Background Information: Jay is a Filipino American, and he grew up in USA. I interviewed him about a story named ‘The Swan’, which he heard when he was visiting family in the Philippines.

Jay: It’s a story in the Philippines called “The Swan”, and uh, it’s a witch that lives in the jungle. And at night, she leans up against a tree, and the upper half of her body separates, and she flies around, and the witch lands on rooftops. She has this really long tongue, and it goes through the, like the thatched roof? And she looks for pregnant women, and then she uh, the tongue kind of like, sucks the baby out of the womb. And uh, then she flies away and in the morning-time she reattaches to her body, and she’s back to normal.

Ankita: So, where’d you hear this story?

Jay: In the Philippines, like from cousins… younger cousins. I’m not really sure like, who this story is meant for, or who it’s meant to be a lesson for… But yeah I don’t really tell it to my kids or anything. I think it’s just meant to be scary.

Thoughts: This story is reminiscent of the La Llorona story that we discussed in class, where La Llorona would walk about during the night, stealing children to replaec her own dead child. It is interesting how Jay is unable to trace where exactly he heard the story, or where it might have come from. I also wonder if Jay’s experience and relationship with this tale would be different from his family actually living and growing up in the Philippines.