Category Archives: Legends

Chinese Government’s Role in the Spread of Coronavirus

Conspiracy Theory/Urban Legend
Chinese Government’s Role in the Spread of Coronavirus
Michael Xiao
San Ramon, California
2020

Informant Data:
Michael is an Asian-American male born in Santa Rosa, CA on April 6, 2000. Both of his parents are immigrants from China, but Michael has been raised in the United States, which has often been a rival to China in great power politics. Michael is fervently pro-US and anti-Communist Party of China and considers himself well-read on global politics. He’s currently a sophomore at Georgetown University.

Contextual Data:
As coronavirus has spread to the United States, President Donald Trump has sought to improve his chance at reelection and secure shelter from political animosity by deflecting blame for the epidemic on the Communist Party of China. In doing so, the president has promoted a theory questioning whether or not the current strain of coronavirus originated from a Wuhan lab that had been studying similar forms of the virus in the months and years prior. This conspiracy theory/urban legend serves a practical, political purpose of aiding reelection and a nationalist purpose for unifying a country in pandemic against a common, tangible enemy.

Item: [Paraphrased version of Michael’s description of the conspiracy theory]
Although I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, I recently heard of a myth regarding the Chinese Community Party’s role in the spread of coronavirus (note from the collector: I think the more proper term is a conspiracy theory or urban legend, rather than a myth). Apparently a Wuhan lab had been studying coronavirus before the epidemic and it may be possible that the lab had an accident or something that released the virus into the public. Again, I don’t believe the theory, especially without proof, but it’s interesting to think about, especially because the coronavirus may not have been spread at a wet market.

Kevin Xiao, 19
5517 London Way
San Ramon, CA 94582
Dartmouth College
Russ 13
Spring 2020

Legend of the Overexerted Swimmer

General Information about Item:

  • Text Folklore – Legend
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: James Edward Thompson III
  • Date Collected: 03-03-2018

Informant Data:

  • James Thompson was born and raised in Tracy, CA. A lifelong swimmer, James came to Dartmouth as part of the Class of 2017 and was an accomplished member of the Men’s Swimming team for four years between 2013 and 2017. He is no longer a member of the Dartmouth Swim and Dive Team.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The Dartmouth Swim and Dive team has a storied tradition of lore. This particular legend utilizes a walk-on underdog figure to help the team motivate themselves and remind themselves that effort, and not reputation, is what is most important.
  • Social Context: James relayed this legend in a one-on-one interview. It is often told either after an extremely hard day’s practice to help team members vent their anger through sarcasm, or when they feel that the team is not working hard enough, in order to motivate themselves through the hyperbole of this legend.

Item:

  • James relayed a story of a walk-on (a team member who was not good enough to be recruited but eventually made the team after coming to Dartmouth), who trained so hard to be on the team and then set a pool record, but who perished in the attempt.

 

Transcript:

  • “One story I remember was from a speech a Captains gave a long time ago about a swimmer a while back who was a walk-on, but trained super hard and ended up setting a pool record, but he died while training.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This story of a hero who sacrificed everything, including their lives, to achieve some fantastic goal is quite familiar in many different types of lore, but is always inspiring to hear. It also has some elements similar to Max Luthi’s tragically underequipped hero, who still succeeds.

Collector’s Name: Ashwath Srikanth

Tags/Keywords: Text Folklore, Legend, William Bascom, Max Luthi, Swimming

Sparky’s Chair Legend (Jacob Cruger)

Title: Sparky’s Chair Legend

General Information About this Item:

  • Legend, material folklore, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #1
  • Date Collected: 3/8/2018

Informant Data:

  • The informant is a Facilities, Operations, and Management  Engineering Services employee who is not originally from the Upper Valley region.

Contextual Data:

  • This story was passed between FO+M employees. According to the informant, it dates back to a time when alcohol played a much more prominent role in the workplace culture of Facilities, Operations, and Management. This story also takes place in the time before the FO+M offices had modern office chairs.

Item:

  • An electrician, after having a couple drinks, attempted to squeeze through the slats of an old wooden chair. He succeeded, and the story became well-known. The chair itself also became legendary – a retiring employee ultimately took it home.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend/Material Folklore
  • FO+M

Image Credit

Softball Injury (Rick Gangopadhyay)

Title: Softball Injury

General Information about Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #7
  • Date Collected: February 20, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • FO+M Custodian and has been working for college for three years. Has been part of the custodial department the entirety of his time at Dartmouth.  Originally from Connecticut and moved to the Upper Valley area.

