do you have a folklore story you would like to share?

reply to post by DaddyBare


glad to see there is a sense of humor here

im glad you contribute to this thread and help by adding little tidbits here and there it helps my efforts greatly....till next time

Some good pukwudjie information at:

www.grayruby.com...

There is an out of print book by author Paul Startzman (Anderson local) about the Indiana pukwudjies. I think it's called The Puk-wud-jies of Indiana. The Anderson city library has a copy still. Paul died a few years ago, but his family has given the Mounds state park rights to reprint. They expect to have copies for sale again at the park soon. In the book are Pauls' own experiences, witness testimonies, photographic evidence of small lean-to's and underground passages, recent and ancient native american history of these "game-keepers".

[edit on 11-12-2009 by 2compelled]

According to legend, when the Tower of London is without ravens, the walls of the Tower of London will crumble, the monarchy will fall and the Kingdom will fall to a foreign power.

During the London blitz, all the ravens in the White Tower became sick and began dying. Upon hearing this, Winston Churchill commandeered a train. He had it packed full of ravens from Scotland and shipped down literally hundreds to be held in cages in the dungeons and fed without limit. At about that point, the Battle of Britain turned.

Only once since 1066 has the White Tower been without ravens. During a check up to the vets, in the early 1990's, all but one of the birds were absent briefly from the Tower. Unfortunately, a guard dog escaped and attacked and killed the sole remaining raven. The guard dog's name was Charlie and the raven he killed was, incredibly, called Diana. AT about then, the Maastricht Treaty was signed, creating the European Union.

In 1886, my great-grandmother went to Russia and lived there as a Governess to an English family. This was an amazing feat... The advertisement in the Times sought a qualified nurse over 21 years old with years of experience with children and who spoke fluent Russian. My great-grandmother was 16 years old, totally unqualified and thought that to speak Russian, one merely has to add the letters OV onto the English. Even so, when she arrived, they were so happy with her that htey kept her foor several years.

As a result a handful of stories have been handed down to me about Tsarist Russia.

- It was a coomon sight to see men standing all day on street corners reading the newspaper, even in very cold Winter days. One was never to speak to these men or approach them. These were the Okhrana, the Tsar's secret police.

- In many urban streets, one would often see big piles of snow about 3 to 4 feet. As one passed, a begging hand would stretch out from deep inside the pile. These were the homeless beggars who slept on the street even in the midst of Winter.

- The Taxi fare in Petrograd from the railway station to the British Embassy was 12 kopecs.

reply to post by Mr Headshot


The Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara (i put the three nations together in case you herd of the Mandan from Lewis and Clark, and the Hidatsa, whothis is coming from, are not as well known) have something very similar, called Chi-Chi's (also spelt phonetically).
Actually, they're exactly like these. i've actually seen these.

reply to post by aristocrat2


I can't remember what it was (i think a chapel), but it said that when that it would fall when England was without a king. it did fall, when Queen Elizabeth I took to the throne.

reply to post by aristocrat2


wow very nice.....thanks for posting it here and sharing your stories with us great little tid-bits of info not many people would know about

reply to post by LocoHombre


you say you have seen these....could you please tell about your experiences and maybe what they looked like...if its a touchy subject feel free to U2U me with that info thanks so much

Originally posted by aristocrat2
In 1886, my great-grandmother went to Russia and lived there as a Governess to an English family. This was an amazing feat... The advertisement in the Times sought a qualified nurse over 21 years old with years of experience with children and who spoke fluent Russian. My great-grandmother was 16 years old, totally unqualified and thought that to speak Russian, one merely has to add the letters OV onto the English. Even so, when she arrived, they were so happy with her that htey kept her foor several years.

As a result a handful of stories have been handed down to me about Tsarist Russia.

- It was a coomon sight to see men standing all day on street corners reading the newspaper, even in very cold Winter days. One was never to speak to these men or approach them. These were the Okhrana, the Tsar's secret police.

- In many urban streets, one would often see big piles of snow about 3 to 4 feet. As one passed, a begging hand would stretch out from deep inside the pile. These were the homeless beggars who slept on the street even in the midst of Winter.

- The Taxi fare in Petrograd from the railway station to the British Embassy was 12 kopecs.

very interesting story....strange that the ravens died in such a fashion...is there any evidence of what caused their death or any strange maybe magnetic earth fluxuations? anything at all that could be used to explain this??? just curious

Okay I guess it's time to inject a little funky Native lore...

In our stories Ravens are not a bad omen or keeper of lost souls...
In one famous story Raven, originally a white bird flew into a volcano to rescue the hero twins... in the process he was scorched black and that is how Raven got his color...

Now in our lore Raven brings us messages from the gods, he whispers them so you have to listen very closely to hear...

