“My mother’s Brazilian, so when I was growing up she would tell me the Brazilian folklore story of the headless mule.  The story goes that a sinful woman was cursed so that she was transformed into this headless mule that could spit fire out of its stump.  So every Thursday night the mule would run around in the dark spitting fire everywhere it went, and, if you happened to come across it, it could turn you into a headless mule, too.  But I think the contingency was that it could only turn you into a headless mule too if you had committed the same sin as the original headless mule, something like infidelity or something, I’m not sure.”

ANALYSIS:

This folk myth is super interesting because of how many different variations there are of it.  Nothing the informant said is inherently incorrect, it’s just that this is merely one version of the myth, and there are many others that are equally valid.  Additionally, the authenticity and the heritage behind this myth really fascinates me, as it’s a traditional Brazilian myth, and the informant is familiar with the myth because of his mother’s Brazilian background.  The myth connects the informant to his heritage, which is something I really appreciate in folklore.

For another version of this riddle, see the Volkswagen commercial titled “The Legend of the Headless Mule”.