Transcript – informant speaking
Informant 1: “There is a place at UCSC called the cat graveyard. They say that someone had a cat on campus once, and when that cat died they buried it in the backwoods of campus. As the years went on, that spot became a place for the burial of pets, as well as the site where the book of shadows of a local coven in buried. They say that that place is where one of the covens practice.”
Informant 2: “Did Steven king base his book pet cemetery on that?”
Informant 1: “Naw, none of the pets ever come to life. Some people just practice magic there.”
Informant 2: “Seems legit.”

Background
I couldn’t find any information online to confirm the existence of the burial sight. But said informant attends the school, so I find the existence of the burial ground to be a likely story. Assuming that at least the place itself is real, then it’s interesting how a certain legend spawned an actual burial ground which in turn spawned more legends. There’s no reason everyone else had to bury their cats in that location, but they did so off of one supposide story. Then by burying more pets, the land somehow took on a more mystical tone. It goes to show that even when it comes to animals, we seem to have an obsession with locations of burials. But what’s interesting is that opposed to human burial grounds, this story doesn’t contain any notion of the animals returning to life, as clarified by the informant.

Context
The story was provided during a zoom conversation about on campus college legends. The informant told the story till the end. Then afterward, a different person, who was a part of the conversation, asked if this location was related to the Steven King novel. It’s interesting how he immediately made the leap from a folk story to pop culture, even though the stories themselves are not related. After all, while the location for this story is in a graveyard, there is no notion of the undead.

Thoughts
I like ghost stories, so this one appealed to me. One thing I keep coming back to is the presence of magic within the story, but the absence of any undead. I wonder if this has anything to do with the way people view pets versus people. People might be less inclined to believe pets have souls as compared to humans, which might signify the lack of any resurrection among these animals. However, the location is still clearly classified as a place of magic. So the location of the animals resting place is still given power, but to a lesser extent than what might have been a human graveyard.