“I heard this from more than one person but one girl that told it to me said that it was, um, her cousin that this happened to… So she said that her cousin was, um, babysitting in a suburb of Minneapolis which is like a big metropolitan area in Minnesota and, um, that she… you know the parents left and whatever and the kids were asleep and she was just hanging out in their den. And she was on the computer, watching TV, stuff like that. And then there was this statue in the corner of a clown, it was a like a short little like not a big statue or a person-sized statue just a little statue of a clown just standing in the corner that she thought was watching her. So she was really freaked out by it and, like, she moved around and felt like it was like looking at her so she eventually left the room but she had to go back in to get something or maybe she wanted to watch TV again or something and she felt like it had moved a little bit. And so she was really freaked out by this clown so eventually she just went to call the parents and she was like ‘you know, you have this clown statue in your den and it’s, like, stupid and do you mind if I move it because it’s really freaking me out. I feel like it’s watching me and I wanna just put it in a closet or something.’ And then they were just like ‘Wait, like, …what?’ And she’s just like ‘You know, in the corner of the den. It’s like a little clown statue.’ And then, they’re just like ‘We don’t have a clown statue in our den.’ And then she’s like ‘It’s like a, like a, like a…midget-size!’ And they were like ‘GET THE KIDS OUT OF THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW!’ And then the next day, there was a news story about a midget that had escaped from an insane asylum that was like in another neighborhood. Which, it clearly was not a true story ‘cause I heard it from like two other people but this girl was totally convinced that this happened to her cousin and that her cousin was really freaked out and they never found the guy that was watching her and it was a real person.”
Sarah does not believe in this legend because she heard multiple accounts of this occurrence from different people in different areas. As a result, the story became less believable for her because the chances of an escaped midget from an insane asylum happening in all those different places are not as probable. The cousin was around 14 years old when this incident supposedly occurred. When I asked Sarah why she thinks this story keeps circulating, she says that she believes this story attracts interest because there is often a fear among young teenage babysitters taking care of the children all by themselves in someone else’s house. I agree with her because the role of the babysitter is to protect the house and the children and this responsibility can be quite daunting for an adolescent who might not be able to defend herself in the chance that a stranger sneaks in and hurts them. Babysitting at night is especially scary because the babysitter is usually unfamiliar with the children’s house and any noise can easily raise suspicion and paranoia about its source.

“I used to go to PS 97 elementary school in Woodhaven, NY. Every year, at the end of the year around June, um, the whole school or…yeah, the whole school would go on a picnic to Forest Park and uh all the kids would be playing around and some of them would just like to go off and explore different areas of the park. Apparently, uh, these kids went off to like a further side of the park where they’re really not supposed to be. And um, they saw like a mummy running around and um and then they like lost him or something and then they tried to go after him and found the bandages and somehow there were blood stains. At the time, I actually believed them because I was only in the third grade and especially when they were like ‘Yeah and we found a knife too’ and…it felt kinda scary. I didn’t actually see the evidence but I believed them. I got even more scared when talking to my friends at another elementary school about it later and they were like ‘Yeah! That happened to us too! There was some crazy mummy running in that park’ and I believed them too.”

It’s not surprising that Mandy believed the mummy story because multiple accounts often confirm one’s beliefs about a legend. Her fear of the mummy reflects the age group she belonged to because children are more willing to believe in supernatural stories than adults. When asked what her teachers thought of the incident, she said that they didn’t believe the kids and were a little angry that they had run off to an area of the park they weren’t supposed to and were making up pranks to scare their peers. In addition, forbidden areas often raise children’s curiosity and tempt them to investigate the “real reason” why the area is forbidden. For them, safety concerns are only a cover-up and there always has to be a hidden paranormal explanation. The pressure from different peers confirming the event, as well as supposedly physical evidence, invites discussions of belief and whether this mummy really exists or if it’s just a kid’s prank.

