Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

El Duende

M is 44. She was born in Los Angeles, her parents are from Guadalajara, Mexico. She told me this story her grandmother had told her about el Duende in person.

“My grandmother had the experience of el Duende… when she was younger… so el Duende fell in love with her and would come braid her hair at night… but it was so tight it was hard to get them off… so when it happened, my grandmother was very beautiful and she would wake with these braids and not know why, so one night her mom stayed up and saw the Duende…but so how you get rid of the Duende is holy water and tequila and you collect these things and wait for the Duende when he comes to try and braid the hair. I’m glad I wasn’t around back then!”

This duende story is a variation of the Tata Duende, which appears to be very popular in Belize, but also among other Mestizo cultures of Mayan descent. He sometimes also braids the hair of horses. For more accounts of Tata Duende see, https://www.marc.ucsb.edu/research/community-voice/teos-way/duende

Siinterklaas and Zwarte Piet (“Santa Claus and Black Pete” )

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 57
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Virginia
Performance Date: April 15, 2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch, German

Background:

The informant is my father who was born and raised in the Netherlands. Siinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. One of Santa’s helpers is Black Pete, a small black child who was Santa’s helper. Representation of Black Pete in festivals and tales have come under fire in the Netherlands for accusations of racism.

Context:

The story of Siinterklaas and Zwarte Piet was related to me over a phone call with my father.

Main Piece:

Dad: It’s pretty much the same as the American version of Santa Claus. Siinterklaas is based off of St.Nicholas and he has his little helper elves. Except I don’t think Siinterklaas has elves, just helpers. He has one named Black Pete, or we call him Zwarte Piet. Black Pete is a little, black boy who’s Siintreklaas’s main helper.

Me: Does he wear an elf outfit?

Dad: Uhhh, no. More like a jester’s outfit. But in the festivals and parades that used to happen throughout Losser and Utrecht, people would dress as Zwarte Piet and use makeup to paint their face black and jump around and dance. We thought nothing of it when I was a kid, growing up. Every town had a festival with Zwarte Piets. But now, of course, a lot of people are protesting against Zwarte Piet being in festivals with blackface. They’re trying to change the story to say that Zwarte Piet just has ash marks from climbing down the chimneys with Siinterklaas, so people don’t do black face but just have some ash streaks across their face.

Me: Black Pete is just like an elf, right?

Dad: He’s Santa’s main helper. He carries a big bag with gifts and treats, but also a switch to spank the children who were naughty.

Me: And do most people in the Netherlands today agree that Black Pete should be removed from festivals and parades?

Dad: No, a lot of the youths think it should be, of course, but most Dutch have grown up seeing Black Pete every year. He’s as common and important to Christmas as Santa is almost. There’s been a lot of protests happening year after year, though, so I think in the coming years more and more festivals are gonna get rid of him.

Thoughts:

This folk belief is of particular interest and relevance to me, as the tradition of Christmas festivals showcasing Black Pete has come under fire recently for being a racist depiction. While I did not grow up in the Netherlands and, therefore, cannot view this tradition through an entirely emic perspective, the phenomenon of historical bits of folk lore clashing with contemporary customs and beliefs is one that I have witnessed in the United States. Just as fiery debates arose over the removal of statues of Confederate generals, Black Pete is a question of what will triumph in the end: A culture’s tradition and history or the culture’s contemporary standards? The Christmas parade with Siinterklaas and Zwarte Piet is deeply engrained in most Dutch towns and cities. Most of the Netherlands’ population has grown up inoculated with the association of Zwarte Piet with the joyful and festive mood that permeates throughout the Christmas season. Zwarte Piet has existed within Dutch folklore for nearly two hundred years. To remove the portrayal of Zwarte Piet as he has been known for two centuries would be to say that the Dutch beliefs and customs are dangerously malleable, and able to be uprooted and altered in accordance with the vacillation of the general public. However, variations and evolutions are integral to folklore and the culture that produces it. When new variations are authored, they reflect the beliefs and standards of contemporary times. When a belief or tradition of the past violates those of today, especially one as severe and prevalent as racism, there must be a serious examination into whether a new variation should be created. The debate over Zwarte Piet is a hot topic every year in the Netherlands around Christmas time. There is no doubt that protests against the use of black face to depict Black Pete in festivals will continue for years to come. Many protestors look to the Dutch judicial system to make an official ruling to ban blackface in these festivals. It will be interesting to see how law and governmental authority can greatly influence the evolution of folklore.