On a personal note years ago when my kids were babies we had a pet Raven for a short time... My wife a biologist was part of a wild bird rescue program... she was given this raven to hand raise from a chick... here's two things I know as fact... A Raven will do anything you want him to as long as his reward is a cheerio... Secondly and trust me on this... A raven can projectile poop from one end of a kitchen to the other!

Ravens are very sensitive to their environment... Like a canary it only takes a brief exposure to a toxin and its one dead bird. Flock die offs are not as uncommon as you think. we had one here in Albuquerque not long ago... everyone was all freaked out about it being bird flu... it wasnt

[edit on 13-12-2009 by DaddyBare]

Originally posted by Mr Headshot
I've got one. It's a local indian legend (not too local apparently because similar stories are found all over the world) about these little people called nunnapees. I'm spelling that phonetically because I don't know if there's a real spelling for it.
Anyway, they're little people who make their homes in river banks. They're usually mischievious, horribly fast, and hairy. I've met plenty of indians who swear they've seen these little guys.

There's no real moral to most of the stories, the closest thing to a moral I've heard was basically, "don't be a slob because the little people will steal your stuff."

It's just interesting because it's so widespread all over the world, and it's believed in so strongly around here.

Could "nunnapees" could be raccoons, otters and minks?
Skunks, possums?

A wonderful red headed bar owner in north New Jersey used to narrate this poem as he tended his establishment around the holidays.

The Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that he’d “sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! Through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan,
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’taint being dead - it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! He looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate these last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows - O God! How I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the Alice May.
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum!”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared - such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near:
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm -
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.



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Home > Hobbies > Poetry > Archive > Service

reply to post by DaddyBare


i will definitely take the advice given here into serious account....i wont let a raven projectile poop in my kitchen...and ill have cheerios on hand wherever i go from now on lmao....great thing to know i found that very amusing

also thanks for pointing out their sensitivity to their surroundings makes much more sense now that i know more about them

again thanks for contributing

reply to post by Donny 4 million


how unusual...but a very nice and mystifying read...thanks for the post here and also the question about the creatures being something common was a very good question....i did not think of that....i hope we get an answer with a better description so we may rule out the obvious...

thanks again

OK, here are the two stories I was talking about earlier, but first a correction, the book is not from Jacques Vallée, it's a Yves Naud book, "UFOs and Extra-Terrestrials in History", a special edition from Portuguese editors "Amigos do Livro", from 1980.

Human disappearances. Generally annual, victimized young people. The process of kidnapping or abduction was made in two stages: first, what was known as the "good hour", made by a noise or cry like an ambulance, that, according to people, announced, with a few seconds interval, the appearance of so-called "bad hour" . This was neither more nor less than a shade or black globe which people had to avoid, if you able, throwing themselves to the ground. Otherwise, it was certain that nobody would ever see them again, carried by the strange meteor, at low altitude. Interestingly, "bad hour", the shadow or black globe, did not made any noise, thus suggesting a propensity to act by surprise, without warning, and hence the distinction made between the inhabitants of the two moments that follow.

Two cases during the nineteenth century, illustrate the mechanism of the disappearances, though not of those times fully carried out, luckily for the players. "Antonio Palas was going down a road near the church of Malcata when he heard that voice screaming. Just had time to get to a kind of balcony full of corn and see a whirl that seemed to take everything with it." In a different occasion, certainly also in the nineteenth century, Manuel Fernandes Ana, also saw the ominous shadow, close to his threshing floor. He had time to go down but it was immobilized during a long time. Curiously, much more near to us, around 1960 and in the village of the Village of the Bishop, a man called Manso, at the time a member of the fiscal-police (a Portuguese police dedicated to oversee the borders, now extinct) he found himself beset by a dark shadow like their counterparts in Malcata, being unconscious on the floor during long hours. Also here the annunciating screams saved him from an eventual travel to somewhere.

The cases above are the ones related to what my grandmother used to say, she used to call my sister "bad hour girl" when she wanted to say that my sister was behaving very badly, instead of another expression that is usually used in Portugal "devilish girl".

This next case I have only read (or heard) on this book.

Alien manifestations. We return to the last century (19th), near Malcata, specifically one kilometer from the village on the banks of the river Coa and the edge of the Chapel of St. Domingos, near the shores of the Fogueira, seeing the unusual activities of various beings of small stature that the people termed 'moirinhos' (little Mooirs) leaping near the water or jumping down from a small wall to the ground and vice versa. The beings were small, according to local expressions, 'a charm' and his presence there was a sign of wealth in the ground. They said the sites that there "was gold." A more enthusiastic inhabitant tried to capture one of the 'moirinhos' to baptise, but says that none of them get caught. It was told on Malcata that these "boys" used to appear on the morning of S. John or at the end of the year.

