Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

Erlina and Irene: Epic

Background: Informant is a Mexican-American college student. He believes strongly in his superstitions and magical energies. This story takes place in Las Grutas Tolantongo in Mexico. It’s a village right outside of an area with hot springs. This happened when the informants grandmother was 7, so in the 1960s. 

Informant: My grandma, she had her best friend – so say you’re like my best friend, okay? And we make a promise because, you know, best friends, they wanna stay together forever, so, like she said “if I die, you come with me, like I’ll take you with me. And like, if you die, you take me with you so that we could be in heaven together, okay?” So then, her best friend Erlinda said, “if I die, I’m going to take you by your feet! I’m gonna take you by your feet to heaven with me, like your going to die with me.” And my grandma Irene was like, “No, no don’t pull me by feet!” 

So this was happening in this village. It’s called Las Grutas Tolantongo. It’s a little village, it’s like hot tubs, like little hot springs, but outside of it is this village. And they would always play under a tree with their neighbors. So, since Irene and Erlinda were neighbors, they could always see into each other’s houses, and like when the time came that Erlinda wasn’t coming out anymore to come play with her, Irene would always see Erlinda laying out on the bed.
So, witches exist. Like, in Mexico… you might not believe in witches but like, they’re definitely a thing in Mexico. So, I guess the village– they had a lot of envy towards Erlinda’s mom. Cause’ Erlinda had her little business, she had to send her workers out early in the morning. So, it was revealed to Erlina’s mom, her name was Doña tele– it was revealed after they found out that Erlina got sick that someone had tried to put a curse on her! But, it was intended for whoever woke up first and left the house, and since Doña tele always woke up at 3 in the morning to send her workers out, it was intended for her. So, Erlinda had to use the bathroom late at night, and because they had communal bathrooms outside of the house, Erlinda got sick instead of Doña tele, who the curse was intended for. Like, when she crossed the doorway, they put dirt in front of her doorway like in the Conjuring. So, whoever crossed over it, like whatever bad energy would go to them.

So, fast forward a few months later in July which is the end of the school year in Mexico, Erlinda died! Like, she died! But Irene realized when she went to her funeral that she made a promise that if she died she was going to take me! And I promised that she was going to take me! And she was like “Noooo! I’m so scared, like no no no no!” And the scary part is, they didn’t have morticians so the viewing– like her mouth was open, her eyes were cloudy, like have you seen a dead person? 

So, Irene, like after she saw Erlinda dead she kept having nightmares of Erlinda. Like, one time my grandma told me that she saw Erlinda in a dream. Like, you know how sometimes dreams feel real so you wake up in the dream? So, she woke up and saw Erlinda playing in her room through the window and she was like “*gasps* Erlinda, you’re not dead?” And Erlinda is facing away from her ignoring her. And then, Erlinda turns around and the face that she had in the casket was the same face she had when she turned around. And Irene freaked out because Erlinda said “If I catch you, you’re coming with me.” So, Erlinda would chase Irene throughout the whole village and Irene would float like a skywalker. And Irene would always wake up sweating like crazy, afraid she’d go into cardiac arrest every night. The dreams happened from May 12 to August 18th, like she just couldn’t handle it anymore.

I forgot to mention this part, but her brother Chava would always come from Mexico City because that’s where he worked. So when Erlinda died, he came to pay his respects. But when the time came for him to go back to Mexico City, Irene was like “take me with you! Because maybe if I go, I won’t be able to dream of her anymore.” So, she went and she never dreamed of her again. But, like, the scary part was when my grandma was telling me this story we were in the lounge of my dorm and the lights went off. And I know they’re motion sensors but I was moving around! So, I was like, “Erlinda? Is she here?” Like, that’s scary!

Reflection: I absolutely loved hearing this story from my roommate. They were so animated as they told me the story and it was entertaining to hear it from them. I especially liked the way they told the story, as they were really unfiltered and imperfect in how they told it, which was fun to watch. This story was so entertaining, and it was so cool to learn about their culture through an anecdote like this one. The part where they say that magic exists in Mexico was so cool, as they acknowledge that in American culture we don’t believe in magic, but how in Mexican culture it is accepted.

