Tag Archives: legend

Legend – La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student

Text: 

“This is the legend of La Llorona, who is a woman that roams the towns in Mexico searching for her dead children. This story [is set in] old-time Mexico. There lived a family: a husband, a wife, and their two children. The family was happy; the dad worked and the mom stayed home to watch over the children. Somewhere along the way though, there started to be financial difficulties, so when the husband encounters a young and beautiful woman from the next town over and he starts having an affair with her. Unbeknown to his surprise, the mother finds out and rage fills her and ends up clouding her mind. She wants a way to get back at him, but she can’t think of anything. She wants to kill him but she wants to hurt him deeply and that’s when she notices her children. She’s like my children, that’s the one way that will hurt him. She guides them to a river on the pretense that they’re going to go play by the river. While they’re playing in the river, the mother slowly goes into the river and starts telling her children to come with her. The children don’t know that it’s too deep for them and that the current of the river would end up taking the children and drowning them. The children follow their mom since they love her, and they start to realize that they can’t touch the floor. They’re screaming out for their mom like ‘Mom help me.’ She goes over and starts drowning them both. Now that she has drowned them, she starts to realize what she’s done. She realizes she ended up killing both her children and she went crazy, but she still seeks revenge. She goes over to her husband and ends up murdering him. From that moment on, the agony of losing her children has taken over her. It is said that near the rivers in Mexico, there will be a woman who you’ll hear screaming and crying for her children.” 

Context: 

This story was told by one of my roommates. She heard this story from multiple members of her family. She said that this story is passed down from generation to generation. It is a very well-known legend in Mexico, and she said that not a single Latino would not know who La Llorona is.

Analysis: 

This legend is similar to the concept of the boogie man. It’s kind of a way for parents to scare their children into doing something. In America, I think the boogie man is more well-known than La Llorona, but the idea behind the legend is the same. Parents will often say something along the lines of “go to sleep or the boogie man will get you.”  This is similar to La Llorona; parents in Mexico would use this legend as a way to make sure their children would come home before sundown. In a way, this was also a way for parents to keep their children safe from wandering the streets at night. 

The Family of Ghosts

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 3/30/23
Primary Language: English

Text: “When I was fourteen, I was at a sleepover with some of my friends. In the middle of the night, I woke up to strange noises coming from the bathroom. When I walked into the bathroom, the light switch wasn’t working. I started getting freaked out because the power was not out. So anyways, I left the light switch on, used the restroom, and when I was looking in the mirror, the lights turned on, and my nose was bleeding. I was in tears and when I tried to wake up my friends, they kind of brushed it off and told me to just use a tissue to plug my nose. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. There were still noises coming from the bathroom, almost as if someone was in there, but nobody was. When I tried to use a different bathroom later on, I ran into my friend’s older brother’s room, and he claimed that he had a very similar experience with the light switch, just no bloody nose. And he went on to explain how his father used to tell him and his sister a story of the family who previously lived in the house. It was something about how the dad went psycho and killed his wife and kids in this very house. He then said that his dad would freak them out by saying that the ghosts of the mother and children still live in the house, haunting it, decades later. The father would flicker the light switch in the kids’ bathroom while they were in there to scare them, hence why the light switch is messed up. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it was definitely the last time I had a sleepover at that house.” – Informant

Context: The informant was about 14 years old, sleeping at a friend’s house when she experienced this situation. She heard the story of the dead family from her friend’s older brother, who had heard from his dad, who he wasn’t sure made it up or not.

Analysis: This story contains elements of folklore, particularly in its use of legends and ghost stories. The legend about the previous family who lived in the house and the father who went insane and killed his family is a classic example of a ghost story passed down through generations. It serves as a warning to those who dare to stay in the house and suggests that the spirits of the deceased family still haunt the place, decades later.

The strange noises, malfunctioning light switch, and nosebleed experienced by the informant add to the eerie atmosphere of the story and heighten the sense of supernatural presence. The fact that the informant’s friend’s older brother also experienced a similar incident with the light switch lends credibility to the story and reinforces the idea that something unexplainable is happening in the house. This story showcases how folklore and legends can be used to explain unexplainable occurrences and to warn people of potential dangers.

Can you get me a glass of water?

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: AWS consultant
Residence: New York City
Performance Date: 4-3-23
Primary Language: English

Context:

The informant, JB, is my older brother who is twenty-four and currently lives in New York City. We both grew up in a small town in Tennessee surrounded by our close family. The story I interviewed him about is very well known throughout our family and is centered around our grandfather and his supernatural experience in rural Kentucky.

Main Piece:

JB’s summary of the story- Papaw was at a little store/restaurant in Kentucky, and he sat on a stool and ordered a Pepsi at the counter. While the lady was opening his drink an old, straggly looking man with long white hair and a long white beard sat down beside him. He asked papaw to order him a class of water, which he did. The man drank the water and then got up and walked towards the door. As he reached for the door, he looked back at papaw and said something he couldn’t understand. He got to go after the man and see what he said but the mysterious man had disappeared, and no one outside seen him. Three or four years later, in the middle of the night, Papaw was woken up by someone pulling him out of his bed, and I think the first few times he assumed it was Mamaw or mom messing with him. The last time was really aggressive, so he was wide awake and at the foot of his bed was man from that little restaurant with a long white beard and hair. He looked at papaw and said, “I’ll come back one more time, just one more time” then he disappeared; at the time, Mamaw was wake in the living room and didn’t hear or see anything.

Interviewer- Who told you this story for the first time?

JB- Papaw told me when I was younger, but Mamaw and mom referenced the story all the time. Mamaw always that she believed it was true because of how scared papaw was after it happened. She always said it was some kind of angel.

