Lore Legends 63: Dance With the Devil
Sep 29, 2025
Explore the dark allure of gambling and its connection to folklore. Discover the chilling notion of trading one's soul for worldly gains through devilish pacts. Hear tales of clerics intervening in risky bargains and the haunting legend of Robert Johnson at the crossroads. Delve into the mysterious Rose LaTulipe and her fateful dance with a stranger, accompanied by moral lessons on passion. Uncover stories of musicians granted talent by the devil, linking music and dance to sinister influences. It's a captivating journey through risk, temptation, and the supernatural.
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The Cost Of An Extreme Gambling Habit
- Terence Watanabe inherited and later sold Oriental Trading, then gambled away over $200 million in Vegas.
- By 2017 he needed a GoFundMe to pay for cancer treatment, a stark gambling cautionary tale.
Gambling As A Moral Metaphor
- Folklore frames gambling as an eternal temptation where stakes can include more than money, like one's soul.
- Pacts with the devil appear as high-stakes bargains that reveal cultural warnings about risk.
Music As A Vector For Temptation
- Medieval authorities linked secular music and dance to sin, casting virtuoso players as devil-touched.
- The fiddle became a folkloric symbol of temptation and moral danger tied to music and movement.