Contextual Data:

  • Some of the members of the custodial department sometimes meet to play softball in their free time. The last time this occurred was three years ago as far as the informant is aware.  This is due to problems that ensued during the game that was played on this occasion.  The story describes the informant’s experience at the softball game and an accident that occurred.

Item:

    • The custodian is at the casually organized softball game among other custodians and his team is up at bat. Another custodian winds up to hit the ball and hits it as hard as he can.  The ball flies directly into the ribcage of another custodial worker on the other team and he has to go to the hospital.  As it turned out, the victim was okay but suffered a cracked rib cage.

     

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “I can’t say I’m all that good at softball or other ball sports… When Jim hit that ball though I almost threw up myself, he hit it into the man- I didn’t know his name – and it looked pretty darn painful! I’ve been telling this to some of the new guys and they think it’s a shame we stopped doing it.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I used to play in casual soccer games when I was a kid and whenever someone got hurt, everyone would often stop playing altogether. It seems like this doesn’t stop as we get older.

Collector’s Name: Rick Gangopadhyay

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • FO+M
  • Narrative Folklore

Water Balloon Legend (Rick Gangopadhyay)

Title: Water Balloon Legend

General Information about Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #6
  • Date Collected: February 23, 2018

Informant Data:

  • Has been working for the custodial sector of FO+M for over five years. Is originally from Manchester, New Hampshire but more recently moved to the Upper Valley.

Contextual Data:

  • A story that has been passed down to her from her boss who heard it from her boss. The story takes place in 2007 and the story has been told by her boss that the story is true.  The story describes the experience one custodian had one afternoon when he walked up to the third floor of Topliff.

Item:

    • This custodian walks into his assigned dormitory, which he was assigned that day. Walking up to the third floor, he hears loud yelling and the sound of splashing water.  Entering the floor, he finds that there is a water balloon fight going on in the third-floor hallway with the walls soaked as well as the floors.  Students escape through the fire escape and the custodian cannot catch a glimpse of them of whether they live on the floor.  No one was ever found accountable for the incident.

     

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “I can’t complain these days about students, they’ve been great to me.  This story I told you though makes me wonder what got into those kids.  To be honest though, I probably would have joined in if I were one of the students.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I’ve seen custodians deal with a lot of cases of disregard for the dorms we live in.  It’s amazing to me how much work they put in.  I myself have never heard of the water balloon story but it does not surprise me at all.

Collector’s Name: Rick Gangopadhyay

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • FO+M
  • Narrative Folklore

Vietnam Era Legend (Jacob Cruger)

Title: Vietnam Era Legend

General Information About this Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #3
  • Date Collected: 2/20/2018

Informant Data:

  • FO+M worker, started working for the college over 30 years ago. Has worked in multiple FO+M divisions. Originally from the Upper Valley, the child of a former FO+M employee.

Contextual Data:

  • One of many stories passed to informant by older FO+M employees. Takes place in the early seventies, about ten years before the informant started working for the college. A story about the ramifications of a protest of the Vietnam war, which was fought between 1955 and 1975.

Item:

  • Students protesting the Vietnam war were confronted by FO+M employees with children enlisted. This confrontation led to a physical scuffle. According to the informant no individuals involved were sanctioned in any way.

Transcript:

  • “Back during the Vietnam War… there was a bunch of Dartmouth students, I believe it was all male, were protesting the war. And here, B and G (Buildings and Grounds) we had a lot of fathers and their kids were in the Vietnam war, and even though they didn’t agree with the war when you protest you should protest the war but not the people that were in the war… it boiled all day, so finally at the end of the day a crowd of fathers confronted the protesters and I guess it was quite a melee up there. I don’t know who won, if anybody did, but there was some touching… nobody got fired, nobody got expelled.”

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • Narrative Folklore
  • FO+M

Image Credit

Dorm Horse Legend (Jacob Cruger)

Title: Dorm Horse Legend

General Information About this Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #3
  • Date Collected: 2/20/2018

Informant Data:

  • FO+M worker, started working for the college over 30 years ago. Has worked in multiple FO+M divisions. Originally from the Upper Valley, the child of a former FO+M employee.