Taviano’s curse

Background: Informant is a Mexican-American college student. He believes strongly in his superstitions and magical energies. This story takes place in Las Grutas Tolantongo in Mexico. It’s a village right outside of an area with hot springs. This happened when the informants grandmother was 7, so in the 1960s. 

Informant: There was this guy, his name was Taviano. They would come to give this woman bats to counteract a curse. So, Taviano would always come at night because that’s when they caught the bats, and my great-grandmother Josefina would always let Taviano sleep in their house, but Taviano would always sleep in the kitchen. And after a while they got suspicious like, “why would he always want to sleep in the kitchen?” And, turns out that when my grandmother went to a medium to kind of find out because– instead of going to the doctor’s– they don’t like the doctors, cause the doctors always try to– the scientific part. Like, over there it’s more spiritual, like they believe in more the spiritual world. So, they always go to mediums and those kind of things, yeah like mediums. So when the medium revealed to my grandmother why her daughter was sick, he mentioned that a guy who was your neighbor got her sick. So, Josefina guessed it was her neighbor because he was the only guy, but since he wasn’t there she didn’t know. So Taviano, even though they like don’t have pronouns, Taviano was still a guy, so suspicions went to Taviano. So then like, sleeping in the kitchen, what is he doing in the kitchen? So, um there was like uh, flame. There was one night where she had a flame in the kitchen, right. And, like, you know when dust kind of hits metal. Like dust particles are kind of hitting metal, the sound it makes, so she heard that in the middle of the night and she was like, “wait what’s going on”. And then she got up and she saw Taviano sitting in front of the oven with all this like, Carbon stuff and burning things and he had dead bones with him, and she was like “I got you!” And grabbed him by the ear asking “who told you to do this? Why are you doing this?” And they never found out why he was doing this but they found out that it was him who was doing the curse. 

Reflection: This story was so interesting because the informant talked me through the entire process of the creation of the curse. I loved seeing how they lighted up as they told the story, and how emotional they were. The part where the informant talks about mistrust of doctors told me a lot about their culture and community. Their community relies on folk medicine and ritualistic practices done by mediums rather than Western medicine, and it was evident in their account. I learned so much more about cultural differences and how they affect people’s problem-solving throughout the world.

Michigan state flower

Background: Informant is a 19 year old college student. They grew up in Minnesota and have lived there until college, where they relocated to Los Angeles. The informant says that this is an indigenous story that they learned in school about why the Minnesota state flower is called the lady slipper flower.”

Informant: There was a girl, and she had these special slippers. And they were beautiful and made for her. But she was told to go and deliver these slippers and she had to like, go very far away and all the seasons went by, and in the winter no one would help her, so she got stuck with the slippers in this field and she like, died with the slippers there. But they were like, magical or something? And so like, the slippers were in the snow where she died, and then in the spring they thawed into the ground and a flower grew from them. And that flower was the lady slipper flower. And then it was like, a memorial of her journey. 

Me: Where did you hear this for the first time?

Informant: This is definitely incorrect, but in my Elementary school when we were talking about Minnesota state history. 

Reflection: My informant mentioned that this story was told to them in school. They made sure to mention that they are not indigenous themselves, but it is an example of how cultures intermix when colonization occurs. This indigenous story has made its way into American culture, with the state flower of Minnesota being inspired by an indigenous story. It’s interesting how when nation-states are created, they sometimes borrow from the indigenous groups they steal from. It’s an unfair, odd phenomenon where the nation-state will pull from native folklore to honor their culture, but walk all over their land and disrespect their humanity.

Korean Red Bean Stew

Nationality: Korean
Age: 49
Occupation: Counselor
Performance Date: 4/21/22
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

This is a retelling of the tradition of eating red bean porridge on the winter solstice, told to me by my mother.

“한국에서는 동지날(12월 22일) 팥죽을 먹었다. 왜냐하면 빨간색의 팥죽을 먹으면 귀신이 무서워서 도망간다”

Romanization:

han-gook-eh-suh-neun dong-jee-nar (sheeb-ee-wur ee-sheeb-ee-ear) pat-jook-eur mug-ut-dah. whey-nya-ha-myun bbar-gan-sek-eh pat-jook-eur mug-eu-myun gwee-shin-ee moo-suh-wuh-suh do-mang-gan-da

Transliteration:

In Korea, the winter solstice red bean stew we ate. Because the red, red bean porridge if you eat ghosts become scared and run away.

