Bullereese WC 294

Bullereese
WC 294

I was eight years old when I heard my first campfire story. The storyteller was my dad. I’ll never forget the experience.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked us kids gathered in a circle a safe distance from the fire.

We all nodded.

He started telling us this story about a ghost named Bullereese.

“…And Bullereese waits for little children alone in the woods without their parents…He floats out from behind trees and scares the living pants off the kids…They always run back to their campsite to the safety of their parents…”

I know my dad was just trying to make us understand why we shouldn’t go out in the woods alone. But still, back then, it was scary.

“Bullereese is eight feet tall and hairy. He smells like hickory smoke,” Dad said in his storyteller's voice. “People say they can smell him before they see him.”

We all took a sniff of the air around the fire and darned if we didn’t smell hickory smoke. I felt sort of safe because it was my dad telling the story, but I remember being scared.

“And some say, Bullereese is not a ghost but a man who hides in the woods.”

We all looked into the darkness surrounding us and let our imaginations run wild.

And then, suddenly, my dad got the strangest look on his face, stopped telling the story, and got up.

“Well, I think we should hit the hay, kids. Long day tomorrow,” he said and herded us away from the campfire and off to bed.

We never did hear the ending of the ghost story, and to this day (twenty years later), my dad will not discuss what he saw, and something tells me not to ask.