Category Archives: Childhood

Close Your Eyes

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/3/23
Primary Language: English

Text: “There once was a little boy named H. He stayed up late every night and made his mother very angry by not going to bed on time. But one night, he wanted to try and keep his eyes open until morning, without getting a lick of sleep. But on that very morning, his eyes were shriveled up like raisins and he could no longer see. When his mother came in, she screamed. She told him, “Close your eyes forever.” After that, the boy never saw anything out of his eyes again. And you want to know why? Because your eyes need to be closed for a few hours while you sleep, in order for them to reset. Keeping them open for a long period of time and blinking to comfort them only goes so far. They need to be closed for hours in order to keep your eyes healthy.” – Informant’s mother

Context: This scary little tale was told to the informant when his mom would get mad at him for staying up too late. She used a tale in order to get him to go to sleep and used the scare tactic to make him want to sleep. As a 7 year old, this story scared him enough to stop staying up so late. The informant laughed when telling this tale because it is so stupid and probably made up by his mom. However, it worked.

Analysis: When I was little, my parents would tell me that if I don’t go to sleep, my nightmares will happen in real life in order to get me to go to sleep. Similar to this tale, they were both tactics used to improve our lives. Sleep is one of the most important things for a human and yet, a growing child. It teaches us a lesson that will help in the long run and actually made us both go to sleep. Although my version was more of a myth type and the informant’s was more of a tale, they both made us follow the rules set by our parents.

The Mud Lady

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/2/23
Primary Language: English

Text: “In my town, there was a woman we called, the mud lady. She was a homeless woman, who wore so much makeup that it made kids scared of her and made it look like she was covered in mud. Even our parents would tell us to stay away from her whenever we went into town. If she was on the same side of the street as you, you would cross the street so you didn’t have to pass her. Everyone had different conspiracies of how she became the mud lady. I remember one kid said that she would steal people’s dogs, kill them, and bury them in the mud near the lake, others stated that she’ll stab you if you walk by her. Whenever you did walk by her, she had a very scary smile, every time. It didn’t look like a friendly smile, it looked like a psychopathic smile. Looking back on it now, she was just a poor old homeless woman trying to live her life. However, it was kids being kids, making up stories about her that had no factual evidence. I don’t believe she ever did anything bad, but as a kid, I was terrified of her.” – Informant

Context: The informant is from a small suburb in New Jersey, that probably didn’t have many homeless people, most likely why these stories were made up about her. The informant was about 10, and he would see the mud lady almost on a daily basis. This woman did make him very aware of his surroundings, starting as a child and even the parents of these children told them to stay away from her.

Analysis: This is definitely an interesting piece of folklore because although this woman never did anything truly bad, it was the conspiracy theories made up about her that truly made her scary. I think this is definitely something that occurs in small suburbs with little homeless populations because even in my town, there was this one homeless man named Joe who was the kindest man ever. But as a kid, all of us were told to stay away from him and we would gossip about potential stories of his life. One was that he comes from a very wealthy family but did so many drugs that he refuses to live a life where he isn’t homeless. Someone said that his parents offered him money but he refused to take it. We were told to always stay away from him, but as we grew up, we realized Joe was no threat. He was a homeless man just trying to live his life, without any harm to others. It is also upsetting that as children, we use the stereotype that a homeless person is dangerous or on drugs, when in reality they are just trying to live their lives.

The Pissing Boy – Brussels

Nationality: Belgian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/4/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Flemish

Context: MG is my friend at school and let me know he thought he had a good addition to the folklore archives. He is from Ghent, Belgium and told me this story is popular for parents to tell their children as a cautionary tale.

Performance:
MG: I have a folktale to tell you about a boy named Manneken Pis. This is the Flemish way of saying “The Boy Who Pisses”. Its a little statue in the center of Brussels, very much also a tourist attraction… a niche tourist attraction, but a tourist attraction… of a little boy, it a little fountain and he just continues on pissing. And so that little statue’s got a story behind it, um its a very old statue – I’d have to look up, I don’t know exactly how old but its been around for a while. And so the story is that, um the… the mayor of Brussels put up that statue in Brussels and spread the story in the newspaper that it was a boy outside who was pissing outside, urinating outside in the city, like polluting the city streets, and a witch who wanders around the city, in the shadows of the city, turned him into stone because he was pissing ehhh publicly. And so now this is the eternal boy who pisses. And so he said boys if you don’t want to be turned into stone, if you don’t want to be caught by the wizard, or the sorceress, or whatever mystical force, then you can’t publicly urinate.
And so that became a folktale that was told because mothers would love it as well, they don’t want their little boys pissing publicly, so they would tell their boys at home don’t piss publicly or you will be turned into stone. And yeah, that is a Belgian folktale that has been told for hundreds of years.

