Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Friendly Wolf

Nationality: White
Age: 53
Occupation: Film and Television Producer
Residence: Los Angeles, California, USA
Performance Date: 11/12/2013
Primary Language: English

This ghost story comes to me from my mother.  Interestingly, when asking her to tell the story, she kept insisting that it was not a ghost story.  Instead, she referred to it as a “strange occurrence.”  It was only until I referred to the events as a “strange occurrence” that she would tell me the story.  Her story goes as follows:

So, when I was little I was a Girl Scout.  And so we had… Our Girl Scout leader was Bryan.  He was a friend of my parents, and they had known him quite a while.  And so he brought us on this camping trip.  And by us, I mean my whole Girl Scout troop.  So, we took a car and drove out to this campground.  That night, he thought it would be fun to tell stories and so he started with a story that he said had happened to him.

So he was also a Boy Scout leader.  And he took a bunch of Boy Scouts camping.  And they went to the wood.  So, they set up camp and did their normal Boy Scout thing.  So, then one of the kids decided that he wanted to go fishing, so they got up all the fishing equipment and went to the lake.  While they were fishing, one of the boys looked up and suddenly they had this wolf walk up to all of them.  And they were scared to death of him.  But the wolf didn’t seem to be afraid of them.

So, Bryan he ended up becoming friends with this wolf for the few days that they were camping.  And the wolf would follow him around wherever he went.  What was strange was the feeling that he got with this wolf.  It was almost as if he knew the wolf, like he was a family member or something.  They kinda seemed to understand each other on… like… a different level.  Like, it was as if the spirit of someone close to him was in the wolf.  So, anyway, then he had to say goodbye to this wolf when they were leaving the campgrounds.  And he said goodbye to the wolf, and the wolf howled at him. And he thought, “Ok, whenever I hear a wolf howl, I will think of you. “

So, he went back home.  And he figured the wolf was old, and so it probably died pretty soon after that encounter.  So, he told us that whenever he goes camping, he always keeps his ear out for something, or to hear something howl.  Or like, a star to shoot across the sky.  Because whenever he hears a howl or something to shoot by, like a shooting star, he knows that the wolf’s spirit is nearby.

And just in that moment, when he finished telling all of us Girl Scouts the story, we looked up to the sky, and heard a howl and saw a shooting star go by. And he goes, “See there he is again.  The wolf.  He shows up when you least expect it.”

Analysis:

My mother, while telling this story, made it seem as spooky as possible by taking pauses and speaking in a hushed tone.  Additionally, because it was nighttime, and she was telling me this story in a parked car, the atmosphere was quite creepy.  I wasn’t able to tell if she really believed the story, or if she believed in the spirit of a wolf haunting her Scout Master, but the way she told the story seemed to imply that it could have all been true.

This story is a favorite of my mothers, and she has told this story to me on many occasions.  One time while camping, she had my father clued in to the story, so at the very end of it, he (hidden in the bushes) howled like a wolf.  This was in order to fake the idea that the story was true, and convince me and my brother of its validity.  My mother claims “I guess I told the story partly to scare you, but mostly just to entertain you.”  While I do agree with this, I feel this story, on a deeper level, is there to teach about humanity’s connection to nature.  It implies that mankind has a duty to respect animals, and even shares some Native American influence in the way it suggests that a deceased soul can go into the body of an animal.  It is also there to, similar to the purpose of a myth, explain some phenomenon in nature (e.g. shooting stars and wolf howls) using a spiritual explanation rather than a scientific one.  It could also be argued that this story is there to suggest that if a person is nice to nature, nature will be nice back.  Whatever the purpose, it is a thought-provoking story, and will most likely continue to be told to me again and again, year in and year out.

The Golden Child

Nationality: Thai
Age: 26
Occupation: Employee
Residence: Bangkok, Thailand
Performance Date: November 10th, 2013
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Every April, it is common that Thai people go back to their homes for a big family gathering, as it is Thai New Year holiday. The informant detailed on her personal spiritual encounter back then.

“I went to stay with my uncle after a family gathering night at his place during Song Kran (Thai New Year). His house was in the countryside and quite isolated from the city itself. It was perfect sized for our family of 7.

Our whole family stayed together that night. I couldn’t sleep that well as I kept having nightmares. It was weird as I don’t usually dream at all. I thought it was one off. However, my whole family seemed to have the same problem as we discussed in the morning about our restless night. When I learned my family shared the same sort of dreams. That made me doubt if the whole thing was just a dream anymore.

