20 Of The Scariest Urban Legends Ever! Which One Gives You The Most Chills?

By Teresa Thomerson in Geeks and Gaming On 29th June 2015

Check out the truth behind the legends and be prepared to stay awake tonight!

The Russian Sleep Experiment Synopsis

Toward the end of the 1940s, Soviet researchers sealed five prison inmates in an airtight chamber and dosed them with an experimental stimulant gas to test the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation. Their behavior was observed via two-way mirrors and their conversations monitored electronically. They had been promised their freedom if they could go entirely without sleep for 30 days.

The first few days of the experiment passed uneventfully. By the fifth day, however, the subjects began showing signs of stress and were overheard bemoaning their circumstances. They stopped conversing with their fellow inmates, choosing instead to whisper compromising information about one another into the microphones, apparently in an effort to win the favor of the researchers.

Paranoia set in.

On the ninth day the screaming began. First one subject, then another, was observed running around the chamber screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end. Equally disconcerting was the reaction of the quieter subjects, who began ripping apart the books they'd been given to read, smearing the pages with feces, and plastering them over the mirrored windows so their actions could no longer be observed.

Just as suddenly, the screaming stopped. The subjects ceased communicating altogether. Three long days passed without a sound from inside the chamber. Fearing the worst, the researchers addressed the subjects via the intercom. "We are opening the chamber to test the microphones," they said. "Step away from the door and lie flat on the floor or you will be shot. Compliance will earn one of you your immediate freedom."

A voice from inside answered, "We no longer want to be freed."

Two more days passed without contact of any kind as the scientists debated what to do next. Finally, they decided to terminate the experiment. At midnight on the fifteenth day the stimulant gas was flushed from the chamber and replaced with fresh air in preparation for the subjects' release. Far from being pleased at the prospect of leaving the chamber, the subjects began screaming as if in fear for their lives. They begged to have the gas turned back on. Instead, the researchers unsealed the door to the chamber and sent armed soldiers inside to retrieve them. Nothing could have prepared them for the carnage they witnessed upon entering.

Paranoia set in.

A voice from inside answered, "We no longer want to be freed."

The Russian Sleep Experiment Analysis

Analysis: It's a given that human beings require a certain amount of sleep in order for our minds and bodies to function properly. Anyone who has experienced a night (or two, or three) of insomnia knows how critical even a few hours of refreshing sleep can be to one's health and well-being.

What would happen if we went 15 or more days without the natural "downtime" virtually every sentient creature requires? Would we fall apart mentally and physically? Would we go insane? Would we die? It's questions like these the Russian Sleep Experiment was supposedly designed to answer, with the horrifying, catastrophic results reported above.

Now for a dose of reality gas. While the premise that keeping a group of people awake for 15 days straight would end in a cannibalistic bloodbath makes for a gripping fictional horror story, it's not borne out by scientific evidence. The so-called Russian Sleep Experiment never took place.

In point of fact, no human experiments of the type and duration described above have ever been conducted (none that have been made public, at any rate), though we do have the results of a 1964 high school science fair project in which the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation were monitored by a bona fide sleep researcher from Stanford University and a professor of neuropsychiatric medicine. By default, it has come to be considered one of the seminal studies in the field.

Randy Gardner, a student at Point Loma High School in San Diego, California, went without sleep for 11 days in a bid for the Guinness World Record for continuous wakefulness. He suffered bouts of dizziness, memory loss, slurred speech, hallucinations, and even paranoia over the course of the 264-hour experiment, but at no time did he exhibit anything resembling the extreme symptoms and behaviors allegedly observed by the Russian researchers. Gardner reportedly slept for 14 hours straight when the project was over and awoke feeling rested and alert. He exhibited no lasting ill effects.

While Gardner did, in fact, beat the existing benchmark for days gone without sleep, his feat was never actually listed in the Guinness Book of World Records because he missed the submission deadline. The most recent title holder in that category (before Guinness retired it for fear of encouraging risky behavior, that is) was Maureen Weston of Cambridgeshire, England, who stayed awake for 18 days and 17 hours during a rocking chair marathon in 1977. She neither ripped open her own abdomen nor ate her own flesh. Ms. Weston holds the Guinness World Record for sleep deprivation to this day.