Analysis:

This narrative tale is telling about Belgian attitudes towards treating the environment/city right. It is made clear that public urination is frowned upon, even to the extent where the supernatural gets involved in enforcing the societal norms of Belgium. This story also represents Belgian parenting attitudes well. Parents are willing to scare their children with fake stories of the supernatural in order to get their children to behave, which is a common folkloric practice.

The Hermit – Camp Story

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/4/23
Primary Language: English

Context: BM is my friend at school and he let me know that he had a good story from his summer camp to tell me. BM is from New York originally, but he has lived in Philadelphia for longer. The camp where he heard this story is located in Maine and it is an all boys camp. A common practice at this camp was for counselors to tell scary stories to the campers. This story is located at the camp’s central lake, in which there is an island where campers would take overnight trips.

Performance:

BM: So at my camp the campers would do an overnight at the island in the middle of the lake nearby. So when we went our counselors decided to tell us the story of the hermit on the island, and we were not prepared to say the least.

Basically I don’t know the word for word story but it goes a little like this: The Hermit (which is based off of a real hermit in Maine) was an old counselor at camp and he was a very disgruntled guy, he was a maintenance guy. Maintenance guys lived on the outskirts of camp and they were always grumpy kinda guys. This guy had some grudges against the kids, against the counselors, for whatever reason. One night decides to light some fireworks under one of the bunks, Bunk 13 (which no longer exists). It was a horrible move obviously, but thankfully only one kid was in there and he turned out to be OK, but [the Hermit] lit the fireworks and he lost his whole right hand cause he didn’t pull it away fast enough and he was in agony and everyone was running and the cops were coming, so he swims in the lake with one arm, and a half, and he makes it to the island. He chops some wood down, because he found an axe, and he built a house, and he made a life there. Sometimes there would be kids that would go on the island while water skiing, and he would go and he would take the kids. He lives on the island, Its his island, he doesn’t live on the house anymore but he’s got places to hide.

And then one of the counselors came from the darkness around the fire, pretended to be the Hermit, and gave us all a scare, nobody slept that night.

Analysis:

This narrative indicates the presence of nature and wilderness in the context of a rural Maine summer camp. Hermits and woodland peoples are common themes of stories, but are most scary when told in a scenario when the audience is also isolated. At the end of the story, it was a tradition for camp counselors to scare the campers by pretending to be the Hermit and running around the campfire. This story also is telling about American cultures idea of societal outsiders. Those who live outside the confines of what would be considered normal society are often demonized and made out to be evil.

The Puppy in the Basement

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: University of Michigan
Performance Date: 4/4/23
Primary Language: English

Context: KC is a friend of a friend who volunteered to share her story with me when she found out I was interested in hearing people’s stories. She heard this story at her summer camp, although she failed to tell me where it is located.

Performance:

KC: This story is called the puppy and the basement, I heard it from summer camp.

Mommy told me never to go in the basement, but I wanted to see what was making that noise. It sounded like a puppy, and I wanted to see the puppy, so I opened the basement door and tip toed down a bit. I didn’t see a puppy, and Mommy yanked me out of the basement and yelled at me. Mommy had never yelled at me before, and that made me sad and I cried. Then Mommy told me never to go in the basement again, and gave me a cookie. That made me feel better, so I didn’t ask why the boy in the basement was making noises like a puppy, or why he had no hands or feet.

Analysis:

This is a short story but it still reveals much about cultural ideas of the sick and twisted. The story plays upon the childhood innocence of the narrator and the presence of a puppy to subvert the listeners expectations of what would be normal to have in ones basement. Upon the reveal that the thing in the basement is actually a mutilated boy it becomes clear that the horror aspect of the story comes from the fact that a seemingly normal suburban home, common in American culture, could house something so deranged and sick.