Tag Archives: halloween

Colorado Festivals of Dead “Frozen Dead Guy Day” and Coffin Races

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“The first is Frozen Dead Guy Day, it’s in Estes Park. This man, Bredo Morstoel, he died, and he was like “I want to be frozen and you can bring me back to life one day when you guys have that technology.” And they granted his wish and there’s a shed that has his cyro preserved body in it, so he’s a frozen dead guy. And so every year there’s an annual celebration called Frozen Dead Guy Day in Estes Park, where they celebrate and all hail the frozen dead guy that’s just chilling in the shed in town. So people take photos outside and have coffin races.

The coffin races are similar to Emma Crawford Coffin Races in Manitou Springs Colorado. Emma Crawford wanted to be buried alongside Pikes Peak, which is right outside Manatu. There was a horrible mudslide on a rainy day and her coffin comes tumbling down the mountain, down through town square. They’re like “No Emma your coffin!” She gets put back in the mountain, it’s fine. But now to honor her displaced coffin there are coffin races where everybody has to make a coffin and race their coffin down the side of the road against other coffins. People dress up super Halloweeny, super fun, same with Frozen Dead Guy Day, to celebrate the dead! To keep her body safe in the mountain so she doesn’t come sliding in town again you have to race your coffin, to appease Emma Crawford. I used to go to Emma Crawford Coffin Races every year and I would participate, we would sit on top of a hearst. We would dress up and hand out flyers for the haunted house I worked at. Everybody gets so into it and gets competitive about the best decorated coffin, what’s the best design for racing, who do you want to win, who has the silliest costume? The whole thing’s broadcast on the news. Afterwards I love to get myself some pumpkin pie ice cream. 

Context

Y is a 19-year-old college student from Denver, Colorado. She would visit the Emma Crawford Races every year with her family because they have family friends in Estes Park who they would visit and stay with and celebrate the festival. Her dad would also often take her to the Frozen Dead Guy Day celebrations. She remembers the Coffin Races fondly as fun celebrations that were around her favorite holiday, Halloween. She’s really interested in the gothic and macabre, so these festivals were favorites of hers.

Analysis

Both festivals have all of the elements of festivals. They are examples of festival time, when you operate by different rules than you usually would. Death and the macabre are usually avoided for Americans, they’re usually sad, upsetting taboo topics. However, during these festivals, people celebrate those things and make light of them. Emma Crawford Coffin Races occur in October, relating them to Halloween or Samhein. Lots of festivals surrounding the dead happen during this time period, like Day of the Dead, Halloween, or All Saints Day. This is related to the agricultural calendar, when things got colder and crops would start to die after harvest. These are Chthonic festivals and rituals, relating to returning to the earth. During the Coffin Races, people become comfortable with the idea of being in coffins and returning to the earth, something that is usually taboo. Both of these festivals are also the results of when proper burial rituals were done wrong. In the case of Frozen Dead Guy Day, he defied the usual expectations of burial rituals, and is actually attempting to defy death by coming back to life later on. The Emma Crawford Coffin Races are supposedly held to appease Emma’s spirit, because her resting place was disrespected and disrupted, so the festival must be held as a sort of apology for this disrespect and to celebrate her spirit. Both festivals also include lots of elements of performance. They follow a syntax, with the opening, the main event of coffin racing, celebrations such as eating, music, and drinking, maybe a costume contest near the middle, and then the closing celebrations. The big event of the coffin racing in both festivals is a symbolic event representing people making light and coming to terms with tough topics like their own mortality. There are performative acts like the costumes, and the racing. Costumes are also an example of the festival’s specific dress requirements. The festivals also have specific foods associated with them. Y says she loves to eat pumpkin pie ice cream after the Emma Crawford Coffin Races, with pumpkin being a food associated with Fall and Halloween time. These festivals are also community and identity building events for the towns. Both festivals are held in small towns that take great community pride in these events. These festivals have put these small towns on the map, and share town history and folklore stories that have stuck around in the community.

