Tag Archives: Green Ribbon

Green Ribbon

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Genre and Sub Genre:

Material Folklore: Superstition, Contagious Magic

Language: English

Country where Item is from: USA

Informant Data:

Ellen Louise Smalley ’19 is currently a sophomore at Dartmouth College. She is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She originally decided to start figure skating at the age of 4 or 5, and was the first in her family to begin skating. She was told to skate by her physical therapist due to her short achilles tendons. She began skating at Dartmouth’s Figure Skating Club due to the recommendation of Vanessa Szalapski ’12 and Maria Spertudo ’14.

Contextual Data:

  • Social: Informant was interviewed by John Gilmore at Dartmouth College’s Novack Cafe. The informant was asked to talk about figure skating folklore unique to the club.
  • Cultural Context: Informant began skating at age 4 or 5 as a way to stretch her short achilles tendons without running.  She encountered this piece of folklore during her time as a member of DFSC.

Item:

Green Ribbon

Skaters & Sloopy wearing the Green Ribbon

Associated Audio:

Transcript:

Ellen: “Yeah, yeah, I like this. I don’t know, I think its pretty fun. I still have the ribbon on my backpack from nationals.”

John: “Can you tell me more about that?”

Ellen: “I can’t remember. I think we were all going on ice for the awards, I think it was when it was. I think we all put the ribbons in our hair, or Alex and i think you wore them on your wrists, or I don’t know, I don’t know, what you did on your head. Um, But yeah. And then we all kept, I know Isabelle and Anna keep it on their backpacks, and I think Clara does too. And I have mine on my backpack”

Informant’s Comments: Ellen describes the origin story of the Green Ribbons that are worn by all of the team.

Collector’s Comments: The green ribbons commonly worn by the Dartmouth Figure Skating Team originate from a recent trip to nationals. They now continue to wear these ribbon on their backpacks as good luck charms. It is a form of homeopathic magic.

Tags/Keywords:

  • Green Ribbon, Superstition, Contagious Magic

Collector:

Jonathan Meng

Sloopy the Sloth

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Type of Lore: Material Lore

Language: English

Country of Origin: Hanover, NH, USA

Informant Data:

  • Clara Guo ’17 is currently a senior at Dartmouth College, majoring in Neuroscience and minoring in Education. She was born in Great Falls, VA. In addition to being a Captain of the Dartmouth Figure Skating Club, Clara is also involved in research on campus, and enjoys writing.

Contextual Data:

  • Social: Informant was interviewed by Jonathan Meng and John Gilmore at Dartmouth College’s Berry Library. The informant was asked to talk about figure skating folklore unique to the club, and her role as captain.
  • Cultural: Informant began skating at age 7. She skated often, but did not start skating seriously until freshman/sophomore year of high school. She functions as one of the Captains of the Dartmouth Figure Skating Club (DFSC). She encountered this piece of folklore during her time as a member of DFSC.

Item:

Sloopy

Sloopy, the unofficial team mascot, wearing the green ribbon

Associated Audio:

Transcript:

Jonathan: “Do you feel like theres any like team symbol, mascot of some kind, informally or formally? 

Clara: “So we have a sloth. Whats the sloths name?”

John: “Sloopy.”

Clara: “We also have a bear. The sloth was because of one of our ’15 captains, who was kind of sloth-like.

John: “In a good way”.

Clara: “Not in ambition, but more like a general presentation of very chill and calm, and always put together.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Clara talks about the symbolism of the captain being slightly sloth-like, and how those characterisitics kind of resemble the team as a whole .

Collector’s Comments:

  • This is a picture of Sloopy the Sloth, the unofficial mascot of the Dartmouth Figure Skating Team. Sloopy is a stuffed sloth that is believed to bring good luck to skaters, and bought to every competition. Sloopy originally belonged to a ’15 captain (graduated in 2015), and serves as an unofficial mascot of the DFSC.

Tags/Keywords:

Sloth, sloopy, green ribbon, mascot,good luck

Collector:

Jonathan Meng