Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Friendly Wolf

This ghost story comes to me from my mother.  Interestingly, when asking her to tell the story, she kept insisting that it was not a ghost story.  Instead, she referred to it as a “strange occurrence.”  It was only until I referred to the events as a “strange occurrence” that she would tell me the story.  Her story goes as follows:

So, when I was little I was a Girl Scout.  And so we had… Our Girl Scout leader was Bryan.  He was a friend of my parents, and they had known him quite a while.  And so he brought us on this camping trip.  And by us, I mean my whole Girl Scout troop.  So, we took a car and drove out to this campground.  That night, he thought it would be fun to tell stories and so he started with a story that he said had happened to him.

So he was also a Boy Scout leader.  And he took a bunch of Boy Scouts camping.  And they went to the wood.  So, they set up camp and did their normal Boy Scout thing.  So, then one of the kids decided that he wanted to go fishing, so they got up all the fishing equipment and went to the lake.  While they were fishing, one of the boys looked up and suddenly they had this wolf walk up to all of them.  And they were scared to death of him.  But the wolf didn’t seem to be afraid of them.

So, Bryan he ended up becoming friends with this wolf for the few days that they were camping.  And the wolf would follow him around wherever he went.  What was strange was the feeling that he got with this wolf.  It was almost as if he knew the wolf, like he was a family member or something.  They kinda seemed to understand each other on… like… a different level.  Like, it was as if the spirit of someone close to him was in the wolf.  So, anyway, then he had to say goodbye to this wolf when they were leaving the campgrounds.  And he said goodbye to the wolf, and the wolf howled at him. And he thought, “Ok, whenever I hear a wolf howl, I will think of you. “

So, he went back home.  And he figured the wolf was old, and so it probably died pretty soon after that encounter.  So, he told us that whenever he goes camping, he always keeps his ear out for something, or to hear something howl.  Or like, a star to shoot across the sky.  Because whenever he hears a howl or something to shoot by, like a shooting star, he knows that the wolf’s spirit is nearby.

And just in that moment, when he finished telling all of us Girl Scouts the story, we looked up to the sky, and heard a howl and saw a shooting star go by. And he goes, “See there he is again.  The wolf.  He shows up when you least expect it.”

Analysis:

My mother, while telling this story, made it seem as spooky as possible by taking pauses and speaking in a hushed tone.  Additionally, because it was nighttime, and she was telling me this story in a parked car, the atmosphere was quite creepy.  I wasn’t able to tell if she really believed the story, or if she believed in the spirit of a wolf haunting her Scout Master, but the way she told the story seemed to imply that it could have all been true.

This story is a favorite of my mothers, and she has told this story to me on many occasions.  One time while camping, she had my father clued in to the story, so at the very end of it, he (hidden in the bushes) howled like a wolf.  This was in order to fake the idea that the story was true, and convince me and my brother of its validity.  My mother claims “I guess I told the story partly to scare you, but mostly just to entertain you.”  While I do agree with this, I feel this story, on a deeper level, is there to teach about humanity’s connection to nature.  It implies that mankind has a duty to respect animals, and even shares some Native American influence in the way it suggests that a deceased soul can go into the body of an animal.  It is also there to, similar to the purpose of a myth, explain some phenomenon in nature (e.g. shooting stars and wolf howls) using a spiritual explanation rather than a scientific one.  It could also be argued that this story is there to suggest that if a person is nice to nature, nature will be nice back.  Whatever the purpose, it is a thought-provoking story, and will most likely continue to be told to me again and again, year in and year out.

Roommates

Ghost Story – Bangkok, Thailand

            “So this story happened at the University of Chiang Mai. There were these two girls who were roommates, and they were best friends too actually. They lived on the, like, seventh floor, I think. Anyway, one evening, one of the girls, let’s just call her B asked her friend if she wanted to go grab dinner. Her friend felt like she had a fever and also had to stay up late to study. B was pretty worried about her friend so B told her friend that it was okay, she can go eat by herself. Her friend then asked B to bring some food back to her, some Pad Thai if possible. B agreed and said she would hurry back with the food. As the night grew, it started to rain heavily. B’s friend was too tired to study and couldn’t concentrate, or something like that, and so she went to sleep. But, then, of course she was worried about B because it was getting late, the rain was getting super intense, and the roads do get slippery and dangerous, especially outside the campus area. So apparently B fell asleep. But then she woke up in the middle of the night and heard some noises and they were getting closer. At first she thought B had come back but then she then heard a knock on the door, and realized it couldn’t be B because B has the keys. She slowly opened the door but then found no one. The only thing she saw was a paper bag with Pad Thai in it. She wondered where B was, why B didn’t come in, why B disappeared so fast, and why there was a trail of water along the hallway. She didn’t think too much of it and ate the food and took her medicine.

