Category Archives: Narrative

Thunder Explained to a Child

Text:

“The angels are bowling”

Context:

“The angels are bowling,” my mom use to tell me when I was a child. I was so afraid of thunderstorms, so my mom told me that thunder was just the angels in Heaven bowling. I stopped being afraid of thunder then and would just complain that the angels always had to go bowling when I was trying to fall asleep.

Analysis:

In order to help me overcome my fear of thunderstorms, my mother constructed a legend – a story set in the real world and told as if it was true. Now, I asked her if she came up with the legend on her own, and she tells me she’s not sure. She may have heard it from somewhere else or come up with it on the spot. My family and I are Christians, so my mother used emic, or insider’s, language when discussing that thunderstorms are just angels bowling to esoterically communicate to me that I had nothing to fear.

Huntington Beach Cult Legends

Context:

Two years ago, the informant went with her friends to Huntington Beach. When they took a walk on the beach, they noticed something washed up on the sand.

Text:

The informant and her friends noticed that there were dead birds with their heads cut off all along the beach. She cites seeing “at least thirteen dead bodies with their heads cut off” and the birds included doves, roosters, and pigeons. The informant asked the lifeguard on duty about the dead birds and the lifeguard noted that a local satanic cult practices at night. Additionally, the lifeguard admitted that he was not allowed to move or remove the heads since it is a state beach and the birds are presumed to have died naturally.

Analysis:

This account is a memorate, or personal experience narrative about a legendary event. The informant themselves was unsure of how much to believe the legend of satantic cults residing in Huntington, indicating how legends are presented as believable but their truth is ultimately debated. The involvement of the lifeguard adds vernacular authority to the story and reflects how legends help people make sense of disturbing events. As Lindahl examines in the cases of Hurricane Katrina legends, such narratives often act to process uncertainty and assign blame when events lack explanations. The story demonstrates how belief is fundamentally shaped by our interactions and stories that we tell.

Dunkin Ghost

Folklore:
At a Dunkin’ Donuts near USC, there is a Dunkin Ghost that haunts which causes random acts of high jinx during odd hours of service.

Context:
The informant works at the Dunkin Donuts near USC and told a story about their experiences with the Dunkin Ghost. “My story is about my job at Dunkin… I have been working at Dunkin for 2 years now… I don’t know how long the Dunkin Ghost has been a thing… a beeper would go off with no one entering…moved the trash can to the middle lobby… very heavy and knew that they didn’t move it… the alarm didn’t go off and it showed no one on camera.” The ghost was used to explain weird happenings around the store.

Analysis:
The folklore tends to be used as an explanation for things without explanation or for things that are done outside of expectation. It is a folklore shared within a service and work community which are held to certain expectations and rules. The explanation of the Dunkin Ghost is able to explain away the weird happenings or happenings that don’t meet those rules. Though in some cases, the ghost is used to explain happenings that don’t have a reasonable explanation.

The Motel Wife Ghost of Santo Domingo

1. Informant name- M P
2. Date of Performance- April 4,2026
3. Age- 59
4. Ethnicity- Dominican
5. Career/Occupation- Retired
6. Hometown- Santo Domingo
7. Informant’s language- Spanish

Story –

In Santo Domingo on the 27th of February a woman and her boyfriend died after a few days of getting married to each other by a car. After everything that happened in that area in the morning around 4 or 3 in the morning she would come out to people. What the people would do when they saw her was they would get into a big car accident. In addition, a friend of my sister was going to get married. It was a Monday and they were gonna get married on Tuesday. He went on a car drive on the 27th of February and died right there , right where she died. She always came out and a lot of people would die there.

Context- 

This story was told to me by my grandma over a motel corner in the Dominican Republic.

Their thoughts-

My grandma is someone who is really connected with spirits so ah bee lives this story heavily. She told me that she was always warned of this corner and would never drive it. She also said when she ever walked past this corner that she could feel a heavy pretense. Over all she believed that there was actually a spirit there.

My thoughts-

Although I do in some form believe that there are entities beyond us I think that all the car crashes here could have been accidents. The ghost of this woman was said to come out really early in the morning so perhaps the people who encountered her were just really tied. For all the crashes that can possibly be chalked up to it being a dangerous corner because many of the streets in the Dominican Republic are behind on upkeep and overall dangerous. With that being said I’m not the most convinced of this story but I also do not believe the story.

The Long Shadow

Age: 18

Informant: “I became very paranoid when it first started happening. My parents were on a work trip in another country for a month. This wasn’t the first time they did this, so I wasn’t worried about being home alone. It randomly happened one night when I was sitting on my bed in the dark. I felt something feel my back.”

Interviewer: Was this a one time occurrence?

Informant: “Every day for the rest of my time home alone, I felt the sensation again. Eventually, I started using my sunset lamp since I was afraid to be in the dark. With the sunset lamp, I realized that there was an unforeseen issue. I could see shadows. The first night I used it, I started to see a long figure, kinda like slenderman, and afterwards felt it again.” 

Interviewer: How did you react to this, it sounds scary.

Informant: “I tried to check the shadow, but it was only ever in the corner of my eye. When I tried to directly look at it, it disappeared, but it never really went away. Once my parents came back, I never felt the sensation again, but my paranoia has spiked to a maximum. They’ve gone on more trips, but my anxiety is at an all time high every time I’m home alone. I can’t help but think it’s going to happen again.”

Context: The informant lives in a suburban neighborhood, and has not previously experienced paranormal activity. The house that the informant resides in was built within the past 20 years. She has only told the interviewer this story.

My Thoughts: This is a supernatural memorate. The reference to slenderman shows that internet folklore shapes the way that people interpret unexplained experiences. The fact that the experiences stopped when her parents returned suggests a link between isolation and vulnerability. This theme is commonly seen where being alone creates conditions for encounters. Folklore can produce long term psychological effects, even after the events cease, as seen in this case. 

Their Thoughts: The informant believes that this was a supernatural experience, and it has taken a toll on her sense of security at home. However, she considers scientific explanations, such as light and shadow distortion or a psychological reason for feeling tactile sensations.