Ghost Stories Told by Bangor Students

P06218 Photo of Halloween costumes and decorations in East Holden, Maine, 1985. 

Recently rummaging through the extensive collection of ghost stories in the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, I was especially intrigued by a group of stories that had been collected from children in Bangor in the 1970s.  The children ranged in age from 10 to 15 (now they are 44-59 years old).  The researcher, Barbara Harriman, then a student at the University of Maine who would soon graduate and begin a teaching career, collected the stories from the Harlow Street School (no longer in existence as a school), the YMCA and Camp Jordan.  She came up with a number of ghost stories, six of which I have reproduced here for your enjoyment.

Children like to tell ghost stories to entertain and frighten each other, usually beginning around the age of 10.  This is a time when they enter a stage when death seems funny to them and far away.  Children accept supernatural creatures as simple facts. Ghosts and monsters simply exist.  Images of ghosts that we have today are derived from an earlier time when corpses were wrapped in winding sheets—strips of white cloth and although this practice is long extinct, we still imagine ghosts as creatures appearing in sheets.

Children tend to tell their ghost stories with humor as a way of keeping terror of the supernatural under control.  Later, as teens, children move away from ghost stories and start telling urban legends—like the killer in the back seat.  In this way, children test the limits of safety by entertaining terror and confirming their sense of safety with their parents.  Halloween is the time when children dress up as ghosts and ghouls (or their favorite Disney character), and go house to house demanding treats for tricks. For some, wrapping toilet paper over someone’s bush or smashing pumpkins becomes an “allowable” rebellion. [1]

The Rocking Chair

Long ago a fisherman, his wife and daughter lived along the shore in a snug little house. One night there was a terrific storm and the seas rumbled and the waves rose up to 30 ft. and maybe even more. In the middle of the storm came a ship from England which was just about to dock when it was smashed against the rocks. They could hear the sharp screams for help but there was nothing they could do. The wife was crying, and the husband said "be quiet or you’ll wake our daughter up.”

“Listen stupid, can't you hear someone else's daughter screaming out there?” the wife hollered.

Then the storm stopped and the next day Mary the daughter found a cute little rocking chair on the beach when she was playing. She went into the house and said, Oh, Mom, can I keep this chair? She said yes, and then looked out the window and thought, “It must have belonged to that little girl.”

Every time the wind blew after that the chair creaked and groaned.

One Sunday a friend of Mary's said, “How come there is a girl sitting in your rocking chair? She has black hair but it’s all stringy and wet she just sits there rocking and laughing.”

The next night the fisherman and his wife went out and threw the rocking chair back into the ocean. They could hear the ghost laughing because now she had the chair all to herself.

Collected: Harlow Street School 3/3/70

Informant: Kathy Gendreau, 11.

Note: Kathy's mother and father used to tell her this story when she was a child, and her mother said she heard it in her native France originally.

Motifs: E402.1.8. Miscellaneous sounds made by ghost of human being.

E236. Return from dead to demand stolen property.

E414. Drowned person cannot rest in peace.

E415.1. Ghost returns to hunt lost article.

E42l.l.l. Ghost visible to one person alone.

The Two Thieves

Once a long time ago there were two men who were very, very good friends. They were planning to rob a bank and they wanted to do it on a Sunday when everyone was in church. When the day came, they went into the bank through a back window and opened the vault where the money was. Then they climbed out the window and went to a secret hiding place. When they got there, one man said, “I will keep your half of the money,” but he was only kidding. So the other man came at him with a knife and said, “NO!” He then stabbed him in the back and the blood came pouring out. After he did that, he took the body and threw it in the river.

The next night his friend's body came alive and he went to the secret hiding place. His friend was sleeping. So he woke him up and asked him where the money was cuz he wanted it but he said, “I cannot tell you.” So he took his friend down by the river, tied a huge brick to his foot, and threw him in.

The next night the other man came alive and went to the hiding place, took him to the river, and threw him in. And they kept doing that to each other.

Collected: Harlow Street School 3/3/70

Informant: Debbie Nadeau, 11.

Class: D

Motifs: E200. Return from the dead.

E232.1. Return from dead to slay own murderer.

E232.2. Ghost returns to slay man who has injured him while living.

E232.4. Ghost returns to slay enemies.

