Brother Monkey and Brother Lion / African American Myth

Age: 47

So, it starts off with all the animals living in the forest together peacefully, for the most part. There’s brother monkey, there’s brother lion, they’re kinda like homies they hang out together all the time, there’s brother zebra, there’s sister elephant, there’s uh, a whole bunch of other animals that you can make up along the way, right? So, brother monkey is known for not being the nicest of people he always just be messing with people, just mokeying around, right? Well, one day he finds out that sister elephant is having a birthday party and he was not invited. So he goes to brother lion he say, “brother Lion, did you get invited to this birthday party?” He said, “oh yeah I did. you talking about sister elephant? She having a birthday we gonna have cake we gonna have punch its gonna be great, right?” And he’s like, “what the hell. This ish here did not invite me to this birthday part. And um, brother lion was like, “oof. I wonder why.”  right? Because brother monkey, he just be messing with everybody and monkeying around. Well, brother monkey decided, he got it into his head that he was gonna make sure that everybody know that they shouldn’t be messing with him they should invite him to their birthday party and stop… what’s the word I wanna use, uh. Hold on a second. He said that wanted to, uh, make sure that everybody know who the boss of this here forest, right? He said, and he’s like… brother lion’s like, “Who’s the boss?” He said “you of course brother lion. You’re the boss, you the king of the forest. Uh, but I’m the boss.” He said, “Uh huh, whatever you say brother monkey.” so they get ready and they go to the birthday party. Everybody turn around when brother monkey coming in the birthday said, “oooh, who invited him I thought he wasn’t invited. What’s going on here?” right? People be whispering in the side. And brother monkey he walk up to sister elephant. He said, “I see you didn’t invite me to your birthday party huh? You’ll get enough of doing that.” So he said, “I’m gonna poop on your cake and pee in your punch!” so he go and he go to the cake and he poop a lil turdlet on the cake and he go whip out his little weeny and he piss in the punch. He said, “now all of yall aint gonna have no cake and no punch! You didn’t invite me!” And he was expecting that brother lion his homeboy was gonna back him up. And sister elephant was mad. She roared. She roared everywhere. She was like, “what the hell did you don did. This is why don’t nobody wanna invite you to no birthday invite you nowhere cuz you always wanna be starting stuff. That’s why you wasn’t invited. And I am so mad that I’ll make you eat that cake and drink that punch!” Brother monkey’s like, “yeah right. You’re gonna be up against the king of the forest brother lion! That’s my home dude, you know he gonna have my back!” And he looked around and he looked at brother lion. “Brother lion,” he’s like, “you got me brother lion?” Brother lion’s like, “you know what? You pooped on the cake and you peed in the punch, you made your bed. I ain’t got you on this one brother monkey, that was not a nice thing to do.” So he had to eat that cake and eat that punch. – Tj’Jamika English

This story was told to the informant by their father when they were young.

The informant was very protective of this story and explicitly asked to be named and credited in its posting. They claimed that it had been passed down to them by their father, who likely used it as a tool for his own self reflection.

This sort of myth seems to be very popular in diasporic African communities, and is much akin to the Anansi the Spider stories. In this, a sort of trickster animal spirit tries to overpower another and gets checked, displaying a cultural importance in upholding social boundaries. The strong characters do come come to the defense of the weak because they have committed societal wrongs. It seems to uphold a desire for healthy social awareness, checked hubris, and responsibility for one’s actions.

The Haunted Mirror

Age: 18

Text:

Interviewer: “S, tell me your story whenever you’re ready.”

