The Thunderbird

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA
Language: English

“The Thunderbird is a mysterious being, and is said to be the biggest bird alive today. Its wingspan is over 20 feet long and it feeds on small dogs and sometimes even children. While on vacation to Fiji, my 4th grade teacher became aware of such a creature. Reports of pets going missing had aroused suspicion within the neighborhood. There is even a report of seeing that of a shadow in the sky. While out for a walk with his dog, he felt eyes on him. Surrounded by trees, on a path, he couldn’t tell where from. He left as fast as he could, without a second thought. Later that day, a report came in from the path he was on of a woman being picked up by what could only be the Thunderbird. There were huge claw marks on her shoulders and the talons had impaled her. How did she get free? Who knows. She fractured both her ankles from the fall, but was lucky to be alive. Let’s just say, that was my teacher’s first and last time in Fiji.”

This is a story the informant heard from his 4th-grade science teacher once he had finished his work. It was a way the teacher mixed the facts of science with the mystical legends and unexplained aspects of the world. He made science more engaging because he believed in more than just scientific research. It also encourages students to travel and explore the parts of the world that they don’t know.

The Legend of the Sex Couch

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA

The interviewee was a member of the local high school’s theater program and valued the legend as something to pass on, joke about, and even create a taboo of not touching the couch. 

“Ok so when I first joined theater there was like a faint mention of something called the sex couch. But there was like multiple couches so I didn’t really know which one it was. We used a green couch for [her 2nd show] and someone made a comment that was like “that’s the sex couch” but I knew we had just gotten that one from dumpster diving but later someone told me that it was the pink couch that was kept above the lighting aisle which was also used in [the same show] so I definitely just misunderstood whoever told me which one was which. It seemed like most people in the grades above me knew what the sex couch was and it was just like my first introduction to it was [this show]. People would talk about the couch in like passing and we had basically made jokes about it. [J], the head of lighting, even said that he himself had had sex on the couch, although I never knew if that was actually true or just him adding to the lore. One time during I think [her 5th show] [R] brought in a black light and we had like a big crowd gather to see if there was actually anything on the couch, and oh boy yeah there was on both sides of the cushions too. I think the sex couch is something that most people know about in the program and I definitely talked about it to new people and like told them what it was”

Though it may seem childish and silly, the idea of people having sex is a very grown-up idea for a freshman in high school. This legend was used to embarrass kids but also make them feel like a member of the club. An inside joke to share and whisper behind the director’s back. Upon further fieldwork, I discovered that many high school theaters have such couches. Besides passing it down as a story it is also considered an item of taboo or bad luck if you were the person in charge of retrieving or moving the sex couch. Nothing would happen from touching it but the humour and picking fun is relentless anyway. I believe it is important to have these jokes and these histories because it creates a glue that connects past and present as well as all the members to each other no matter where they are in their lives.

Flying doll

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: college student
Language: English

Text:

“I was sitting in front of the couch on the floor and behind me I had my Jessie doll sitting with like some lion stuffed animal, I think, just like above– behind my head. And I was watching television, I didn’t move, I was just sitting there, I was content, and my doll flew across the room. To the other side of the couch. Like, as if it was thrown or something”

Context:

 “It would have been like first grade, or second? More like second grade, so around 8. And I was a latchkey kid, so it was one of those times I was left home alone. I had gotten used to being left home alone, but I couldn’t – I couldn’t stand the silence, I couldn’t stand the sounds because it was creepy and we would, like, I would always hear footsteps in the halls and stuff and it was just creepy. My parents said it was the cats underneath the trailer but you never know. Children are imaginative. 

Analysis:

This memorate of what the interviewee defines as a ghost encounter is interesting first because it happened while she was alone. Many encounters derive validity from multiple accounts of the same or similar events, but this person had strong belief in their encounter even without someone else there to witness it and without recollection of the same happening to other family members. They also did not tie this event to a greater expectation of their home being haunted in this way, although she did mention hearing footsteps. This implies that the movement of the doll was an isolated event, although the general haunting may have been consistent. As she describes being left home alone after school and being scared of the various noises, it seems that this space became a center of belief for the individual. Because of the increased eerieness of the trailer, especially as a child, her belief may have been augmented so she was more willing to correlate her memorate immediately with the existence of a ghost. This also speaks to the fear, not just as a child but as an adult, that one may not truly be alone when one expects to be. Mysterious actions only add to the fear that another person or being might be in the room and able to hide their presence, causing further mysteries to be interpreted more frequently as monstrous or magical. 

Marine Jody

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Language: English

Text: 

(Each line repeated once by leader and once by platoon)

Around her head, she wore a yellow ribbon

She wore it in the springtime, the merry month of may

And if you asked her why the hell she wore it

She wore it for that young Marine so far, far away. 

Far away

Far away

She wore it for that young Marine so far, far away

Around the block, she pushed a baby carriage

She pushed it for that young Marine so far, far away.

And if you asked her why the heck she pushed it 

She pushed it for that young Marine so far, far away.

