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The folklorist Lynn McNeill says, if you want to know about a group of people, look at their culture,

but not their high culture, their literature and their art. Go lower, she says, to the knock-knock jokes and the games and the legends. McNeil and the folklorist Christopher Blythe both say

these folk stories will give you a better idea of the life people lead than the highbrow stuff.

Perfect example, the miracle of the gulls.

In May 1848, crickets began to appear at the first harvest of the pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding regions.

They had arrived the summer before. They are all set to make the rose bloom in the desert.

Just weeks before, people were very optimistic. They would have a great first harvest.

Irrigation, planting crops,

all of this effort going towards truly making this place

abundant and livable and providing for all of their families.

And the first thing that happens is that all the crickets come.

They're described as so thick it made the earth blackened places.

Unbelievable destruction.

The sky's turning dark because of so many crickets.

Destroying acres and acres of crops, vegetables, herbs, everything is just disappearing.

One person described the size and long faces of those that were struggling with what was sometimes called

the cricket war.

That's how bad it is.

The people turned to what they knew best, which was prayer, but they also tried to fight back

against the crickets themselves.

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