Tag Archives: devil

The Black Dog

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County, California
Performance Date: 5 March 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

My grandma would tell me these stories about black dogs, or the black dog I guess. Basically, she said that when you see the black dog, it’s a sign of bad luck or death. It’s not just any black dogs, but you would know if you see one because this dog has red eyes and would just randomly appear and disappear without you noticing. The Black Dog apparently is a ghost who works for the Devil himself, and seeing the Dog basically means that the Devil will eventually get to you. She told me this story of when she was little, she visited her dead grandparents at a graveyard. She supposedly saw the Black Dog there, and apparently she lost her aunt from a cancer a few months after. I haven’t bothered to check up on how true the story was, but it did scare me when I was little. My family even avoided getting a black colored dog when we first got our puppy. My dog is beige.

Background:

My informant is of Irish and Scottish descent, his parents being immigrants from those respective countries. He grew up heavily influenced by both cultures, and he’s told me that he relates more with Irish and Scottish cultures more so than Irish American or Scottish American identities. The Black Dog is a popular motif and a mythical creature in European countries, especially in Britain, Scotland, and Wales. While the details of the story varies per region, but in general the Black Dog is believed to bring terrible news. It’s also the motif behind the famous Sherlock Holmes story “the Hound of the Baskervilles”.

Context:

The informant relayed this piece of information during our lunch at my apartment, near USC campus. There no other people present during our talk, and we were dining as we talked. It was a comfortable setting.

My thoughts:

Because there’s so much cultural positive rep for dogs in western viewpoint, I found it fascinating that there’s a very old and famous European belief that a dog could ever be this sinister and evil. The color black being associated with Satan and the Devil seemed appropriate for Europeans to do so. From my understanding, to say “I have a black dog” nowadays means that someone suffers from depression, and it was helpful to understand where the phrase originated from.

For more information on the Black Dog, please see:

Quaile, Sheilagh. “The black dog that worries you at home: The Black Dog Motif in Modern English Folklore and Literary Culture.” The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History, vol.1 article 3, 2013.

Moment with the Devil

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 17
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

The following is a somewhat of a ghost story, but also a demonic encounter.  The informant is represented by L and I am represented by K.

Piece:

K: Tell me about your story.

L: Okay… I heard this from my mom, and my mom told it to me when I was younger, that… back when she was living in Mexico, when she was coming home from school with her- with my aunt… and that… the girl who lives next to them… she was like, very bratty and just very mean to her mom, didn’t want to go to work with her, didn’t go help her out to like get money and get food, and she was just… not a nice person at all.  And my mom said when she was coming home from school, she just heard like… a shrilling scream… and her- the girl comes out and she was just sobbing and crying and my mom, it took her- it took my mom a while to calm her down and.. uhm… and she said that.. that the Devil… that the Devil came for her because she was just being so- she was being a bitch, and that… what only she saw was like the black and long and like scary hands with like the fur and stuff. And then my mom stayed with her- my mom and my aunt stayed with her until… her mom got home and then her mom took her to a priest to go… to go bless her, but uhm… I guess what it means to me is just, it kept me in line as a kid ’cause like I can’t be disrespectful to my mom because I don’t want that to happen to me.

Context:

The informant was sitting at a dining room table.  There was a group of 5 of us and we had all just celebrated Easter together.  We were sitting at the dining room table sharing folklore and she had a lot of Mexican folklore that she wanted to share with us.

My Thoughts:

I thought this piece of folklore was interesting because it’s kind of a ghost story, but also kind of just a demonic encounter. I think it was really interesting because this could totally be a real experience or it could be a story that was made up in an effort to keep children in check.  I, personally, think it’s a real story and was told as a way for the informant’s mother to make her behave well when she was younger, but I definitely think it’s real. I also think it’s interesting because, it’s somewhat of a variation of a ghost story, but in this context, the ghost happens to be the Devil.  I think it’s super interesting because people who aren’t religious, but believe in ghosts would probably say it was just a ghost, but people who don’t believe in ghosts, but are religious, might say it’s really just the Devil.

The Devil in your bed

Occupation: UPS Driver
Residence: Palmdale, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Text:

“My Aunt always told me that if one of us in the house did not make our beds then the Devil would come and play in them. The only way to protect ourselves from the Devil was to make our beds before we left the house.”

 Context:

I collected this piece from a hispanic male whose family is Catholic. When I asked him why he remembered this piece and why he thinks he learned it from his family he told me that he remembers it because he used to have meltdowns when he would leave the house after forgetting to make his bed and that he also thinks that his Aunt only told them this as a way to get them to clean their rooms.

Analysis:

I agree with the informant’s explanation that the reason that his family was told to make their beds was not because the Devil would actually appear in an unmade bed but as a way for the children in the family to get in the habit of cleaning their rooms and making their beds. I think that one of the reasons this is passed down is as a way to teach children their manners as well as discipline and it is done in a folkloric way so that the kids will remember and abide by it.