Translation:

In Korea, we ate red bean stew on the Winter Solstice. We ate it because ghosts became scared of the redness of the red bean porridge and fled.

For as long as I could remember, eating red bean porridge on the Winter Solstice has been a family tradition. Our ancestors ate red bean porridge on the Winter Solstice because they believed the red beans had the power to chase away evil spirits. The color of the red bean was believed to symbolize positive energy or ‘yang’ and thus was effective in thwarting dark energy or ‘yin.’ This was especially important during the Winter Solstice since the long night and scarce daylight was thought to contribute to lots of dark energy. Eating the porridge by itself is tasty, but knowing the folklore and traditions behind the meal make it even more delicious.

Cowherd and Weaver Girl

Context:

Y is my other parental figure of mine who grew up in China and is currently living in California. 

This conversation took place over a weekly phone call with my parents after I asked them about stories that they knew from China. This particular conversation followed a couple previous tellings of other stories from my other parent. 

Text:

Y: The Cowherd and the weaver girl, you should know this one, it’s very famous-

Me: Wait what was it?

Y: The Cowherd and weaver girl, Zhong Guo Zen ( Chinese People) call it Niúláng Zhīnǚ. I’ll send you the spelling.

Me: Isn’t there another story about the crane and the weaver?

Y: There is another crane, but this one is about the stars. Remember, there’s – Cause chinese people watched the stars and they saw those stars separated from each other so they made up the story so that’s the Niúláng Zhīnǚ. Niúláng  is the guy who herds the cows, that’s called cowherd and Weaver girl is the girl who weaves. The weaver girl is actually a goddess, she’s the daughter of the god, the god in charge in heaven, and she’s the seventh daughter. And her job was to weave the rainbows, and she had to weave the rainbows all the time. 

One day she got tired of it and she decided to. This version is different from the one we heard. We heard that one day she and her sisters, seven of them, decided to come down to earth and swim in the river. And Niúláng actually saw them swimming and he was actually bad (laugh). He stole the seventh girl, the Zhīnǚ’s clothes so she couldn’t go back to heaven. So she stayed and married him. But this other version is a little nicer, Niúláng isn’t such a bad guy. 

This one says that since Zhīnǚ’ was tired of weaving rainbows, she decided to come down to earth and she saw this Niúláng, the boy, and fell in love with him and decided to marry him. Okay? They lived happily together but when her dad found out about it, that she escaped, he actually sent people and his men to bring him- her back, to heaven. And he banned her from visiting Earth until like once a year. He only allows her to visit or see this Cowherd once a year. 

And because the magpies, magpies are considered birds that bring good luck. Magpies heard about it and they felt sorry for the two and they decided to form a bridge to reunite them. So every year, during July 7. July 7 is called which festival? Zhong qiu jie? Is it Zhong qiu jie? July 7 is what jie? Which festival? (asking other informant).

H: Chinese Valentine!

Y: Chinese Valentine but I think there’s a special festival time. Anyways, on July 7th every year, they form – another story is that they reunited on the rainbow. Rainbow is like a bridge.

Me: Ohhhh.

Y: They reunite on the bridge made by a rainbow, but anyways the magpies were the story here. 

Me: I feel like I’ve heard this one before.

Y: yeah, it’s a very famous one. 

Reflection:

I had heard this story when i was younger from my parents from a storybook and only recognized it when my mom told me the part about the magpie bridge! I think it’s also interesting because this directly demonstrates the multiplicity of folklore and how different versions of a story may interact with each other. I also think it is intriguing that in one version, it is more censored so that the story is more of a true love tale rather than the main love interest being creepy and being rewarded for his answer. This story reminds me of the Hades and Persephone Greek Myth with the trope of only being allowed to see your lover at a certain time of the year rather than all year. This story also directly ties into a festival that is celebrated in China as a representation of love: Chinese Valentine’s Day.