Title: Robert Frost’s Ashes

General Information about Item:

• Customary Folklore: Practical Joke / Trick

• Language: English

• Country: United States

Informant Data:

• The informant is a Dartmouth ’21 female. She went on a first-year trip in September 2017; the trip was hiking (level 3).

Contextual Data:

• Social Context
  • The trick is played by the trip leaders on their trippees.
  • The whole group must be present
  • In order for the trick to really work, the trippees can not have any prior knowledge about the trip existing

• Cultural Context
  • Robert Frost attended Dartmouth College. As a result, many trippees view this as a sort of initiation into the college. (Might be a form of contagious magic)
  • Trippees are more gullible because they are being introduced to this completely new place, and, as a result, are more likely to believe something that may sound ridiculous to an outside party. The idea here is to embarrass the trippees together as a group and offer them something to bond over.

Item:

• Robert Frost’s Ashes practical joke: Trip leaders lie to their trippees and tell them that their trip has been selected to transport and dispose of Robert Frost’s (a famous Dartmouth alum) ashes. The trip leaders then take the ashes out when they are in the middle of the woods (likely on the top of a mountain), and tell the trippees. The trip leaders then distribute the ashes by pouring them into their trippees hands, and just as they are about to throw the ashes, one of the trip leaders leans down to lick up the ashes from his/her hands. The trippees are then appauled that their trip leader has licked the ashes, just to find out that they were not ashes, but sugar.

Transcript of Informant Interview:

“The Robert Frost ashes trick was played on us and we learned afterward that many trips had this trick, just in a different variation. So we were on a six hour busride the first morning of trips, and during that busride some of us heard about the trick from other trips who had already experienced it. But some of us did not hear about the trick that trip leaders often play on their trippees. So when my trip got to the top of Mousilauke Mountain, our trip leaders took out this flask, and they told us that we had been selected as the group to throw Robert Frost’s ashes off the mountain. At that point we were all pretty delirious because we were at the top of a mountain and it was very windy and I did not sleep a single minute the night before. And a couple of us (trippees) still kind of believed, so they took out a book of Robert Frost poetry and they had us read it super dramatically with lots of feeling, because the trip leaders told us that the reading had to be done well. So we did that, and then we opened the flask and poured out the ‘ashes.’ But I was thinking that these ‘ashes’ look a lot like just sugar. So my trip leader pours out some of the ashes into our hands. And then we were standing there and my trip leader holds the ashes up to his tongue and licks them. And then a couple of us (trippees) look at each other and we were just really confused, so then we lean down and lick up the ashes, too.”

Informant’s Comments:

• The informant noted that the reaction of trippees on her trip to the practical joke was skewed by the fact that some of her fellow trippees knew about the trick beforehand (had been told by trippees on other trips)

Collector’s Comments:

• Informant was able to give a detailed account of the experience that he had on trips.

Collector’s Name: Madison DeRose

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Folklore, Practical Joke, Robert Frost, Wilderness