Tag Archives: legend

Water Babies of Pyramid Lake – Legend

Water Babies of Pyramid Lake

Text:

Long ago there was a Native American woman who had two children. She took her children down to the river to bathe them but they were dragged under the current. When she discovered her children’s death she took them to a burial sight to bury them. She cried so hard over her children’s grave that it filled with water and became pyramid lake. The woman then laid by the lake to watch her children where she turned to stone. To this day her babies can be heard in the lake and they drag unsuspecting victims down to drown them.

Context:

“I heard this story many times growing up as a kid and visiting the lake. Pyramid lake was on an Indian reservation so it always had some mysticism too it. I remember some of my uncles telling me the story while on a boat in the lake. After they told the story they threw me in to scare me. I guess I’m not much better than them now cause I use the story to scare my little cousins or brother whenever we visit.”

Analysis:

Pyramid Lake near Reno Nevada is often seen as a mysterious lake as it is a salt water lake with no outlets. The use of tears in the legend is used to describe why the lake is a salt water lake and its odd positioning without any outlets. The myth likely stems from the mysticism surrounding the Native American reservations that the lake lies on. Similar to the story of poltergeist and similar legends in which native Americans play a key role, the guilt of the actions taken by American settlers has led to stories of vengeful native spirits. Some state that the legend stems from the lake being used as a location where malformed native babies were drowned. All in all the legend of the pyramid lake water babies is another relic from the colonial Americans atrocities.

The Legend of Zapatwayél Fernandes the III

Nationality: Indian, Chinese, American

Primary Language: English

Other language(s): N/A

Age: 19 yrs

Occupation: Student

Residence: Plano, Texas

Performance Date: 10/20/2023

Text:

“In short, I had a great great great grandfather named Zapatwayél Fernandes III, he was a legend in my family, from my Dad’s side. He told me that Zapatwayél III was an Indian born Portuguese man who grew up in New Zealand and attempted a military coup in 1900. Apparently this coup was supposed to stop New Zealand from aiding the British in The Second Boer war, where New Zealand sent troops like Zapatwayél to aid the British in taking over South African territories of the Cape Colony for money. My dad said that British officials created the war to gain control of the gold and diamond deposits. Zapatwayél nearly succeeded though, but he was shut down, in part by his wife, who turned out to be a traitor, working against Zapatwayél and for the British government, who murdered him in his sleep during a mission of his to further unite a clan to complete the coup. After his death, she was left with a decent sum of money from the British government in order to help raise his 5 children alone and keep quiet. It’s a pretty crazy story, but my dad ensures it’s real, but I don’t really know that and nor does my mom, so we chalk it up to legend.”

Context:

My informant, TF, is a friend of mine from my freshman year at USC from Plano, Texas who then moved in late childhood to LA. I talked with him about a legendary figure in his life in the first semester of freshman year after asking him about his ethnic heritage as he is a racially and ethnically mixed/diverse guy. Though when I asked him about this story, he was barely able to recall the full thing. So over the course of around 3 months, I asked him to keep track of this legend and ask his parents about it over Christmas break. And so after break TF came back and finally was able to tell me about the great Zapatwayél The Third, his Great Great Great Grandfather.

Analysis:

I did a ton of research on Zapatwayél and found nothing based on the name. However, when I looked up the Boer war, which was a real war that happened in New Zealand from 1899-1902, and the events described by TF in Zapatwayél’s military coup attempt, were real. There was a military struggle within New Zealand’s forces around 1901 not 1900, and not a coup, but an internal conflict between New Zealand’s military forces, so it could be possible that this was started by Zapatwayél, but I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know the reasoning behind it either. The information TF gave about the war itself was historically accurate, even the places, reasons for British intervention, but, Zapatwayél himself, seemingly could not be found or identified in historical records. Maybe he was covered up by the British and New Zealand government, who knows. I loved this story though. The fact that Zapatwayél is known as a legend on TF’s dad’s side of the family is cool to me. Truly, the fact that Zapatwayél could have been real, even having evidence to back up the coup and war, but not enough information to confirm his existence and influence in the Boer war, thus making it a legend, is fascinating. It’s cool to see how TF’s family history can be tied back to The Boer War, a real war in world history. It’s interesting to see that this legend is being passed down from father to son in TF’s generation.