A word about creepypasta

"The Russian Sleep Experiment" is an example of creepypasta, an Internet nickname for frightening images and fictional horror stories that circulate virally online. The oldest version I've found was posted to the Creepypasta Wiki on August 10, 2010 by a user calling him- or herself "Orange Soda." The original author is listed as unknown.

Sources and further reading:

Sleep Deprivation: From Insomnia to World Records

World of Lucid Dreaming, 2014

The Hook Man Legand

A teenage boy drove his date to a dark and deserted lovers' lane for a make-out session. He turned on the radio for mood music, leaned over to whisper in the girl's ear, and began kissing her.

Minutes later, the mood was broken when the music suddenly stopped mid-song. After a moment of silence an announcer's voice came on, warning in an ominous tone that a convicted murderer had just escaped from the state insane asylum which happened to be located within a half-mile of where they were parked and urging that anyone who notices a man wearing a stainless steel hook in place of his missing right hand should immediately report his whereabouts to the police.

The girl became frightened and asked to be taken home. The boy, feeling bold, locked all the doors instead and, assuring his date they would be safe, attempted to kiss her again. She became frantic and pushed him away, insisting that they leave. Relenting, the boy peevishly jerked the car into gear and spun its wheels as he pulled out of the parking space.

When they arrived at the girl's house she got out of the car, and, reaching to close the door, began to scream uncontrollably. The boy ran to her side to see what was wrong and there, dangling from the door handle, was a bloody hook.

The Hook Man Analysis

Analysis: Folks have been telling the "hook-man" story since the 1950s, and indeed the implicit moral message "Sex is naughty. Bad boys and girls will be punished!" seems more appropriate to that simpler, more naive era. Just as this message has come to be parodied in recent horror films (whereas, once upon a time, it was delivered with morbid solemnity), its "bygone" relevance has taken the teeth out of the cautionary tale.

Remarking on the improbable tidiness of the plot of "The Hook," folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand observed that "most tellers narrate the story nowadays more as a scary story than a believed legend." Small wonder. Given its exploitation by Hollywood in popular genre films like Candyman and I Know What You Did Last Summer, most people under the age of 30 probably assume the story was invented by screenwriters.

Folklorists of a more Freudian bent find meaningful sexual overtones in the imagery of the tale. The boy, who wants to get his "hooks" into the girl, is not only frustrated by her unwillingness but afraid of his own lustful impulses a fear heightened by the stern "voice of conscience" emitting from the radio and has to "pull out fast" before a deadly sin is committed. The tearing off of the madman's hook symbolizes castration. Proponents of this type of psychological interpretation find the sexual apprehensions of both boys and girls represented in the legend.

One of the earliest appearances of "The Hook" in print was in a "Dear Abby" column dated November 8, 1960:

DEAR ABBY: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me:

A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite "lovers' lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw a hook on the door handle! I don't think I will ever park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids.

Not all urban legends in this vein have a safe and happy ending, I should point out. See "The Boyfriend's Death" for an example of a similar cautionary tale that pulls no punches. If you dare...

The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs

As told by reader Andy B.:

A married couple were going out for the evening and called in a teenage babysitter to take care of their three children. When she arrived they told her they probably wouldn't be back until late, and that the kids were already asleep so she needn't disturb them.

The babysitter starts doing her homework while awaiting a call from her boyfriend. After awhile the phone rings. She answers it, but hears no one on the other end just silence, then whoever it is hangs up. After a few more minutes the phone rings again. She answers, and this time there's a man on the line who says, in a chilling voice, "Have you checked the children?"

Click.

At first she thinks it might have been the father calling to check up and he got interrupted, so she decides to ignore it. She goes back to her homework, then the phone rings again. "Have you checked the children?" says the creepy voice on the other end.

"Mr. Murphy?" she asks, but the caller hangs up again.

She decides to phone the restaurant where the parents said they'd be dining, but when she asks for Mr. Murphy she is told that he and his wife had left the restaurant 45 minutes earlier. So she calls the police and reports that a stranger has been calling her and hanging up. "Has he threatened you?" the dispatcher asks. No, she says. "Well, there's nothing we can really do about it. You could try reporting the prank caller to the phone company."

A few minutes go by and she gets another call. "Why haven't you checked the children?" the voice says.

"Who is this?" she asks, but he hangs up again. She dials 911 again and says, "I'm scared. I know he's out there, he's watching me."