The Good Witch — Legendary Being

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“The night of Halloween, after trick-or-treating, my sister and I would go through all of our candy and we could select some to keep, and then the rest of the candy we put into a bag. Overnight the Good Witch would come and take our candy and leave a toy in return.”

Context

AH is a 21 year-old college student from Houston, Texas. She grew up in what is sometimes described as an ‘ingredient household,’ a family with very little junk food or sweets in the house. 

“I think it was like a way of being like, you know, ‘Don’t eat candy. Instead you can have a toy. Don’t eat junk food. You have a choice.’ It was a reinforced way of keeping junk food out of our household,” AH explained.

“I remember being frustrated with the small amount of time I had to pick the candy I wanted to keep. I felt rushed by the whole process. It was hard to savor the joy of Halloween knowing I could be scolded for eating the little candy I was allowed to keep.”

This was a Halloween tradition from AH’s earliest memory of Halloween to when she was about 10 or 12 years old. By the time she had stopped believing in the Good Witch, her parents continued to take the candy and give her money instead.

AH’s mom first learned about the trick from a parenting magazine.

Analysis

At surface level, the legend of the Good Witch is a harmless children’s legend aimed to reduce excessive candy consumption around Halloween. The narrative co-opts the existing framework of witches, a legendary being that one already assumes to be around on Halloween, as well as the framework of the tooth fairy legend, another children’s legend that involves taking something overnight and replacing it with a reward.

However, AH notes that the immediate taking away of candy contributed toward negative habits and views regarding ‘unhealthy’ food.

“Because it was so limited and something that we weren’t supposed to eat, I kind of developed this bad habit of, when it was around, I was going to eat it all,” AH explained. “And it was a way of resisting the Good Witch. You didn’t have to give away as much candy if you could eat it all in one sitting.”

This habit of binge eating is something AH has struggled with into her college years. The legend of the Good Witch, along with other family influences, created an impression of scarcity surrounding junk food and sweets that is difficult to unlearn.

“Oh, this rare thing, I gotta indulge myself. And eat it all up and enjoy it. Not necessarily enjoy it though. I just gotta eat it before it disappears one way or another,” AH explained. “There’s this fear, for whatever reason, of having things be taken away.”

This legend is interesting in the context of Halloween, a day that includes a lot of ritual inversion, the practice of inverting social roles or structures, especially when these are very strict. On Halloween, children dress up as something they are not. They eat the candy they are not allowed at other times of the year. There is a proximity to and spectacle in death, which is otherwise hidden from children. 

Thus it is interesting that AH’s family allowed some participation in this inversion — the collection of candy — and then further inverted it, by taking the candy away. One is left to wonder if the candy consumption that is so dramatically avoided by the Good Witch legend may have actually been good for AH and her siblings, as it may have allowed them to experience indulgence — and maybe a belly ache, too — in order to develop a healthy relationship with food.

“It was never something that was okay in moderation. It was hardly okay at all. I don’t think that has any good impact. I think that teaching something like that just opens up the opportunity for unhealthy habits to develop in the future,” AH explained. “I definitely think with the Good Witch, the whole ‘you get to pick your stuff and then the rest is gone’ just really reinforced habits of binge eating.”

The Green Ribbon

Text:

My informant, from Fresno California, told me a scary story she heard as a kid.

“This is kind of like a ghost story. There was once a woman, right? And a man. And they entered into a relationship. And things were going really well between them. Things were going great. They were going on these little dates, you know? But the thing is, she always wore this little green ribbon around her neck. Right? And he’d be like, ‘Why do you wear that?’ and she’d be like ‘Don’t worry about it’. So he’s like ‘okay…’

“So they continue on having their relationship. They get married. They have many children. The children grow up. They go to college. They’re very successful. 

“And their relationship continues, and he’s like ‘Hey, you still haven’t taken off that green ribbon, it must be pretty dirty under there. You even shower with it on.’ She’s like ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s, you know, a fashion choice or whatever.’

