Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

Silence of the Lambs

Age: 27
Occupation: Sales Associate
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English

“For about a month straight after watching the horror movie, Silence of the Lambs, I woke up at the same time every night with really bad night terrors. They were so bad that sometimes I was too afraid to breathe because I was so certain that a monster was across the hall waiting to attack me. I could not control my fears and I could not control the nightmares that struck me every night. One day, my younger sister told me that she had been having nightmares recently too, so I decided to sleep in her bed with her. I hoped that it would calm both of us down.”

“That night, I woke up at 3:30 AM, the same time I usually had my night terrors. I immediately noticed that my sister was awake as well, and she was sitting up in her bed staring at the corner. She looked frozen; she would not move a muscle. In a panic, I popped up and said ‘Leila what are you looking at???’ to which she responded, ‘Tara don’t you see that? Don’t you see that face in the corner?!?’”

“Immediately after, Leila sprinted out of the room and slammed the door. I was left alone in the room and was so scared I could barely function. I swear to G-d I felt something emanating in the corner of the room, it looked like the outline of a man’s face. I worked up the courage to get up and sprint downstairs to my parent’s room, where my sister was already screaming and crying. My parents were shook by my own fear as well as my sister’s fear and in turn, they anointed Leila’s room with holy oil and threw away a bunch of books. After that, nothing of this manner ever occurred again in my home. I also never woke up at 3:30 AM with another night terror again. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know if I am crazy, but my sister and I were both overwhelmed with and are convinced that we both saw a face.”

 

My Interpretation of this story:

 

Through my research, I have notice many stories that involve the corner of a room being the place of question. This makes me curious as to why the corner of a room has such connections with the supernatural or the irrational. Besides that part of the story, I believe this is a classic case of the mind. Personally, when I was younger and watched horror movies, I experienced similar troubles. Horror movies give the sense of terror without actually having to personally experience, which can be analogous to dreams giving people a sense of reality without it actually being real. Because of the similarity in feelings and less of a physical experience than real life, it can be determined that the imagination has taken over. The movie, most likely, took over the sisters dreams and caused them to feel an even further effect of imagination, because they had never experienced such and thing in real life or even in their dreams. The level of intangibility of the situation in addition to the time of night can offer an explanation for these visions and feelings. Additionally, once the parents of the teller in a way ridded the room of the bad vibes and the terrors disappeared, I felt more of a sense of personal security from the story rather than an actual ghost experience.

The Golden Fish

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 83
Performance Date: 04/02/18

Once there lived a man, he was the king of Egypt.   He was going blind and getting more ill by the day. One day a foreigner, traveller came. He was a doctor and asked to look at the king. After so, he said “I can fix it but I need a fish… a gold fish, golden fish. I will make a juice from the fishes blood to cure the king.” So the prince, the kings son, set out on a journey to find the golden fish. He had 100 days before the foreign doctor would leave and return to his homeland. On the last possible night, he still hadn’t found the fish but he said “I will cast a net one more time tomorrow morning, it’s too late but if I catch the fish, at least I can show my father I did my best.” So the man cast a net and he caught the fish. The man looked at the fish and felt bad for it… he didn’t want it to die, so he threw it back into the water. Now the story gets very different here.

So the prince went to the king and told him what had happened. The king threatened to kill his own son. But the queen, the prince’s mom, smuggled him on a ship in the night with gold in his pockets. She told him “Go and find a new life, but don’t hire a servant on monthly pay.” The prince didn’t understand but he did it because the queen was his mom. So he set out and found a beautiful place to settle. As soon as he had, servants came to ask him to hire them, but they all wanted monthly pay. The final man that came in for an interview was the only one who didn’t request monthly pay. So the prince hired him. The servant was the kindest nicest servant to the prince. One day the prince desired to marry the daughter of the new king. So the servant went to the king and asked him if that was possible. The prince had acquired much jewelry and gold and he was gonna give it to the king for his daughter. The king agreed to let the prince marry his daughter but told him, “My daughter has had many husbands but none live more than one night with her.” The servant told the prince and said, “Take a chance the luck will change,” so the prince agreed to marry the daughter.

On the night of the wedding they were in their wedding room. At some point in the night, a serpent came out of the mouth of the princess. The servant was quick however, and he killed the snake. So the curse had been broken and the two lived happily ever after. That isn’t the ending. The prince received a letter one day. His father, the king of Egypt had died, so he mother, the queen, requested his presence back in Egypt as the new king. So he left with his new wife, and his servant. A short while after they arrived the servant requested to go back home. The prince was very upset but said “I do not want to see you go, but I cannot stop you, you’ve saved my life, without you I would have been dead a while ago.” The servant looked the prince in the eye and said, “Without you, I would have been dead a while ago, for I am the Golden Fish.”

  1. When did you hear this story?

I read it not too long ago actually, but, I find that when you do the right thing, you get blessed with great gifts. So from the earliest days of my business I always did the right thing, and I’m pleased with the outcome today.

My Thoughts:

The moral behind this story is to do what’s right even when it doesn’t seem convenient. The prince saved the fishes life, and in turn, the golden fish, became the princes servant and repaid his debt to the prince.

