Bloody Mary Version 4--Bloody Mary at Camp Tonikanee
One night, around 1:00 a.m., my roommates and I were sitting in the common room, and I asked the group if they knew of a compelling ghost story. My one roommate, a 20 year old from Pennsylvania, said she had heard a ghost story at the summer sleep-away camp she had attended when she was younger. She heard the story around a campfire in the woods of Camp Tonikanee, which is in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. She described her story as one that the counselors would tell the campers to convince them the camp was haunted.
The camp was really, really old and many of the buildings had once burned down because of a big fire. Supposedly the camp was haunted by this woman named Mary, who was a witch. But, no one ever saw her, just weird things would happen. Little girls would disappear at night if they were out wandering around by themselves. It scared everyone because parents want their daughters to come home. So every time someone would disappear, people would go out looking for her but would never find her. But after a girl would disappear, it would get especially strange for a while. People thought Mary haunted other buildings, like the barn. Well, [lowers voice] one night one of the camp directors heard strange sounds coming from a little cabin in the woods where Mary supposedly lives and went to investigate. He found Mary with one of the campers, giving her an herbal potion. But the girl was already in a trance and hypnotized and they couldn’t bring her back. They took Mary and they tied her up and put her on trial. As she was standing there, she put a spell on everyone and killed herself with the spell. It was said that anyone else who said her name three times in the mirror would die.
My roommate told the story in a low, solemn tone, except raising her voice once or twice in the beginning to give the sense of her being unsure of her story. The story was told effectively with hand gestures and vocal inflections. There were a few occasions where she had to stop and think out what happened next, which is understandable because she hadn’t heard the story since she attended summer camp over ten years ago. Besides these instances, she used dramatic pausing to emphasize important events, and the dim lighting of the apartment helped to set the mood.
Many young girls were in the woods trying to conjure spirits. Tituba was trying to teach them how to do so (Blumberg). Witchcraft was punishable by death, and these young girls were trying to avoid being caught(miller). They were falsely accusing many people so they would not be accused of witchcraft(miller). Several innocent people died during this time
When asked, the storyteller elaborated that the old man was no longer outside the Wawa when his gym teacher went back outside. The teller had slight pauses in several places in his story, most notably before explaining that his gym teacher could see ghosts and after the elderly woman confirming it was her late husband.
When one usually thinks of a hearing a ghost story, the setting is dark with flickering light (such as around a campfire or in a basement with bad lighting) and, of course, it is nighttime. Needless to say, when I heard this story during the middle of the day on a Friday, I was a little taken aback. When prompted for any urban legends or ghost stories a white, female friend of mine immediately responded with, “Have you ever heard of de Sales Academy?” With my negative response, the nineteen year old student jumped into her story:
I was told a story about one of Cloudcroft's more famous ghosts when casually lounging in the undergraduate student physics lounge at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a group of students during a lunch break before class. This occurred during early April, 2005. I inquired whether anyone knew any ghost stories or folklore. A friend of mine volunteered that she knew several ghost stories from her travels. The storyteller was a 23-year-old Caucasian female from an upper-middle class family in Baltimore. She currently lives in Crofton, MD, and is a physics and astronomy major.
One of my personal favorites is the ghost of Wood Hall. This apparition takes on the image of a little boy. Numbers of Wood Hall girls have seen him. Erica Gray and roommate Ashli Webster deal with this ghost all the time. When asked about the paranormal occurrences in their room, Erica said, "Pretty much every night, he flicks the channels on the TV and turns the lights on and off. Every once in a while he types random shit on the computer... I don't care though as long as he doesn't try to rape me or something. [laughter]" They aren't the only ones who have seen this little boy. I've even had my own instances of cold chills in my 75-degree room, flickering lights, and even a quick glimpse of a child standing at the end of a dark hallway at 3 in the morning.