“And then the years go on, they’re in retirement, they’re playing golf together, everything’s great. But still. He’s like “Hey, we’re like 80. And you still haven’t taken off that green ribbon. And it must be dingy by now, but it’s, like, in good quality’ And she’s like ‘Ah, you know, I just like wearing it, I guess.’

“And then she starts to get really sick. And it’s really sad. She’s bedridden. And he’s tending to her. And the doctor comes out to him from the bedroom, cause it’s like the doctor that visits the house. And he says to the husband, ‘Look, she has like 5 minutes.’ And he’s like ‘Oh, damn, okay.’  So he goes inside. He’s like ‘You know, I gotta ask you, in our final moments… First, I love you, but also, why are you wearing that thing?? Still? You’re dying!’ She’s like ‘all right. I’ll show you, okay?’ So she pulls off her green ribbon, and her head topples off. And that’s the end of the story.”

Context:

“I think I first heard that like in elementary school, I think around Halloween, one of the teachers told us that one. I’ve told it maybe a few times, I think I also told it in Highschool, it was around Halloween, and in my English class my teacher was like ‘hey, does anyone have any ghost stories?’ I think I used that one.”

Interpretation:

The informant took her time with the story, and was constantly checking in to see if I was still along for the ride. She also injected comedy whenever she could to try and keep it engaging. I think this approach is the result of telling this story in a larger setting, with many distractions (i.e., a classroom to other students.) This story has a ritual element to when it can be told: It’s a scary story, so it is told at Halloween, particularly at school. 

Midwest Traditions Before Halloween

Background Information: 

The informant was born and raised in Michigan. They are a good friend of mine and we grew up together. 

Main Content: 

ME: So you mind telling me a little bit about the Boo tradition that we grew up with?

DS: So back in middle school and elementary school, not as much in high school, the night before Halloween, we would go around to our friend’s houses, a group of kids, and we would leave a bag of candy on the porch, knock on their door, and run away. That was just the tradition that you would always do with your friends the night before Halloween. We took it really seriously, maybe more seriously than we should have. We would always try to catch the person who was ‘Booing’ us, and we would always try to escape unseen when we were the ones doing the ‘Booing’. We would leave a cute note, hinting at your identity, but sometimes you just didn’t know who ‘Booed’ you. If you couldn’t catch them, you would always try to figure it out the next day at school. 

ME: Haha, were the parents in on it? Or was it looked down upon? 

DS: So the parents were always in on it. Especially because we were so young. So, the parents of the people doing the ‘Booing’ were usually the ones most involved. They would drive the kids there and they would help prepare the bags. They took it almost as seriously as the kids did. I remember once I heard a knock on my door, I walked outside and I see this car fishtailing out of my driveway, and there was a bag of candy left on my doorstep. ‘

Context: 

This interview happened at my house. 

Thoughts: 

This is something that I loved doing growing up. Me and the informant, along with some of our other friends, used to go around “Booing” people. We would stay up all night hiding in the bushes in front of our homes to catch people who were trying to “Boo” us. After doing some research I found that this tradition was started in the US around the 80s and has been observed in certain pockets of the US, for instance, another friend from Ohio told me that they also did this tradition (https://www.wxyz.com/about-us/as-seen-on/you-can-be-the-first-person-to-start-the-art-of-booing-in-your-neighborhood-classroom-or-community) . However there are some slight variations, apparently some people begin “Booing” in November, and you are supposed to put a ghost on your window to signify that you have been “Booed”. As kids, it was the one time of the year where we could act mischievously and stay out late, with our parent’s full support. I think a large reason for this is because the night before Halloween is also referred to as Devil’s Night and in Detroit it is a famous night of mischief. I reckon our parents let us get away with minor mischief to keep us away from the real mischief on that night. 

Bunny Man Bridge.

K is a 63-year-old Caucasian male originally from Fairfax, Virginia. K is a retired highway patrolman and current polygraph examiner in Phoenix, Arizona.

K performed this folklore while I visited him at his workplace with the intent to collect folklore from police officers. In his office, I asked K if he had any folklore he would be willing to share with me.

