The folklore of medieval Europe was a mixture of legends from various sources, such as ancient regional stories mixed with Judeo-Christian religious tales and myths from the Roman Empire and the Near East. Whether or not people believed in all of these creatures is difficult to say, since it was not really the point to believe or disbelieve (although many would have been convinced of the. Folklore definition is - traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people. How to use folklore in a sentence. Examples of folklore in a Sentence. The coyote appears in a great deal of Native American folklore.
As a relatively young country, the United States of America hasn’t had the same amount of time as older civilizations to develop, standardize, and compile compendiums of folktales arising from grassroots myths and legends. However, the ones that have cropped up over the last few centuries show remarkable popularity and staying power. They also tell us something intrinsic about our enthusiastic spirit, wild heart, flair for invention, and sense of humor as a culture as only tales passed from generation to generation truly can.Here, in no particular order, are the top 5 American Folktales. Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue OxA North American lumberjack of humorously exaggerated size and superhuman skill, Paul Bunyan stories originated in the logging camps and foresting industries along the border between the United States and Canada, most often set in the wilderness of the Dakotas. The first stories told among the loggers themselves were more ribald and less larger-than-life, mainly based in Bunyan’s prowess with an axe and emphasizing the extreme rugged nature of the lumberjacks.
However, as the stories were retold for a juvenile audience in the early 20 th Century, Bunyan became more of a giant, and the amusement of the stories focused on hyperbole. Although earlier accounts had mentioned a gigantic ox that had been rescued from the Winter of Blue Snow, and which had been so frozen that the ox himself turned blue, the mighty ox was named Babe by the author of publicity pamphlets for a lumber company. As symbols of American vitality and masculinity, and representative of the effort of taming of the wild natural frontier, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox haven’t lost their hold on America’s popular imagination, with oversized statues of the folkloric characters erected across the country.Folk carving of Bigfoot near Silver Lake, WA. BigfootThe massive scale of the North American forests must suggest outsized creatures. The Sasquatch, a giant ape-man reportedly being 7 feet to 10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds of brutish muscle, and having a coat of dark brown or reddish hair, has been spotted regularly but never officially in forests first in the Pacific Northwest and then throughout the United States.
Many sighters describe the creature with a dome-shaped skull, a broad, sloping forehead, a protruding eyebrow ridge, and large eyes. Often it appears like a cross between a Neanderthal and a gorilla – playing on our primal fears of prehistoric Missing Link survivors — and has been said to smell awful.
The name Sasquatch was attached by an Indian Agent named J. Burns, who collected tales by the Chehalis and Sts’Ailes natives of Washington State and British Columbia. Sasquatch’s fame increased in America after 1958, when Gerald Crew discovered huge tracks in the wilderness of Bluff Creek, California, and made plaster casts of the footprints.
An article in the Humboldt Times by columnist Andrew Genzoli used the term Bigfoot to refer to the beast for the first time in print, and sightings have remained consistent nationally since. Br’er RabbitA central figure in the folkloric Uncle Remus stories in the American South, Br’er Rabbit is a classic trickster character, outsmarting authority and subverting society with his wits. An amusing folk hero, Br’er Rabbit is not a simple persona, in that his amoral, chaotic nature can make trouble for friends as well as enemies, and most of all himself. The clever rabbit seems to have a shared dual heritage, with connections to the African folklore tradition of a hero hare brought over and developed in the African-American slave colonies, as well as being a revered character in Cherokee and Algonquin Indian tales. There was certainly interaction between the Native American tribes and the subjects of slavery, but which tales predate the other is difficult to ascertain. It’s possible that because of the sly nature of hares, the character developed independently in multiple cultures, and dovetailed in combination to give rise to Br’er Rabbit as an American personality. One of his most famous stories is “The Laughing Place” in which Br’er Rabbit outsmarts his frenemies Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear with a cave full of bees.
