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FRIGHTS AND FOLKLORE
Ghost Stories On the eve of Halloween, UO folklorists deconstruct terrifying tales from a creepy campus
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t night, the University of Oregon is quiet. Too quiet. When the students have retreated to the residence halls, and after even the most scholarly professors have left their offices, the remaining shell of a campus—now shrouded in darkness— plays host to the paranormal. Or so they say. What was that noise outside Villard Hall? Did you see those bushes rustle by Condon? Did that gargoyle above Willamette Hall just turn its head at me? The UO campus, which is dotted with buildings built in the 19th century, has its fair share of ghost stories. While some of them are far-fetched, others have developed lives of their own among students and faculty members. The following legends are drawn from the UO Randall V. Mills Archives of Northwest Folklore, a repository of fieldwork collections and research materials on folklife in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. University folklorists say they exemplify patterns rooted deep in various cultures—and mean more to us than simply a good scare.
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O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY
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AUTUMN 2021
A MONSTER AT MAC COURT? McArthur Court was long home to the screaming and chanting of Ducks fans cheering on the basketball teams. But not everything heard in the venerable facility is so easily explained. According to records in the folklore archives, a women’s basketball player helping staff in the basement once reported a “weird grunting sound.” Also, sounds like “40 mile-per-hour winds” swept through the area, yet she felt no breeze and was nowhere near an air duct or outside. The grunting persisted and the group promptly finished up, the woman reported, and “got out of there.” What caused the noises? No one knows for sure, though it should be noted Mac Court is across the street from . . . Pioneer Cemetery. “Areas that seem deserted or unused—those places always seem spooky to us,” says Martha Bayless, a professor of English and director of folklore and public culture. “It’s eerie to be at Mac Court and think how full of life and excitement it used to be, where now it’s silent and empty. And anything on the edge of a cemetery is going to seem spooky and haunted.”
PHOTO BY MELANIE GRIFFIN, EUGENE, CASCADES & COAST; ILLUSTRATION BY OREGON MEDIA
BY GRIFFIN REILLY