SA: “Okay. So, my uncle had moved into a house a couple years ago, and my grandparents and my aunt had helped him move in. 
And while they were looking at the house, they really liked it. He was able to get everything unpacked. But he and his wife, a couple weeks or months after he had moved in, weird things started happening. 
Like, while he was home alone and his wife was at work, lights shut on and off, or he would hear things around the house, which shouldn’t have been possible because he was home alone. So after a while, with all these strange things happening, um, he decided to call, uh, like, a ghost specialist. Like a, like a priest or something like that. 
And basically the priest went through the house and saged it. Then he got somebody who he wanted to just check deeper into what was happening. But basically this person was asking a bunch of questions. 
They’re like, yeah, there is something definitely off about the house. We just don’t know what it is. And as they kept asking him more and more questions, they finally asked him something that really clicked to him, which was, ‘do you have a mirror in your garage?’ 
And he was like, yes, like, how did you know? They were like, ‘where did you like get this mirror?’ 
And basically he had told them, he said, he had gotten this mirror, which was ike, it was almost like a cultural thing around the mirror. It was like a face on top of this tiny mirror that was in his garage. 
And he told the priest or whoever it was, come in and check the house, that he had got it from a garage sale, and then the person told him you need to get rid of it immediately, because there was a spirit attached to it. And that is what was happening in the house. And basically, they told them, don’t ever bring things back from garage sales, because you never know why the person is even trying to sell it. 
Because it was a really nice mirror. So why were they trying to sell it for not a lot of money in the first place? And as soon as he got rid of the mirror, all of the weird things disappeared.”

Interviewer: “Thank you so much. Um, what do you think of the story? Do you believe it?”

SA: “My uncle… My uncle likes to lie a lot. So what do I think? 
I thought he was lying. But what made me really believe it is that his wife was also saying these things were happening and she isn’t a liar. So it’s probably true.”

Interviewer: 
”What do you think about it?”

SA: “About what?”

Interviewer: “The ghost and whether or not you believe in it or believe in ghosts in general.”

SA: “
I believe that stuff like that can happen. I believe things like that could happen, but I also believe it could be things other than ghosts.”

Interviewer: “Like such as?”

SA: 
“The wind?”

Context:

She was told the story when she was 13, and her uncle was about 39. He grew up in Oregon, and he was unemployed at the time of the story. He told this story to her in the living room of her grandparents house. The actual setting of the story took place in St. John’s, Oregon.

Analysis:

This is a clear example of peer / familial groups and their influence on ghost stories. The informant, knowing her uncle, was fairly certain he was probably not telling the truth. However, because of her aunt’s testament, she believed it. This story also follows typical ghostly motifs (flickering lights, strange noises, etc.)

Creepy College Cult

Age: 25

Text:

Interviewer: “What is your ghost story?” 


MP: “Um, so I was walking around the basement of, um, one of the buildings at my college and, um, just, like, waiting in between classes, and I saw there’s all these club posters, and then there was this poster about joining Lord Vantis’s cult, and I didn’t know who that was or what that was, but all you had to do is text the number, and I said, yeah, this will be fun. So then I joined the number, I texted the number, and the number texted back, and they started telling me about this like cult leader they had and how he was great and how he had written all these texts. And then they sent me a link to those texts. 
And this like kept going for like a week or two and they kept texting me about this guy and I was just like, well, this is so much, this is so silly. This is so much fun. But then I hadn’t heard from them for a few days. 
And I was starting to get nervous, and so I texted and I was like, is everything okay? And they were like, actually, Lord Vantis has just died. And I was like, oh no, because, well, that’s the head of this cult. 
Um, and then the next day, the pandemic started, and the school closed forever, and, well, for, like, 2 years. And so then, I was really scared because I thought that the death of Lord Vantis had caused the global pandemic. And yeah, I haven’t heard from him since, and I hope not to hear from him again, because I’m worried about what it may bring back to the world.”

Interviewer: “What do you think about or take away from the story?”

MP: “Oh, um, well, I think that maybe… It tells me that, like, the things that I encounter on my day-to-day life, I should maybe be more cautious with. 
And also, maybe don’t text random numbers you find on a poster in a random building.”

Interviewer: “Do you believe in Lord Vantis’s ghostly behaviors?”

MP: “Um, I definitely, I don’t think he’s responsible for the pandemic. 
I mean, like, I know it was, like, an actual, like, like medical thing, but like it could have been like it, it could have been exacerbated and made worse because Lord Vantis died. We’ll never know if he had lived if it would have been that bad. I’ve never seen him, and I don’t think I’d like to see him. 
So that’s good.

Context:

This story occurred at Georgetown University in the winter of 2019, directly before the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly began to spread. The informant was a Freshman at the time of her experience.