My dad used to read the stories of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox to put me to sleep over fifty years ago.

There are abundant other tales and graphics of Paul and Babe.They are based on Lumber Jack days in Canada.



From Wikipedia

Bunyan's birth was strange, as are the births of many mythic heroes, as it took three storks to carry the infant (ordinarily, one stork could carry several babies and drop them off at their parents' homes). When he was old enough to clap and laugh, the vibration broke every window in the house. When he was seven months old, he sawed the legs off his parents' bed in the middle of the night. Paul and Babe the Blue Ox, his companion, dug the Grand Canyon when he dragged his axe behind him. He created Mount Hood by piling rocks on top of his campfire to put it out.

Babe the Blue Ox, Bunyan's companion, was a massive creature with exceptional strength.[9] Most imagery of Bunyan shows Babe the Blue Ox as being of proportionate size (meaning massive compared to everything else). Among other subjects, a myth about the formation of Great Lakes was created centered around Babe: Paul Bunyan needed to create a watering hole large enough for Babe to drink from.

Originally posted by DaddyBare
Okay I guess it's time to inject a little funky Native lore...

In our stories Ravens are not a bad omen or keeper of lost souls...

[edit on 13-12-2009 by DaddyBare]

In England, it is not the raven that iks the bad omen... it is the LACK of ravens.

Since I was a little tot, I was amazed that there are two civilizations, so far apart that have a connecting prophecy. I have always been told that this is a coincidence, but I still feel that this is well beyond that.

In Revelations, it talks of the land of Gog.

In the folklore of ancient Britons, there exists a folklore tale that two giants called Gog and Magog will stride forth from their home in woodlands that surround London to defend the kingdom from falling at some apocryphal time in the future.

The only extensive piece of woodland left surrounding London in the London region is at Northwood which incidentally houses the UK's command bunker in the event of nuclear war.

Is the land of Gog of Revelations, the United Kingdom?

reply to post by aristocrat2

In cases like that it's a little difficult to know where the real legend ends and the "infiltration" made by Christianity starts, that method of mixing old local legends with Christian myths was an excellent way of "absorbing" the original stories.

I used to carve some small totem poles. The raven most always held the top spot.
The Indian tribes of Alaska revered this noisy bird.

Raven's Great Adventure
FROM
Native American Lore

The Innu carve strange and beautiful figures, representing people, animals, birds, fish, and supernatural characters, then paint them with bright colors. The tallest red cedar trees are selected for totem poles, and are used for landmarks as well as illustrating the legends told from generation to generation.
On one of these poles was carved a stunning Raven, but he had no beak!
The Raven in Alaska was no ordinary bird. He had remarkable powers and could change into whatever form he wished. He could change from a bird to a man, and could not only fly and walk, but could swim underwater as fast as any fish.
One day, Raven took the form of a little, bent-over old man to walk through a forest. He wore a long white beard and walked slowly. After a while, Raven felt hungry. As he thought about this, he came to the edge of the forest near a village on the beach. There, many people were fishing for halibut.
In a flash, Raven thought of a scheme. He dived into the sea and swam to the spot where the fishermen dangled their hooks. Raven gobbled their bait, swimming from one hook to another. Each time Raven stole bait, the fishermen felt a tug on their lines. When the lines were pulled in, there was neither fish nor bait.
But Raven worked his trick once too often. When Houskana, an expert fisherman, felt a tug, he jerked his line quickly, hooking something heavy. Raven's jaw had caught on the hook! While Houskana tugged on his line, Raven pulled in the opposite direction. Then Raven grabbed hold of some rocks at the bottom of the sea and called, "O rocks, please help me!" But the rocks paid no attention.
Because of his great pain, Raven said to his jaw, "Break off, O jaw, for I am too tired." His jaw obeyed, and it broke off.
Houskana pulled in his line immediately. On his hook was a man's jaw with a long white beard ! It looked horrible enough to scare anyone. Houskana and the other fishermen were very frightened, because they thought the jaw might belong to some evil spirit. They picked up their feet and ran as fast as they could to the chief's house.
Raven came out of the water and followed the fishermen. Though he was in great pain for lack of his jaw, no one noticed anything wrong because he covered the lower part of his face with his blanket.
The chief and the people examined the jaw that was hanging on the halibut hook. It was handed from one to another, and finally to Raven who said, "Oh, this is a wonder to behold!" as he threw back his blanket and replaced his jaw.
Raven performed his magic so quickly that no one had time to see what was happening. As soon as Raven's jaw was firmly in place again, he turned himself into a bird and flew out through the smoke hole of the chief's house. Only then did the people begin to realize it was the trickster Raven who had stolen their bait and been hooked on Houskana's fishing line.
On the totem pole, Raven was carved, not as the old man, but as himself without his beak, a reminder of how the old man lost his jaw.

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