Folklore

generation to generation as part of the tradition embedded in the Mexican culture and as a result, there are many different interpretations of La Llorana, such as what she looks like as well as what her story is. The fact is this myth is only ancient folklore and even so it has captured the minds of the public for decades. La Llorana in Spanish translates to English as the “crying or weeping woman”. The Myth has many interpretations due to the amount of retelling it has gone through, but…

Schlosser retells the urban legend, “The Hook”. The urban legend starts off with a girl trying to decide on an outfit for her date while constant reports are being announced on the radio of a wild man who had escaped from the state asylum. The man on the loose was a killer who was being called “Hook Man” because his right arm was replaced with a hook. After picking out an outfit, the girl went out on a date with her boyfriend to a drive-in movie without paying much attention to the reports. The…

Introduction: The Trickster’s Methodological Potential The trickster figure exists across various cultural contexts, emerging as an archetype that utilizes the methodologies of play and “craft” to illuminate authority and destabilize authorized boundaries. As “the epitome of binary oppositions” the trickster figure rejects social borders, boundaries, categorization, and identification. Often a shape-shifter, the trickster embodies an ongoing state of liminality—they are always on the cusp of…

the afterlife, and the gods. Myths express the beliefs and values about these subjects held by a certain culture (Mark). Myths are always true psychologically, sociologically, and anthropologically. In mythology and in the study of religion and folklore, a trickster is an example of a Jungian Archetype. The trickster is characterized in a story as one who disguises themselves as something or someone else, one who plays tricks, and one who goes against normal rules, regulations, and behaviors.…

Urban Legend Was Walt Disney’s body really frozen? Is there really a black market for kidneys? The answer to both is no, these questions or rumors are called urban legends which majority of them are not true. Urban legends is a modern folklore and in 1981 Jan Harold Brunvand published several books pertaining to legends (Brunvand n.d.). In this paper I will be explaining what urban legend is and prove why these two questions are false. Urban legends are a tradition of storytelling and starts…

Chapter IV. Urban Legends: The Evolution of Folklore Urban legends are stories that have the designation of being ?too strange to be true? but are based in reality. Despite these fables being a touch on the strange side most people that hear them understand them as being true. Through generations these tales seem to happen to our friends, family members, or even distant relatives. Unlike fairy tales which are meant to be cautionary yet fictional, urban legends represent some form of truth. Think…

Analysis Essay Giants, evil stepmothers, ogres and trolls are usually found in fairy tales, but what actually is a fairy tale, why do we read them, and why are they so important. In the article “An introduction to fairy tales” Maria Tatar, a Harvard folklore professor clarifies what a fairy tale is. In her article, Tatar uses several different sources to give an effective model of what a fairy tale is and why they’re so important. Using the fairy tale Robin Hood, we will put the model to the…

Chupacabra What is a Chupacabra? “[A Chupacabra] is a legendary creature in the folklore of parts of the Americas, with its first purported sightings reported in Puerto Rico” (Wikipedia). There are people who believe it is real and others who believe it's just a myth. The Chupacabra is real because there are eyewitnesses that saw it, there are many dead animals that have been drained of their blood, and it was even identified by an expert. The first reason why the Chupacabra is real is because…

Elfin’ Around A world without fairy tales and folklore is a world drained of imagination. They started as a way for the Greeks to explain the unknown and teach others right from wrong. It continued in different parts of the world and evolved differently but overall introduced more imagination. Some mythology was added into religion and beliefs while some were stories that encaptured more “unrealistic beings.” As time went on, societies were established and more stories were shared and…

is that of the archetype. In literature, an archetype is usually a character, action or situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature. Various archetypes are found in similar roles or scenarios throughout the mythologies and folklore that span the continents. When examining Western literature, the archetype of the trickster plays a very important role in the inversion, or disruption of the status quo. The trickster is clasically a magician, able to break the rules of the…