Tag Archives: childhood belief

Headless Mule Legend

Text: Below is the performance describing the Brazilian Headless Mule legend.

Interviewer: Do you have any stories of legendary figures?

Interviewee: Yeah, so in Brazil we have, uh, I used to be really, like deathly scared of this one mythological creature, in Portuguese the name is Mula sem Cabeca. In English, it, uh, the Headless Mule, and it’s basically a mule, headless mule, but in the place of its head, it’s, uh, it’s like a bunch of flames. So, uh, when I used to, when someone read to me that story and showed me, like, a picture, I was like always scared of, like, going to my Grandmother’s farm, where there were like horses and stuff, so I was just, like, very scared of horses, but, uh, it’s like a cool little Folklore. I don’t know the story behind it, but I think there is, like, an origin story.

Context:

The interviewee is a 22 year-old college student who grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. At first he could not recall any legends from his childhood, and then he remembered the figure above. He learned about the legend from a family member reading him a story about the figure from a children’s book.

Analysis:

This mythical creature exemplifies how folklore interacts with published media. The widespread Brazilian folkloric legend of the Headless Mule was incorporated by a children’s book publisher as a folklorism, which helped further disseminate the story. The interviewee’s own life experience affected how he interacted with the legend, as growing up around a farm made him worry that this legendary animal might attack him around his grandmother’s farm animals. The legend of the Headless Mule is a clear example of the frightening effect of the uncanny. The familiar sight of farm animals was made scary by its alteration. This folkloric belief is similar to that of the evil headless horseman, but this time, it is the evil farm animal that is headless, not its rider, showcasing how across cultures, headless entities are folk figures of horror.

Thunder Explained to a Child

Text:

“The angels are bowling”

Context:

“The angels are bowling,” my mom use to tell me when I was a child. I was so afraid of thunderstorms, so my mom told me that thunder was just the angels in Heaven bowling. I stopped being afraid of thunder then and would just complain that the angels always had to go bowling when I was trying to fall asleep.

Analysis:

In order to help me overcome my fear of thunderstorms, my mother constructed a legend – a story set in the real world and told as if it was true. Now, I asked her if she came up with the legend on her own, and she tells me she’s not sure. She may have heard it from somewhere else or come up with it on the spot. My family and I are Christians, so my mother used emic, or insider’s, language when discussing that thunderstorms are just angels bowling to esoterically communicate to me that I had nothing to fear.

Snow Traditions 2

Nationality: American
Age: 14
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA
Language: English

These were local rituals done to bring about a snow day. Kids would pressure each other to do them before bed, hoping the more people who did them, the more likely it would be that a snowstorm came. 

“I remember when we first turned our pjs inside out before bed. [J](his brother) told me about it for the first time. We turned our pjs inside out, flushed ice cubes down the toilet, and put a spoon under our pillows. All of these done with a lot of people hopefully would bring more snow to town. I remember telling a big group of friends they had to send pictures of their inside-out PJs and spoons under pillows to their moms to send to my mom.” 

This ritual doesn’t have a designated time besides whenever a kid can’t take another day of school. These rituals are passed between friends mainly in cold communities. The peer pressure to participate is very interesting because it shows the heavy belief these kids take in turning pajamas inside out or putting a spoon under their pillow. Kids are very superstitious before they learn how the world works scientifically. Most people grow out of these superstitions after they learn about precipitation. 

Snow Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA
Language: English

These were local rituals done to bring about a snow day. Especially when the informant was younger, there were lots of snowstorms in the area, and these rituals were said to help bring them. 

“The best days were always snow days because we had no school and everyone was free to do cool things like sled or make some money by shoveling snow. When we were young, like young, young, like 3rd or 4th grade we did all those things. We were flushing ice cubes, putting white crayons on the window sill… those other things. My mom actually found a white crayon on the windowsill of the basement the other day.” 

This ritual doesn’t have a designated time besides whenever a kid can’t take another day of school. It is a special kind of kid belief where flushing ice cubes creates snow or a white crayon will turn the ground outside white. It is also interesting because these rituals are only practiced in cold places, like the northeast of America.