In 1946, the Walt Disney Company used the Br’er Rabbit tales as the basis for its animated movie Song of the South, which, because of racism considerations, has never been released for home distribution.Named after the Native American folklore heroine, the ship Maid of the Mist tours Niagara Falls. (SaffronBlaze: Maid of the MistAs the legend goes, Lelawala, a young Native American woman from the Ongiaras tribe of the Iroquois Nation, lived with her peaceful people by a wild river overlooking a waterfall. After her husband died of a mysterious poison, bereaved Lelawala set off in a canoe to commit suicide, but she was rescued by a flying Thunder Spirit named Henon who lived behind the waterfall. Lelawala recovered, and promised to marry whichever of Henon’s two sons discovered what was creating the poison upstream.
So the younger brother, Henohoha, found a giant horned water snake named Oniare breathing toxins into the river. Henon slew the serpent with a thunderbolt. The snake’s massive body floated downstream and blocked the waterfall, causing the famous horseshoe shape we know today. However, the Thunder Spirits’ hidden home was revealed, and they ascended into the clouds, where Lelawala still lives happily with Henohoha.
From there they watch over the Ongiaras people, their descendants, and everyone who can hear their thunder echoing in Niagara Falls.Jackalope statue outside Wall Drug in Wall, SD. (Mbailey: The JackalopeThe legendary beast called the jackalope, the exceedingly rare leptus antilocapra, is a hybrid of a killer hare and pygmy deer.
It resembles a large, angry rabbit with a rack of antlers. A dangerous, wily critter, a jackalope is known to be able to imitate human voices to confuse hunters and ranchers.
References to horned hares may originate in sightings of rabbits affected by Shope papilloma virus, named for Richard E. Shope, M.D., who described it in a 1933 scientific journal as wild cottontails that had “numerous horn-like protuberances on the skin.” The New York Times attributes the American jackalope’s origin to a 1932 hunting trip involving Douglas Herrick (1920–2003) of Douglas, Wyoming. Herrick and his brother had studied taxidermy by mail order, and when the brothers returned from hunting, Herrick tossed a jackrabbit carcass into the taxidermy store, where it landed beside deer antlers.
The accidental combination sparked Herrick’s idea for a jackalope. Herrick’s home town of Douglas hosts an annual Jackalope Days Celebration in early June. Jackalope Hunting Licenses are good for hunting only during official jackalope season, which occurs for only one day, on June 31.Whether celebrating the power of giants, or the tricky smarts of small critters, American folklore revels in a can-do spirit, sly humor, and the dangerous mysteries of the wilderness, which stems from our youthful brashness and abundant natural wealth. New technologies and a global reach has changed oral traditions into electronic ones, but the influential power of grassroots storytelling remains the same.
Contents.0–9. is an urban legend which claims that calling the emergency services, then hanging up, charges mobile phone batteries.A–F.: about a, or a helicopter with a dangling water bucket, scooping up a scuba diver and dumping him or her on a wildfire site. Urban legend debunking site reports there are no proven cases of this happening in reality.
The Ankle slicing car thief or The man under the car is an urban legend that tells of a driver that keeps hearing noises under their car when they are driving. When they step out of the car to investigate, their ankles get sliced open with a knife. And when they are rolling around on the ground in pain, a car thief emerges from underneath the car and steals it. is an urban legend which claims that a small town had an unusually high birth rate because a train would pass through the town at 5:00 am and blow its whistle, waking up all the residents.
Since it was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up, couples would have sex. This resulted in the mini-baby boom. (or black-eyed kids) are an urban legend of supposed paranormal creatures that resemble children between the ages of 6 and 16, with pale skin and black eyes, who are reportedly seen hitchhiking or panhandling, or are encountered on doorsteps of residential homes. Tales of black-eyed children have appeared in pop culture since the late 1990s.
refers to a black limousine that was allegedly used to abduct people, especially children. The refers to a modern legend that tabs are being distributed as lick-and-stick temporary tattoos to children.
is a folklore legend consisting of a ghost or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is called multiple times. The Bloody Mary apparition may be benign or malevolent, depending on historic variations of the legend. The Bloody Mary appearances are mostly 'witnessed' in group participation games.
is an urban legend that probably originated from two incidents in, in 1970, but has been spread throughout the Washington D.C. There are many variations to the legend, but most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume ('bunny suit') who attacks people with an axe. The (Spanish pronunciation: tʃupaˈkaβɾa, from chupar 'to suck' and cabra 'goat', literally 'goat sucker') is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas, with the first sightings reported in Puerto Rico. The name comes from the animal's reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats. purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. are -related or images that have been copy-pasted around the. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intended to scare readers.
