Informant: My mom was told by her grandmother
Original Script: ” Pregnant women, should never talk about someone else’s kids because your kid will look just like them”
Background: The proverb is saying to never call someone’s child ugly because your child will look just like the child you talked about.
Thoughts: This old saying is just to warn women not to have a nasty attitude.
Informant: My friend who is Russian
Original Script: ” A Russian scary witch that lives in a house in the woods with chicken feet on it who tortured kids and my mom would tell if I misbehaved she would send me to her”
Background: This is is an old Russian folktale that parents told their kids scare them into behaving
Annotate: For another version of Babayaga see, Forrester, Sileban. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi , 2013. Print.
Informant: A family friend that lived in Timpson, Texas when she was younger and her grandmother would do this when combing girls hair in the 50’s.
Original Script: “When you would brush you hair, you never throw your hair outside, you had to burn it in the fire or in the iron heater because if someone didn’t like you they could get your hair and hoodoo ( the southern version the word voodoo) you which is put a spell on you”
Informant: A family friend that lived in Timpson, Texas when she was younger and her grandmother would do this
Original Script: ” My grandmother used to have a horseshoe nailed over her front door. The legend was it was to keep the hants (a southern colloquialism for ghosts) from entering the house.”
Thoughts: Having a horseshoe over the doorway was a common superstition in Feng shui believed that an actual worn horseshoe was infused with good energy because a horse was a strong powerful animal.
Informant: My aunt’s mother taught this to her when she was young
Original Script:” If you left the house, ready to go to school and forgot something, you go back to your home get what you forgot and before you leave you sit down for good luck”
Background: My aunt mother originated from Indiana and did this often for good luck.
Thoughts: I heard this superstition before, my friend whose mother is from Russia used to tell her this except before you leave on a trip you sit down for good luck. It shows the different variations from culture to culture.