E234. Ghost punishes injury received in life.

E234.o.l. Ghost returns to demand vengeance.

E236. Return from dead to demand stolen property.

E413. Murdered person cannot rest in grave.

House on Fire 

One summer morning Bill jumped into his car and started for the airport where he was to meet two friends which he was going with. A little while later, the three landed in a small town in Arkansas. After they went to the hotel, they went out to get supplies for a hike in the woods they were going to have tomorrow.

The next morning they got up early and started out--they walked and walked until they came to an old house so they went in and then they waited while Dick went upstairs. They heard a scream so Tom ran up and they heard another and Bill ran out to find a policeman. When he brought the policeman back, there was no house and the policeman told Bill that the house had burned down during the Civil War.

Collected: Harlow Street School 3/3/70

Storyteller: Mike Scripture, 11.

Class: D.

Note: Mike heard this story from friends at camp in the summer. Says he thinks it may be true cause “those boys were from New York and Mike thinks that maybe it could have happened in New York cause that's where lots of criminals live.”

Motifs: D209S. Magic disappearance.

F771.6. Phantom Guise: disappears at dawn.

The Flying Dutchman 

In the 1700s the sailors of a certain ship had a strange adventure. Suddenly, one of the clouds became sails and all the sailors saw the Flying Dutchman. Soon the captain of the Flying Dutchman came down to their ship, ate some food, and then asked if he could have some letters mailed for him. As soon as the captain was back on his ship it disappeared.

Soon a storm came up. The captain was missing and the cabin boy said that he had ordered the cook to fix supper. When the chief mate came, the captain said, “All our food has turned into beans.”

By morning the captain had to be held down by the sailors. On the floor were the letters opened and torn. “The letters have made him mad--let's dump them overboard,” said the cabin boy. The cook burned them in the stove. The ship reached port and only the cabin boy would tell about it. You could tell who had been on the ship, though, because none of those men would ever eat beans again.

Collected: Harlow Street School, 3/29/70

Informant: Kim Joey, 11.

Class: D.

Motifs: D45. Transformation: object to another object.

D476. Food transformed.

D810. Magic object or gift.

D812. Magic object received from a supernatural being.

DB12.4. Magic object received from ghost. (?)

Dll23. Magic ship.

Dl266.1. Magic writings.

Dl353. Magic object makes person foolish.

Dl350. Magic object changes person's disposition.

Dl361.21. Ship becomes invisible.

Dl520.l5. Transportation in magic ship.

E5lO. Phantom sailors and travelers.

E511. The Flying Dutchman.

E511.2. Flying Dutchman's Ship.

E535.3. Ship of ghosts.

Disappearing Children

This man lived all alone with his two children in the woods. Well, everyday he had to go to work, so he had to leave them all alone which he did not like. One day he came back and saw his little girl crying but she couldn't tell him what had happened to the little boy. She could not find him. The old father searched everywhere for him and didn't find him. Next day he went to work again and when he came back his little girl was gone. He searched everywhere and couldn't find her either. Finally he couldn't think of any place and so he went up attic. So he took his shoes off and tiptoed up the stairs and when he opened the door.

YEOW! (screamed)

Listener is supposed to ask: "What happened?"

"He stepped on a piece of glass"

Collected: Harlow Street School, 3/29/70

Storyteller: Rebecca Harriman, 11.

Motif: D2095. Magic disappearance.

Stranded in a Car 

Once there was this boy and girl and they went out for a drive and managed to get their car stuck on an old dirt road -- The boy said for her to wait and then went out to get help. At two a.m. she hears something scraping on the roof. Two times that happened, and then in the morning she sees a policeman coming and he tells her not to look up. She disobeys and looks up, sees her boyfriend hanging from the tree.

Collected: Bangor, Maine 4/11/70

Storyteller: Betsy Mitchel1, 10.

Norfolk Street, Bangor.

Class: B.

Note: Betsy says that she used to tell this story to all her friends when they were sleeping out in the back yard during the summer and trying to scare each other when they couldn't go to sleep anyway.

These stories and others can be found in accession #0523 in the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History at the University of Maine.

[1] .  (Diane Goldstein, Sylvia Grider and Jeannie Bank Thomas, Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore, Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007).