Haunted Hotel in Manchester, England

Nationality: China
Primary Language: Mandarin
Other language(s): English, French
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beijing
Performance Date: Nov.28, 2023
Tags: #legend #england #Hotel #victorianhouses

“Once I stayed England and we decided to spend a night in Manchester. We chose a very famous hotel in the city center. The hotel itself is a historic building, built in the Victorian era and used to be the site of a refugee insurance company. This hotel has an old ballroom, corridors, and guest rooms, all furnished in the Victorian era. The guest room, when we stayed in it, felt too big and spacious for two travelers, giving people a sense of liminal space, which can’t help but feel a little creepy. When we had finished our dinner and were going up the old stairs to our room, we seemed to hear footsteps, and the feeling of being watched appeared, but no one was there. At night, I would lie in bed and listen to the trains passing through the window, and when the trains passed and quieted down, the same feeling that someone was staring at me from somewhere in the room occurred. The next morning, while having breakfast in the dining hall, a local staff told us about the history of the place. One of the staircases is said to be haunted by a grieving war widow who committed suicide by throwing herself down it from the top floor. The staircase in question was only accessible to men at the time. Also, the room 261, the one downstairs from us, is allegedly haunted, with reports of the sound of children playing at night.”

Context: This story, which I personally experienced, was told by a local tour guide in Manchester, where it took place in this haunted hotel. The tour guide tells us the story of the place, which he thinks may be true because Manchester experienced a severe post-Victorian recession and the great bombing of the Second World War. This has made the whole city full of many tragic experiences and legends.

Personal Thought: Given Manchester’s history and the way the tour guide tells it, the story is highly believable. The haunted experience is also my personal experience, so I think this building is indeed haunted. This hotel is a wonderful ghost story location, it includes plenty of history, outdated architecture and decoration, and many liminal spaces. It’s psychologically creepy. But the ghost story is also a reminder of Manchester’s painful, war-torn history

A Call from Screaming Jenny

  • Informant: HB
  • Nationality: American
  • Primary Language: English
  • Other language(s): n/a
  • Age: 51
  • Occupation: Author
  • Residence: Wilmington, Delaware, United States
  • Performance Date: November 22, 2023

Text

“In 1995, I was living in Charlestown West Virginia, going to Shepherd University and taking a photography class with an actual camera- so you would develop pictures in the blackroom.

I vaguely knew a ghost story about Jenny on the train tracks, but I ignored it because I didn’t believe in these things. 

I went to take photographs around West Virginia and at one point I went to one of the train stations along the train tracks in between Charlestown and Shepherdstown, and I parked my car at what used to be the train station, but this train station had been closed for years. I walked across the street and there was this really cool old fashioned telephone booth- the kind that had like an ear handle and then you spoke into the actual box- but I was nowhere near the phone, at least twenty feet away, and I hadn’t gone near it. I was taking pictures of it just because it was a great photography project picture: this phone booth in the middle of nowhere.

And then the phone started ringing, which I thought was very strange because I was in the middle of nowhere, with no one around me, and it was late at night too.

I actually thought I was on.. what was that show called? Oh! candid camera, where they prank people and put it on TV. I thought this had to be a joke. 

So, I walked up to the phone booth to pick it up and when I picked it up, I realized that the handle was no longer attached to anything and, actually, the phone itself was attached to nothing – there were no wires going in or out of this phone booth, it was just ringing, and it actually terrified me and I ran to my car and drove away as fast as I could.

So, the story I researched later- because that had freaked me out so badly – was that, this girl Jenny – and this is true actually – she caught on fire and died on the train tracks, and then people who ride the train say they hear her screaming at night – which I did not hear her screaming, but I had the weird phone booth thing right on the train tracks by the train station”

