Monthly Archives: May 2018

Mary Queen of Scotts is in my House!

Nationality: American and British
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Monica
Performance Date: 4/2/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: KC: So basically… (looks at phone), my grandparents live in this house called Hipper Hall in this tiny tiny town called Holymoorside in England and its the main farmhouse, it has one tiny town hall thats just one room and then there used to be the village post office and the local village shop and a local school, but my grandparents house was the farm house– it has barns and fields and a slaughterhouse and a pigsty all made out of stone. Growing up… my family is completely logical and doesn’t believe in ghost stories, we’re very scientific, but it was always known that there were two things to look out for: bats that were in the barn, but apparently you could only hear them until you were 14… I remember my grandfather asking if i could still hear the bats, but basically there was always a story my grandfather told me that I believe was passed down from previous owners and there’s a ghost! There’s also supposedly a tunnel between our house and the biggest house of the neighboring village. She’s apparently a female ghost and is very friendly, and even my grandfather has seen her which freaks me out the most bc he’s a normal straight-shooting guy. She comes out on the full moon of November which is close to my birthday! She just kinda closes doors and stuff but only on this once specific night… I don’t think I’ve actually been there during this night but it has been a source of horror in my childhood. (looks up Hipper Hall Ghost on google) It’s on the internet! People have reported seeing hooded figures walk through barbed fences and a woman disappearing out of nowhere– oh yeah here it is! The supposed ghost of Mary Queen of Scotts has been reportedly seen at the barn door of Hipper Hall! Love my life. Wow.

 

Context: This story has been passed down her family for years– she has always known about the Hipper Hall ghost.

 

Background: KC’s family is very logical and scientific, to where they have so few superstitions and folk practices that it was difficult to collect form her. The fact that her entire family believes in this ghost helps make it more real for her.

 

Analysis: This was such a cool story! KC was doing research on her computer as she was telling me about the ghost, and at the end she found two articles online about this ghost in her grandparents’ house. It’s super interesting, because this is her family home, not just some random place or some famous home in Hollywood, but there is so much information done by other people on this topic that it makes it real. KC was also so skeptical about it at first, playing it off as just a family legend, but when she started doing more research and found other people who were talking about it, she became scared and even said “I can’t imagine my literal grandfather just hanging around with his ghost buddy, Mary of Scotts.”

 

A Little More than a Prank

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Restaurant Manager
Residence: Temecula
Performance Date: 4/8/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: SR: In high school, there was another girl that was in band… and we used to toilet paper everyone’s houses, but she didn’t have any trees in her front yard, so we went and stole a tree out of the ground, and went to her front yard and dug a hole and planted her tree, and then toilet papered the tree! And today, you can drive by and the tree is still in her front yard. We then wanted everyone to see the new tree, so her best friend lived across the street and had a circular driveway, and then we toilet papered their house and thought it would be super fun if everyone had to drive through her driveway to get to school to see it! So we spent the night driving around stealing traffic cones and detour signs and then made it so that every road going to school was blocked off, and anyone who wanted to get to high school that morning had to drive through her driveway.

CR (wife): I can attest to this, because I didn’t even know him and I remember having to drive through her driveway to get to school! I remember when he told me this story the first time, I said “That was you!”

 

Context: This practical joke, alongside many others, was done while SR was in high school.

 

Background: SR was a huge prankster in high school: he did this, he stole street signs, he painted someone’s car without them knowing… SR has always loved jokes and pranks, and even in retelling this story he was cracking up.

 

Analysis: Toilet papering someone’s house is a widespread high school tradition throughout America. Everyone has either toilet papered or been toilet papered. SR’s version gets much more unique, because not only did he literally plant a fully grown tree in someone’s yard, but in order to have people see his handiwork, he toilet papered a neighboring house and forced everyone at their high school to drive past it. This practical joke is a large variation on the standard joke of toilet papering, but in SR’s family this story in itself has become a tale– SR has told it, his wife has told it, even his daughter has told it to friends whenever pranks come up.

 

Grandpa and the Friendly Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 49
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Temecula
Performance Date: 4/8/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: CR: So, I’m not sure if the ghost came with the house in Winchester because after I finally told Grandpa about the ghost he then told me that the house I grew up in also had a ghost, so I don’t know if its a new ghost or like a continual ghost, but um, yeah there was the two specific things that happened! So we had bookcases in the den, built in bookcases that had books and knick knacks, so one day sitting in the living room I can see the den, out of the blue one of the knick knacks, a little fairy, literally falls off the bookcase on to the ground. No animal had walked by, nothing had happened. So I went to pick it up, and I put it back and I thought “well, maybe it was just learning funny, maybe it got bumped and finally fell off” so I put it back. I sat back down. Within a couple of minutes, from that same area on the bookcase, a book fell off and hit the ground. That’s the one that freaked me out because there’s no way a books just gonna fall off and hit the ground from the same area that that fairy was! In addition, things would go missing forever, we’d look and look and look for something, and a week later bam it’s just sitting there where we had looked 47 times, and I also would notice little peripheral lights in certain areas, and i’d look and it would go. So that’s when I made a deal with the ghost, I said “you can stay, but you cannot freak me out!.” and so I feel that when we moved to the first condo, I feel it came with us, because I still had the lights and things would still go missing, BUT when we moved to the second condo was within a few months of grandpa dying, and I have had very little issues at the new condo, so I don’t know if Grandpa is running interference with us with this ghost.

