Haden GriggsFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-11-2017

Place item was collected

Logan, UT

Informant

Jason Foskett

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

I’ve known Jason almost my whole life. We grew up together in West Jordan, and I was around his family all the time. He is a graduate student at Utah State University, studying civil engineering, and is very dedicated to his work. He enjoys outdoor activities, especially hunting, and is not one given to frivolous time-wasting activities. He is the oldest of the Foskett siblings I collected Slenderlore from, and was probably the least involved in it too. He is single, and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Context

Jason had come over to celebrate my birthday with my wife and I, and had actually just returned from a hunting trip. We shared dinner and cake, and chatted for awhile. When I asked if I could collect his version of the Slenderman Scare story, which involves his younger brother, Corbyn, getting scared on Halloween. I had heard him tell the story before, and, although he was a little leery of being recorded, agreed to let me use his story for the collection. My wife and I were the only ones present when he told the story.

Text

“Okay, so it was Halloween, and Corbyn was probably in middle school. I was probably in high school, roughly, but, maybe we were a little older. I don’t know, but anyway. So, uh, Corbyn had a couple friends, Eric Dunajski, and Jeffery Burkert, and uh, they came to the door, and, uh Jeffery Burkert was, dressed as slenderman, and I don’t remember what Eric was, but, so, Burkert hid, off to the side of the door, where Corbyn couldn’t see, and then, Eric knocked on the door, Corbyn opened up, [he chuckles] Eric started talking, and then, Slenderman, [I chuckle] just, he didn’t--ah--he didn’t say a word, he just, like, [he laughed while telling this next part] peered his head around, and Corbyn, like, recoiled several feet [I begin to laugh throughout this part], just, he didn’t, like, scream or anything, but just kind of a shocked, you know, like ‘ahhhh!’ sort of thing, and, then we all laughed at him, and, I thought it was funny. The end.

Texture

Jason didn’t seem very interested in his story at the beginning, telling it without much emotion until the part where Burkert came out dressed as Slenderman. Here he began to laugh and mimic both Jeffery’s motions emerging from behind the door, which was fun to watch, and Corbyn’s response, and really got into that part of the story. After that the story died quickly. The memory was still clearly quite funny for him, even if he wasn’t too excited to tell it at first.

Course

Introduction to Folklore: English 2210

Instructor

Dr. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Revenants

EAD Number

2.1.5.85

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