The Thursday Story MJ

Nationality: American
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Once upon a time, not so far from here, there was a widowed lumberjack. He would wake up every morning very early and go into the forest and always come home around lunch time. Now this lumberjack also had a young teenage daughter. One night the teenage daughter said to her dad “I’m so bored. I hate eating all the same foods we do. Can’t you do something different?” So the next day, the lumberjack decided to wake up even earlier and cut even more wood so that he could buy his daughter rich and delicious foods. Well, he worked all day, and around lunchtime he came to his house, and the door was locked and his daughter was nowhere in sight, and he was tired and he was hungry, and. . . he just couldn’t believe his life. Right at that moment, right at the moment he was about to cry, he heard a voice that said “Don’t cry. Why don’t you tell me your story?” So the lumberjack thought maybe he was hallucinating because he was so hungry. So he slid down the wall of his house, and started to tell the voice his story. He told the voice how he had been working so very very hard and how he had got up even earlier this morning because his daughter had said she wanted to eat more rich and delicious foods. And he worked all day and he came to his house, and it was locked and his daughter was nowhere in sight. Right at that moment, the voice said to the lumberjack “Climb the stairs.” The lumberjack looked around and he saw no stairs. Of course he saw no voice either. But he decided to follow the instructions of the voice. Sure enough, he put out his foot, and although he couldn’t see it, he felt a step. He climbed one step, two steps, three steps. And when he got to the top of this imaginary staircase, the voice said “Open your eyes.” The man opened his eyes, and there were all kinds of jewels: rubies and diamonds and emeralds, and the voice said “Take as much as you’d like.” Immediately, the lumberjack started to fill his pockets with the rubies and diamonds and emeralds, and as soon as he had filled up his pockets, boop! Suddenly, he fell down, and he was right at the door of his house. Of course, right at that moment, here comes his teenage daughter. She opens the door, she says “What- what are you doing? What do you have in your pockets?” He said “Shh-shh! let’s just go inside,” and he went inside and locked the door. Well, he. . . decided to put all of his jewels in a special box in the living room, and the next thing he knows, there’s a knock at his door, it was one of the neighbors. “Oh lumberjack, oh lumberjack, can we please borrow some wood? We see you have a beautiful fire.” The lumberjack said “What are you talking about?” The lumberjack went outside, and sure enough, there was this light radiating through his windows. Well, he really didn’t want to tell the neighbors what was happening, so he just told them “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” and he went back into his home. Well the lumberjack was now a very. . . very. . . wealthy man. So he took all the jewels, and um. . . got money, and was able to buy a house across the street from the palace of the king. Now, luckily for the lumberjack’s daughter, the king also had a teenage daughter. The two girls would get together and do fun things, and one of the funnest things they would do is go to the princess’s swimming pool. Now it was really a swimming hole, um beautifully decorated, all kinds of plants surrounded this beautiful swimming hole. So, one day when they went swimming, the princess took off her beautiful diamond necklace and hung it from a limb. They jumped into the water and had a great day, and everyone went home. When the princess was sitting at dinner with her father the king, she realized she was not wearing her necklace, and all she could think was “The last time I had it I was with the lumberjack’s daughter.” Well right at that moment the king said “Well. . . now I understand how that poor lumberjack could become a millionaire. He’s a thief! His daughter obviously stole your necklace.” Right at that moment, the king had the guards go for the lumberjack and the daughter. The daughter was put in an orphanage, and the lumberjack was put in the middle of a square with a sign around his nack that says “This is what happens to those who steal from the king!” 

The lumberjack was quite depressed, sitting in the square with a sign around his neck. People would come by, some would throw tomatoes at him, some would yell at him. But, one day, this very kind man walked by and just dropped a coin. The lumberjack said “Kind sir, thank you so much but, what am I going to do with a coin? It would make me feel so much better if I could just tell you my story.” Right at that moment, the lumberjack started to tell the stranger everything that happened. That he was a hard working lumberjack. That his young daughter had asked him to do something so she could eat more rich and delicious foods. That he decided to wake up earlier and cut more wood so he could make more money so he could give his daughter what she asked. He talked to the stranger about the voice that told him to climb the stairs, and about the riches that he was able to find, and how he was able to buy this palace across the street from the king. And the stranger decided that this man was not really a thief, he was really a nut, and he went on his way. But right as the lumberjack was telling his story, the princess decided to go back to the swimming pool, and right as she was gonna jump into the water, she had an urge to sneeze. And as she lifted her head to sneeze, she saw her necklace hanging on the limb. She immediately ran to her father and said “I made a mistake, my friend didn’t steal my necklace, its right here. I forgot, I left it on the limb!” Well the king was a very good king. But more importantly, he was very just. And he decided that the best thing to do was to forgive the lumberjack, and give him back his palace and all of his riches, and of course his daughter was taken out of the orphanage. And they all lived happily ever after.

Now this is the Thursday story, somewhere around the world, some version of this story is told every Thursday night. Some people find it very funny, some people find it very wise. Would you like to continue this tradition?