“In Nepal, there’s a pond behind my grandfather’s house and at night when the moon is out and reflects on the pond, you can see a reflection of a lady. Behind the pond, there’s an old, worn down, beaten shack where a mother and her three sons use to live. And behind the shack there was this mansion that they use to live in when the husband was alive. The story goes that after the father died, the family became very poor and had to sell all their belongings because the father was the main breadwinner. After the father died, they had to move into the small shack. The one thing that the woman wouldn’t sell was her wedding ring because she loved her husband too much. The eldest son got tired of living in such destitute conditions and begged his mother to sell the ring. One night he got fed up and cut off his mother’s finger with the ring and ran away and became a rich man.

One night while the eldest son was driving back from work, he noticed a woman on the side of the road and he pulled over and asked if she needed help. The lady told him that she was really tired and her house was only a mile down the road and asked if he could give her a lift. He agreed and let the lady in his car and as they were driving towards her house, he told her that she looked familiar but could not put a name to her face. She pretended to be surprised but she already knew who he was and told him that she often gets that remark from people. She shows him her hand and he freaks out and realizes that the hand belongs to his mother and loses control of the car and goes off a cliff and dies.

Her reflection is still seen on the pond because she’s still looking for the ring that her son sold a long time ago.”

My friend, Rocky, heard about this story when she was in the third grade while visiting her grandfather in Nepal. She says that it is a family story and it deals with the history of the house. The house had been passed down through the family for many generations. She heard the story from her older cousin and she thinks that her cousin probably heard it from another family member. It is often told between the children of the house. Rocky believes that it was made up to scare kids so that they do not go out at night. She always wanted to go play outside, but her parents never wanted to let her, and so her cousin shared the story with her. Rocky also thinks that her cousins made it scarier just to poke fun at her. One night when she could see the moon out, her cousins hid behind some white curtains and started making noises and it freaked her out.

I believe that Rocky’s idea about the origins of this legend could be true. It definitely seems like a scare tactic to keep children away from the pond at night. This story would keep children wary of going too close to the pond when the moon is out, a dangerous time for children to be out alone. The legend also seems to be pretty recent because the son drives a car. Automobiles did not become widespread until the 1920s and so, I am guessing that either the legend is only a few generations old or that newer generations of children added the car into the story. The second assumption makes more sense to me because the legend is folklore and is subjected to alterations and variations according to Alan Dundes.

“There’s this Seven Bridges story around where I live that Tim and his friends brought me to.  When you walk in you cross seven bridges. It’s like a little trail thing and when you come back out, you only cross six because the last bridge you cross is to the underworld. So like you never come back out of the underworld or whatever once you’re in it, so you never cross the last bridge when you come back. We went pass the first one and I freaked out and we left. But it’s private property and so it gets blocked off at the fourth bridge.”

The first time Amanda heard about the seven bridges was when her friend told her about ghost hunting in her early high school career. She went home and researched online and eventually found the story there. However, she heard it again back in August when she was nineteen years old when her friends brought her to the actual place even though she did not want to go. She thinks the story is pretty old, but that it was created after Hawaii was civilized and built up to what it is like now after seeing the structure of the bridges. If the bridges are still in tact, then it means that they cannot be that old. The story of the seven bridges is often told when a group of teenagers are together and have nothing else to do but to share scary stories. According to Amanda, there are quite a few ghost stories that are native to Hawaii. Since the seven bridges are right by Amanda’s hometown, it is a very popular one amongst the students there.

I am guessing that this story arose from someone who was walking on the trail at night and got spooked by something they heard or saw. Since the seven bridges are surrounded by trees, it is easy to mistaken noises and movements of the trees for something else. The legend could be a result of a memorate which is when someone narrates what happened to them and then the audience interprets it into a legendary form. In this case, it deals with death and ghosts. This could also be an urban legend because it is presented in an eerie manner and deals with a contemporary setting. It deals with psychological views of death and the underworld because people are still unsure about what the afterlife has in store for them. It is one of the major insecurities of the human race; what comes after life.