When I was falling asleep, the doorknob was making so much noise as if someone was trying to get in.  I thought it was my maid (as I usually sleep with her). The door creaked open, but just a bit, not fully open. I was in such state that I couldn’t care less, so I just ignored it. As the night went on, I started hearing noises. It was so much like several kids were giggling and playing catch. I woke up to it for a few times but I didn’t see anything so thought it was just a dream. At some point I even felt someone was trying to pull my cover away. It was a bad night sleep for me.

In the morning, my mother and sister made a complaint that there were kids playing outside her room for the whole night so she couldn’t sleep.  That was when my uncle, the owner of the house, brought us to light – he told us he has this girl in his care, and she was not human.”

I have heard of this story many times, people, usually in the countryside of Thailand, would feed this type of child ghost in return of its protection, depending on how they use it. For example, there was this nurse I met at a hospital and she claimed that she owned one of these ‘golden children’. She also claimed the golden child helped her family protecting the shop (small supermarket her family owned) from bad spirits.

“It was no doubt we were kid by the golden child in his care. At first I was terrified by the thought of being haunted some spirit. But then my uncle pointed out how pitiful these kids must be. Usually, the golden children come from dead babies that didn’t make it through – they didn’t even get any childhood. That is why they wanted some attention. They wanted to play. They wanted some love that they never received.”            

Unlike many other ghosts, the golden children often visit harmlessly; just like other human children- they want attention and care. The idea of having some inhumane visitor is scary for me. I, myself, never encountered anything like this before and would never wish to. But in this case, if I ever got a chance to experience something similar to the informant, the least I could do is to give these children some sympathy.

“Few days later I went to my uncle’s house again and put some children toys on the shrine (they usually have some sort of residential shrine). I hope it brought her some entertainment and she wouldn’t feel as lonely anymore.”

House Spirit

Nationality: Thai
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: November 9th, 2013
Primary Language: English

“We’ve just moved into a new house in July. It was an old house. We live here temporarily as our house was going under renovation and it would take a while to finish it.

It was the second month until something weird started happening. I have my own bedroom on the second floor and one night I just heard my two dogs barking non-stop for the whole night. I looked out the window and yelled at them several times but they never stopped until the sun came up. I thought it was just some stray cats running around our field. Then one night, I experienced some odd feelings while I was asleep. I am very easy person to fall asleep but that night, I just couldn’t. I went to toilet many times and tried to fall asleep. Every time I was about to fall into unconsciousness I felt like my whole body went numb. It was harder to breathe and I couldn’t move at all. Every time that happened I tried to fight it off and when I was able to move again I felt like the whole thing was just a dream. This dream though, kept repeating itself for the next hour or more. By 5am my whole body was covered in sweat and I had this piercing headache. I ended up sleeping with my mother and got through the night.

This happened a few times before I realized it wasn’t just a bad dream. I finally told my mother about it. She never experienced it before, but she believed me. We consulted many friends and people around us and one suggested that it could have been house’s spirit that was bothering me. I didn’t understand why it had to be me, not anyone else in the family. Then as we did researches into this, we found that the bed was in the wrong direction- it was headed south and that was the direction where dead people laid. Furthermore, it was commonly believed that house’s spirits need a place to stay so that they can take care of the household.”

In Thailand we call it “San Pra-Poom”- it is in a form of small wooden house with a little decorations and is usually located outside the house. The spirit that lives here offers protection to the house. Many houses including mine have it but the informant’s did not, so she concluded that either the spirit might want to tell her that they need somewhere to live or that she was actually disturbed by outsider’s spirit. It made sense that her house’s spirit couldn’t protect her because there was no place for them.

 

The Helping Hands

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Occupation: Freshman Student at University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 11/13/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

This story was told to me by a fellow student, Priya, and is a personal experience of hers involving an eerie yoga camp.

Priya: ” So we were in yoga camp, and yoga camp already has a creepy vibe cause it was beside a mental asylum, like actually because you know they say yoga is therapeutic.  So we were all split into groups and we had to do dances, and I was with my friend, and my friend and I went to this auditorium and there was no one there…are you listening? Well ok,  And it was this HUGE auditorium, no one else was there everyone else was at dinner, and we had to like set up for our performance and whatever, and this never happens, but we were on stage and between like these HUGE curtains, like they were HUGE, um and the lights go off.  And like I grab her, and we like entangled for a couple of seconds, and it was freaky cause it was dark, and like we were young, and away from our parents, and we thought that we would get raped, and the lights came back on and we ran.  And then I talked to her and I was like, ‘I’m so glad I had you to hold on to,’ and she was like, ‘what do you mean.’ *nervous laugh* IT WAS SO WEIRD, it was so weird cause it was like I held on to hands, its not like I held on to some pillar I held on to actual hands, like around me, no one else was on stage just me and my friend the whole auditorium was completely empty…it was weird, it already had this really creepy, like if you went into some parts it had these creepy vibes. (in reference to the yoga camp).”