"Have you seen him?" the dispatcher asks. She says no. "Well, there isn't much we can do about it," the dispatcher says. The babysitter goes into panic mode and pleads with him to help her. "Now, now, it'll be okay," he says. "Give me your number and street address, and if you can keep this guy on the phone for at least a minute we'll try to trace the call. What was your name again?"

"Linda."

"Okay, Linda, if he calls back we'll do our best to trace the call, but just keep calm. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes," she says, and hangs up. She decides to turn the lights down so she can see if anyone's outside, and that's when she gets another call.

"It's me," the familiar voice says. "Why did you turn the lights down?"

"Can you see me?" she asks, panicking.

"Yes," he says after a long pause.

"Look, you've scared me," she says. "I'm shaking. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted?"

"No."

"Then what do you want?" she asks.

Another long pause. "Your blood. All over me."

She slams the phone down, terrified. Almost immediately it rings again. "Leave me alone!" she screams, but it's the dispatcher calling back. His voice is urgent.

"Linda, we've traced that call. It's coming from another room inside the house. Get out of there! Now!!!"

She tears to the front door, attempting to unlock it and dash outside, only to find the chain at the top still latched. In the time it takes her to unhook it she sees a door open at the top of the stairs. Light streams from the children's bedroom, revealing the profile of a man standing just inside.

She finally gets the door open and bursts outside, only to find a cop standing on the doorstep with his gun drawn. At this point she's safe, of course, but when they capture the intruder and drag him downstairs in handcuffs, she sees he is covered in blood. Come to find out, all three children have all been murdered.

Analysis: Teenagers have been scaring each other silly with this urban legend since the late 1960s, though most people nowadays are probably more familiar with it as the plot of the 1979 horror film When a Stranger Calls (or the 2006 remake of the same title). It's not based on any real-life incident, so far as anyone knows, but the scenario is plausible enough to give goosebumps to anyone with a sense of what it's like to be young and inexperienced and alone in a big house caring for someone else's children.

"The most frightening aspect of this legend is that the babysitter is not in control at any time," writes folklorist Gail De Vos. "[T]he caller multiplies the anxiety that the babysitter is already feeling as the responsible person in the household. The possibility that this could actually happen is never far from the mind of any babysitter."

Never mind the unlikelihood that police would be able to trace a phone call that lasted no more than 20 seconds at most, or that an officer could be dispatched to the house so quickly. Albeit framed as a cautionary tale, the main purpose of the story is to frighten us, not give us actionable information. That it's still going around some 40 years later is a testament to how successfully it accomplishes its goal.

See also: "The Clown Statue," a similar tale involving a teen babysitter trapped in a house with a menacing stranger, in this case disguised as a clown statue or oversize doll.

Sources and further reading:

Brunvand, Jan H. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 54-57.

De Vos, Gail. Tales, Rumors, and Gossip: Exploring Contemporary Folk Literature in Grades 7-12. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1996, pp. 296-298.

Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light?

Also known as "The Roommate's Death"

As told by reader W. Horton:

Two dormmates in college were in the same science class. The teacher had just reminded them about the midterm the next day when one dormmate let's call her Juli got asked to this big bash by the hottest guy in school. The other dormmate, Meg, had pretty much no interest in going and, being a diligent student, she took notes on what the midterm was about. After the entire period of flirting with her date, Juli was totally unprepared for her test, while Meg was completely prepared for a major study date with her books.

At the end of the day, Juli spent hours getting ready for the party while Meg started studying. Juli tried to get Meg to go, but she was insistent that she would study and pass the test. The girls were rather close and Juli didn't like leaving Meg alone to be bored while she was out having a blast. Juli finally gave up, using the excuse that she would cram in homeroom the next day.

Juli went to the party and had the time of her life with her date. She headed back to the dorm around 2 a.m. and decided not to wake Meg. She went to bed nervous about the midterm and decided she would wake up early to ask Meg for help.

She woke up and went to wake Meg. Meg was lying on her stomach, apparently sound asleep. Juli rolled Meg over to reveal Meg's terrified face. Juli, concerned, turned on the desk lamp. Meg's study stuff was still open and had blood all over it. Meg had been slaughtered. Juli, in horror, fell to the floor and looked up to see, written on the wall in Meg's blood: "AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU DIDN'T TURN ON THE LIGHT?"