The Lion Who Laughed

Primary Language: English

Alright this is a story about the lion who laughed, because the lion laughed, this is about a lion who laughed. The lion is a very cruel king, he gathers all the animals in the forest, he is a very cruel, cruel king! So all the animals gather in the forest, he goes “Everyone has to laugh at somebody who tells me a joke.” He pulls the tortoise up, the tortoise has to tell everyone a joke. If everyone laughs, he survives. If one person does not laugh, then he dies. He gets eaten by the lion. So! The lion is ready for the tortoise to make a joke and everybody laughs! The tortoise tells the funniest joke in the world, the lion is laughing his ass off, except the sloth. The sloth has not said a word, he is not laughing. So naturally the lion eats the turtle, okay? Or the tortoise sorry. Next day in the forest the lion gathers everybody, he’s a very cruel king, and he goes “Oh my god, some animal’s gotta tell a joke, or I am gonna eat an animal if everybody laughs then the animal is saved! If one person doesn’t laugh then damn. . . I gotta eat the animal.” So it happens to be a kangaroo. The kangaroo’s all nervous and he knows he is going to die and he’s the worst joker in the world. He tells a joke and the lion just stares at him, everybody is just like “what the hell was that?” No laughing. Uhh. . . but he gets eaten, he gets slobbered up but! The kangaroo is dead because he just got eaten but the sloth is laughing his ass off, and everyone is like “Yo, why are you laughing? You were the only one that didn’t laugh yesterday, now you’re the only one laughing today. What’s going on?” And he goes “Ahaha I’m not laughing at the kangaroo joke, I was laughing at the tortoise joke from yesterday. That shit was hilarious!” So the moral of the story is. . .don’t be a sloth.

“Step on a Crack…”

Background information: My brother is currently a sophomore in high school. He recalled some sayings and games he remembers playing when he was younger.

Brother: I think this is a, like, just a folklore saying? Or kinda a game. But we used to say “Step on a crack, break your back, step on a line, break your spine.” Something like that. So you can’t step on any cracks in the sidewalk or step on any of the lines on the sidewalk or on the roads either. Otherwise something bad might happen to you.

Me: How did you hear about this? Do you believe it yourself?

Brother: It’s just a kid thing that I remember hearing with my friends when we would walk around after school or during recess. It’s a saying and a kinda superstitious thing but then it can also become a game if you actually try not to step on anything. I think I probably took it seriously at one point, but not anymore.

This saying was interesting to me because I remember it differently in my own childhood, and many of my friend do too. I remember it as “Step on a crack, break your mama’s back.” However, my brother and I do have a somewhat large age gap between us, and maybe in that time the saying slowly changed, as many playground games do. I think this is something that a lot of children take seriously when they’re young, because of the threat of something bad occurring, and not only something bad, but something very specific. For another version of this saying, see https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/folklorearchive/spring-2020/southern-superstitions/step-on-a-crack-break-your-mommas-back/.

Gnomes in Mexico

Background information: IJ is a 20-year-old student at USC, who currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. He often visits family members in Mexico, and learns about different types of folklore and traditions during his visits.

IJ: In my town in Mexico, people often see gnomes. Like in my house over there, we have a smaller room that’s disconnected across the main house and my cousin’s aunt stays there with her husband and her kids. And there was one time where she woke up in the middle of the night and saw her kid laughing and giggling, like standing up in his crib. And she saw the door open to outside, so she got a flashlight, because the light switch was like across the room from her and she switched on the flashlight and saw a small gnome there. He ran out the door into the cornfield behind our house. She stood there absolutely frozen, and like shell shocked and her kid started crying.

Me: Wow, that’s kind of scary! Have you ever seen a gnome when you stay at your house in Mexico?

IJ: No, but there’s been more sightings there of like little gnomes running around, like the real small gnomes with the hats (laughs). Except my aunt said this one looked more real like a doll and it had wide eyes when she flashed the light at it.

I think many people share pieces of folklore in which their child showed a greater sensitivity to something supernatural, and also often the child is more welcoming to it than adults might be. This adds an even more eerie feeling to stories like these, because it almost feels like children or babies are somehow more connected to these beings than us, as adults.

The House on Florentine Street

Background information: My mom is a second-generation Filipino-American, meaning she was born here in the US. Her parents immigrated from the Philippines when they were both relatively young, and my mom’s family grew up with a lot of relatives in San Francisco, CA. 

Mom: At my lola’s house in the city, on Florentine Street, they always told me that sometimes there would be an old man sitting in this one specific arm chair in their living room.

Me: Who was the old man?

Mom: No one knows who the old man was…but the house was very, very old, maybe he lived there before my lola and our family. He wasn’t ever harmful but they would just see him sitting there all the time. She told me he must have just stayed in the house after he passed, because it was still his. But he was never scary or bad, or anything like that.

Me: Did you ever see the old man yourself?

Mom: I don’t remember ever seeing him. But maybe sometimes I would feel his, like, presence or something similar. But nothing was ever bad about it.

In Filipino culture, many people are very respectful of the supernatural, and of spirits of the past that they may be intruding on. While, of course, the idea of ghosts is often very scary and unnerving in Western culture, my mom’s family and many other Filipinos/Filipino-Americans have more of a neutral view of ghosts from the past co-existing in the same space as living people. This mentality is seen in the way my family still showed respect and gave the old man his own space, while accepting the fact that he would continue to stay in the house.