/suck the baby out”. Which is why she is told to keep a pair of scissors with her during the night.

She believes these are stories that has been passed down to generations and probably a reminder that we are not alone in this world and that dark entities really exist. It’s relevant because somehow these stories are unique to certain provinces/places in the Philippines and somehow represents culture. Finally, she said that lot of people think it’s real. It would even sometimes be reported in the news if a sighting was witnessed. But there is no actual scientific evidence or photographic evidence or videos.

Analysis:

The tik tik and the aswang are a part of Filipino mythological folklore. But these creatures can be categorized as cryptids.

Filipino vampires, such as the Aswang and the Tik Tik are deceiving creatures. Although my informant does not mention it, these creatures could take the form of animals and even beautiful women. They are widely accepted as female creatures. But with the added context, this story serves as a cautionary tale for those that are vulnerable. Since the Philippines has a lot of provinces and poorer areas, the fear of these vampires is heightened. As they live among smaller communities and prey on pregnant women. The type of tale seems to subvert from the expectation because the tik tik and the aswang are gendered as women that prey on other women. It may be a message directed to women that their fear should not focus on predatory men, but that women or anyone can hurt them.

My informant’s experience with the fear of the aswang and the tik tik comes from being pregnant herself. Pregnant women may naturally fear any harm or danger that could come after their babies and their health. And the fear that a scary monster will hurt them is an extension to this natural motherly fear.

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.

Baba Yaga – A medicine woman

Name: Katya

Text: “Baba yaga is a slavic witch that lives in the woods and i heard about her growing up cuz i had a russian nanny.She lives in the woods and is known to have a house that has chicken legs on it which I always really loved as an image and she kind of represents this very powerful woman figure that I think a lot of people do fear but when you really dig into the fairy tales about her she really is a healing witch and I remember learning about her having like all these potions and what I didn’t realize at the time is that she’s basically like an herbal medicine practice practitioner so I feel like Baba Yaga is really cool and I heard since then that basically every Eastern European country has some version of Baba Yaga but she has like a bunch of different names so her reach is far and I feel like there’s something about her as a character that really resonates with people definitely really resonated with me . 

Context:

Where did u learn it from?

Like I feel like as a kid I don’t know exactly where but my nanny would read me Bedtime Stories and stuff like that so I must have been then 

where was your where is your Nanny from?

 She’s from Kazakhstan but her ancestry is Russian 

how do you think people use it? 

I feel like she’s a symbol for a very powerful mother figure “

Analysis:

This is a tale. This is because Baba Yaga has chicken feet and we understand as humans we cannot have that. This genre is often used to make things more child-like and fantasy related. There has been a history of labeling powerful women figures into negative connotations such as witches, and to this informant, represents the mother. Baba Yaga is feared, coming from the notion of a woman having power. Thus, they have created her into a tale that depicts her as fake and as something that is dangerous (as a traveling witch with chicken feet, who in other versions eat children). When my informant mentioned there is a version of her in every Eastern European country, it further emphasizes that this is a tale as it spreads easily.  It also proves to have had a great impact on individuals, especially children, as they pass it down when they grow up. In other tales, Baba Yaga was a donor figure, but in Katya’s telling she mentions how Baba Yaga had negative connotations to many. This highlights that despite what is widely known, the individual could have their own spin on it which illustrates the multiplicity and variation of meaning on the individual scale – i.e. instead of seeing a witch, she sees a positive alternate healing figure.

Haunted Clock Scary Folktale

Nationality: American
Primary language: English
Age: 18
Occupation: Canvasser
Residence: Echo Park, CA

Text

A little boy with a sister, two parents, and a dog just won a sports game. His parents take him out to get a gift to celebrate. They’re trying to pick out a toy for him to get at a toy store. The boy sees a doll with a clock in its stomach. It seems to wave, all five of its fingers up. The boy is strangely drawn to it, loving it, and wants it immediately. His parents ask him if he’s sure–it’s kind of creepy–but let the boy get it. The cashier warns them not to buy it because they’ll regret it, and the boy insists and asks why he can’t get it. The cashier says he can’t tell the boy why, but warns him again. The boy gets it anyway. He hangs the clock over his bed.
He goes to sleep each night for five nights, and each morning when he wakes, one member of his family is gone.
The first morning, his dog is missing. When the boy complains of this, his parents are confused: “What do you mean? We never had a dog.” When he looks at the clock, it only has four fingers up.
The second morning, his sister disappears. When the boy complains of this, his parents are confused: “What do you mean? You don’t have a sister.” When he looks at the clock, it only has three fingers up.
The third morning, his dad disappears. When the boy complains of this, his mom is confused: “What do you mean? I’m a single mom.” When he looks at the clock, it only has two fingers up.
The fourth morning, his mom disappears. When he looks at the clock, it only has one finger left.
The next morning, the boy is gone forever, and the clock has no fingers up.

Context

MM first heard this story at a summer camp when he was between 8 and 9 years old. He was a little scared of the story, but mostly enjoyed it, immediately thinking that it was “a really good, fun, spooky story.” He really enjoyed telling this story and did so numerous times at camp. He notes that he heard and shared different versions over the years: the little boy was sometimes a little girl; the order of the disappearance of family members changed sometimes; the boy’s actions each day after finding a member of his family missing were different, including days where he missed school or days where he tried to get rid of the clock and it mysteriously returned; and there was a version where the shopkeeper wanted to get rid of the clock and recommended that the boy take it. MM analyzes this as being a representation of a kid’s worst fear: being alone without their family. “It’s a little uniquely terrifying to be wiped from existence instead of dying.” He notes that “there’s also a perversion of the familiar–a toy (kids love toys) that kills your family.

Analysis

I classify this as a folktale because, while it’s somewhat grounded in the real world, its truth value doesn’t appear to be up to date. There’s no piece of this in which “the clock is still out there,” or anything to imply that this might be a true story. Instead, it appears to be a scary folktale for children. Beyond its basic entertainment value, this story could mean several things. I’m inclined to agree with MM’s analysis that this folktale represents a child’s fear of being left alone without their family and of death. This view is supported through a psychoanalytical lens, which often views the subtext of a folk belief or narrative as a subconscious desire or fear. This story could be viewed in both lights. The fact that the boy in MM’s version of the tale ignored the warning of the shopkeeper (an adult) and got the toy he wanted anyway, then faced the consequences (his family disappearing), marks this as a potentially cautionary tale. Its moral might be, “children should listen to adults.” Of course, children fear being alone, but they also sometimes desire it. This story, scary as it may be, could also be a representation of the child’s subconscious desire to be rid of their parents. After all, the little boy is subconsciously drawn to the clock immediately. Perhaps he really does want his family gone so that he can have more independence, but the consequence of this is that he disappears, too. Either way, this story’s deeper meanings are fascinating through a psychoanalytical lens.