Treadmill Spirit

Jess IvieFollow

Date Collected

11-2017

Place item was collected

Logan, Utah

Informant

RaeLee Yancey

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

RaeLee is a 20 year old female, she grew up in Stanwood, Washington, moved to West Jordan, Utah her sophomore year of high school and now lives in Logan, Utah. She earned her high school diploma from Copper Hills high in West Jordan, an associates degree from Salt Lake Community College (which she earned in high school), and is currently working towards her bachelors in exercise science and international studies at Utah State University. She grew up in an LDS family. She is an extremely close friend of mine that I met my sophomore year of high school, and she was my roommate freshman year of college. She is a fun loving individual that comes off as quiet at first, but loves deep talks. She loves the outdoors, and music, and animals. She’s got a dry sense of humor. In this memorate, she talks about her dog, Gemma, who was a black lab that she had in Washington.

Context

This story was told at an impromptu game night in the public lounge at my apartment around 9:40 pm. A mutual friend was visiting from Salt Lake, and we decided to have a game night to catch up. RaeLee, the visiting friend, and I were halfway through a game of phase 10 when we got bored and I asked the visiting friend about recent adventures, and he told us a ghost story. After that, a few supernatural stories were bounced around, including this one. It was pretty quiet, because it was late and there were only 3 of us in the room. The collection context and context of use are very similar, because the storytelling started naturally. It would normally be told between peers, later at night or around Halloween.

Text

“They used to bug me really badly (talking about spirits). Anyway(very quiet). So I was on the treadmill, (slight laugh) which I didn’t realize it’s late, I don't know, so this weird song came on. And whenever I, whenever I hear, It’s something by Jason Derulo, so it’s like, (gets louder) completely not related, but whenever I, whenever I hear it it reminds me of that, so I like it came on, so I feel like this -VWOOMP- like immediately there’s a spirit like RIGHT next to me. My dog was like, cause, yeah, I brought Gemma in, she kind’ve wiggled her head, so I’m like (inaudible). (really quietly) Yeah it was really scary. And I’m like, so i was like, Please, dear heavenly father, get this thing out, ya know, (in dismissal) anyway...”

Texture

RaeLee told this memory very comfortably, with a light tone suggesting that she was laughing at herself for being so scared at the time, but she didn’t discount the reality of the story, it was rather to imply that she was glad that it was so far in the past. She went on a couple of tangents when telling the story, and told it more like a funny memory than a scary story. Because she had told a couple of other stories prior to this one, she was relaxed when telling it. She told it at a medium/quiet volume, with a medium/high amount of energy. It was also getting pretty late, and so there was a level of tiredness/loopiness in her voice.

Course

Introduction to Folklore/English 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Appearances or Manifestations of Supernatural Beings or Revenants

EAD Number

1.1.2.10.26

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