Legend:

“There’s a beautiful park in between where my neighborhood was and the school that I went to, so, a lot of kids would like to cut through the park. Well, in 1979, there was a boy coming home from hanging out with friends one night, and he was a nice kid, 15 years old, a happy kid, and nobody to this day knows what happened, but he was murdered by being hung from that bridge over the creek [in the park]. So, he wasn’t found for almost a day, and when he was found, he had a huge, angry look on his face, but obviously, he was dead. So, the legend goes that this boy was so happy [in general] and so upset about being murdered that his spirit stayed in the area and haunted any kids that tried to play in that creek or go over that bridge. So, once in awhile we would go there at night to see if we could feel his spirit or see his ghost; we never did, but we wouldn’t actually go over the bridge because we were too frightened.

Just adding on, I did have friends that used to claim that they would hear his voice or see, like, a hologram of him from time to time, especially at night. But, I’m sure they were making it up. ‘Cause anytime we went–which I only went a couple times [because] I was too scared–I never saw any kind of ghost, or spirit, or hologram of his presence. But people used to claim that they would see him or hear his voice yelling or crying from the bridge.”

Context:

My informant told me that the boy was murdered when she was around 12 years old and it had been an anomaly in her town; children being murdered was not common. She told me that that’s the reason why this legend is so popular; the parents only talked about the boy’s murder, but the children talked about his spirit haunting the creek. Many of the children believed it and steered clear of the bridge. When asked if any adults knew about the legend, my informant said that the only reason her mother found out about the legend was through her and her younger brother.

Analysis:

What I find so interesting about ghost stories/legends is what the circumstances are that causes the ghost/spirit to haunt the specific location it is haunting. In the article we read in class about Estonian legends of ghosts, it was believed that ghosts/spirits haunted ancestral homes as a way of keeping the property in the family while the Soviet Union was trying to force Communism onto Estonians. In this legend, it is believed the boy’s spirit/ghost haunts the bridge and the creek where he was murdered as a way to keep children away from the area. It seems that his ghost is keeping the children of the town away from the creek and bridge as a way of preventing another child from meeting his same fate of being murdered. There is also the element that only children/younger people know and share this legend and not the adults. This acts as a way of frightening other children.