Another explanation for why this folk belief has been told and continues to be shared by that family has to do with religion. Many western people’s religions all agree that there is a Devil and that the Devil is someone you meet in hell if you sin and do not repent for your sins. I think that this has a very strong affect on children who are just learning about religion and beginning to attend church because it equates their uncleanliness to sin and something that they have to repent for in order to protect themselves from finding the devil in your bed. Naturally, when a child gets in trouble for doing something that they are not supposed to be doing they try to apologize and find some way to not be punished. In this case, the punishment is coming face to face with the devil and the only way to avoid this is to make one’s bed- which is a pretty dark but effective way to make children more disciplined and clean.

I would also like to analyze this folk belief by seeing the choice of diction and how this would affect kids specifically and allow them to remember it. This folk belief  does not just say that the devil will appear in your bed but that the devil will play in your bed if you leave it unmade. The word choice here is directly targeted towards children to whom the notion and action of playing was natural ever since birth and that is what they are used to doing. When they hear the word play, I feel like they connect to it in a different way than an adult would because that is what they spend most of their childhood doing so it resonated with them in a different way.

Devil Sightings on Horse at Night – Mexico

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/ Georgia
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

KF: People have tales of like because uh Mexico is like predominantly like Catholic um…people say that like they’ve seen the devil on like their horse- on his horse…like just like galloping like if you stay up really really late at night, you’ll see him like come through like the town or something.

 

Background:

Location of story – predominantly Mexico, according to informant

Location of Performance – Interviewer’s dormitory room, Los Angeles, CA, night

 

Context: This performance took place in a group setting – about 2-3 people – in a college dormitory room. This performance was prompted by the call for stories about beliefs, ghosts, or superstitions as examples of folklore via a group message. KF approached me two days prior to this interview, but schedules did not allow for a recording until she came to ask a homework and remembered. I am good friends with KF. This story followed one of KF’s previously about La Llorona.

 

Analysis: It is interesting to note that the devil only appears late at night. In Catholic tradition, one is always at risk to sin and the Devil, but for some reason, these monsters only seem to reveal themselves at night. In Mathias Clasen’s article “Monsters Evolve: A Biocultural Approach to Horror Stories,” Paul Shepard is quoted as saying, “our fear of monsters in the night probably has its origins far back in the evolution of our primate ancestors, whose tribes were pruned by horrors whose shadows continue to elicit our monkey screams in dark theaters” (Clasen 1). In other words, tradition has conditioned us to believe that the night brings about supernatural activity. This phenomenon can possibly be explained by a communal need to feel protected from evils, such as the Devil, by having times dedicated to explore and be free and then times dedicated to retreat and hide.

 

Additional Reading:

Clasen, Mathias. “Monsters Evolve: A Biocultural Approach to Horror Stories.” Review of General Psychology, vol. 16, no. 2, June 2012, pp. 222–229, doi:10.1037/a0027918.

Shepard, Paul. The others: How animals made us human. Island Press, 1997.

Denver Airport Is the Portal to Hell

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/ Denver, CO
Primary Language: English

SB: Um, the Denver airport…is notorious for being at the very least the basis of a conspiracy theory and at the most the actual portal to hell (laughs) so, the- Denver generally with its airports have been very problematic. The first one was the Stapleton airport. Stapleton was a member of the KKK, and they named the airport after him, but then they decided to turn that into a neighborhood, so they moved the airport out into the boonies. It’s like an hour after from the city, it’s huge, there’s these like iconic white tents, and the myth is that underground, there are tunnels that are used for the government, for their nefarious activities, and um…some crazy people – to be perfectly honest – believe that within those tunnels and somewhere in the Denver airport is an actual, um, portal to Hell…where Satan himself resides. What’s also kinda scary about the airport is there’s a giant blue horse sculpture with glowing red eyes that you drive past as you are on your way to catch a flight. And when the sculpture was putting it up, the horse fell over and killed him…and then his son, or daughter i’m not sure, his child- finished the sculpture and now it stands, but it’s haunted because the sculpture actually killed someone and at night, it’s eyes glow bright red and it’s terrifying and everything about the airport terrifies me.

 

Background:

Location of story – Denver, CO

Location of Performance – SB’s dormitory room, Los Angeles, CA, night

 

Context: This performance was done just between SB and I in response to me asking if she had any urban legends, riddles, or holiday traditions. I am very close friends with SB.

 

Analysis: At the base of this conspiracy theory, there is an association between very real hate and evil with more metaphysical, faith oriented evil. It is almost a way to be able to digest the history of the Denver airport: the only explanation for that level of bias and hate is that it is prompted by the devil’s proximity. It is also interesting to note how that association affects all other aspects of the airport that would have otherwise stood as an independent legend – i.e. the horse. I myself have heard about the conspiracy theory that the Denver airport has some nefarious activity, but I have never heard that it is an actual portal to hell. Prior to this performance, my knowledge of the conspiracy theory primary focused on the suspicious design of the physical space itself. For example, there are photos of the aerial view of the airport, resembling a swastika, the barbed wire faces in and not out, and in the background of all the idyllic, pastoral murals, there are depictions of war and violence among other disturbing images. The significance of the design of this airport is related to the presence of many celebrities’ and powerful individuals homes around the airport: they do not live there but they have bought property there. When I was told all the details by my friend, she explained that ultimately, all this meant that it must be some sort of refuge for the rich, famous, and/or powerful if the apocalypse were to eventually happen.