Contextual Data:

  • One of many stories passed to informant by older FO+M employees. Takes place “way before 1975,” between ten to twenty years before the informant started working for the college. The informant was told this story is true. The story describes an experience of a custodian assigned to an undergraduate dorm. The story takes place prior to coeducation, so all of the students involved in the story are male. It also takes place prior to major changes to dorms on campus, which means whoever brought the horse up the stairs didn’t have to deal with obstacles like smoke doors.

Item:

  • A custodian for Wheeler hall walks into the building and hears a clomping sound coming from above him. Goes up to the fourth floor and finds a horse and buggy. Knowing horses will go up stairs but not down stairs, the custodian gathers a group to help him get the horse down the stairs.

Transcript:

  • “Now, I have no proof of this, but here’s one from way way back… he [a custodian for Wheeler Hall] came in and he could hear this ‘clomp clomp clomp, clomp clomp clomp.’ And he goes up to the fourth floor and there’s a horse and buggy. And all he could do is laugh… because he knew the horse would go up the stairs, but it won’t go down the stairs… so he had all the guys get together and get around the horse and they had to blindfold the horse to try to get it down the stairs. I don’t know where the horse actually came from”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This legend reminds me of similar stories I heard growing up, including a story about a student at a local high school student bringing a cow up the stairs of the school and struggling to get it back down. Perhaps large animals being brought into buildings and being unable to get back down stairs is a common practical joke.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • Narrative Folklore
  • FO+M

Image Credit

Nisse/Tomte

Title: Nisse/Tomte

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Legend
  • Norwegian
  • Norway

Informant Data:

  • Steffen is a Dartmouth 19. His parents are from Norway.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: Almost everyone who celebrates Christmas has a Christmas story that they believe in. These are typically told to children around the holiday times in order to create a festive mood and make everyone excited for Christmas. As the kids grow up, they begin to lose their belief in these legends because they start to realize that there parents were the source of the gifts.       However these legends remain a large source of the classic Christmas symbols and festive decorations for all ages even though the legends are no longer believed to be true.
  • Cultural Context: The “Father Christmas” figure varies greatly between different cultures – changing primarily due to religious and geographical differences. In the United States it is typically Santa, though people from other cultures who have parents from other cultures may also believe in a different legend.

Item:

  • Steffen believes in multiple Christmas legends. He has the classic Santa Claus legend, but he also shared an additional legend that is specific to Norway and northern Europe. The Nisse are small gnomes that are mischievous and are responsible for the welfare of the farmstead. The Nisse bring the presents for the children and leave them under the tree.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This is very different from the classic Santa Claus. The multiple gnomes are a stark contrast to the one larger than life figure. These are probably more relatable to children, as they are small and mischievous.

Collector’s Name: Alec Vaules

Tags/Keywords:

  • Christmas, Nisse/Tomte, Norway, Tradition, Legend

Krampus

Title: Krampus

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Legend
  • German
  • Germany

Informant Data:

  • Alex is a Dartmouth 20 who grew up in the United States, however both of his parents lived most of their lives in Germany.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: Almost everyone who celebrates Christmas has a Christmas story that they believe in. These are typically told to children around the holiday times in order to create a festive mood and make everyone excited for Christmas. As the kids grow up, they begin to lose their belief in these legends because they start to realize that there parents were the source of the gifts.       However these legends remain a large source of the classic Christmas symbols and festive decorations for all ages even though the legends are no longer believed to be true.
  • Cultural Context: The “Father Christmas” figure varies greatly between different cultures – changing primarily due to religious and geographical differences. In the United States it is typically Santa, though people from other cultures who have parents from other cultures may also believe in a different legend.

Item:

  • Alex has multiple Christmas figures that appear as separate entries. Krampus is a half goat half demon that punishes children for being mean. When he was younger his parents would threaten to let Krampus come and punish him if he didn’t behave around the holidays. Krampus takes little children and stuffs them in sacks.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This is very different from the classic Santa Claus. Krampus is akin to the putting coal in the stocking superstition that exists in the United States. He punishes the children and is a device that parents can use around the holidays to make sure that kids stay well behaved.

Collector’s Name: Alec Vaules

Tags/Keywords:

  • Christmas, Krampus, Germany, Tradition, Legend