Text/Context: “When I was in elementary school, probably about 10, I went on a family trip to the Queen Mary with my mother, her best friend, and her daughter, who was my best friend. We were taking a guided tour, not even the ghost specific tour, just the regular one. We go through the hallways, all over the deck, and then we eventually made it down to the pool room. The guide tells us the pool room is the most haunted room in the whole ship, with a lot of alleged deaths happening in there, specifically a little girl drowned in the pool. We enter the room, and it’s very large. There are no windows, which is weird for a pool, because you’d think it would be in a nice bright area, but it’s not. It’s two stories, and at the bottom is the pool. It’s not filled of course, they don’t use it anymore, they just keep it there for posterity. We walk around the bottom, and then we go up to the top floor so we can look out over the pool, and it’s beautiful. There’s gorgeous tilework, stonework on the walls, it’s very 1920s art deco, very Queen Mary. Everyone’s excited looking around, and then the tour starts to move on. But me, being a freak, decide that I want to spook myself by waiting behind a bit to, I don’t know, feel the spooky energy. And so by the time everyone has trickled out, I start to make my way back to the exit, when I look out over the pool one last time. I see this very vivid flare of light coming from the corner of the pool, and it was green. Again, there were no windows, no light sources other than small lamps on the walls, but the lamps weren’t green. There was nothing I could see that could possibly be causing such a strange light. After seeing the light, I got an overwhelming feeling of dread and for a moment, thought I could hear the sound of someone splashing around and drowning, and booked it out the door. To this day I am completely convinced it was supernatural activity.”

Analysis: While this story isn’t necessarily from a folk group, I think it illustrates the importance of memorates within the broader scope of folklore and more specifically, folk narrative. This is the type of experience that through telling and retelling, eventually becomes something that can be considered authentic folklore. My informant spoke with a certainty in her voice that led me to understand how important this experience was for her, and how she fully believes it to be of supernatural origin. I myself have witnessed things I could only describe as supernatural so I understand the belief, especially after re-reading her story several times. While she may have been a kid when it happened, I don’t think it discredits how real the experience was to her, nor does it make it any less spooky to hear now.