Analysis: This is a variant of a popular urban legend given the title "The Roommate's Death" by folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand (see his book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, published by W.W. Norton, in 1981). In every version of "The Roommate's Death" someone is murdered right under the nose of an unsuspecting female protagonist, but because the lights are out, or the crime takes place in another room, the victim's body isn't discovered until later, usually the next morning. As the story is sometimes told, the protagonist hears suspicious noises while the crime is being committed but is afraid to investigate because she thinks it could be an intruder coming after her.

The "creepiness factor" is very high in "Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn On the Light?" On discovering the body, the main character can't help but realize what a close call she's had. And the murderer rubs it in with a message scrawled in blood.

While the general form of the legend dates back at least 40 years (and surely more), it has a timeless appeal as a specimen of the "American adolescent shocker story," to borrow Brunvand's phrase. As he wrote in The Vanishing Hitchhiker,

One consistent theme in these teenage horrors is that as the adolescent moves out from home into the larger world, the world's dangers may close in on him or her. Therefore, although the immediate purpose of these legends is to produce a good scare, they also serve to deliver a warning: Watch out! This could happen to you!

As is often the case with so-called "cautionary tales," however, the warning is of little practical use to the young people who hear and repeat the legend apart from providing catharsis vis-Ã -vis the normal trepidations that accompany growing up and moving away from home.

The Clown Statue

Also known as "The Clown Doll," "The Killer Clown," "It the Clown," or "The Clown Serial Killer"

As told by Tamra S., Dec. 22, 2004:

So-and-so's friend, a girl in her teens, is babysitting for a family in Newport Beach, Ca. The family is wealthy and has a very large house you know the sort, with a ridiculous amount of rooms. Anyways, the parents are going out for a late dinner/movie. The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in bed she should go into this specific room (he doesn't really want her wandering around the house) and watch TV there.

The parents take off and soon she gets the kids into bed and goes to the room to watch TV. She tries watching TV, but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room. She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can't handle it.

She resorts to calling the father and asks, "Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out."

The father says seriously, "Get the kids, go next door and call 911."

She asks, "What's going on?"

He responds, "Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back."

She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police. When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, "So, really, what's going on?"

He responds, "We don't HAVE a clown statue." He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they sleep. He and his wife had just blown it off, assuming that they were having nightmares.

The police arrive and apprehend the "clown," who turns out to be a midget. A midget clown! I guess he was some homeless person dressed as a clown, who somehow got into the house and had been living there for several weeks. He would come into the kids' rooms at nights and watch them while they slept. As the house was so large, he was able to avoid detection, surviving off their food, etc. He had been in the TV room right before the babysitter right came in there. When she entered he didn't have enough time to hide, so he just froze in place and pretended to be a statue.

Analysis: Like "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs," this urban legend pits a lone, teenage babysitter against a male intruder who has surreptitiously entered the house. It's disturbing on many accounts, not least the hint of pedophilia in the revelation that the "midget disguised as a clown" has been spying on, playing with, or, in some versions, actually touching someone's children before his presence in the house is discovered.

In some variants, e.g. the one below submitted by a reader in 2006, it's explicitly stated that the intruder is a sex offender with designs on the babysitter herself:

A girl is babysitting a sleeping infant. She goes up regularly to check on the baby and the third time notices a life-size clown standing in the corner/sitting in the crib. A few minutes later the parents call and the babysitter mentions the clown and how unnerving it is. The parents relate that they've never bought a clown and the police are called.

The "clown" is discovered to be a local sex offender waiting for babysitter to go to sleep before attacking her.

The chain-letter version

Another variant circulating in the form of a chain letter ("...if you don't repost to 10 peeps within 5 minutes," the message warns, "the clown will be standing next 2 your bed at 3:00 a.m. with a knife in his hand...") makes the "midget clown" out to be a murderer who has escaped from prison:

Subject: Fw: clown

this creepy or what?

:: a few years ago a mother and a father decided they needed a break, so they wanted to head out for a night on the town. So they called their most trusted babysitter. When the babysitter arrived the two children were already fast asleep in bed. So the babysitter just got to sit around and make sure everything was okay with the children.

