The informant is 21 years old. She’s Sri Lankan and now attends the University of San Francisco. She entered seventh grade at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada in 2003 and graduated in 2009. During seventh grade, she (along with the rest of the class) was divided into groups to be mentored by a senior Peer Counselor throughout the year. These Peer Counselors accompanied the informant’s class on the annual class trip to Big Bear at the start of the year.

The informant was home for spring break this week and I took the advantage of interviewing her for this folklore collection project. She came to my house and I asked her to briefly describe the legend of the “Pig Bear” that is well known to every student at Flintridge Prep and has been passed from senior class to seventh graders for years. This is what she told me:

Informant: At night, they (the Peer Counselors) told us that we had to stay in our cabins at night because of the uh legend of the Pig Bear. It was a monster half pig half bear or maybe even just a monster I’m not sure…that came out to eat children or the children would never be seen again…So there were some of us that didn’t believe in the Pig Bear and were joking about it and once we were getting into bed there were these huge BANG BANG BANGs on all the doors and screaming in the distance…so we all ran out to see what happened. We thought it was the Pig Bears, come to get us, but it turns out that the seniors went around doing it, banging on doors and throwing things. But we were ok…ended up laughing about it after, but it was scary at first.

Me: Why do you remember this?

Informant: Because it was part of the tradition of the seventh grade trip and you don’t…it’s something that you remember when someone asks about the trip because it’s been passed down through the grades…I’ve even mentioned it to random college friends.

Me: Why do like it?

Informant: It makes the trip more exciting, more than just a school trip…it’s got a little bit of the scary story feel. The Pig Bear feel made it extra fun.

Me: Why do you think they do this every year?

Informant: It’s a rite of passage kinda…because for the seventh graders it’s a chance to bond over something funny and spooky and for the seniors, they already went through it so they can make it come alive for the baby classes.

As the informant says, the importance of the legend appears to lie in the fact that it’s closely associated with the rite of passage of officially becoming a seventh grader at Flintridge Prep. The legend binds the class together as they experience terror upon it’s supposed re-enactment, and then relief that it ends up being just a trick. Because the Pig Bear legend re-enactment takes place at the beginning of the year, it also serves as a way to initiate the new seventh graders into life at Prep. The seniors pass on this piece of school folklore and eventually, the seventh graders will grow up and have their chance to pass it on, too.