Tag Archives: raid

Trip Raid (day)

Title: Trip Raid (day)

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 on the trippees by outside actors (Dartmouth students not on the trip)
    • The whole group must be present
    • This raid takes place during the daytime while the trip is taking a break from hiking
  • Cultural Context
    • Focus on putting the trippees out of their comfort zone — make them nervous about the presence of two outside figures
    • The result is that all the trippees are embarrassed that they fell for the joke in the first place. This collective embarrassment gives the trippees something to bond over going forward

Item:

  • Trip raid (daytime): During one day of hiking, the trip is on a break when they notice two figures hiking off-trail. It seems strange to the trippees and trip leaders that anyone is hiking off trail, but then the two figures abruptly change direction and begin directly approaching the trip. It is two cloaked and bearded men. When they reach the trip, the trippees and trip leaders realize that it is two Dartmouth students dressed up as creepy figures. They then laugh together about the joke.

Transcript of Informant Interview:

“We were raided by one of our trip leaders’ boyfriends, and she had no idea they were coming. We were sitting down having lunch and we saw these two figures hiking through this marsh behind these trees, and we were like ‘oh that’s pretty weird that they are not hiking on the really well laid out path, but okay.’ And then we were just sitting there watching them, watching them, watching them, and suddenly they just vere toward us and it was terrifying. It was these two cloaked, bearded figures, but it was just two guys that our trip leader knew dressed up as Lord of the Rings characters. They then proceeded to sing to us. It was really weird, but really fun.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • During this raid, neither the trippees nor the trip leaders knew that this would be happening.

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, Raid, Daytime, Wilderness, Creepy figures

Trip Raid (night)

Title: Trip Raid (night)

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Practical Joke / Trick
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States

Informant #1 Data:

  • The informant is a Dartmouth ’21 male. He went on a first-year trip in September 2017; the trip was canoeing.

Informant #2 Data:

  • The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 male. He went on a first-year trip in September 2014 and was a member of Lodj Croo in September 2017.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • The raid takes place while the trippees and trip leaders are all sitting around socializing at night (while it is dark) in the woods. No one else is thought to be around.
    • People who are neither trippees or trip leaders approach the group to scare them.
  • Cultural Context
    • The idea of doing this on trips is to take the trippees out of their comfort zones, but to never actually threaten their safety
    • Focus on embarrassing the trippees and make them all believe that someone is coming for them, when in reality, they are safe the whole time
      • It is funny in retrospect, and the trippees can all laugh together about one another’s reactions to the raid
      • Forms a bond among the trippees

Item:

  • Trip Raid (nighttime) by the Grant Croo. The members of the Grant Croo sneak up on the trip and take them by surprise, attempting to frighten the trippees in the process. The trip leaders are aware of what is happening, so they are not actually worried for the safety of the trippees

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bNOjpV1PW8B6z6r13

Transcript of Informant #1:

“During our trip we were out on the air strip and the Grant Croo came up to us in the night. They were dressed as the knights who say knee so they were sitting on each other’s shoulders, so there were these huge giant shadowy figures walking towards us, so we thought we were going to get attacked, and some people in my group ran away. But then they came up closer and we realized it was actually just the Grant Croo.”

Informant #1’s Comments:

  • The informant was scared while the raid was happening because he did not know who the giant figures were that were approaching them in the dark.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Informant #1 was able to give a detailed account of the experience that he had on trips.

Collector’s Name: Madison DeRose

Transcript of Informant #2:

Another piece of folklore that I completely forgot about is just trips raids in general. There’s one that’s continuously told about apparently, right before our time, there was a trip leader that had one of his friends pretend to be a trippee, went on the entire trip with them, and during the second night of the trip, he was tied to a tree and was screaming, “Run, Run, Run!” And all of the trippees ran through the forest, and one of them was on the Track and Field team and ran for 6-8 hours, and they had to send people to go find them in the forest. That’s a trip raid that people talk about all the time and is the reason why we register raids now. It’s told consistently to every trip that comes through.”

Informant #2’s Comments:

  • Informant questioned the validity of the stories but enjoyed them nonetheless.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Informant #2 was able to give a detailed account of the stories he had heard.

Collector’s Name: Roshni Chandwani

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Folklore, Practical Joke, Raid, Grant Croo, Embarrassing, Bond, Comfort Zone

First Year DOC Trip Raid

Title: First Year DOC Trip Raid

Informant info: SuHyeon Kim is a ’19 currently enrolled at Dartmouth College. She is from Daegu, Republic of Korea, and is hoping to do a double major in Government and Economics. She is currently the chair of BSLS (Big Sister, Little Sister) and works for the McLaughlin snack bar.

Type of lore: Customary, Prank

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was interviewed alone at Dartmouth College. The informant was asked to retell any rituals she knew associated with any aspect of the Dartmouth Outing Club.

As an international student from Daegu, Republic of Korea, coming to Dartmouth was SuHyeon’s first time coming to the United States. Although she is proficient in the English language, SuHyeon is not used to the American culture that coming to college came to her as a big transition. In the process of the transition, she participated in the Dartmouth Outing Club trip, the Organic Farming section. During her trip, she heard from her trip leader various folklore related to the Dartmouth Outing Club trips, including this raid prank.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file)

Item: When we were having lunch on our second day, I heard this story from my trip leader. Our trip leader told us that when she was having her trip, she and her tripmates were hiking to their campsite. They were heading to the cabin camping section and while they were walking, they walked by a random topless hiker with a huge beard. The trip leader, when the hiker passed by, told the tripees that there were violent hippies that lived in the mountains nearby and that they attacked and robbed many innocent hikers. They were walking and walking when they finally arrived near their cabin and the campsite. They found that one of their other trip leader was tied to the tree, injured, screaming “Run, run away!” And two other mysterious looking people came out of the forest, threatening and chasing the tripees. So the tripees ran away for their lives. And later they found out that this was a joke prepared by the trip leaders. But the thing was that one of the tripees was a varsity marathon runner and that he ran too deep into the forest that the trip leaders had a very hard time finding him. From then, this joke was banned from the trips.

Informant’s comments: 

Sadly, she did not experience a prank as such during her own DOC trip but heard from her friends who were tricked into similar pranks.

Collector’s comments:

Tags/Keywords: prank, raid, Dartmouth Outing Club, trips