Ozok

Nationality: American
Age: 62
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Maryland
Performance Date: April 18, 2022
Primary Language: English

Background:

The informant grew up in Chicago in the 1960s. There was an abandoned elevator for trash called a “dumbwaiter.” It was used by residents to send their trash down to the basement before the informant lived there. It went out of use when residents began carrying their own trash down themselves. The informant’s older brother would scare her with stories of a crazed man, named Ozok, who lived in the abandoned dumbwaiter and carried an axe through the halls of the building at night.

Context:

This piece was related to me over a Zoom call with the informant, discussing her childhood in Chicago.

Main Piece:

E: No one used the dumbwaiter when I was living there. It used to be used to send trash down apparently, but eventually people just learned it was easier to their own damn trash out themselves (laughs). But the trash room was in the basement, and the dumbwaiter and the basement were mostly abandoned. There was a legend that a spirit used to live in the abandoned dumbwaiter. The story was that there was some sort of crazy man named Ozop… no Ozok, I think it was. But the story was that Ozok lived in the dumbwaiter and the basement, and he used to carry an axe when he walked the halls of the apartment building at night.

Me: All the kids in the apartment building believed this?

E: I don’t know about all of the kids, but my siblings and I certainly did. Our oldest brother told us that Ozok lived in the dumbwaiter and the basement and haunted the building. He took me down to the basement one time during the day and showed me an axe leaned up against the wall as proof. I don’t think I slept for a week after that! My parents allowed us to believe it and even told us when we were being too rambunctious at night that we better get to sleep before Ozok came down our hall. I had these wild visions of what he looked like. My younger siblings and I would talk about it. We thought he looked like something out of that movie, the old vampire one…

Me: Nosferatu?

E: Yes! I conjured up some image of the vampire from Nosferatu in my head. That movie was the scariest thing I had ever seen as a little kid, and I thought there was a crazed vampire living in my own apartment building!

Thoughts:

The tale of some deformed creature haunting a residency is a legend as old as time. It is a theme well known to all, and it naturally takes on its own variations as people author their own variations of ghost stories and hauntings. In this case, the informant’s older brother authored a variation of a crazed man, Ozok, who haunted the halls of the informant’s apartment building. Children, as my informant was at the time, are particularly susceptible to the tales intent on scaring. The informant’s older brother applied much of a classic ghost tale’s motifs to Ozok and their environment. He pointed to the axe as evidence of Ozok’s existence, and claimed that Ozok inhabited the abandoned dumbwaiter and basement, just as a ghost or creature of the night might live in the attic of a haunted house. Folk beliefs regarding ghosts have existed for centuries. The legend of Ozok living in an abandoned dumbwaiter and basement was simply a new variation of an age-old legend.

The Doc Benton Story

Nationality: American
Age: 60
Occupation: Writer
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: April 28, 2022
Primary Language: English

Informant Background:

            My informant, JC, is my father. He attended Dartmouth College, and was an active member of the Dartmouth Outing Club, or DOC.