The Old Man, The Young Man and the Donkey

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 83
Performance Date: 04/02/18

There is this guy, this man, you know, uhh, with his grandson and their donkey. So he’s going from one village to another village. The grandson is sitting on the donkey and the old man is walking next to it. There’s a bunch of people… they look at him and say, “Look at this young guy. He’s so heartless and so selfish; letting this poor old man walk while he’s sitting on the donkey.” The young kid gets very upset, gets off the donkey and makes the old man sit on the donkey… he walks next to it. So another group of people see them and said “Look at this mean old man, he lets this poor kid walk in the sun and he’s sitting on the donkey.” So the old man gets embarrassed and he gets off the donkey. Then what he does is ask the little kid to sit on the donkey and they end up both sitting on the donkey. Then there’s another group of people who see them and they say, “Look at these horrible people they’re torturing the poor donkey.” So they both get off and pass another group of people who say “Look at these stupid people, they might as well have the donkey ride on there.”

Sometimes you can never win no matter what you’re gonna do some people are gonna say you’re doing bad and some people will say what you’re doing it right. So do your best with what you’ve got and ignore other people.

My Thoughts:

I have always been told “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” This is a variation on that story I suppose, whereas listening to peoples words will only cause problems. Do what you think is best and don’t be distracted by others… the haters… if I may.

The Story of Aktamar

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 83
Performance Date: 04/02/18

Tamar is a woman’s name. And Aktamar means oh Tamar. Tamar was in love with this guy, and the girl’s father was against it. So the girl says… oh wait they live on Lake Van. It’s a big lake between Turkey and western Armenia. So he says he’s gonna elope with her. So he says “What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna have a candle lit up. And I’ll be waiting for you on the shore so pay attention to the candle.” So he jumps in the water and swims to shore… but it happens to be a windy day and the candle wears away. And the poor guy swims and swims and swims back and forth to relight the candle until he drowns. And as he’s drowning, he says “AKTAMAR, AKTAMAR, AKTAMAR” which means like “Oh Tamar” and now this island where the candle was supposed to be is called Aktamar Island.

  1. Where is Lake Van located exactly?

Lake Van is a big lake and it used to be an Armenian lake, but the Turks took it over and now it’s in Turkey.

  1. Was the lake lost to Turkey after the genocide?

It was taken before the genocide… it was under ottoman rule, and after the genocide, there was no part of it left in Armenia.

  1. Where did you first hear this story?

I don’t remember really, it’s a kind of Armenian folklore, and when someone loses his girlfriend basically the boys all cry out “Aktamar” basically saying, I tried very hard but I lost.

 

 

My Thoughts:

This reminds me of a variation of Romeo and Juliet. It’s a nice story about love however very sad how both of them end in tragedy. Also within the story of Midsummer Nights Dream, there’s another story that is very similar to this one.

The Blue Sky Lodge

Age: 27
Occupation: Sales Associate
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English

“About three weeks ago I went to the Bay for my first cousin’s wedding. I was super excited to reunite with all my siblings and extended family in Carmel, which is definitely one of the most beautiful cities in California and by far my favorite. My parents checked us in to the Blue Sky Lodge on a Friday afternoon. Immediately after walking in to our room, I looked at my sister and said ‘This place is so sketchy.’ I looked around at the layer of dust covering the creepy paintings and outdated furniture. I also screeched as the wooden floors let out a creek with every step I took. My sister and I ran to our parents’ room next door and complained about how strange this place was. Mom told us to stop complaining and to get ready for dinner.”

“After a beautiful rehearsal dinner overlooking the ocean, my family returned to our weird lodge and got ready for bed. I noticed that there was a light in the closet that did not have a switch to turn it off. Instead, a single string hung from the ceiling, which I gently tugged at to make the room dark. I got in to bed next to my sister and we put a movie on. Then, we were interrupted by the closet light flickering on and off continuously for the next two minutes straight. My sister and I were both a little tipsy from the evening’s festivities, leading this occurrence to freak us out big time. We put the covers over our heads and watched our movie in total darkness since we were both too scared to get up and examine the situation.”

“Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up to a loud screeching noise followed by the closet light flickering on and off AGAIN. This time, the light was flickering faster and faster and it went on for five minutes straight. I woke up my sister, but both of us were too tired and scared to grab our parents. The next morning, we ran in to my mom’s room and told her that this place was SCARY. We then decided to look up our hotel online, only to discover that it is one of the most haunted places in all of California! There have been reports of paranormal experiences and various guests described feelings of uneasiness in reviews online. One website claimed, ‘Inexplicable fears, stress, and vivid nightmares make for a very restless evening.’ The feelings of unease that I felt at the Blue Sky Lodge led me to believe that there were haunted spirits in the Carmel atmosphere. I am not really sure why this happened and I don’t have an explanation, but I am certain that there was some type of paranormal activity going on.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

In listening to this story, there are many possible reasons for the specific paranormal activity that happened in the tellers room. It is noted in the beginning of the story that the hotel is not the nicest of places, which does not make it hard to believe that there are mechanical errors in lighting and other appliances. The sounds of screeching can also be explained through the wretchedness of the hotel. What I found interesting was what followed the actual ghost story, and that is the research on the hotel. A trait that makes a ghost story more likely to be accurate and believable is consistency. This hotel and are in Carmel has a history of strange experiences that have been reported but multiple guests, that support the claims made by the story teller. It is noted that the teller has not specific ties with the hotel or the area, meaning that the experience must be related to the hotel or its location rather than the people effected. Because activity has been reported by many of different people, it is evident that the situation is revolved around the hotel specifically and can be attributed to the other strange occurrences that have happened there.