Tag Archives: Monster

The Devil will pull you under the bed by your feet

Nationality: Colombian
Age: 52
Occupation: Spanish Teacher
Residence: Davenport, Florida
Performance Date: 4/29/2015
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Informant (“M”) is a 52 year old woman from Bogota, Colombia. She moved to the United States in 1992, at the age of 30. She has two kids, a boy and a girl, who she raised in the United States. She has four siblings, two brothers and two sisters, she was the second born. She has a 102 year old Grandmother. Collection was over Skype.

 

Transcript:

“M: Cuando nosotros uh… youngers, uh…. younger? Okay and we lied, my mom said to us when you go to sleep tonight… that was scary… the devil is coming and grab you from your feet and taking you with him. Usually we went to sleep and we covered our feet very well, and wore socks, and the next day sometimes we lost one of ours socks. She would say the devil took the socks but didn’t grab us from our feet.

Me: So what this supposed to happen when you were in bed?

Yeah, because we was wearing socks and took our socks instead.

Me: Did he like stay or live under the bed?

M: Yeah! I believe he did, he was under the bed or under old blankets. Later we’d find the socks lost sometimes and believe “oh god the devil was here”. We’d later find the socks sometimes.

Me: So she said that only happened when you lied?

M: It’s only when we lied, ‘’I know you’re lying tonight and the devil will come get you from you feet’’ [imitation of mother].

Me: Was there any way to stop him, like could you confess that you lied or pray to stop the devil?

(Did not address question as I interrupted)

M: That was like 40 something years ago, I believe that was similar in the United States in the 50s. I don’t think it a very funny way to teach to behave.”

 

Analysis:

The monster pulling you under the bed by your feet piece of Folklore appears to exist in the United States, as was noted by “M”, often tied to the boogeyman. There are multiple references to the ‘under the bed monster’ and in American popular studies journals being cited in one article as “…so universal that we no longer stop to think about their origins. “(Shimabukuro, 2014). As identified by “M” at the end of the transcript, it was used as a method to convince her, by her mother, to tell her if she had been lying. This could be used to scare the truth out of a child, or if the child would not tell no matter what, as a way to negatively reinforce such behavior.

“M”s use of socks to protect her from the devil living under the bed appears to be used as a protection charm from the devil, similar to when children hide their heads under the blanket. It was also used as an indicator of the devil’s presence, as the disappearance of the socks may have indicated to “M” that the devil had tried to grab her and grabbed her sock instead.

Work Cited

Shimabukuro, K. (2014). The Bogeyman of Your Nightmares: Freddy Krueger’s Folkloric Roots. STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE.

An Encounter with the Yeti

Nationality: American (ethnicity: Jewish)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California (Originally from Cranston, Rhode Island)
Performance Date: 4/29/2013
Primary Language: English

Item:

“So when I was younger, my grandfather would always tell me stories about his experiences with the yeti. And he was very keen, on like, calling the yeti the yeti and not big foot or ice man or anything. And he described the yeti as this monstrous, white-furred creature that lived in the coldest parts of the world. And so he said that one time, him and his buddies were up in Alaska (actually buddy, I remember it was one person), him and his friend were up in Alaska and I had just learned about glaciers in elementary school so I ask him like ‘what’s a glacier?’ and  he told me this story about how he was in Alaska and he was like touring the glaciers, um and him and his friend were in a tour group and went off the track, off the trail. And they were walking around just waltzing about minding their own business when all of the sudden they came up to a giant impasse where one glacier, there was like a giant ditch before the other glacier, um and so they had to get across somehow. So he said they had no idea what to do, they had gone off the trail, completely by themselves, and he said that all of the sudden, the yeti, who I was aware of because of these other stories, the yeti had come from out of nowhere it seemed um and picked my grandfather and his friend up and over the giant ditch and placed them on the other side.”

Context:

The informant stated that even though he “couldn’t actually logically reason it out like oh there has to be a yeti because of this evidence and that evidence,” because his grandfather said it, “it had to be true.”

Analysis:

The story the informant’s grandfather tells is a legend because it takes place in the real world and its truth value is unknown. His grandfather still maintains that the stories are true, most likely reflecting his unspoken desire for his grandson to continue to spread the legacy of the yeti through his own stories told to his kids and grandkids.

Georgetown Chupacabra

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Berkeley Biology Student
Residence: Berkeley
Performance Date: April 27, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

There was a guy in Georgetown who heard noises outside of his trailer. He grabbed a gun that for some reason he kept in his run-down trailer, he ran outside to find a chupacabra. A chupacabra is like a goat-eater, is what it’s also called. I don’t really know what it looks like. But in this case I hear that what he shot at might have actually been a sick, hairless, bear cub, which is pretty sad. Anyway, the guy shoots at it and misses, then shoots again and kills the thing. He said when he shot it, it was screaming “like a four year old girl.” Which is a really disturbing analogy, because, how, precisely, would he know? Anyway, that’s what I heard. It happened in the town just over from ours. The guy was a big hick, and he went to high school, I think, with our high school economics teacher.

This is a FOAF story that happened in the performer’s hometown. It definitely gives a feel for the town identity. As the performer of this story lives nearby the town where the chupacabra was allegedly found, she knows the area and is familiar with what bear cubs look like. She is fond of the story, because it is quickly becoming a town legend, and has apparently made the town infamous, where before the town was too small to be of any note. The story has become part of the town identity.

El Cucuy

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 12
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

This JEP informant told an urban legend about a nighttime monster named El Cucuy. According to the informant, El Cucuy walks around everywhere after the sun sets. The monster’s distinguishing physical feature is his one big ear that can hear every sound. It does not matter if the sound comes from nearby or far away. The creature can even hear people who stay silent.

The informant learned about El Cucuy from his teacher in second grade. This legend was also reinforced by his mother who told him not to go out at night because El Cucuy lurked outside. The informant is unsure if he believes in the urban legend of the monster.

This legend seems to have been transformed into a means that the storyteller uses to achieve an end: the informant’s mother used it to scare her young son so that he would not leave the house at night. Perhaps worried parents have encouraged the spreading of this urban legend. This legend is probably aimed at younger children who are more gullible and become scared into obeying more easily. The informant, who is almost a teenager, seems skeptical of this mysterious monster that possesses magical hearing capabilities.

This legend is annotated. It can also be found at the following source: http://tucsoncitizen.com/paranormal/2010/06/27/the-frightening-folklore-of-el-cucuy/

Vietnamese Bedtime Story

Nationality: Asian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington D.C.
Performance Date: 4/23/2012
Primary Language: English

Story:

“It’s a bed time story that my mom used to tell me about this human eating monster that like terrorized a village in Vietnam. And I don’t know, this one hero got him to like try this delicious Vietnamese chicken dish and he liked it so much that he just ate chicken”

My informant liked this story because was funny and so easily resolved.

In this little story, it connects my informant with her Vietnamese heritage, not only in the location, but also in food.  It presses that Vietnamese food is so good, that it can stop a terrifying monster who now loves it so much, it is all he eats.  It is her mother telling her that their culture is important for her to know.  It is the last thing she hears before she goes to sleep and what she eats every day.  It was important for my informant to hear this because she grew up away from Vietnam in American culture.