Analysis:

This experience is likely purely coincidental, as believed by myself and the informant. However, there is a sense of mystery and uneasiness, as Lord Vantis acts as this unknown, supernatural-like figure. Ghostly encounters also can often be encounters of coincidence (someone happens to hear a creak in an old house, etc). The identities of the person sending MP the messages and Lord Vantis themself remain unknown, appealing to the ghostly aspect.

Late Night Newspaper Room Ghost

Age: 58

Location: Boston, MA (Tufts University)

Text:
“when I was in college, I worked for the student newspaper, and I pulled a ton of all-nighters. I was always in that newspaper office at like 2 or 3 a.m., laying out pages, fixing articles, doing all the last-minute formatting before everything went to print. At that hour the building was basically dead. There were never really any students, no professors. Most of the time it was just me and maybe a few others from the school paper.

One night I was alone in the office working, and I heard this knocking on the door. I got up and opened the door but nobody was there. The whole hallway was silent. I didn’t really think much of it though I thought it was a bit creepy. I figured maybe someone was messing around or walking by, so I went back to work. But about twenty minutes later, the same knocking happened again. Again, I opened the door and there was nothing there.

At this point I was still trying to stay focused, but I was definitely getting freaked out. Then, sometime around four in the morning, it happened a third time. Same knocks. Same pace. Like someone was trying to get my attention on purpose. Now i was scared.

This time I didn’t open the door. I figured that if whatever it was was trying to play tricks on me, then then now would be the time that there was finally something there. So I didn’t answer it. But then it knocked again. So I got up and opened the door. There was still nothing there!

After the fourth time it never happened again. Ever. No explanation, no ending, no clue what was going on. Just knocks in the middle of the night that stopped as suddenly as they started. It was weird. Part of me thinks it was just someone messing with me. But that room could’ve been haunted”

Context:

This memorate was told to the informant by their father, who experienced repeated unexplained knocking while working alone in his college newspaper office late at night during production deadlines.

Analysis:

This memorate fits perfectly into campus ghost lore, where late-night workspaces become settings for strange and unexplained events. The repeated knocking creates a sense of intentional but invisible presence. What gives the story its power is the lack of resolution: no culprit, no explanation, just unexplained knocks that never returned. The mystery itself becomes the haunting, turning an ordinary college office into a space marked by unease and unanswered questions.

The Bride of the Ball Field

Age: 35

Location: Kailua Kona, Hawai’i

Text:

“So we’re getting back super late from an away game, like close to midnight. The field’s totally dark, no lights on anywhere, just the bus headlights. We all start unloading our gear, and I noticed the lady. At first I just stared out because I couldn’t tell what it was.

I tell everyone, ‘Do you guys see that?’ And we all look, and there’s this lady in a long white dress just walking the warning track. Slow, like she’s searching for something. At first we thought she was just some random person who wandered in, but the longer we watched her, the weirder it felt. She never looked at us, never changed her pace, never reacted at all.

Her dress was dragging behind her like it was floating, even though there was no wind. And she just kept making this slow loop around the field, head kind of tilted like she was looking for someone.

We all started unpacking the bus way faster. Like throwing bags out, not even caring where they landed because everyone just wanted to get to their cars and get out of there. By the time we left, she was still out there walking the field, not noticing us at all.

I thought about it for a while that night and recalled the dress looking like a wedding dress. Although I wasn’t sure, I thought that maybe she was searching for her husband.”

Context:

This ghost story was told to the informant by their baseball coach. The coach claimed to have encountered the apparition more than once over the years. He described the woman as a deserted bride who wanders the baseball field at night searching for the man who abandoned her on their wedding day

Analysis:

This legend blends personal testimony with the classic “white lady” ghost motif. The baseball field, normally filled with noise, players, and daylight becomes creepy when empty and dark. This creates the perfect setting for a spectral figure whose emotional trauma keeps her stuck to the space.

The lady’s slow pacing reveals her restlessness, mirroring her search for her husband who left her. The idea that she is only present at night reinforces her connection to liminality: she inhabits the darkness, the in-between spaces, and vanishes as the sun comes up.