The aim of the study is to move away from the antiquarian bias of previous work on the folklore of the supernatural in order to shed light on present day attitudes and concepts. In the past, folkiorists have done very little to collect their own culture, or even to recognise its forms. This has been particularly true of British work on ghost traciitions - the tendency of all but a very few scholars has 'been to retire to the library and compile collections of legends. The present study eschews this approach in favour of fieldwork. There are three main aspects of the work. The early chapters provide a resume of texts on the supernatural, from 1572 to the present day, seeking (i) to construct a cultural history of the concept of the ghost, and (ii) to evaluate the usefulness of these texts to the folklorist or historian of ideas. The central part of the thesis concentrates on presenting a picture of contemporary supernatural beliefs, drawing on data collected in informal interviews with 120 mainly elderly people resident in Gatley, a suburb of Manchester. Two central concepts are analysed - that is, ideas about ghosts, and about knowledge of the future. A third chapter describes miscellaneous beliefs (telepathy, UFOs, 'Luck', and mediumistic powers). In the later chapters attention is drawn to the manner of the storytelling through which these beliefs are expressed. The structure of inemorate is discussed. with particular reference to the Labovian model of personal experience stories. Finally the performative style of the storyteller is analysed in detail to show the basic linguistic resources a storyteller may call upon when structuring private experience into public narrative.

Snapdragon and Other Short Stories, is an exploration of how characters interact with supernatural elements. These stories give the perception of the characters' encounters with supernatural elements, their reactions, and the results of their acceptance or denial of their response to the supernatural. These stories are not genre fantasy pieces that include dragons, wizards, and the like. The supernatural is presented along the lines of magical realism. Magical realism differs from fantasy in that elements of the miraculous can appear along side of reality while seeming natural and unforced. In his 1949 preface to The Kingdom of This World Alejo Carpentier first defined magical realism as "the practice of melding everyday realism indistinguishably with elements of magic and myth" (Taylor 2). In Dead Zone a young woman who adheres strictly to what can be proven scientifically and factually, is confronted with the ghosts of the Interstate 4 Dead Zone. In Dead Girl Pearls a high school girl is faced with the disappearance of her best friend, and what her dream reveals to her about the disappearance and her own friendship. An old woman in The Color Stealer tells the story of a young man who seeks to have his color vision restored to him for the sake of love, and the price its restoration carries. In China Doll a woman is taken in by a man as his possession and shows the importance and value of belonging to one's self. Snapdragon is the story of a young woman who realizes, upon recognizing her ability to overhear people's thoughts, that changing herself to suit others is not giving her the life she thought she wanted.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 600-624).