            In the morning, she found out that B had been raped and killed last night. B’s body was a complete mess. The murderer must have hit B with an iron rod or something because her arms and legs were broken. The rumor was that B was so worried about her friend that she used her chin to drag her body up the stairs and all the way to her friend’s door to give her the food. So yeah, I thought this was a disturbing story but then I thought it was kind of sweet how much B loved her friend.”

My friend, Tiptara, who like me, is from Bangkok heard this story from a friend at her high school back in Thailand. This story is not the most popular story, but the context of haunted dorms is the same as many cultures. Thai colleges are said to be especially haunted because many students come from the most rural areas into the big cities and provinces to receive a higher education. The stress and pressure to fit in and adjust to the city life, which is significantly different from life in the suburban areas, cause a lot of suicides, crimes, and rapes, which is why stories about ghosts in dorms are told throughout Thai culture. My friend believes that there this story might have been merely a rumor but it is based on a true story. Rapes are common occurrences in universities, and the University of Chiang Mai is located in the northern province of Thailand, where many parts of the area surrounding the university are abandoned businesses and buildings that the local people there do not go to. This creates a dangerous atmosphere for the students.

I personally believe in ghosts, therefore, I think this story could have truly happened. However, I believe that the most crucial point of this story is to express the meaning of friendship and the fact that nothing, even death, can come between connections between two real friends. Friends that can be trusted, relied on, and have people’s best interests are difficult to find, especially in universities, where there are high competition rates.

Mariposa Elementary School Haunting

Cubby Sporrong’s Story: as told on a Tuesday afternoon, sitting on a ledge outside Montgomery Ross Fisher building around noon.

Background: Cubby is from Redlands, California. She is a freshman at USC, white, 18-19 year-old female. I met her through my sorority Delta Gamma, and we also have the same Linguistics class.

Cubby: Ok, so there’s supposedly a ghost, um, that haunts Mariposa Elementary School in Redlands, California. And the ghost’s name is supposed to be Billy, and he’s supposedly a thirteen-year-old boy who was hit by a bus riding his bike. Um, and I believe that was like 20 years ago, um, I’m not entirely sure. And anyway, um, people from all around the country come looking for Billy the ghost of Mariposa Elementary School. When I was in fifth grade, they, like, shattered all the security videos and stuff trying to find him because they think that Billy won’t be there if he knows he’s being watched by security cameras. Apparently that’s a myth. And, um, basically he’s supposedly been seen, like, haunting the hallways of Mariposa Elementary School and like playing tether ball but… So that’s, that’s that.

Reaction: Cubby was very skeptical of this story, despite the fact that she attended Mariposa Elementary School. She often used words like “supposedly”, as if she were trying to convince herself of its truth while she was telling me the story. I’m not entirely sure where she learned it, but it seems likely that she would have heard it from other kids in her school, maybe even teachers. I find it hard to believe in the story since Cubby is so suspicious of it, but the story itself seems somewhat plausible. Nonetheless, it also took place a while ago, so it may be inaccurate or simply legend now.

Norwegian Mall Ghost

Christine Nielsen’s Story: as told on a Wednesday night, sitting across from each other at a table in the DG dining room around 7pm.

Background: Christine is from Oslo, Norway, and is currently a sophomore at USC. She is a Communications major, white, 19-20 years old. I met her through my sorority Delta Gamma.

Christine: I used to work at this place that’s like super, super old, built in the 16th century, and I was working a night and it was really, really, um, there was like no one there, at all. It was only like five minutes until closing, and I hear this like laughter, like some child laughing or something. And I was like, ‘oh that’s weird, there’s no one here’. I like asked a guard like, ‘oh, did you hear the laughter?’ And she was like, ‘yeah I always hear it, but like don’t know where it’s coming from’. And then, um, I was like, you know went home and came back the next day, and like the same thing happened. And I was talking to [?] and was like, ‘oh, did you hear the laughter again?’ ‘yeah, we hear it often, and there’s some laughter going on. Like it’s an old place, you know’. So we always like thought that it was a ghost. And I asked, like, one of my bosses and she, uh, is good friends with the owner of the place, and, which actually lives in an old castle, up in the hill (laughs). And then, uh, he apparently, like, told her there was like, a hundred years ago, there was a guy and like a little boy that got, like, murdered. So, he was like found in the river, and, and, he like goes like around, haunts the place. He’s like going around the mall, making fun like laughing, knocking over shelves. So like, I remember one time, I was like in the store, and he like suddenly like a shelf literally like fell down. And it was like me and one other customer in the store, and it just like fell down. And I was like, ‘okay, that’s weird’, and by that time I’d already heard the story so I was like, ‘hey, it’s the ghost, haha’. It’s really creepy and there’s like several other ghosts going there. So that’s one.

