Main Piece

JJ often visits Lake Mooselookmeguntic, Maine with his friends. One of his friends has a house on the lake. He tells us about an infamous beagle that would bother the beachgoers at the lake:

“We had 2 neighbors on either side. Not too close by, about 200 feet. One neighbor had a tiny little old-ass beagle covered in cancerous warts. It seemed like it was on its way out every year. Every year they’d give it the excuse it was dying. It would act like it. It would come over to you on the beach and piss over everything. Steal shit and trample all over your stuff. Every year we’d go up and say ‘it’s gotta be dead by now.’

If someone is trolling you, you call it a ‘Beagle Troll.’ He was the king of troll. If you had a bottle or a solo cup he would literally pee in it. He was the menace of the beach. He would be loose and enter your house, he would piss on your stuff and shit on the floor. You couldn’t get mad at him because he was covered in cancer warts and old AF. It wasn’t just us – this happened to everyone on the beach and everyone knew the Beagle.”

Informant background

JJ is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Newburyport, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

The Beagle is an interesting example of a living person (or in this case, dog), whose legend has outgrown his probable literal achievements. In the case of the Beagle, it is implausible that the dog would go from beach group to beach group targeting their drinks to urinate into; likewise for him breaking into houses just to defecate on the floor. However, it surely makes a better story and has definitely put Lake Mooselookmeguntic on the map of my consciousness for the first time.