Tag Archives: woods

Spirit of the Woods

Text:
KK: So, in high school, I used to live in a neighborhood that was known for having a soccer field, right? And the soccer field–I never did this, of course–in high school, a lot of people would go to the soccer field late at night to host these things that they would call “wood parties.” Basically, at the end of the soccer field there’s this long path, and you go straight into the woods from there. And people would go into the woods and they’d basically have this free-for-all where they’d drink, they’d do a lot of things, they’d hook up with people, whatever. Late at night, towards the end of my senior year, one of my friends went to one of these wood parties, and she said that there was this person in the woods that would follow the people who would stray from the group. And they could hear, like, the crunching of leaves, and they would hear, like–I don’t know what it was, but they would describe it as this wood spirit, or something, that would follow them if they were not in their group.”

Context:
KK: The context, I would think–I’m not saying she made it up, but– I’m pretty sure that, I think they were nervous cuz they would go pretty deep into the woods to hide from cops and stuff like that (laughs). So, I’m not sure if this wood spirit was maybe like, a manifestation of their fears towards getting caught by authority. But they would say that it would like, take their drinks and it would do certain things–but um, it was interesting cuz I think they were afraid of getting caught so they were very anxious. So people would say that they would notice certain things going on at their wood parties. You know, it was also a bunch of drunk teenagers, so. I don’t know.

Analysis: I think there’s definitely some value to KK’s theories about why this spirit was believed in. For high schoolers rebelling by drinking in the woods, it makes complete sense that superstitions surrounding a spirit of the forest would arise–it’s a very common set-up to spooky stories and horror movies, and the anxiety is understandable. I also think most forests and wooded areas tend to hold a bit of fear and/or mysticism for humans, and the idea of a spirit of the woods is also extremely common.

Ghost story in the woods- JH

Age: 18

Date of interview: 12/01/24

Informant Name: JH

Language: English

Collector’s name: LP

Nationality: USA

Occupation: College Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: Appalachia in Pennsylvania

The cold October rain trickled down my neck, causing me to shiver. But I don’t feel cold, not really. I’m angry. I’m angry and sitting down to talk about it makes it worse. I’m angry and I need this time alone. The cold 40-degree downpour was necessary to clear my mind. The edge of the woods seems the best place to get this alone time. I had to have been not in my right mind. I never would have been here if I was. I heard the screams and felt the terror those brought me. I felt the fear choke me up when the screams would move down the valley far, far too fast to be anything real. I saw the way those screams caused my father to halt in his tracks while we were out late. I heard his voice tremble with fear as he refused to recount his encounter with the Screaming Thing to me.
But that wasn’t on my mind right now, it was only the annoyance of the argument I had just had that pulled me down that hill to stand at the edge of the trees. The raindrops hit and ricochetted off of the water of the pond in front of me. They cracked down on my scalp. They slammed into the blades of grass and leaves surrounding me, making it hard to hear anything.
But still, I heard it. Faint, down the valley, barely a threat. I wasn’t scared, I was still angry. And I had no reason to be afraid, clearly. The screams remained at the end of the valley as I stood my silent ground against the world. A minute passed, then two, then three. Nothing was happening, and nothing would happen, I knew.
Until I took a step. A light shuffle. My legs were growing numb from the rain and standing locked in the same position. Nothing. The screaming stopped for a second, then sounded again—much, much closer. My skin began to crawl, those minute of ignoring the rain trailing down my spine catching up to me. I shiver violently. I feel my breathing go faster, and my heart is speeding up too. I take another step, and another, and another. It’s a walk for the first 4 steps, but the thing is halving the distance every step I take. I trip, stumbling up the hill I walked down to get here. It’s so close. I stand up and sprint. It’s on me now, and the darkness it brings presses on the edges of my vision, becoming more centered until I can’t see. I keep running, but It’s there. Infinitely loud, my heart is beating out of my chest. I keep running, hoping I don’t run into anything. It’s so loud, so loud…
Then nothing. The screaming stops, and the darkness lifts off my vision. I hit the ground for the second time. I’ve fallen just inside of the floodlight spilling from the garage. It’s stopped and I’m safe. Shaking and scared out of my mind, but safe.

Lights in the Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Home Depot Associate
Residence: Enumclaw, Washington
Performance Date: 11/3/2021
Primary Language: English

Background: It was me and my friends enjoying one last night with the homies. Around 2 AM in the morning, very muddy and rainy. CK was talking with his friends.

Me: When and where were you informed about this incident that occurred?

CK: I was in the woods with my friends when I noticed two eye like lights looking at our directions. I get rid of the fire as soon as possible, but when I turn back around the lights weren’t there but got closer. Remember it was raining a lot and the ground was muddy. The object bolted off to the creek which was right next to my camping spot and heard a huge splashing noise. So I wake up the next morning and go back to the place where I saw the eye like lights, but there weren’t any tracks or footprints. I was sooooo scared and terrified. I went to the creek and saw a very big boulder in it. A normal person or animal wouldn’t be able to move that size of a rock. I asked one of my friends of this incident and they told me it could have been a skin walker.