They include gruesome tales of murder, suicide, and otherworldly occurrences. People often (falsely) believe them to be true. The was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. While some fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner.G–L. is a Japanese urban legend of the spirit of a young girl who haunts school bathrooms, and can be described as a or a.
To summon her, individuals must enter a girls' bathroom (usually on the third floor of a school), knock three times on the third stall, and ask if Hanako-san is present. An internet-spread urban legend about a circus performer being accidentally swallowed by a hippopotamus., also called Hookman, is a classic example of an urban legend. Originating in post-war America, it recounts a story of a murderer with a hook in place of a hand.
started as a winner where a driver strapped a pair of (JATO) units to the rear of his car and ended up smashing into the side of a hill in Arizona. No police agency in Arizona took a report of this type of accident. The even issued a press release on their website debunking the report.
(also known as High Beams) is a common car-crime urban legend well known mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. The legend involves a woman who is driving and being followed by a strange car or truck.
The mysterious pursuer flashes his, her and sometimes even rams her vehicle. When she finally makes it home, she realizes that the driver was trying to warn her that there was a man (a, or escaped ) hiding in her back seat. Each time the man sat up to attack her, the driver behind had used his high beams to scare the killer, after which he ducked down. Killswitch is a fictional video game.
According to the legend, this game can only be played once - If your character dies or you manage to complete the game, the game will delete itself, and will leave no trace. (口裂け女, 'Slit-Mouthed Woman') is a Japanese urban legend about the malevolent spirit, or onryō, of a mutilated woman. She is said to partially cover her face with a mask or object, and reportedly carries a sharp tool of some kind, such as a knife or a large pair of scissors., known sometimes as possible the Doggy Lick or Humans Can Lick Too, is an urban legend popular among teenagers.
The story describes a killer who secretly spends the night under a girl's bed, licking her hand when offered, which she takes to be her dog.M–S. is an urban legend claiming that Spanish singer died in a plane accident. is an urban legend and claiming that men dressed in black suits who claim to be who harass or threaten witnesses or victims of alleged to keep them quiet about what they have seen. is a popular folk legend which features prominently in areas across, India. 'Naale Baa' (ನಾಳೆ ಬಾ in Kannada) has been found written on walls of small towns and villages for years now. Villagers write this on walls to deter the entry of malevolent spirit into their homes. The myth is that a witch roams the streets in the night and knocks on doors.
The witch apparently speaks in the voices of one's kin so that one would be deceived into opening the door. When the house dweller opens the door he dies. The was a mysterious creature or criminal that was reported attacking locals near New Delhi in mid 2001. Derbyshire Times. 30 August 2013. Archived from on 22 June 2019.
Retrieved 2019-11-09. Mikkelson, David. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
Nicolaisen, W.F.H. 'The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends by Jan Harold Brunvand'. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. On behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd. 108: 134–135. Retrieved 31 March 2018. ^ Meyer, Matthew (27 October 2010).
Retrieved 7 August 2019., p. 237. Sfn error: no target: CITEREFYodaAlt2013. Boese, Alex (5 February 2010). Pan Macmillan. (1988).
Little Rock: August House Publishers. Suddenly, I realized what was happening and did the first thing I could think of. I flashed my brights to warn her. I saw the figure quickly disappear. I followed the car home and flashed my brights each time I saw the figure. After she ran in the house, I told her to call the police. Kotaku Australia.
Retrieved 2019-10-17. (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-11-01. Clark, Jerome (1996). The UFO Encyclopedia, volume 3: High Strangeness, UFO's from 1960 through 1979. 317–18. (November 29, 2016).
Ohio Historical Society Archaeology Blog. Retrieved 2018-02-24. Curlew, Kyle (2017).
'The legend of the Slender Man: The boogieman of surveillance culture'. First Monday. 22 (6). O’Toole, Garson (14 September 2010). Quote Investigator. Deer hunter 2018 free download.
Retrieved 23 October 2018.