Tag Archives: ghost

Bocca Della Verità

Context: B is a 22 year old University student who grew up in California. B moved to Italy roughly four years ago where he is actively pursuing a degree in archeology. His classwork often has him interacting with artifacts and ancient sites. This account was collected over a phone call. 

B: “In terms of folklore I’ve encountered in Rome, I really love the Bocca della Verità (mouth of truth) and it’s said that in the olden days if you put your hand in the mouth and said a lie then it would bite your hand off. Outside of that you have your typical ‘Julius Caesar haunts this area and emperor Nero haunts that area’ but those are less accredited, and are all across Italy.”

Analysis: The legacy of Caesar and Nero can still be seen across Italy, throughout the folk claiming their spirits reside in iconic locations, like the Colosseum or the Vatican circus. Also the legend of the Bocca Della Verità lets us know that truth was considered a very important aspect of at least ancient roman culture, as a lie is worth losing a hand over. 

Clinton Road Ghost

Text:

KJ: “There’s this road called Clinton Road that’s the longest uninterrupted road in New Jersey, if not in the East Coast, or something. Obviously, it’s uninterrupted, so there’s no stop signs or lights or anything, but there’s also no streetlights either. It’s very windy and through trees and there’s some kind of lake or creek on either side. So, there’s one creek that goes under it, so there’s a bridge over, and basically—I don’t know if it’s completely a made-up story, because whenever you go there, there are crosses and flowers where people got killed getting hit by cars on the street. The story is that a boy got hit by a car and killed on the street, and if you put a penny on the bridge at midnight, his ghost will appear.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old college student from Montclair, New Jersey. She said the legend of the Clinton Road Ghost is popular across the state and that teenagers often carry out the ritual meant to conjure the ghost. KJ described driving to the site with her friends and staying in the car when her friends put a penny on the bridge. While they were pulled over at the side of the road, a man drove by and asked them why they stopped. When they told him everything was fine, he warned them that “there are more things to be afraid of than deer around here,” which she interpreted as him trying to perpetuate the legend and make them afraid.

Analysis:

In ‘Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore,’ Folklorist Ülo Valk wrote that spirits and ghosts’ “sudden appearance occurs when human beings wander from their daily routes into strange and alien territory by visiting an area of potential danger (such as a body of water) or by being somewhere at the wrong time (such as a graveyard at night” (Valk 33). The legend of the Clinton Road ghost embodies both of these qualities, since it is specific to the most treacherous road in New Jersey, where many deaths have taken place, and it appears at midnight, deep into the night, when it’s dark and when many accidents take place.

This legend’s popularity among teenagers makes sense considering the cultural significance of getting one’s driver’s license at 16 and gaining independence through the ability to drive. Valk wrote that ghosts “may appear in order to reinforce social norms, proper behavior, and traditional customs” (Valk 33). I think this legend is meant to warn teenagers about the dangers of reckless or drunk driving, just as folklorists theorize that legends like La Llorona convey messages about safety around bodies of water. One could argue that the legend promotes responsible driving by illustrating and stoking fears about how injustices of the past—the young boy’s death from being hit by a car—haunt people in the present.

Annotations:

Valk, Ülo. “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore.” Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, vol. 43, no. 1, 2006, pp. 31–52., https://doi.org/10.2979/jfr.2006.43.1.31. 

The Banshee and the scream of the fox.

E is a 35-year-old Irish female originally from Cork, Ireland. E currently runs a bed and breakfast with her husband outside out Cork, Ireland.

E performed this folklore over breakfast in the dining room of her bed and breakfast. I asked E if she had any Irish folklore she would be willing to share with me.

E: I remember stories of the Banshee years ago. You know, it was one thing I reckon I was scared of as a kid because if you hear these really loud screams, my mother would say it was the Banshee, like it could be the Banshee, and if you hear the Banshee someone who belonged to you is going to die. Scary stuff, um, it was just an old Irish thing years ago and if you saw the Banshee which is a big white lady, kinda like a ghost, and if you saw that, yeah, they taught that you were going to die, so basically if you saw it that’s the end of you kind of thing. Um, but, I remember as kids, do you know-do you know the way foxes have really loud kind of a bark that a fox would? You can confuse with the Banshee. People who think that “oh my God I heard a noise up the hill!” but it would be a fox because there’s lots of foxes around here, and.. it’s a really high pitched scream. Like it would, it would sound like someone’s nearly being murdered like, its just that type of a scream. But if you didn’t know it was a fox, you might think it was the Banshee.

Reflection: Out of all my efforts to collect folklore in Ireland, the story of the Banshee was the story I heard 90% of my time. As E was the last person I had a chance to interview during my brief visit to Ireland, I was initially disappointed that the story of the Banshee was one of the only bits of folklore she could think of. However, after looking back on her performance of the legend with a clear mind, I realized her telling gave valuable local insight into her community. Based on the E’s association of foxes’ eerily people-like scream to the screams of the Banshee, the legend is imbued with greater credibility through linkage to the real world, that wouldn’t otherwise exist in places where foxes aren’t common. Even though the Banshee legend is generally well-known, the individual variation that E lent to her performance of the legend ensures that including the folklore in my collection is not worth considering a failure.

