Hanako-san

Date of Discovery

Matthew Meyer, an author and folklorist, has dated the legend of Hanako-san back to the 1950s, but like the western counterpart, Bloody Mary, it is clear that the legend existed before official documentation.

Supposedly the urban legend began in 1950 as, “Hanako of the third stall.” In the 1980s, her story became widely known all over Japan, and in the 1990s a variety of movies and animes were made about her. She is now known as, “Hanako of the Toilet.”

Name

Hanako-san and Toire no Hanako-san in Japanese, which translates roughly to, “Hanako of the Toilet.”

Vaguely related to the legend of Bloody Mary.

Physical Description

Hanako-san, according to Japanese urban legends, is the spirit of a young girl who haunts the bathrooms of schools. Although her physical description varies across the different sources, she is commonly seen as wearing a red skirt or dress, with her haircut worn in a bob long enough to cover her neck.

In Japanese culture, she is known as a yōkai–which is a reference to a spirit in the form of a monster, or demon–or a yūrei, which is synonymous with what western culture considers a ghost. 

Origin

Over the last seventy years, Hanako-san has become a fixture of Japanese urban folklore, before the 1990s, it was just an oral legend, but it has since become a part of their pop-culture, being featured in movies as well as manga and anime series. Michael Dylan Foster wrote The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore, in which he stated that Hanako-san is a well known urban legend associated with all schools across Japan.

Mythology and Lore

As a part of Japanese urban legends and folklore, Hanako-san is more versatile spirit than most, like Bloody Mary she comes to haunt only when she is called. Each reported case has different details of the haunting and encounter, but there are common themes across the board. In one version, she is a school child who was killed during an air raid, while playing hide-and-seek, during World War II–a variation on this is that she was starving, but agreed to play the game anyway, but her body gave in to hunger and died in the bathroom stall. In other versions, she either committed suicide or she was hiding from an abusive parent and upon finding her in the bathroom they killed her. Some stories suggest that she came to the school to play when it wasn’t in session, was followed by a pedophile, then was assaulted and killed. Depending upon the variant of the story, however, she can either appear as a ghostly, bloody hand or Hanako-san herself. Additional details about where her grave can be found are given in some scenarios, which suggest that she was either buried in a garbage dump in Saitama, or behind a school gym in Tokyo.

In Japanese schools across the country, the typical ritual goes, that you enter the girl’s bathroom (usually on the third floor) and knock three times on every door. From the closest door to the farthest door, after knocking, you would ask, “Is Hanako there?” After repeating this question three times the answer, “yes,” will come from the third stall in a small, soft voice. When you open the door to the stall, Hanako will be standing there, waiting to drag you into the toilet.

While it may sound like an odd trend, there are quite a few yōkai and yūrei that reside within bathrooms and toilets. Most any person from Japan will tell you that they have tried to summon Hanako-san while they were in elementary school.

Modern Pop-Culture References

Books & Literature

Movies

Television Series



Is there anything we missed about Hanako-san? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Heceta Head Haunted Lighthouse – Florence, Oregon

Date of Discovery

One of the earliest reports of the apparition came in 1975 via the “Siuslaw News.” We’re still looking for the original story to verify.

Name

“Rue” is the alleged name of the ghost. This was established by a group of Lane Community College students who claimed to get the name from an Ouija board several days before Halloween, possibly in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Physical Description

Rue is described as an apparition of a gray haired woman wearing late Victorian-era dress.

The lighthouse is 56 ft tall and sits 1,000 feet above sea level on Heceta Head. The lighthouse is located 12 miles from Florence, Oregon. The lighthouse is named after Spanish Basque explorer Bruno de Heceta.

1931 image of Heceta Head Lighthouse - Florence, Oregon

Origin

The rumor is that Rue was most likely a lighthouse keeper’s wife, however, there were no records of lighthouse keepers families kept. Only the men who managed the lighthouses sometimes called “wicked” were accounted for in records at the time. The story is that Rue had two daughters and one of them had drowned either in the ocean or a nearby cistern. Allegedly Rue has returned to the place of her daughter’s death after her own passing.

To add to the mystery there is an unmarked grave near the lighthouse that is reported to be overgrown and old.

Mythology and Lore

One encounter with the ghost was reported in the Siuslaw News in 1975. “Maintenance man Jim Anderson saw an odd reflection in a window he was cleaning. When he turned he saw the apparition which was described as an elderly woman in a Victorian-style gown. He fled in fear and later housekeeping reported hearing scraping sounds to find the glass he had broken in his escape neatly piled up.

The Lighthouse which now operates as a Bed and Breakfast has had guests reported seeing a figure float by, items being re-arranged in rooms, and feelings of being watched or a presence.

Modern Pop-Culture References

None known to date

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Hot Lake Hotel – La Grande, Oregon

Categories
Haunted Places

Date of Establishment

The original building of the resort began in 1864 and has been reconstructed serval times over the years. In 1884 the Pacific Union Railroad cause constructing to go on again, followed by the renovations to build a fully operational hotel in 1903. Later it became a sanitorium and had a large fire once again leading to more construction issues.

Name & Location

Hot Lake Hotel is located off Highway 203 in La Grande, Oregon situated between beautiful hillsides and a hot spring named “Ea-Kesh-Pa”.

Physical Description

The hotel red brick buildings with a beautiful white railing around the building. The grounds surrounding the building feature rolling hillsides, a garden, statues, and walkways to draw their guests out into nature.

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Origin

Originally built in 1864 the Hot Lake Hotel had a long history of operation and disastrous events leading to remodeling and reopenings. It was first built to be a hotel featuring the hot springs, later being reopened as a therapeutic get-away, then as a training school, retirement home, and finally an insane asylum before being abandoned.

Mythology and Lore

The myths and lore of the Hot Lake Hotel can be hard to nail down as its long history and main use blur the lines of fact from myth. It’s been rumored to be haunted by past vacationers, a nurse who was murdered, a gardener who committed suicide, and a long string of asylum residents. There is a large number of reports stating a piano formerly owned by Robert E. Lee’s wife is haunting the 3rd floor and playing itself through-out the day. Other reports have been of ghostly screams, haunted crying sounds, whispers, rocking chairs moving on their own, spirits wandering the grounds, phantom footsteps, as well as other objects seeming to move around the rooms. The hotel was even featured on “The Scariest Places on Earth” television series in 2001 because of the main accounts of experiences. Today this haunted hotel has been remodeled into a bed and breakfast with a spa, though its owners are wary of highlighting the building’s darker past.

Modern Pop-Culture References

Books & Literature

Ghost Stories from the Pacific Northwest (1995)

Television Series

Scariest Places on Earth (2001)

Is there anything we missed about the Hot Lake Hotel? Let us know in the comments section below!

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