Me: Why do you remember it?

CK: I remember this because it was traumatizing. We threw rocks and stuff at it but it did not move. It made me not want to be here anymore. It was a first time experience in the woods and I was playing horror video games the week before the campout.

Me: Was it more believable at night?

CK: I believe the late night definitely gave a spooky vibe. It was a very dark night where we were staying up very late.

Context of performance: Discord call

Thoughts: The informant considers this ghost story to be widely experienced especially in his small city. The story the informant told was nothing too out of left field, but still instilled that emotion of fear and shock into me (the audience). I, too, have experienced a similar incident during my boy scout campout in the woods when I was younger. I guess when you are in the woods or forests late in the night, there tends to be weird, spooky activity that may be happening.

Wilhelmina Von Ark

Nationality: United States
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, MI
Performance Date: 04/19/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, DT, is a student from the US. Her parents are part Irish but also born and raised in the US. This piece is something that she learned from her grandparents — a cautionary tale of sorts to stop her from eating the mushrooms around her grandparent’s house. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss a story she heard from her grandparents.

DT: Ok so there was the story of Wilhelmina Von Ark who was like this little girl who used to live in my grandparent’s house. My grandparents live really close to the woods and the legend is that she went into the woods by herself and got lost. Lost and hungry, she accidentally ate a poisonous mushroom and died. So every time we [her brother and her] went over to their house our grandparents were like “Don’t eat the mushrooms you remember Wilhelmina!” 

Me: Wilhelmina feels like a strong name. Is that from somewhere?

DT: I always thought this was like a story everyone knew, like, but apparently it’s just a true story of the girl who used to live in that house.

THOUGHTS: It’s hard to tell whether this story legitimately chronicles the unfortunate life of a little girl that dies of mushroom poisoning or whether this is a fictional story made with the purpose of curbing DT from the woods. Regardless, I think it’s important to note that the story still did two significant things. (1) Whether or not it’s true, it still did its purpose of stooping DT from eating random mushrooms from the woods, and (2) DT believed (and still believes) it, so to her, it’s still 100% authentic.

There’s A Man in The Woods

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I have a story about the man in the woods at the soccer field. So, as a child, my brothers and I participated in Brookside Soccer, which is you know like your average recreational soccer thing that children do and a lot of my friends, or at least a lot of people in my grade, also had older siblings who did Brookside and there was this one field, I don’t know how old my brothers were, but they would always play on this certain field and whenever I was there I would see people in my grade who also had older brothers who were playing and the big deal with this field was there was a huge forest surrounding it. The thing about the forest is, on the outskirts of it, would grow honeysuckles, and especially as a young child, they looked tasty. So the whole appeal to the soccer field- it was kinda great because we could eat honey suckles. So me and my friends, we would always go the border and get honeysuckles but you wanted to be fast because the whole idea was there was a man living inside- if you went a little deeper into the forest, you would inf a man and a campsite or something. The guy was always depicted as a homeless guy with a big beard and kinda dirty and ruffled. The whole idea was that you didn’t want him to catch you. There’s another part of the story, that in the forest where he stayed, there was an aluminum trash can that you would see around the soccer field. The idea was that as a kid, you would go to the trashcan by the soccer field and he could hear you. There was also a little bit of part of like asking for wishes, through the trash can to the homeless guy. So i don’t understand why we were scared of him but also like he would help us? The idea is that you’d want honeysuckles but you had to be quick because you didn’t want to see the man in the woods.”

Background:

My informant is a 16-year old who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. She and her two older brothers participated in a recreational soccer program when they were much younger based out of a neighborhood in Kansas City called Brookside. The school she attended was the same school her brothers went to and so it was not uncommon for friends of her brothers to have younger siblings she got along with. Oftentimes, she would come along to the recreational soccer matches and play with the other younger siblings. The area the soccer matches happens to contain several large fields, a few of which bordered dense forest as this area was on the outskirts of the town.  

Context:
My informant brought up this story during a walk around her neighborhood when I asked her about scary stories from her childhood. 

Thoughts:

This story appears to be in the vein of urban legends about some crazed killer. In addition, it serves a very clear purpose, that being of regulating where these young children could and could not go. My informant emphasized how this topic came about mostly because her and her friends wanted honeysuckles from the nearby woods. Therefore, they probably created this figure from similar urban legends they had heard in order to justify not exploring the woods any further. This was only reinforced by any figures of authority, who did not want them to explore the woods. The informant mentioned to me that her older brothers might have corroborated parts of her story to instill the fear of the woods and keep her closer to everyone else during these soccer matches. The other interesting component is how a homeless man in the woods is scary for a child living in the city. The informant told me that she lived in a city, and these soccer matches were a time where she and her friends were far away from that environment. As such, their fears as an amalgam of the fear of strange men, which she would have seen growing up, and that of the woods, which were far more unknown and mysterious to her. The man is not supernatural, but to them he represented a very real threat but in a strange environment.