Tag Archives: ghost

Ghost of highway 1

–Informant Info–

Nationality: American

Age: 56

Occupation: Housewife

Residence: Pheonix, Ariozna

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as HW and the interviewer as K)

Background info: MW is a mother of 2 who grew up in Pacific Grove, northern California, and now resides in Pheonix, Arizona.

K: Ok so what’s the title and where did you hear it? And what’s the uh…context for the performance? Like what circumstances was it told

HW: It doesn’t really have a title, just the ghost of highway 1 because uh…whenever you drive past highway 1 someone would tell the story, mainly on the school bus. That’s where I always heard it from, like kids telling other kids to scare them.

K: Ok, go ahead! It’s fine if its only like 2 sentences

HW: Yeah, I mean, it goes that uh a woman got hit by a car and died on this little outstretch of Highway 1 that’s not even really used anymore cuz a new uh…exit was built that had better access to Monterey (a major town in this area). So the only people that used it were locals, but sometimes a non-local would get lost and see her standing on the edge of the road and uh pick her up. There were 2 major uh…versions I guess to what she would do after. She would either like take control of the car and crash it or if you were a woman driving alone she would uh like…bless you in a sense? Like your car would drive better and you wouldn’t hit traffic and narrowly avoid getting hit kind of a thing.

K: Wow, that’s really interesting, so she was kind to women?

HW: In one version yea, but only if you were alone or with another woman. If it was a straight uh couple the car would crash. Her hatred for men was stronger than her love for women *laughter*

Interpretation:
This is actually really interesting because of how traditional this story is. I know I’ve heard the same type of story, about a woman dying by getting hit by a car and becoming a ghost hitchhiker. It’s a very popular story in common lore around the world I think. This just reinforces my belief that every kid seems to have their own version of the story. It is interesting how the informant noted that this part of the road isn’t a major part anymore, and is only really used by locals and that non-locals were really the only ones to stop and pick her up. Its as if this is a very well-known, and believed story rather than a story told on the bus to scare other kids.

Ghost of Curry Hall

TG is a 25 year old graduate student and cultural forensic anthropologist. She grew up in Maryland and currently resides in Tennessee. She was an active member at her university.

Context: TG claims that she had heard this story many times while studying undergrad and that although she has not experienced it personally, many of her friends have encountered the ghost first hand.

Transcript (discussed over the phone):

Collector: What is the background story of the ghost?

TG: Basically, while they were building the two freshmen dorms, Frazer and Curry Hall, they were doing some electrical work but they didn’t put the elevators in yet so the elevator shafts were just very deep dirt holes. One of the workers had brought their toddler to the site, which was a big mistake to begin with. The worker put the child down for a second and the toddler rolled into the elevator shaft in the hallway of the 10th floor and died. Plenty of people I know have said that in the same hallway of Curry, you can hear a child’s laughter and it was very disturbing.

Collector: Do you believe in the ghost?

TG: I believe in ghosts so yes. While it’s possible that students just hear laughter and assume it is the ghost, I don’t think it’s impossible.

Thoughts/Analysis: Although ghost stories are legends and therefore may or may not be true, the impact they have on people’s lives is very real. As the informant discussed the fact that students in Curry Hall could actually hear child’s laughter is something that they will tell their friends, family, and children. That is shown by the informant being told this story by her friends. This shows how legends spread and how socially influenced they are. This account by TG can even be considered a memorate, where personal experiences of residents turned into campus folklore.

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.