Later in the night, the babysitter got bored and so she wanted to watch tv but she couldnt watch it downstairs because they didnt have cable downstairs (the parents didnt want their children watching too much garbage) so she called them and asked them if she could watch cable tv in the parents room. Of course the parents said it was ok, but the babysitter had one final request. She asked if she could cover up the large clown statue in their bedroom with a blanket or cloth, because it made her nervous. The phone line was silent for a moment, and the father (who was talking to the babysitter at the time) said..... take the children and get out of the house..... we'll call the police... we dont have a clown statue..... the children and the babysitter got murdered by the clown. it turned out 2 be that the clown was a killer that escaped from jail.

if you dont repost to 10 peeps within 5 minutes the clown will be standing next 2 your bed at 3:00am with a knife in his hand....

Real-life killer clowns

Though urban legends are sometimes inspired by real-life events, I've found no clear precedents for "The Clown Statue" in news reporting of the past 20 years no stories in which a miscreant poses as a clown doll inside people's homes, at any rate.

In 1990, a West Palm Beach, Florida woman was shot and killed on her doorstep by a clown sporting a bright orange wig (a crime which remains unsolved, so far as I know). Then there's John Wayne Gacy, of course, who, during the mid-1970s, murdered 33 young men and buried their bodies under his Chicago home. The media christened him the "Killer Clown" because he was known for hosting neighborhood parties at which he dressed up as a clown.

Bloody Mary in the Mirror

Also known as "Mary Worth," "I Believe in Mary Worth," "Mary Worthington," "Mary Jane," "I Believe in Mary Whales," "Mary White," "Hell Mary," etc.

Example #1:

As told by a reader, Feb. 23, 2010...

Some girls Kat didn't know invited her over for a sleepover. That night they played Truth or Dare. When it was Kat's turn she picked dare. One of the girls said, "I dare you to do Bloody Mary." Kat accepted. They gave Kat a lit candle and pushed her into the bathroom. Kat spun around three times and said, "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."

When nothing happened, she walked to the door. Before she could reach it, her only light blew out. She banged on the door, begging the other girls to open it, but they just laughed. She backed up against the door. The sink and the bath started to run. Thick, black blood poured out of the faucets and was soon overflowing onto the floor. Kat screamed a blood-curdling scream as Bloody Mary rose from the bloody water and crawled out. When she reached Kat she slit her throat and dragged her into the bath. The next morning, the other girls checked on her. When they saw her dead body, their screams could be heard for miles.

Example #2:

As told on the Internet, Feb. 16, 1994...

When I was about 9 years old, I went to a friend's for a birthday/slumber party. There were about 10 other girls there. About midnight, we decided to play Mary Worth. Some of us had never heard of this so one of the girls told the story.

Mary Worth lived a long time ago. She was a very beautiful young girl. One day she had a terrible accident that left her face so disfigured that nobody would look at her. She had not been allowed to see her own reflection after this accident for fear that she would lose her mind. Before this, she had spent long hours admiring her beauty in her bedroom mirror.

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, unable to fight the curiosity any longer, she crept into a room that had a mirror. As soon as she saw her face, she broke down into terrible screams and sobs. It was at this moment that she was so heartbroken and wanted her old reflection back, that she walked into the mirror to find it, vowing to disfigure anybody that came looking for her in the mirror.

After hearing this story, which was told very scarily, we decided to turn out all of the lights and try it. We all huddled around the mirror and starting repeating "Mary Worth, Mary Worth, I believe in Mary Worth."

About the seventh time we said it one of the girls that was in front of the mirror started screaming and trying to push her way back away from the mirror. She was screaming so loud that my friends mom came running into the room. She quickly turned on the lights and found this girl huddled in the corner screaming. She turned her around to see what the problem and saw these long fingernail scratches running down her right cheek. I will never forget her face as long as I live!!

Example #3:

Viral text as shared on Facebook, Aug. 16, 2012...

You are now cursed. You must send this on or you will be killed. Tonight at 12:00am, by Bloody Mary. This is no joke. So don't think you can quickly get out of it and delete it now because Bloody Mary will come to you if you do not send this on. She will slit your throat and your wrists and pull your eyeballs out with a fork. And then hang your dead corpse in your bedroom cupboard or put you under your bed. What's your parents going to do when they find you dead? Won't be funny then, will it? Don't think this is a fake and it's all put on to scare you because your wrong, so very wrong. Want to hear of some of the sad, sad people who lost their lives or have been seriously hurt by this email?

