Wisconsin Chainsaw Man

Stephen S. is my friend in high school, and he is from Wisconsin. He was born and raised there, but moved to Taiwan for high school. He’s now back in Wisconsin for college.

One of the folklore that Stephen has given is a legend from when he was in elementary school in Wisconsin. This event would take place during Halloween and it would occur yearly. Their school would hold a small trick or treat trip with all the students. The groups of students would walk down a forest trick or treating along the houses that they walk by, and eventually, they would end up near a river. By the river, there would always be a chainsaw man with a mask on. (From this description, and seems like it would be “Jason,” a horror icon.) The chainsaw man would then turn on his chainsaw and run at the kids, but never were the kids injured by the chainsaw man. Eventually, after meeting with the chainsaw man, the kids would always be scared to go near the river. Even though the kids would only encounter him during Halloween, they would all believe that he would always be there. There would be a fence dividing the school and where they would see the chainsaw man, and whenever they accidently lost a ball beyond the fence, they would be too scared to fetch it back.

The chainsaw man would only be known by the elementary students and they would experience firsthand through the trip as did Stephen. He showed me this particular folklore because of how it reminded him of his childhood. This incident was also a reason why he doesn’t particularly like “scary stuff.”

The main figure of this incident is the chainsaw man. Stephen would only remember the chainsaw man and not really enjoying Halloween. This figure would also be only known as the students of the elementary school, and the teachers of the school I would assume.

I would think this as both a tradition and a legend. This was done yearly, so it was known to the school what was coming during Halloween. As a legend, the chainsaw man could be real or not. Growing up, Stephen realized that it was probably just a teacher dressing up as the chainsaw man. But the chainsaw man is only known by that one elementary school Stephen was in. It’s like a community legend for the school to bring in something in common for the students. They can all say that they encountered the chainsaw man.