Interviewer- So what was your interpretation of it?

JB- It sounds like some kind of omen, but the time difference is weird since the man came back just a few years later but it’s been at least forty years since it happened. Maybe the 3rd time will be before he dies.

Analysis:

My grandpa’s supernatural encounter can be categorized as a folk legend since he, and the rest of our family considers it to be true. This is my family’s most passed around piece of folklore, so we all develop different interpretations of what this meant.  The way that I interpreted the legend was that of warning, and moral upkeep. Although the story is unique to my grandpa, it contains common motifs of folklore like a figure with a long white beard, the significant group of 3s, and proverbial warnings. Folklorists have consistently found that supernatural legends often develop during times of stress or change as a way to cope. Given my grandfather’s religious background, the man could have represented a pure figure, like an angel, coming to check on the state of his soul. Along with that, the threat of the man coming back at random could act as a deterrent of immoral acts. Although I don’t know if my grandpa was engaging in bad behaviors, it is common for spirits to function as a way to externalize negative feelings, perhaps guilt in this case.

Redash Cemetery

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Hotel Manager
Residence: Scott County, TN
Performance Date: 4-3-23
Primary Language: English

Context:

DS is one of my best friends from my hometown in Tennessee. She is twenty years old and goes to our community college. I called to get her version of the folk-legends about the infamous cemetery in the town next to ours, since she has been there multiple times. The cemetery’s name is Redash and is nestled down a long windy abandoned road we call “ ‘ole 63.”

Main Piece:

DS- Redash is a small, super old graveyard on the back road of 63. Everything on that road is just creepy anyway like all the burnt buildings and how it seems to always look dark even during the daytime. Even driving to get there will freak ya out.

Interviewer-Okay so tell me about the legend of Redash itself, like things that are common knowledge about it, even if you haven’t been there.

DS- It’s like a very known and accepted legend around here. So, there are like two different storylines about Redash. One is that there is some kind of half-man-half-goat that will run you out of the cemetery if it thinks you are there to like screw around and be disrespectful. The other one, which is the most common, is about the witch’s grave. She will be sitting on her grave crying over it and people leave coins on her grave if she doesn’t bother them. The major no-no is taking money off her tombstone; apparently horrific accidents have happened to several people who did that. There’s also just a bunch of weird paranormal stuff that kind of varies depending on personal experience.

Interviewer- Okay, so now give me your take on what happens, since you’ve been many times.

DS- I know it sounds crazy, but just walking up to the graveyard has made my stomach absolutely drop every time, and not in like a nervous way. It’s a feeling that I can’t explain and everyone that I’ve asked feels instantly uneasy when they get out of the car too. There really is a women buried there from the 1800s that was said to be a witch and there is always money there, but I would never touch it. I can’t say I have seen her, but I swear I have heard cries. One time we could have sworn we heard someone scream at us to leave and then we all felt such a bad aura that we left. But some of my friends that have gone had terrifying experiences, like after one girl got back in her car, she had scratches all over her body. Oh, and the red eyes, that’s a very common sight from almost everyone.

Analysis:

DS’s account of Redash is an example of a memorate, and supernatural experiences that have a strong impact like hers are the fuel that keep local folk-legends alive. This ghost story contains many of the classic supernatural characteristics like cryptozoology, a witch, and a cemetery. The legend of Redash also contains an aspect of spirits upholding moral standards by the witch cursing someone if they steal money from her tombstone. This follows Valk’s idea that spirits in legends are purposeful and can serve as a warning to the living. Valk also asserts that ghosts can be a way for the living to deal with economic changes, which is relevant to the history of the area where Redash is located. It used to be a booming coal town, but it has been completely desolate for at least half a century. Perhaps the memorate that started the Redash legend was influenced by the economic uncertainties that were to come.

Madame Pele at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel

T is 70 years old. He is a retired teacher. He was born in Southern California and raised in Hawaii. He was 7 years old when his family moved there in 1959. He is very animated and speaks very quickly. He shared this piece with me in conversation.

“The legend of Pele used to frighten me as a child. She was always seen before a volcanic eruption… someone would see her… she was very regal, tall, long flowing black hair, flaming red dress flowing behind her… she was elegant. She would appear walking somewhere… This was in 1960, what happened was the volcano did erupt and we lived on Kailua at the time, the eruption was on the big island, I forget which volcano it was, but the pumice, that’s when the lava flows on the water, anyway the pumice flows onto the beach… people use it to scrub their face, anyways people said they saw her walking through the wall in the Hawaiian Village hotel. She’s not happy about how the island is going, you know… what’s happened to the native Hawaiians and the Polynesian culture… So I was really scared of her and I used to think I would see her walking through my bedroom but I never did. So if you see her walking around, that means a volcano will erupt pretty soon. They call her the goddess, Madame Pele.”

Pele is part of Hawaiian mythology but interestingly endures in contemporary times through many sightings, sometimes as a hitchhiker, sometimes dressed in white with a white dog, and sometimes as a beautiful young woman dressed in red or as a female figure within lava itself. These contemporary iterations of Pele take the form of ghost story figures. The version T told me coincides with accounts documented on websites such as https://www.hauntedrooms.com/hawaii/haunted-places/haunted-hotels & https://frightfind.com/hilton-hawaiian-village/ and does seem to serve as a cautionary tale or lesson particularly in light of the fact that the sighting happens in a tourist hotel and that Pele is not happy about native land dispossession and the display of Polynesian culture as tourist attraction.

For more information about Pele and contemporary sightings see https://www.academia.edu/189854 & https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/people-cant-stop-seeing-pele-in-the-lava/.