CASE ONE - Annalise [Surname Removed] he got this email. Rubbish she thought. She deleted it. And now, Annalise dead.

CASE TWO - Louise [Surname Removed]: She sent this to only 4 people and when she woke up in the morning her wrists had deep lacerations on each. Luckily there was no pain felt, though she is scarred for life.

CASE THREE - Tommy [Surname Removed]: He sent this to 5 people. Big mistake. The night Thomas was lying in his bed watching T.V. The clock shows '12:01am'. The T.V mysteriously flickered off and Thomas's bedroom lamp flashed on and off several times. It went pitch black, Thomas looked to the left of him and there she was, Bloody Mary standing in white rags. Blood everywhere with a knife in her hand then disappeared. The biggest fright of Thomas's life.

Warning... NEVER look in a mirror and repeat - 'Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.' Bloody Mary... I KILLED YOUR SON' Is it the end for you tonight! YOU ARE NOW CURSED

We strongly advise you to send this email on. It is seriously NO JOKE. We don't want to see another life wasted. ITS YOUR CHOICE... WANNA DIE TONIGHT? If you send this email to...

NO PEOPLE - You're going to die.

1-5 PEOPLE - You're going to either get hurt or get the biggest fright of your life.

5-15 PEOPLE - You will bring your family bad luck and someone close to you will die.

15 OR MORE PEOPLE - You are safe from Bloody Mary

Analysis: As best anyone can tell, the legend of Bloody Mary and its comparably gory variants ("Hell Mary," "I Believe in Mary Worth," "I Believe in Mary Whales," etc.) first emerged during the early 1960s as an adolescent party game albeit a very dark and creepy adolescent party game. Like so many folk rituals and urban legends, the exact time and place of its origin is impossible to pin down. Folklorists didn't begin recording examples of it until the 1970s.

That said, there's a body of folklore and superstition attributing magical and/or divinatory properties to mirrors dating back to ancient times. The most familiar of these lingering into modernity is the centuries-old superstition that breaking a mirror brings bad luck. The idea that one can foretell the future by peering into a mirror is even older, described in the Bible (I Corinthians 13) as "see[ing] through a glass, darkly." There are mentions of looking-glass divination in Chaucer's Squire's Tale (c. 1390), Spenser's The Faerie Queen (1590), and Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606), among other early literary sources.

Summoning visions

A particular form of divination associated with Halloween in the British Isles entailed gazing into a mirror and performing a nonverbal ritual to summon a vision of one's future betrothed. This example is from the Poems of Robert Burns, published in 1787:

Take a candle, and go alone to a looking glass; eat an apple before it, and some traditions say, you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.

Another example of mirror divination, in this case accompanied by ritual chanting, appears in the fairy tale "Snow White," as told by the Brothers Grimm in 1857 (trans. by D.L. Ashliman):

She was a beautiful woman, but she was proud and arrogant, and she could not stand it if anyone might surpass her in beauty. She had a magic mirror. Every morning she stood before it, looked at herself, and said:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

Who in this land is fairest of all?

To this the mirror answered:

You, my queen, are fairest of all.

As everyone who grew up reading "Snow White" (or watching the animated Disney version) knows, the mirror-obsessed queen was ultimately destroyed by her own vanity, and it is in this and similar cautionary tales that we see basic elements of the Bloody Mary ritual emerge.

Humans Can Lick, Too

Also known as "The Licked Hand," "The Dog's Lick," "People Can Lick, Too," "Not Only Dogs Can Lick," etc.

Example #1

As told by U.K. reader Kirsty H....

Once there was a nice old lady who had a lovely little dog. One day, the old lady heard on the radio that a crazy murderer had escaped from jail and that she should lock all her doors and windows. So she locked every door and window in the house except one tiny one to let some air in. She thought that a murderer would never get in through there.

So that night she went to bed as usual. She knew everything was okay because when she put down her hand the dog licked it. But later in the night she heard a drip, drip, drip. She put her hand down and the dog licked it and everything was okay, so she went downstairs to check out the tap. But the tap wasn't dripping. So she went to bed again. And everything was okay. She woke up again later in the night, though, so she thought the dripping sound must be coming from the shower. She went into the bathroom, and there was her dog, dead, hanging in the shower, dripping with blood, all its intestines hanging out.