Me: ” So you it was just you two , you went in, the lights went off, you hugged someone…”

Priya: ” we were leaving, onstage, and we were getting on to leave, and we were onstage between the curtains, and the lights go off, and then I grab like I just grabbed someone in between the curtains, because I thought she was right in front of me, so I just grab hands, like actual hands, and then we ran because it was so creepy, and then we ran back to the dinner place and then I was like ‘I was glad I had you to hold on to’ and she said ‘you didn’t hold my hand.’  I mean I didn’t want to think about it much then because I had to think about the dance performance or whatever…but ya…”

Priya decided to tell this story because it was something from her childhood that still affects her, and since it was at a vulnerable stage in her life.  She felt that yoga is a pretty creepy thing, because it is usually an out of body experience, and she felt that there is something surreal, ethereal about it.  She and fellow campers found out there was a mental asylum near by, before this incident, and the camp became eerie after they found out.

This is a great story, following the story themes of “creepy camp” surroundings, near by threat (mental asylum), and psychological affects of being separated from protection (camp away from parents.)  Priya pointed out she was young and away from her parents when she experienced this, showing how she felt vulnerable to danger.  This vulnerability is specifically pointed out when she mentions that they were afraid of getting raped, also a theme most tragic ghost storied involve.  This was also a liminal period in her life, when she was growing up and adjusting to being a teenager.  She mentions they found out about the asylum before this incident, so they were already weary of scary things to occur.  Add that to the fact they were alone in an overwhelmingly large building, and you have the perfect setting for terror to occur.  With the “huge” curtains and stage, Priya could imagine “something” easily lurking in the darkness.  The fact that the lights going off in the stage “never happens” makes Priya and her friend feel something has gone wrong, and strange stuff can occur when things are out of place.  Priya talks to her friend afterwards and thanks her for her comforting support, and when the friend replies that she did not hold on to Priya, they both come to the conclusion, based on the eerie camp and mental asylum near by, that something “not human” held Priya, since they were both alone, and felt vulnerable to attack.  She mentions again and again the creepy vibes the camp gave her, so this conclusion was easy to come to for them.  The fact that she held actual hands stuck with her, because of the creepiness of the contrast from the emotional support she got in the moment and the horrible discovery afterwards.  She also validates the asylum’s nearness to the camp, stating that yoga is therapeutic, so the patients in the mental asylum could use the camp to their benefit, and may even haunt some areas in the camp.

The White Figure

Nationality: Indian
Age: 50
Occupation: Family and Marriage Counselor (Therapist)
Residence: California
Performance Date: 11/12/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Tamil

This ghost story was told to me by my mother, Radha, who lives in Northern California and is a family therapist for a living.  It was told to her by her father, who claims it all to be completely true.

“It was a dark night, and three men, including my dad, were driving back home from a business meeting,” she starts.  “They had a flat tire and it delayed them, so when they did start to drive, the only road they could take back was very dark and desolate. They only had their headlights to see ahead.  There was not one soul out there.”  “They were concerned another tire would go flat, so they wanted to get home as quickly as possible.  However, as they started driving down the road, they saw a narrow bridge in the distance, one they would have to cross.  On that narrow bridge, they saw a white figure standing near the side.  Their hearts pounded as they drove closer to the white figure, and as they approached the bridge, they saw it was a crazy woman, in all white clothing, with crazy eyes and flowing black hair.  She stared at each one of them through the car with a deranged smile, and even touched the car.”  “They screamed and sped through the bridge, and when they looked back to the bridge moments after seeing her, she vanished.”

My mom wanted to tell this story because it was an interesting family anecdote for her, and also partly to scare me as a child.  She heard it from her father, and remember him being too terrified to tell the story than to have any motive to scare my mom.

This story has all the classic elements of a ghost story: dark night, lonely road, and “white” ghost.  The stark contrast of the white woman in the dark of the night makes this story all the more scary.   The men were already weary of danger, because of a flat tire that caused them to delay and want to rush home through the darkness.  They almost subconsciously anticipated danger, because of their surroundings and unstable car. My mother also claimed that my grandfather found out there was a mental asylum near the road.  They figured the ghost had come from there to haunt anyone who passed.  The deranged smile the woman had led the men to believe she was in fact insane, and intent on them driving off the road.  The fact that she allegedly touched the car made the horror real for the men.  My mother used to replicate the deranged face of the woman in order to scare me and my brother even further when she told us this story.  This ghost story could serve as a warning to be weary when you drive on dark roads, cause there may be dangers ahead.