The Jersey Devil: A Story That Shaped Our World

The Jersey Devil Myth “History books are filled with the names and dates and events which shaped our world.” (House). Myths are tales that help man to understand and explain their unnatural or suspicious experiences on Earth. The Jersey Devil’s history includes a mother with a drunkard husband getting pregnant for the third time; she curses her unlucky thirteenth son by saying let this one be the devil and later forgets about the curse. When the baby was born it transformed and killed its parents and many of its siblings and is thought to now reside in the Southern New Jersey Pine Barrens forest. Men have used different types of folklore like oral tradition, song or writing to pass down stories and history for future generations to learn from. Because myths and legends shape ideas, define experiences …show more content…
Leeds, Mrs. Leeds who is pregnant with her thirteenth child and their twelve previous children. When Mrs. Leeds found out she was again pregnant, she cursed the unlucky child saying something along the lines of ‘let this one be the devil’! No one really knows if this family is real, although there are Leeds family descendants living now. Many myths and legends have a background that can be considered history and this shapes what people think it was like around the time when the legend originates. The history behind these myths are in the setting, time period and circumstances in it are most often legit and help us to understand what went on back then, though the beast in the myth is not. “...the origins and purpose of folktales...can tell us a great deal about the world in which we live” (House). Myths are not the most dependable source for your older history but it can lead you to little insights that help can be helpful in understanding why the myth was created the way it was. Many people know and believe that there is some history to most myths