Category Archives: Life cycle

Tooth Fairy – American Folk Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/29/2023
Language: English

1. Text

When asked to share a folk belief, the informant responded with the following:

“The tooth fairy is a mythical creature that is very familiar to American children. They are taught that the tooth fairy will exchange their lost teeth for some kind of prize if they put them under their pillow before going to bed. Parents will often come in while the child is sleeping and swap the tooth out for a small gift, usually money, to make it look like the tooth fairy came.”

2. Context

Informant relation to the piece:

Informant learned the ritual from hearing kindergarten classmates talk about losing teeth. Informant is currently a college student. Informant is American and grew up in the states. They mentioned that at a “young enough age everyone believed in the tooth fairy” and was “upset when they realized that she isn’t real”. The ritual made the informant “excited to lose teeth” because it meant that they would get a gift that night. They realized the tooth fairy was not real around 8 years old when they caught their dad putting money under their pillow.

Informant interpretation of the piece:

The informant has no idea where the ritual originated, and suggests that maybe it started as a way to keep kids from being scared of losing baby teeth.

3. Analysis

The American folk ritual of the tooth fairy is tied to a life cycle event of aging where children lose their baby teeth and grow adult ones that last for the rest of their lives. This ritual is not tied to a specific time or date, but rather whenever a child loses a baby tooth. It also only happens for a limited amount of times before the child loses all their baby teeth. Since most children go through this process of losing teeth, it is a common and widespread ritual for American families. This ritual is mainly a form of deception from the parents to the children as they create a mythical figure called the tooth fairy to create a sense of magic and wonder in the children that they associate with losing teeth. This seemingly harmless form of deception or fictional storytelling from parents can also be observed in rituals such as Santa Claus bringing presents on Christmas Eve. This is interesting when compared to some Asian cultures which originally did not perform rituals such as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. In Japan, when a child loses a baby tooth, they either throw it up on the roof or bury it in the dirt. There is no reward for losing the tooth like in the American Tooth Fairy ritual however it symbolizes the child maturing and wishing for good fortune and health for the child. In comparison the Japanese ritual does not involve deception from the parents as the American one does. Perhaps this speaks to how the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus act as a rite of passage for Americans, where most children believe in the mythical figures until a certain age and must deal with the realization that they were deceived by their parents, which motivates them to continue to pass down this rite of passage to their children. In a way this form of deception encapsulated in the tooth fairy ritual represents the loss of naivety and gaining of maturity when a child grows up. Since growing up often means learning a lot of unpleasant faces of the world, the tooth fairy ritual can act as a vaccine or initial exposure to American children in preparation for adulthood.

Thoen Stone

Context:
J is 80 years old and grew up in Spearfish, SD. He told me about a local legend from the Black Hills, a region in South Dakota.

Text:
“The Thoen Stone story was always a part of the local folklore in and around the Black Hills of SD, where I spent part of my youth. A sandstone rock with names of some deceased gold prospectors carved or scraped into the surface of the sandstone was supposedly found on a hill called Lookout Mountain. In addition to the names, a story of hidden gold was part of the message on the rock. It was carved by one of the prospectors named Ezra Kind who was hiding from Native Americans who were hunting for him and the gold, which he claimed he had hidden on Lookout Mountain or in the general area. This story created a “search for the gold” mentality with the kids in the area. When my brother and I were growing up, we, along with friends, would spend many summer days searching for the hidden gold while hiking or riding horses. BTW we never found it nor has anyone else!”

Analysis:
This legend is a local legend of the area in which these people grew up. This legend like many others is a legend of gold to be found (similar to El Dorado). It’s interesting how most people probably know it’s just a legend since many have spent so much time and energy searching, but somehow the legend is still alive and the folklore persists. This is an example of childhood folklore that is exclusive to the Black Hills, as it is almost like a shared experience and a part of growing up in this region. The hope and possibility for gold remains.

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.