• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Geography Of Urban Legends

GerdaWordyer

GerdaWordyer

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
1,052
A thread in "Ghosts" touched on where and when, as kids, often at slumber parties, we learned True Facts that we later learned were time honored urban legends. I think it would be interesting to see which locales were firmly fixed in our minds as kids before we learned just how universal the legends are. For example, though Chicago and a motorway in the UK have longstanding claims for a Vanishing Hitchhiker, I learned that she REALLY was at White Rock Lake in Dallas TX.
Hookman lurked at Lake Worth in Fort Worth, TX.
La Llorona lives (?!?) in San Antonio, TX, as does Chickenfoot Devil.
A teacher at my Jr High told our class about The Man In The Backseat (thwarted by the gas station attendant who told her to step into the office because he claimed the bills she was paying with looked counterfeit) as a FOAF which she believed. So he's in FW.
Every star-crossed American Indian couple had their tragic end on the very grounds of the summer camp I went to as a kid in the 60's, near Acton, TX.
So where were the top ghosts and maniacs of your childhood located?
 
We were far too prosaic for that, alas, though someone tried to invent a legless (as in without lower limbs) ghost who appeared around a local loch. Didn't catch on.
 
We had a few.

A (totally fictional) boy who fell from a particular railway bridge onto train tracks and was killed by an oncoming intercity (he appeared at the exact moment a train passed under the bridge. Except he never did, to my knowledge.)

It's a well known fact in Yorkshire that if you turn on your TV at exactly midnight and put 666 as the channel, then you can speak to the devil. An early form of Skype perhaps? Obviously relies on British TV only having 4 channels at the time...

Most creative was one I can barely remember, but something about the slug trails on trees actually being left by ghosts. There was more to this one but frustratingly I can't quite recall it. The ghosts had a special name perhaps? And you could tell how they died by where the slime was, or something?

Thanks for reminding me of these Gerda! Haven't thought of them in hundreds of years. :)
 
That place looks amazing Frideswide! Are there a lot of ULs attached to it? I'd be surprised if not, frankly.
Might try a visit if I'm ever down that neck of the English woods.
 
I've heard the old "penguin in the rucksack" about practically every zoo in the UK over a period spanning at least 20 years. Told in very a serious manner every time.
Some people actually get quite aggressive when you mention that it's an urban legend, so the last time it happened I couldn't be bothered to explain and just laughed in all the appropriate places :rolleyes:
 
I think the name and the way it looks are just......

and EVERYTHING happened there. Including Bigfoot and the Lochness Monster. As a scot I was the only one in the school who actually knew that Loch Ness was not 20 miles away!
 
Years ago I heard a UL about a car crash where the driver of the car that did all the damage managed to right the vehicle and drive away, but was caught because he left his numberplate at the scene. Yeah, right.

So later I was working nights in a kids' home and heard a huge CRASH outside, and saw a car wrapped around a demolished road sign. It shakily reversed off, leaving a stripe of red paint, and guess what else?
When the police asked if I had the car number I was able to say 'Yeah, right here!'

I s'pose it happens a lot.
 
GerdaWordyer said:
So where were the top ghosts and maniacs of your childhood located?
Click to expand...

Our goatman had a very specific location, a particular canyon on the Guadalupe river, not too far from Canyon Lake. The story went, if you parked your car in this canyon, turned off your motor but left your lights on, you would hear him running toward you. No one ever saw him, as naturally no one ever waited long enough to be caught. I don't know how the local teens were sure this unseen creature was some configuration of man and goat, but back in the day, all the kids believed in the goatman.

One afternoon many years ago, I was riding my bike around that area, and did hear some strange and spooky goat noises. The way the sound echoed between the rocky cliffs did make it sound otherworldy and sinister, so perhaps that was where the idea came from.

Sadly, local belief in the goatman seems to have died out amongst the younger generations. My kids report that none of their schoolmates seem to know about the goatman. It makes me a little wistful for the old days.

escargot1 said:
Years ago I heard a UL about a car crash where the driver of the car that did all the damage managed to right the vehicle and drive away, but was caught because he left his numberplate at the scene. Yeah, right.

So later I was working nights in a kids' home and heard a huge CRASH outside, and saw a car wrapped around a demolished road sign. It shakily reversed off, leaving a stripe of red paint, and guess what else?
When the police asked if I had the car number I was able to say 'Yeah, right here!'

I s'pose it happens a lot.
Click to expand...

It must, because it once happened to a friend of mine. The fool thought he could sneakily drive home drunk one night by taking the back roads. :rolleyes: Instead, he failed to negotiate a sharp turn and plowed into a farmer's gate. He reversed out, relieved that no one was around to see what he'd done. He made it home and climbed into bed only to sit up and think about his license plate. He went downstairs to check and sure enough it was gone. With a lot of cursing, he drove back to the scene of the accident and saw his license plate embedded front and center in the farmer's gate. By that time, of course, the farmer was waiting for him. :p
 
Ulalume said:
The story went, if you parked your car in this canyon, turned off your motor but left your lights on, you would hear him running toward you....
Click to expand...


I guess that dogging wasn't really a 'thing' back then? Or maybe kids were just less aware of the seedy side of life... ;)
 
RyoHazuki said:
I guess that dogging wasn't really a 'thing' back then? Or maybe kids were just less aware of the seedy side of life... ;)
Click to expand...

Nah, not in a place like this. But the goatman canyon would have been a bad place for it anyway. Teens just went there to get really scared first, then took their heightened arousal back to someone's game room or den to mess around. :p
 
GerdaWordyer said:
How fun (?) would it be to live in the new housing?
Click to expand...

I know somebody that does, she claims never to have seen or heard anything strange unfortunately.

When I was a kid living at home, the local paper ran the story about the redevelopment of the site and the mass burial mounds that were being excavated. I remember it being the first time I had ever heard the term 'exhumation', and the realisation of what that actually meant gave me a few nightmares.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top