K: Well I’m going to tell about you a.. Story that comes out of Fairfax county Virginia where I’m from. Where I actually patrolled as a patrolman. Uh, years ago. Funny thing is, I didn’t learn about this story until I came out to Arizona, uh, twenty five hundred miles from where the story originated from. And I heard about it because it showed up on a documentary on TV about haunted places that uh, would be pretty scary to visit. Uh, and this haunted place in Fairfax Country Virginia is called Bunny Man Bridge. And its actually a railroad bridge, uh, near uh, a place called Clifton Virginia, which is a little tiny sleepy town that is down in a.. quiet area of Fairfax county. And uh, this sleepy little town has this legend of Bunny Man Bridge which is this railroad bridge, and when you go under the bridge it’s cement on the sides but it’s barely wide enough for a car to fit through going one direction, and on the opposite side of the bridge is a dead end road so theres nowhere to go when you go underneath the Bunny Man Bridge but uh, its really quite dark there. There isn’t any street lights, theres uh, lots of trees around, I mean even in a full moon its pretty pretty dark down there around Bunny Man Bridge. I’m familiar with it because, as a patrolman, because its uh, apparently a haunted location a lot of uh, the younger high school uh groups like to go down there and party on the uh, side that there’s no escape from. Uh, in other words, side that’s on where the dead end is at. But, what I learned about Bunny Man Bridge is that this place called Clifton.. uh.. years ago like in the early, like very early 1900s, there was a uh, insane asylum in Clifton. And, I dont know exactly how many prisoners that this insane asylum had housed, but, uh. When.. Fairfax country began to grow up and get larger, they moved this insane asylum to another place called Lorton which is probably, I’m guessing, about, a twenty minute drive away from Clifton and Lorton is far more build up in fact there’s a uh, prison there now from the District of Columbia in Lorton, but uh, the decision was made to transport all the, uh, people in this insane Asylum from Clifton down to Lorton, so they loaded ‘em all on a bus, and started driving away to, uh, Lorton. Well, unfortunately as, uh, the legend has it, the bus ran off the side of the road and crashed and uh all the prisoners, the maniacs escaped and ran into the woods and, the uh, authorities came out and worked really hard trying to round up all these people and they ultimately, uh, were able to round em all up with the exception of two people. Um, and they kept searching the woods searching the woods and they kept finding all these bunny carcasses in the woods. Um, so they expected that these two escapees were actually uh surviving on bunny meat and this went on for a while and they never were able to actually track down these two. But the legend has it that after they searched the entire area for days and days they came to a time where uh they found one of these escapees, hanging from Bunny Man Bridge. And uh, the other one was nowhere to be found and the assumption was that.. uh, apparently they had a dispute or a fight over who was gonna get.. the, the, the bunny leg or the bunny breast or whatever. And uh.. the other one hung his companion from Bunny Man Bridge. And uh, now the legend is if you go to Bunny Man Bridge on uh.. like Halloween or something, uh you can see uh.. this uh, this deceased prisoner hanging from the bridge on Halloween. They never found uh the other escaped individual… Uh, but, periodically they say you can also see bunny carcasses hanging from, Bun-from Bunny Man Bridge. Uh, so they, they believe notwithstanding all of that, that even though this is a hundred and ten years later. Uh, he’s still out there. Uh, uh, eating bunnies and hanging em’ from the bridge on Halloween along with his deceased companion.

Reflection: Despite never visiting Bunny Man Bridge himself, K was extremely knowledgeable about the subject, as evidenced by the length and detail of his performance of the urban legend. The vague version of the Bunny man I am familiar with is of an axe-wielding lunatic wearing a bunny suit, so I was surprised to hear that neither of these two appearance traits were mentioned in K’s telling. The popularity of both the “Bunny Man” and the “Hook Man” urban legends in the American South suggests that the region has a preference for escaped convict stories. Considering the American South has the largest collective prison population in the U.S., it is not hard to make a prediction why this may be the case.