Rocking Chair Ghosts.

D is a 60-year-old Caucasian female originally from Omaha, Nebraska. D is currently a real estate broker based in Phoenix, Arizona.

D informed me of this folklore during a phone conversation. I asked D if she had any folklore she would be willing to share with me.

D: When I was young, my brother in law who grew up in New Hampshire was at our home. And he, uh, I got out of a rocking chair, and I was little probably four years old and the rocking chair continued to rock, and he kinda weighed down a little bit about it because he believed growing up in New Hampshire that a rocking chair without someone in it that was rocking, that meant there was a ghost in it. So um.. anyway we had to stop the rocking chair from rocking, for him.

Reflection: I have heard of this particular superstition before, and given the context behind the superstition, I understand why D’s brother in law would insist that the chair should be stopped from rocking. As I understand it, an empty rocking chair attracts evil spirits toward itself. Assuming the chair continues to rock long after someone has left it, the spirit has already entered the chair and is free to cause bad luck to enter the household. I don’t know the origins of this folklore, but it seems to be correlated to the perception that inanimate objects moving by themselves is an inherently unnatural occurrence. Even though someone caused the rocking chair to move in the first place, once detached from the human element, the movement becomes uncanny and prompts notions of the supernatural.

McCarthy Ghost Stories

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 35
Occupation: Janitor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/20/22
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Within the University of Southern California’s Freshman Honors Dorm, also known as McCarthy Honors College, there are two elevators that traverse up and down between the building’s five floors. The insides have metal walls with a neat dappling texture, and they can comfortably fit around 12 people.

M is a male worker at McCarthy whose job is to ensure that its facilities are clean and that the residents are not collecting a buildup of water residue or gunk in their bathrooms. When asked if he knows any folklore, he claims that some of the workers have experienced strange, possibly paranormal activity in its elevators. 

Me: So how long have you been working in McCarthy?

X: This is my first year working in this residential building, and frankly it’s a lot better than some of the other dorms I’ve been at. 

Me: That’s great to hear. Just out of curiosity, do you know any folklore that is related to your job or to your heritage?

X: Yeah, I personally have a story about the, the elevators in this building. Particularly the right elevator. Since I’m a janitor, I have to go up and down the elevators a lot during the nights and in the early mornings, depending on my shift. Sometimes the elevator will just stop and open its doors on the second floor even when I’m going to the fourth. And so I look around, and there’s no one there. But what’s more strange is that I look down at my watch and it’s 5 A.M. It makes no sense!

Me: Wow, that seems pretty scary-

X: And that’s not even the end of it. Sometimes, the doors will start to close and then just jam, as if someone or something was physically stopping it. Then it’ll suddenly just close with a bang.

Me: Wait, I’ve witnessed that too! That used to happen a lot during the first semester and I’d also get kind of freaked out.

X: Yup, and we’ve had lots of accidents dealing with vomit in the elevators. For some reason, they say that they’re fine before, but then when they get on the elevators and overwhelming nausea causes them to throw up. Most of the time, it’s drunk kids on a Friday but it’s happened to completely sober kids too.

Me: Oh yeah, I’ve seen them air out the elevators a lot. I feel a little better about just taking the stairs haha. Do you have any suspicion of what causes these incidents?

X: Yes, a lot of the workers have had the feeling that someone was watching them or that something was a little off in the right elevator, so there has been a rumor going around that there’s a ghost. HA! I don’t really believe it myself, but it is pretty fun to think about sometimes.

Me: Yikes, I really hope it’s not a ghost! Thank you for your time X and for sharing this story with me.

X: Yeah no problem.

Personally, this story fascinates me because I have been a fan of ghost stories for years, so hearing about potentially paranormal activity in my own dorm is very intriguing. It has been speculated that elevators can sometimes act as bridges between different dimensions, as well as between the physical and spiritual worlds. Although these events in the McCarthy elevator are somewhat compelling, I also think they could all be explained in some degree by more practical means. For instance, the elevator doors could open on empty floors because somebody on the floor pressed the button to call the elevator. Only, they realized the elevator would take too long so they walked down the stairs, leaving the elevator to open onto an empty hallway. The only strange part is that this was happening at odd hours, though college students are notorious for having unconventional sleep schedules. The door getting jammed and then slamming shut could be an issue with the alignment of the doors, as a hitch in the closing could result in lots of force building up and acting on the door at once. The vomiting also, could just be a result of the motion of elevators, as the increased compression when it starts going up or the feeling of weightlessness when it goes down can induce vomiting in someone that already feels sick. In all though, this is a really cool story and I hope that if there actually was a ghost, it would be a friendly one.