Far away

Far away

She pushed it for that young Marine so far, far away

(3rd verse non PG- song ends after this verse)

Behind the door, her daddy kept a shotgun

He kept it in the springtime, in the merry month of May

And if you asked him why the hell he kept it

He kept it just to blow that young Marine’s ass away

Far away

Far away

He kept it just to blow that young Marine’s ass away

(3rd verse PG- song continues to verse 4)

Behind the door, her daddy kept a shotgun

He kept it in the springtime, in the merry month of May

And if you asked him why the hell he kept it

He kept it for that young Marine so far, far away

Far away

Far away

He kept it for that young Marine so far, far away

(4th verse, slowing)

Around his grave, she laid the pretty flowers

She laid them in the springtime in the merry month of May

And if you ask her why the hell she laid them

She laid them for that young Marine so far, far away

Far away

Far away

She laid them for that young Marine so far, far away

Context:

“This is my favorite jody that I learned in high school in JROTC. It’s passed down by a Prior, which is a Cadet who has been in the program at least for a year, so she was like a year older than me, I was a freshmen and she was a sophomore. And it was her favorite jody and it’s, according to her, originally a Marine jody. Jodies are- I guess I should explain what Jodies are. Jodies are songs you sing while marching, kind of sing, they’re kind of sing songy, but they’re yelling and they’re call and response. So you yell a line and the platoon repeats a line and it’s while marching. A lot of them are story centered, so I want to share one that’s story centered. I love this jody because it’s sad, it tells a story.

“I said young Marine, but when we would say it around our senior Chief, we would have to say Sailor because we weren’t allowed to sing Marines jodies because we were in the Navy unit. And each of the lines is repeated back, I just did it straight through”

“And then the third stanza, there’s two versions. Also, I said hell, but we said heck when instructors were around. And the third one, there’s two endings, one is non PG and one is PG. 

Analysis:

The jody itself is a chant, meant to (in the case of this informant) draw people together within their platoon. Especially as the informant mentions how she was taught this by a classmate in the grade above her, one can see this folk song as a form of mentorship. Learned from the mouth of a more senior individual, the jody is passed between them and gives a sense of identity within the group. The informant even mentions how important the specific branch is. She wasn’t allowed to sing this as a Marine jody normally because they were the Navy unit and therefore could only sing Navy songs. Specificity is important to the practice of this jody even though the rest of the lyrics are unchanged by a change in branch or between platoons. 

Additionally, we can see the influence of some of Olrick’s epic laws within the narrative. Repetition of the chorus and of structures make the stanzas easier to learn, and the chorus itself has three lines. Most ‘scenes’ are between the woman and the soldier, with one between the soldier and the woman’s father. All detail how two characters relate to each other, keeping the story straightforward and in line with the expectations of tales and folk songs. 

Haunted store

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College student
Language: English

Text:

“ It was shortly after Halloween, so we had put up our Halloween decorations back upstairs and there’s this big witch, sort of an animatronic thing. We usually set it up by the door so– it has a sensor– so when you pass by it it’ll say things like “Oh, my pretty”. It’s really funny, but it was upstairs and we were just chilling down in the main sales floor, and we heard faintly upstairs the witch talking. We heard it saying those lines just faintly upstairs. And my boss goes upstairs to check it out and I just hear him yelp. And it’s because the witch was positioned– neither of us had positioned it this way and we don’t know if any of our coworkers did– but it was positioned just so it was hiding around the corner of the stairs. So it scared the crap out of him. But then we saw up there that there were several helmet boxes strewn across the floor, which is really weird because it’s usually very well organized up there. And no one had been up there all day yet, so there was no reason they’d be on the floor and no reason why the witch would be making noises up there without anyone to activate the sensor. So that was pretty freaky.”

Context:

“ I work at a motorcycle gear store. We sell helmets, gear, tires, parts, just stuff like that. But it’s kind of a known thing that our location is haunted. It’s right near OldTown so that area has a lot of history and we have an upstairs area that we just use for storage, all the empty helmet boxes we have up on the giant wall and stuff. Our holiday decorations are up there and there will be times when coworkers hear footsteps up there and there’s no one. “

Analysis:

The informant specifies that this location is rumored to be haunted, and that odd things happen all the time. However, he seems to recall more minor auditory hauntings such as footsteps and was shocked by this occurrence. Especially with the addition of the physical change in the witch’s location, the informant clearly viewed this as an escalation, not a maintenance of the store’s folklore. 

The actions of ghosts is often linked to changes in ownership or the physical wellbeing of a home, but ownership and occupancy of a store is a more difficult matter. Though the store is located in the Oldtown part of the informant’s city, and he believes that it’s history influenced the presence of ghosts in the area, metropolitan ghosts do not fit the stereotypical view of ghosts. In a lot of memorates, they are tied to ancestral homes or worn down locations, not capitalist chains that are highly organized. Therefore, the appearance of any ghost here is notable. 

In addition, the escalation described happened at a very auspicious time, on the day after Halloween (All Saint’s Day and Dia de los Muertos). This is a time where it is commonly believed that the veil between the living and dead, or the earthly and the spiritual, is lifted. It is possible that the events or the informant’s perception of these events, were enhanced by the recent holiday and transition between months.