Reaction: Christine was very adamant about her belief in the ghost haunting this mall, since she had experienced it herself. She definitely was influenced by the people working in the mall with her, as she learned the story from them, and Christine had even interacted with the ghost while with a customer. I’m not sure how to react to this ghost. Although it took place in Norway, a mall is still a mall no matter where it is. I’ve never experienced something like this, so I’m not sure what to make of it.

The Haunted Plantation

“Oh, wait I have a good ghost story. OK so my great grandmother Francis lived in this giant plantation house back in the South, and she had five husbands. (Sigh.) Her first husband died two years after she married him of some strange like infection no one really has any details about. The second one was way older than she was, about twenty years, and he died by falling down the stairs. The third husband was twenty years younger than she was, and he got paled on a rake. And then the fourth husband umm just randomly disappeared, no one has found him since. And the fifth husband umm started complaining about like strange (drawn out i.e.  sttrraaannggee) sounds going on in the giant plantation house like you’d heard voices and screaming at night and Grandma was just like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Everything’s fine.” And the kids are just like, “Ya mom’s just a little bit crazy.. th- that’s just how she is.” And umm he could swear that he could see like a guy with a rake in his back walking around and he could also see like like a guy with a guy with broken necks.. and he finally went down to the basement and he just had a heart attack and died.”

I was very intrigued by this story because many times you see the woman as the “departed lover” and in this case all the men kept dying. Also, it was very interesting to me that the student brought up the age difference between his great grandmother and her multitude of lovers. So I asked him to elaborate.

Me: Do you think the age difference between your great grandmother and these men lead to the failing of the marriages aka their deaths, and thus the hauntings?

Student: Well, now that I think about it, yes. My great grandmother told me that she thought the wider the gap between them the more her next husband would complain about the sounds and voices. That’s why after she married the husband who was twenty years older, she married someone who was twenty years younger to counteract the curse. It didn’t help of course. I think the land itself might have been haunted. I, myself, get the chills just traveling there. I mean, I was just a kid so I don’t remember everything, but I heard so many wailing sounds almost like a banshee and like chains rattling everywhere. I never saw the men who died, but I’m pretty sure what I was hearing wasn’t just them. It’s a spooky place and I just – I just don’t ever like going there.

Me: So you’ve experienced this haunting first hand?

Student: Kind of. I would go when I was a little boy, around Halloween time, and I would get told a new story every time about the recently departed husband. I don’t know why they were spooking a little kid, but whatever works grandma. Sorry umm my grandma was really into her stories. Strong, really big, robust, Irish woman.

I then questioned further about the types of slaves. I was very interested because it was a plantation and I thought maybe the tortured souls of slaves would add to it as well.

Me: Irish? Oh had she worked the land? Or had it been run by slaves?

Student: Indentured servants actually. My grandma, great grandma, umm sorry I call her ‘grandma’ and my actual grandma ‘grams’, uhh anyways she never really worked the land. The family didn’t tell anyone they were Irish. MY grandma could pull it off though. Quite the actor like me haha. She is blonde with blue eyes and doesn’t look Irish at all. Her whole family was lucky in the gene pool because they didn’t look a wee bit Irish, and they got indentured Irish servants to work the land.

Me: I think you’re right about the tortured souls being something other than the men. I think it was the indentured servants. Irish ones to be exact. Especially because it’s all around Halloween. AHHH! (Getting excited because all of the connections). Did your grandma ever see slave ghosts?

Student: Not that she wanted to admit. She is very ashamed that her family hid their heritage and forced others to work just so they could look normal. But her husbands complained about it all the time. The one that stuck out the most—fuck I’m so sorry for not including this in the beginning, but the screaming slash wailing noise was from a woman. So either my great grandmother is crazy or she’s fucking women too.

Me: Well you said the family was Irish so maybe it was the bean sí.

Student: Shit. My family is fucked up and haunted, and you’ve just confirmed that I am absolutely never going back there again. Ugh, I guess it’s the freaking luck of the Irish.

I then ended my story with the student because he seemed visibly upset and was now over-thinking his entire upbringing. I hope I didn’t scar him too much. I just learned that you just have to ask the right questions to get the right information.