×

White ladies, hairy beasts and things that go bump in the night: Local lecture to delve into history of folk tales

While a lot of folklore may be rooted in things unbelievable today, those stories handed down from generation to generation help us understand a culture from long ago or even today, such as the “White Lady of Wopsy” Mountain or the “White Lady of Buckhorn.”

“It’s the same lady but different locations. It’s a universal story of lost love or even a lost child,” and it probably originated in Germany, said Michael Allison, who will present a fun history on folklore on Wednesday at the Baker Mansion History Museum in Altoona.

Allison is known more for his art, having painted a number of public and private murals in the region, as well as fine paintings and sculptures that are in collections across the country. He studied art history in college, but he taught himself about one of his great loves, folklore, and its role in history.

“Folklore serves as a crucial component of how we understand our communities and ourselves,” said Jared Frederick, president of the board of the Blair County Historical Society, which initiated the lecture series at the museum this year. “Such folk tales often act as a colorful hybrid of history, popular culture, humor and the supernatural. Frequently is the case that citizens are more familiar with folklore than the confirmed history that inspired those stories in the first place.

“Michael Allison’s presentation will serve as a very unique platform for recognizing the roots and backgrounds of these fables.”

Frederick said the presentations have become so popular that some people have been turned away due to limited seating in the museum’s meeting space.

“Even so, our main priority of the series has been to draw visitors to the mansion, and we have succeeded spectacularly,” he said. “We are already working on a lineup for 2018.”

Allison’s presentation was to be the last of the year, but Elaine Conrad’s story on the Wopsononock Resort and Railroad in August was so popular, Frederick said, “she was gracious enough to do an encore,” scheduled for Nov. 15.

Allison said his presentation will be “content heavy” but funny as he discusses the origins of folktales.

“The purpose of it is to have something that is light-hearted but still historical for Halloween,” he said.

For example, the New Jersey Devil is a legend about a “demonic creature from the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey,” he said. But it is rooted in a true story that involved Benjamin Franklin and his rival almanac publisher Daniel Leeds, whose family came to be described as monsters owing to their poor political choices and allegiances in Colonial America, Allison said.

The monster at first was called “Leeds Devil,” but it evolved into the New Jersey Devil, from which the Newark-based National Hockey League team today takes its name.

“Social and political social upheavals can lead to folklore,” Allison noted.

Many of the oldest tales were rooted in mythology that became influenced by religion, particularly Christianity, he said. Leeds, for example, published horoscopes in his almanac, which horrified the Quakers.

A lot of ancient stories come from werewolves across the globe, usually from tribal cultures, and they had variations, such as were-tigers from India and bear-influenced Norse berserkers.

“They would whip themselves into a frenzy to go into battle,” Allison explained. “People wanted to be them, they wanted to be a thing of power, whatever the most power animal spirit is.”

The ancient stories of vampires probably have changed the most over the years, he said.

“They weren’t shy and they didn’t look like underwear models,” he said, referring to Stephenie Meyers’ “Twilight” characters. “Dracula was even a sanitized version of the early vampires, which were dreadful creatures.”

More recent stories involved witches, and Allison noted that King James I of Great Britain had personally witnessed the work of witch hunters across Europe and oversaw a lot of witch trials and executions. James went on to write “Demonology,” which talked about the historical relationship between such matters of the occult, black magic, demonology, werewolves and vampires. He also codified the divine right of the king, as well as oversaw the translation of the Bible that is probably the most popular among Christians today.

“A lot of this was political,” Allison noted. “Even Salem (Massachusetts) was political. It was a land grab … Accuse your neighbor of being a witch and get his farm for pence on the shillings.”

For most of history, folklore was passed from generation to generation via oral tradition, but by the 16th and 17th centuries — about the time European settlers were bringing their tales to America — they were being written down, Allison said.

Charles Perrault wrote “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and other centuries-old tales, as did the Brothers Grimm. The folktales evolved into morals with Mother Goose telling these fake scary stories to get children to behave, Allison said.

Of “hairy beasts,” he said there’s a Bigfoot story in nearly every region of the country.

“There are all kinds of hairy beasts out there. There’s even a Dogman of Geeseytown,” he said. “And the white ladies are ubiquitous. They are so much a part of human consciousness.”

Even Allison’s own grandmother created a Mother Goose-type story to keep him as a youngster from riding his bicycle through the then-wooded area of his Eldorado neighborhood. She told him about a circus train wreck in Tyrone in the late 19th century that allowed many wild animals to escape.

“So you’re walking through the woods and step on a twig that snaps and you wonder, ‘Is there still a 100-year-old lion waiting to eat me?'” Allison added, with a hearty laugh.

Mirror Staff Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.

If you go

What: Michael Allison Presentation — White Ladies, Hairy Beasts and Things That Go Bump in the Night

When: 7 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 25

Where: Baker Mansion History Museum, Altoona

Admission: Free, but donations encouraged

More info: www.BlairHistory.org

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

COMMENTS

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today