Tag Archives: legend

Scottish Fairy Flag

Text:

S: “Umm, it’s a Scottish legend. Umm, there was this like Lord, I think in Scotland who fell in love with a fairy and uh, I don’t remember all of it, but he fell in love with the fairy. Then the Fairy Kingdom said, fine, you can, the fairy can live with the and be a human with the Lord for a year and then she has to come back. So they lived together for a year and then she had to go back. But before she went back, she gave him this flag and it was like from the Fairy Kingdom or something. And the flag is still there in Scotland today.”

Context:

My sister told me this legend, and after doing additional research on the legend, I found that it was believed that the flag could be used in times of crises to protect the castle or win victory in battle – that the fairies may come to the humans’ aid if the flag was raised.

Analysis:

This is a real flag that can be found in Scotland. I believe this legend of the flag being a gift from a Lord’s somewhat forbidden fairy lover came to be in order to put the minds of the people at ease: that if war or battles came, they had otherworldly help to aid and protect them. I also believe that due to many legends of fairies that circulated in Scotland, a mysterious flag would likely be attributed to these supernatural creatures.

Nigerian Red Handkerchief

Text:

T: “In Nigerian culture, there’s this, like, there’s a significance behind, like, a red handkerchief, right. That’s like if you’re carrying it, it’s kind of like a sign that, like, you have, like, powers, like, certain, like supernatural powers. It’s like, like a charm almost … It’s like a medium to, like, exhibit those powers, you know. And it’s like, and there’s this thing called, they call it, like, juju or jazz where it’s like, it’s just, it’s basically just witchcraft. Like … Yeah, that’s the best term to call it. Just, like, use certain charms and things, like, you know, to, like, do magic.”

Context:

T comes from a Nigerian family and has heard the legend of the “red handkerchief” passed down through the generations. In the culture, it is believed that if someone carried a red handkerchief then they had supernatural or magical powers. It is almost like a Scarlet Letter, in the fact that it symbolizes something else.

Analysis:

The Nigerian Red Handkerchief is a legend because it something believed to be true, based in the real world. This legend seems to be both emic and esoteric as it is an insider’s perspective of the significance of a red handkerchief and it communicates something within the group, not to those outside of the group. It carries cultural significance since it is predominately recognized with the Nigerian community. It also carries familiar significance as it is a legend passed down through generations of a family.

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.

Flickering Lamp

Age: 19

Ghost story

After my great grandmother passed, I remember the feeling of being sad both because my grandmother died and because I couldn’t be around my family due to Covid restrictions. I sat in bed crying after my dad gave me the news and I was distraught. Because this is the first family member I had passin my life, I didn’t know what to do and so I asked for a sign that she was okay. About 20 minutes later my dad came in my room to check on me and turned on a lamp I had never turned on despite living in that house for a year already. As soon as he turned the light on, and I told my dad that I wanted a way to know that she was OK, I turned to the lamp and it started to flicker. I had never used the lightbulb in the lamp and to this day It hasn’t flickered again, but that was my sign. 

Context: This story was told to me during a topic of religion. It was me, my roommate, her, and her friend. She stated that she does not believe explicitly in god, but instead believes in spirits. She then elaborated, telling this story.

Analysis: She thinks that it was her grandma. I think it was just a coincidence. It resembles the flame motif and ancestral ghosts. One attribute that could represent why she believed more was that she was younger, and this was the first time that a relative had died for her. Her emotional state could have been less stable, making her easier to persuade.

Fallen Rose

Age: 19

I was there when my grandma passed. The room had that still, suspended feeling—like everything was holding its breath. I had brought a single rose and placed it gently beside her on the bed, not really knowing what else to do except be there and give her something soft, something beautiful.

When the doctor finally said the time of death, everything seemed to freeze. And then, right in that exact moment, the rose slipped off the bed and fell to the floor. No one touched it. There wasn’t any movement that I could see that would’ve caused it. It just… fell. It caught me off guard, but it didn’t feel random. It felt like something had shifted the second she was gone.

A year later, on her birthday, I went to visit her. She’s in a mausoleum—completely enclosed, no wind, nothing that could disturb anything placed there. I brought another rose and set it carefully on her tombstone. I stood there for a while, talking to her quietly, like I used to when she was here.

Then I said our phrase, the one we always shared: “I love you more.”

Right after I said it, the rose twitched.

I froze. I remember staring at it, trying to make sense of what I had just seen. There was no breeze, no movement around me—nothing that should’ve made it move. It was small, but it was real.

So I said it again, a little more sure this time. “I love you more.”

And that’s when the rose fell. Completely, unmistakably, off the tombstone.

I didn’t feel scared. If anything, I felt this overwhelming sense of calm, like something familiar had just reached back toward me. In that moment, it didn’t feel like coincidence. It felt like her. Like she heard me, like she answered in the only way she could.

I know I can’t prove it. I know how it sounds. But I also know what I felt standing there—that same quiet certainty, like the moment she passed. To me, that was her way of saying hi, of reminding me that the love we shared didn’t just disappear.

And ever since then, I’ve held onto that. Not as something I need to explain, but as something I experienced—something that felt real in a way that doesn’t need proof.

Context: This story was told to me during a topic of religion. It was me, my roommate, her, and her friend. She stated that she does not believe explicitly in god, but instead believes in spirits. She then elaborated, telling this story.

Analysis: She thinks that it was her grandma. I think it was just a coincidence. It resembles the flame motif and ancestral ghosts. One attribute that could represent why she believed more was that she was younger, and she was very close to her grandma. Her emotional state could have been less stable, making her easier to persuade. I also believe that in her family, ghost stories were accepted more, making her easier to sway.