Piece of Folklore:

JC: “The most important ritual of the DOC might be the annual ‘Freshman Trips’ orientation in the fall, where student leaders from the DOC take incoming freshmen out into wild places across northern New England for several days, teaching them Dartmouth songs and lore and bonding as a group with no adults around. All of these different trips convene at Dartmouth’s Ravine Lodge on Mount Moosilauke, where the bone-tired freshmen would gather around the fireplace and listen to a shaggy-dog, long, winding ghost story called ‘The Doc Benton Story.’ The story is based on local legend — a 19th-century scientist named Benton becomes obsessed with finding the right alchemy/chemistry that might unleash eternal life. As he’s working on his experiments, he gets married, but his young bride tragically dies. Benton disappears, never to be seen again. But strange things start happening all around Mount Moosilauke; farmers’ animals unexpectedly die. A logger goes to the Dartmouth’s tip-top house atop the mountain and mysteriously dies, with strange marks on his body. Years later, a hiker is separated from his group and disappears. His body is later found, with the same strange marks on his body. Reports surface here and there of a dark cloaked figure haunting the flanks of the mountain — though it would be years after Doc Benton would have died had he lived out his natural life. Anyway… the teller of the tale digresses into the geology of the mountain, the history of the towns around the mountain, the education that Doc Benton received, extraneous family history of his relatives and so on and so on for an hour or more, with the best storytellers stretching it on for almost two hours, until the first-year students are nodding off and struggling to stay awake. And then at the climactic moment in the tale all the upper-class D.O.C. members let out an absolutely blood-curdling scream, terrifying the freshmen.”

Analysis:

            The tale of Doc Benton is a classic initiation ritual – It forms an in-joke that all of the people already folded into the subculture are aware of at the new members’ expenses. It works especially well because telling ghost stories around a campfire is also a very common tradition, so the ruse that the freshman are asked to believe in is very believable. Knowing what is coming becomes an easy indicator of who is a part of the subculture and who isn’t. Because of the shared experience of being startled when older members were first hearing it, it also creates a cycle of anticipation and shared experiences, even if they are set apart by a number of years. Additionally, the tale itself is grounded heavily in the land and the area around Mount Moosilauke, as the D.O.C. is, so although it is primarily used to set up the punch line of the scream, it has cultural significance in and of itself too, tying in bits of actual local history and culture into random made-up details.

Turkish Comedic Tales

Background Information: 

The informant is an older person who grew up in Central Turkey in the 40s and 50s. They have now been living in the US for the last 30 years. They are describing things from their childhood. 

Main Content:

ME: Can you tell me a little bit about the Nasrettin Hoca story? 

NA: Yeah, so he (Nasrettin Hoca), goes to his neighbor and asks “Can I borrow your pan”, cooking pan you know? Then he says “Ok” and gives him the pan. And then he uses it and then puts a little pan, his own, in it, and returns the pan the nest day. Then the neighbor says, “Hoca, what is this?”. He says,” Well, your pan has given birth”. (We both laugh). “So this is yours too”. And then okay, two days later, Hoca goes back and asks for that pan, the one that he borrowed originally, and then he takes it and never gives it back. Neighbor waits for few days and then goes to Hoca and says,” Hoca, I need my pan would you give it back to me?”. Hoca responded,” I don’t have it, it died”. The neighbor asks, “Hoca, how is that possible, how can a pie die?”. Hoca responded,” Well, you believed in the birth, how come you don’t believe in death?”. 

ME: That’s really funny (laughing)

Context: 

This conversation happened over a FaceTime call. 

Thoughts: 

This legend is a part of a larger collection of folk legends about this one man, Nasrettin Hoca. These tales are very popular in the Turkish oral storytelling tradition. These stories are often told to little kids to teach them life lessons, while also providing some comedic relief. The man, Nasrettin, is clearly an idiot, but his story can actually serve as a valuable life lesson to children and even people. The neighbor had no issues accepting the extra pan when Hoca told him that it had “given birth”, but was upset when Hoca took the pan and claimed that it had “died”. This oral story clearly is trying to convey the lesson of “The Golden Rule”, or treating others how you want to be treated. The neighbor could have not accepted the extra pan, in which case Hoca would not have stolen his pan. Conveying this through a comedic and fun medium is also much more entertaining and compelling to small children. For a written version of this tale, see this book: Nasrettin Hoca Hikayeleri. Hürriyet, 2015.