The story of “Bloody Mary” was told to me by a twenty year old male. He is a current student at a University, studying accountancy. He has very conservative beliefs regarding politics. His father is an insurance broker and his mother stays at home. This story was collected on March 18, 2006, at his residence. This is the story as he told it to me:
As I sat down with the narrator in his dorm on a Sunday afternoon—not the most appropriate time for ghost stories—he told me this well known ghost story from New Mexico. The storyteller is an 18-year-old male freshman majoring in international relations who is from Bethesda, Maryland. He is biracial with an American father and a Taiwanese mother. Born in California and raised in Colorado, the storyteller is a converted Christian. The teller was in the Boy Scouts, which is where this story comes from:
Often, the story of “Bloody Mary” is the first story of supernatural form that is told to many individuals as young children. When I was in 3rd grade, a group of friends and I got together to have a sleepover; naturally, we all went to my friend’s basement and started telling scary stories. One of my friends told me that if I went into the bathroom without any lights and said “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror, a bloody figure would appear.
...s have even used special equipment to detect certain electrical activity in haunted areas. Adding to that, there are also several stories of hauntings all around the world, and although these claims are based on hearsay, we should come to understand that even though hearsay isn't always reliable, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is unreliable and is considered evidence in societal factors depending on various factors. “The amount of anecdotal evidence is also relevant because the higher the number and the more credible the witnesses, the stronger the evidence.” (Wu)
... let the girl go but she would have to eat the boy. She put Hansel in a cage and made Gretel heat the oven. Hansel kept giving her a bone instead his finger, so Ugly Witch kept saying that he was not fat enough. She hoped that if she kept avoiding the inevitable the demons would give up. The demons were angry, and they told her she had to eat Hansel that day or they would make her eat Gretel as well. The Ugly Witch made Gretel super heat the oven, then she leaned in to see if it was hot enough, as she leaned in she “accidentally” fell. Gretel screamed and tried to pull her out, for despite the Ugly Witch’s recent behavior Gretel still loved her. The Ugly Witch died.
aranormal activity has been a cause of fear and excitement throughout history. The unknown attracts the curiosity from those who wonder whether the supernatural is real or a figment of the imagination. Ghosts are one of the supernatural beings whose existence is questioned every day. Many want to deny the existence of ghosts because they are terrified of other phantoms who may exist and ignore the evidence that has been brought forth throughout the years. However, ghosts are supernatural pheromones whose existence still impacts today’s society.
The story was told to me by one of my high-school classmates, who is a resident of the town of Atco. The nineteen year old young man is currently a sophomore at Clemson University and describes himself as being a Roman Catholic of half Italian-American and half Irish-American decent. The young man also noted that he is normally very socially conservative and a staunch Republican. His father is employed as a general contractor and his mother runs her own catering company. He describes himself as a “self proclaimed expert of all things related to the Atco Ghost.” He cannot remember the specific date when he first heard the story, but stated that he can remember knowing most of the details to the story for most of his life. He also claims to have attempted to see the ghost on only one occasion and after what he saw, he refuses to ever go back to that area of town at night. The following is an almost word for word account, which he checked to ensure its accuracy, of the lengthy story as he retold it to me ...
Ghost stories have been popular throughout the ages. During the nineteenth century, there was a sudden boom and ghost stories were made popular. Storytelling was the main source of entertainment as there weren't any films, TV's or computer games. People would gather around in groups telling or reading each other stories. The stories were made more real by the superstitions people kept and as the rooms were lit by dim candle light, it built a sense of atmosphere. Most ghost stories were written in the nineteenth century period, so people could imagine such things happening to them, in the places they lived. As storytelling was the main form of entertainment, people had nothing to compare it to, so it built tension, suspense and fear. In the nineteenth century there weren't many scientific advances. Everything was blamed on higher or supernatural forces, therefore, people believed the explanations given in ghost stories. I will be comparing and contrasting four ghost stories which were all written in the nineteenth century. They are ?The Old Nurse?s Story? by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1855 and ?The Ostler? by Wilkie Collins, 1855.
A 19-year old female from Harford County, Maryland, narrated the story of Black Aggie, the urban legend of an overnight stay in a cemetery. She grew up Christian, and still lives in one of the more rural areas of Maryland with her younger sister and parents, who own and work at an electrical contracting business. Accustomed to hearing many ghost stories and urban legends, she first heard the story of Black Aggie during a middle school slumber party. Late one Saturday night over pizza in our Hagerstown dorm, she was more than willing to share her favorite urban legend with me.
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.