 

Context: These ghost sightings were noticed years ago, in an old house which happened to live in a city with a lot of Native American culture.

 

Background: CR tends to believe in these things: she meditates, she collects healing crystals, and she firmly believes that this ghost was real. She just as firmly believes that her father, after he died, has sent signs to her and has possibly protected her from this ghost.

 

Analysis: Ghosts are always interesting, especially when dealt with from the perspective of someone who firmly believes in ghosts. It seems difficult to find any sort of logical explanation for CR’s items falling off of her shelf other than a ghost, as books flying off shelves just isn’t something that regularly happens. The most interesting part of this story, however, is when CR mentions her father; it is definitely worth noting that her father died around the same time that her ghost stopped making problems for her– perhaps the ghost was tied to her father, since he mentioned that they definitely had a ghost in her childhood house. Perhaps the ghost was helping her recently deceased father get situated. Or perhaps, as she said, her father is out there, protecting her from this ghost that just wants to knock things off of shelves. Her firm belief in the presence of this ghost, and the relationship of the ghost to her father, is what makes this story truly unique.

 

Chinese New Year

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Irvine
Performance Date: 04/01/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, French
  1. The main piece: Chinese New Year

“Um… so, Chinese New Year is also called Lunar New Year and it’s… I don’t really know why they celebrate it, I guess because they used to use the lunar calendar. But basically, there are 12 cycles of the lunar year or something like that, and each of them has an animal, and the animals cycle through in rounds of 12, and so each year is the year of the something. It’s not super relevant anymore, so I don’t really know what it’s supposed to mean, but every person is born in the year of the something, and I was born in the year of the rabbit. And that’s supposed to indicate certain traits about you, but obviously that’s fake [informant laughs].

“Other things about Chinese New Year, the festivities last two weeks in China and you’re supposed to wish for good fortune and good luck. That’s why people say “Gong hay fat choi.” That’s Cantonese for good luck. Or, not good luck but congratulations on your money. That’s basically what it means.”

  1. Background information about the performance from the informant: why do they know or like this piece? Where/who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them? The context of the performance?

While the informant doesn’t necessarily agree with the folk beliefs surrounding Chinese New Year, she still faithfully celebrates it every year with her mother, sister, and grandparents. She learned it from her grandparents while her parents were still in school, and it means more to her because she was closer to her grandparents than her parents during this time. After they moved in with her family in later years, it became even more important to the informant to strictly adhere to the rules of Chinese New Year.

  1. Finally, your thoughts about the piece

I think that this festival is interesting, because it is an annual festival or celebration, yet the assignment of a year and resultant traits to each person makes it a uniquely individualized annual celebration. Since it follows the lunar calendar and is also known for celebrating the coming of spring, this festival probably originally began as a celebration of a renewed growing season for crops. It could have became more personalized as societies grew less agricultural and needed a way to highlight their differences while still celebrating their unity.

  1. Informant Details

The informant is an 18-year old Chinese-American female. While she grew up in the southern California area, she spent more time with her grandparents than her parents growing up, and felt that learning their Chinese traditions and language was the main way she bonded with them, while her younger sister never had that experience because her parents were out of school by then.

For another version of this folk festival, see:

“Chinese New Year 2018 – Year of the Dog.” Chinese New Year 2018, 2018,

chinesenewyear2018.com/.

Baseball Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 03/27/2018
Primary Language: English
  1. The main piece: Baseball Superstition

“It’s kinda a superstition. When we used to play baseball there would be…. Uh… so the rule, um, was that when you walked on to the field at the inning, you don’t step on the chalk line. You step on it, bad luck, you’re gonna lose the game, we’re all gonna die in a miserable hellfire. So a lot of people overemphasized that they weren’t gonna step on the line… like, they jumped as high as they could over the line, made a big show of it, otherwise it’s bad luck.”

  1. Background information about the performance from the informant: why do they know or like this piece? Where/who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them? The context of the performance?

The informant learned it from the kids in his neighborhood, and the kids in his community and public school. He said that it became increasingly prevalent as he went from middle to high school, and sports became more playful but more intense. There were big consequences for those who stepped on the chalk line.

  1. Finally, your thoughts about the piece

This baseball superstition seems similar to the folkloric theories of conversion magic, in which counteracting something that is considered evil or bad luck reverses that bad luck. Since the consequences of stepping on the chalk line were so greatly overexaggerated, making a show of how far from the chalk line players were made them feel as they were going to play even better since they were so far from the chalk line.

  1. Informant Details

The informant is a 22 year old American male and grew up in Tiburon, where he spent lots of time with his father and grandfather, as well as the other kids in his tight-knit neighborhood. His primary language is English, and he currently resides in Los Angeles.