Author Archives: Kelly Girskis

Lake Winnipesaukee Legend

“Mary Jane of Lake Winnipesaukee”

“At sleep-away camp…my camp was on a lake and their were three camps on the lake and all camps were told that there was a little girl named Mary Jane and when she was young she wanted to paddle across the lake to one of our brother camps and her um canoe like tipped over and she drowned. And so whenever we went in the lake, everyone one would say the weeds were her long finger nails and on June… no it would have to be July.. like 13th. She would come out of the lake an visit our bunks and say like… write on our mirrors in blood…   ‘RED RUM’…. Which is of course murder backwards.”

When I asked my friend when this legend was relayed to her she told me:
“At Robindel Camp  in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Lake Winnipesaukee. It’s been camp legend for years.
We used to have on-duty counselors and for whatever reason on ‘Mary Jane night’ they would mess with us… like bang on the walls and move our bunks but then we got to do it to the young kids when we got older.”

It seems to me this story was created as a rite of passage for the campers.  The older more experienced counselors, which were once young campers themselves, crafted the story to play pranks on the younger children at the camp.  From online research, I have found that there was a Mary Jane Morse Greenwood who donated a substantial amount of money to New Hampshire Forest Society to preserve the area around the lake.  Her ancestors had inhabited that region for over 100 years.  Mary Jane’s importance to the community and the lake is demonstrated by a notorious ghost tale.

Annotation: Gift of 431-acre Reservation to the Forest Society Creates Morse Family Legacy. <http://www.forestsociety.org/news/press-release_print.asp?id=194>

Bathroom Dog Legend/The Licked Hand

The Legend of the Bathroom Dog/The Licked Hand

“This girl who has a dog and every night before the goes to bed the dog is at the foot of the bed and she puts her hand out and he licks it and that’s her sign tha everything is okay  One night she goes to bed and the dog licks her and, but she senses that somethings wrong but um…. the dog keeps licking her hand throughout the night when she puts it out. So she hears something dripping in the bathroom but the dog keeps licking her hand. So she thinks everything is okay.  The dripping gets louder so she gets up and goes to the bathroom.  When she opens the door there the dog is… hanging. (It’s gross I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You never heard this before?)  And like the dripping is the dog’s blood. And like written on the mirror in the dogs blood is ‘HUMANS CAN LICK TOO’.”

My friend relayed this legend about a hanging dog in the bathroom one night to a bunch of my girl friends.  She says she heard the story at boarding school when she was younger.  She says her classmates would sit around and tell scary legends after lights out.  Further research into this story from the internet and I found that this legend has circulated as a email chain letter as well as has appeared in many films.  The story is often referred to as ‘The Licked Hand’ and has variations including one with dead parents in the closet or a hiking scenario. A version of ‘The Licked Hand’ can be found in the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Swartz a collection of spooky stories geared towards readers 9-12 years of age.

Annotation: Swartz, Alvin. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. HarperCollins. Reprint edition (July 27, 2010).

Drinking Folk Speech

“Beer before liquor never been sicker. Liquor before beer you are in the clear.”

I often hear my friends refer to this saying when drinking begins.  When one reaches for a beer, my friend Alyssa always tosses out this phrase.  This phrase is used to heed the warning of alcohol illness from excessive drinking, and she believes that it is the combination of cocktails and beer, rather than the sheer amount, that makes one sick.

I tend to disagree with her thoughts on the topic.  Although mixing alcohols seems to make things worse, I do not think the order of consumption really makes a large difference in the matter.

The Discovery Channel’s hit show MythBusters had an episode testing this beer-and-liquor myth in the 2009 season episode 127.  They busted this myth saying that the combination of beer and liquor has little to do with drunkenness and hang over level.

Annotation: MythBusters. 2009 Season. Episode 127. “The Morning After.” http://mythbustersresults.com/dirty-vs-clean-car

Snake Rhyme

“Yellow touches black you are okay jack; red touches yellow you’re a dead fellow.”

My friend, an avid hiker, says she uses this saying to tell the difference from a venomous and nonvenomous snake.  It is a way to correctly identify a coral snake (deadly) from a milk snake (harmless) she informed me.  While I know little about snakes, a quick internet search confirms her beliefs.  I am not sure exactly if this holds true for all types of snakes or only those encountered in the continental United States.  I now will carry this mnemonic with me for future camping and hiking trips.

While at first I though this was just a rhyming and sing-song phrase about snakes, I learned that this saying can be helpful and even life-saving when known and in the wild.

Shotgun/DJ seat

“SHOTGUN!”

Whenever my friends and I rush out to the garage, one must yell “Shotgun!” or “Shottie” in order to claim ownership to the passenger front seat next to the driver.  I asked my friend Kelsey why she was so accustomed to yelling this word out when she say the car.  She told me:

“It’s back when like cars.. I mean buggies… the guy who sat in the front seat of the buggy.. there had to be someone holding a shot gun just incase they got ambushed or something.  My grandparents told me that back in Texas.”

I have heard a few variations of this origin of the folk speech but most converge around the idea that whomever was sitting next to the diver, long ago, held the shotgun.  How this term has held on past the ages of buggies and wagons shows its importance and hierarchical position of one sitting next to the driver.

Kelsey also refers to that seat as the “DJ seat” and whomever occupies the passenger seat controls the musical selection for the journey.  Both examples point to the importance of the position and the aspect of the ‘right-hand man’ to the driver