There is a certain feeling that comes with the fall season. With shorter days and cooler nights comes a sense of various traditions – football and Halloween among them.
Robert Wolverton, professor in the Mississippi State University department of classical and modern languages and literature, said so much of people’s lives are bound by legend, tradition, superstition and myth we rarely even notice, let alone think twice about it.
“A one-word synonym for myth is story. They always start by being spoken, changes (to the story) lead to tradition,” he said, adding oral traditions eventually become history.
A good example of tradition connected to history is the story behind MSU’s gloried cowbell.
It is tradition for Bulldog fans to cheer with the help of cowbells and most know it is considered a sign of good luck but not everyone knows the whole story.
According to Lindsey Storey, director of orientation and events, in the 1940s a cow wandered onto the field during the Egg Bowl from the barn, or Giles Hall. After the MSU victory, the cow was used as a good luck charm but was decided later to bring just its bell instead of the cow to games. In the 1960s, Earl Terrell and Ralph Reeves, MSU professors, began welding handles to the cowbells and the bookstore started selling them in 1964.
The story of the cowbell is sacred to avid Bulldog supporters, and Wolverton said traditions have multiple meanings and have been the glue of civilization, or rather, a common factor all peoples could relate to worldwide. People from all walks of life who favor MSU have the love of maroon and white, as well as reverence for the cowbell in common, a “glue” that connects them, no matter who they are or where they come from.
Just as football in Starkville ignites memories of various traditions, fall brings about legends, folklore and superstition of another kind – Halloween.
“We take (so much) for granted because we don’t know the background,” Wolverton said. “A part of it is the tradition in so many of our holidays – Easter, Halloween, Christmas – they’re still alive.”
He said Halloween, or “All Hallow’s Eve,” began as a religious holiday, noting the only other place you’ll hear the word “hallow” is in The Lord’s Prayer. 
“That was the time when people who had died might come back to visit and help you along at the beginning of the Jewish New Year,” he says. “This is a marvelous example of how the Christian church took over (pagan) holidays. We have a festival that churches are condemning because they don’t know the origins.”
Halloween has encouraged localized superstitions, myths and folklore, which he classifies as homegrown tales or legends. One such example would be stories of haunted locations on campus.
Storey said the beliefs and assumptions by some students that George Hall is haunted are left up to the students themselves to decide if it is believable or simply superstition.
“You can make it really creepy,” she said. “Back in the day, (George Hall) was the infirmary. The influenza hit and our guys started getting sick. The creepy factor was people were dying and they were embalming them in the basement.”
According to Storey, in 1918, MSU lost 37 students to the influenza epidemic, with 1,200 other students also affected by the flu in some manner.
The second floor of George Hall was used for the seriously ill students, and the first floor kept the critically ill.
The basement was used for the embalming chamber.
George Hall is not the only place on campus that might have some things go bump in the night, either.
Shelby King, senior music education major, said he has witnessed peculiar happenings in Lee Hall.
“I’ve actually seen the lights on the Lee Hall stage go on and off on their own. Plus there were noises and a huge boom that literally scared the mess out of me,” he said. “I have heard big rumors that the fourth floor of Lee Hall is haunted.”
King said the tunnels running below the Drill Field that connect to the cafeteria can be frightening to a wandering mind, especially since they are quite small and sometimes contain standing water or water ominously dripping from the pipes.
Wolverton said the common understanding of myths, stories, traditions and folklore are what tie people together and it helps to know their background stories, farfetched or not.
“They’re all sort of the same genre, all imaginative, could be from true stories,” he said. “Real or fiction? Who knows?”