Text:

Interviewee:

My grandparents told me that “gold has legs” when we were in a jewelry shop. There were many things made of gold: gold rings, gold bracelets, gold necklaces… When they saw the gold, my grandparents told me, “Do you know that gold has legs and can run?”

I was very surprised and confused at first. I was like, what? Gold can run?

My grandma then explained that when my father was younger, he tried to hide gold underneath the floor of our house as a way of keeping it safe. However, he failed—after several years, when he tried to dig it out, he was unable to find the gold he had previously stored.

This then led to my grandparents’ conclusion: since it was hidden at home, and nobody has ever taken it or checked it—everything seemed to be very secure—it must be that the gold has run away by itself.

Context:

My informant learned of this folk belief last year, when he and his grandparents were browsing gold jewelries in a jewelry shop in his hometown. He was then told of this belief when his grandparents started telling him how his father used to use the soil to “store” gold underneath their floor, while failing to find it later after time passed.
My informant’s interpretation: He believes that by telling him of this belief, his grandparents were telling him, “Don’t try to hide your expensive things in a place for too long.”

Analysis:

This is a folk belief (and a superstition) shared by the elderly generation in China.

This folk belief exemplifies the use of folklore to fill an explanatory gap: The belief that “gold has legs and can run” is a way to explain the seemingly weird, inexplicable situation that happened to the informant’s father when he tried to store gold underneath the ground. The scientific reason, in reality, is that the ground shifts over time due to geological reasons and crustal movement. In addition, gold has weight, so it is reasonable from a scientific aspect that the gold has either changed its location or sunken into deeper parts of the ground (soil).