Context

The original legend referenced in this collection, The Tale of Screaming Jenny, is a common folklore story throughout West Virginia that took place in the town of Harpers Ferry. In order to contextualize the encounter of the informant, I familiarized myself with a few versions of the legend that have been shared online. According to the legend, there was a woman named Jenny who lived in one of the storage sheds that were abandoned after the construction of the B&O railroad. Jenny had no friends or family to look after her, forcing her to inhabit one of the small sheds. Although no specific date is provided, all recountings of the story indicate that it was on a cold autumn night when Jenny went outside to warm herself by a fire that a spark landed on her skirt and quickly engulfed her in flames. Jenny began screaming for help, running towards the train station, and blindly stumbled onto the train tracks. A train approached the woman, now appearing more as a “ball of flames”, but Jenny was unable to detect the train in the midst of her panic, and there was not enough time for the engineer to stop before running her over. Although recountings vary, many indicate that Jenny’s screams are heard by train passengers when passing through the area of Harpers Ferry and that train engineers have repeatedly encountered the same “ball of flames” at the very spot where Jenny died.

Everyone at Shepherd University had heard the story of Screaming Jenny, and HB had heard about it from a classmate. The informant shared that, before this encounter, she had never given the legend of Screaming Jenny much thought because she did not believe in ghosts or anything of that nature. However, following the strange occurrence she experienced by the train tracks, her opinion shifted. As the informant mentioned, the encounter terrified her and provoked her to further research what happened to Jenny and encounters which people had associated with her spirit. The encounter was able to shift HB’s thoughts on the story, as her initial disbelief gave way to some semblance of plausibility. 

Analysis

This encounter paired with HB’s explanation for the occurrence can be viewed as a memorate, or an oral narrative told from memory recounting a personal experience that is interpreted in the context of an existing legend or folklore belief. In my opinion, what caused the experience to be so memorable to HB was not the paranormal aspect of the experience, but more so the availability of known legend to which she could attribute this occurrence. If the informant had not been familiar with the tale of Screaming Jenny, she likely would have ignored the ringing phone on the train tracks, or at least would have forgotten about it after some time. However, because the tale of Screaming Jenny instantly came to mind when she encountered the phone ringing without any wires, she remembers it as a supernatural encounter with a legendary ghost. 

The Ghosts of Eddison and Ford Estates

Text: “One popular myth from my town is that about the Edison and Ford Winter Estates being haunted by the ghosts of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The estates used to be the winter homes of these two famous inventors, and after their deaths, there have been reports of strange occurrences and paranormal activity. According to the legend, the ghost of Thomas Edison is said to wander his estate, tinkering with machines and conducting experiments. Visitors have reported hearing strange noises and seeing unexplained lights, and some claim to have seen Edison’s ghostly apparition.

Similarly, the ghost of Henry Ford is said to haunt his estate’s gardens and greenhouse. Some visitors have reported hearing the sound of footsteps and seeing the ghostly figure of a man walking among the plants. I was always too afraid to visit and the houses were pretty far from my home, but it was still a super scary story I heard about in like middle school.”

Context: This story was told in a lighthearted manner because me and JD are very close, but I could honestly tell that telling the story kind of made him uncomfortable or on edge. While not necessarily a super famous legend among the whole state of Florida, it was apparently very common in the immediate city where JD resides. He was first told the story by his cousin when he was in the 6th grade, which likely explains why he became frightened when talking about it. JD is personally a believer in ghosts and super natural beings but he is unsure about whether or not this particular ghostly legend is true or false, but he also has no intention of finding out or “getting anywhere near those places”. JD and I had a good conversation about how the story circulated among his friend group but because of his superstition he was frightened of the story.

Analysis: I personally found this legend fascinating. I think The ghost stories associated with the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida add a layer of intrigue and mystery to the already fascinating history of these historic sites. According to legend, both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are said to haunt the estates, with many visitors and staff members reporting paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena. While there is no concrete evidence to support these claims, the ghost stories associated with the Edison and Ford Winter Estates add to the sense of mystery and intrigue surrounding these historic sites. Many visitors are drawn to the estates specifically because of these stories, hoping to catch a glimpse of the supernatural. It’s worth noting that many of the ghost stories associated with the estates may be attributed to the power of suggestion. The estates are known to be haunted, and visitors may be more likely to see or hear something unusual if they are already primed to believe in the paranormal. Because many people believe these ghosts to be real, but they are not yet proven to be so, this falls perfectly into the category of a legend. I for one had no idea these famous figures resided in Florida, but I was interesting in seeing them after hearing this legend.