Written on the mirror was: "Humans can lick, too!" And behind her in the mirror, she saw the murderer.

Example #2

Viral text circulating online as of May 2001...

Subj: DON'T DELETE THIS!!! (it scared the crap outta me)

Once there was a a beautiful young girl who lived in a small town just south of Farmersburg. Her parents had to go to town for a while, so they left their daughter home alone, but protected by her dog, which was a very large collie. The parents told the girl to lock all the windows and doors after they had left. And at about 8:00pm the parents went to town. So doing what she was told the girl shut and locked every window and every door. But there was one window in the basement that would not close completely.

Trying as best as she could she finally got the window shut, but it would not lock. So she left the window, and went back upstairs. But just to make sure that no one could get in, she put the dead-bolt lock on the basement door.

Then she sat down had some dinner and decided to go to sleep for the night. Settling down to sleep at about 12:00 she snuggled up with the dog and fell asleep.

But at one point, she suddenly woke up. She turned and looked at the clock...it was 2:30. She snuggled down again wondering what had woken her.....when she heard a noise. It was a dripping sound. She thought that she had left the water running, and now it was dripping into the drain of her sink. So thinking it was no big deal she decided to go back to sleep.

But she felt nervous so she reached her hand over the edge of her bed, and let the dog lick her hand for reassurance that he would protect her. Again at about 3:45 she woke up hearing dripping. She was slightly angry now but went back to sleep anyway. Again she reached down and let the dog lick her hand. Then she fell back to sleep.

At 6:52 the girl decided that she had had enough...she got up just in time to see her parents were pulling up to the house. "Good,"she thought. "Now somebody can fix the sink...'cause I know I didn't leave it running." She walked to the bathroom and there was the collie dog, skinned and hung up on the curtain rod. The noise she heard was its blood dripping into a puddle on the floor. The girl screamed and ran to her bedroom to get a weapon, in case someone was still in the house.....and there on the floor, next to her bed she saw a small note, written in blood, saying: HUMANS CAN LICK TOO, MY BEAUTIFUL.

Now it is time for you to lock all the windows and doors. This letter is the only chain letter that is true. This did happen many years ago, and the man who killed the dog was never caught. If you delete this letter you will suffer the same fate as the girl in the story did, years after the dog was killed. She was raped and killed in the same town and same house as the dog. Do not dismiss this letter, because if you do, a horrible thing will become of you, everyone will soon know your name. But only because it will be the headline of your local newspaper for a long time. It will read... Small Town Murder On The Loose! You can not chance your luck on a chain letter so serious as this. Give up your chance to send this letter to 23 people and you will be giving up your chance to live. You were warned. I hope that I will not see any murder stories in the papers anytime soon. And now I bid you a good day. And one more thing... you only have 23 minutes... sorry.

Humans Can Lick, Too Analysis

Analysis: "Humans Can Lick, Too" is another handwriting-on-the-wall tale in the same vein as "Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light?" and "Welcome to the World of AIDS."

The trope derives from a Bible story (book of Daniel) in which a feast thrown by the pagan Babylonian King Belshazzar is interrupted by the specter of a disembodied hand scrawling a cryptic message on the wall. As ultimately interpreted by the prophet Daniel, the message conveys God's judgment, predicting the downfall of Belshazzar and his entire kingdom.

To "read the handwriting on the wall" is to foresee one's own impending doom an apt and chilling metaphor.

Note that the chain-letter format (second variant on previous page) does little to enhance the impact of the story; in point of fact, the directive to "pass this along or die" undermines the narrative by transporting it to a fantasy realm where murderous madmen are capable of stalking their victims via forwarded email. That aside, the email retelling follows a tried-and-true formula, and works.

Variants of "Humans Can Lick, Too" were being collected by folklorists as long ago as the late 1960s. Indeed, the chain-letter version appears to have been cribbed from a 1967 oral transcription published in Ronald L. Baker's Hoosier Folk Legends (Indiana University Press, 1982). As in the later variant, the events were said to have taken place near a small town called Farmersburg, though there were two female protagonists instead of one, and the note left by the murdering madman read as follows:

"I'm coming to see you. I had my chance once before, but I didn't take it. Not only dogs can lick."

This is the very definition of a cautionary tale.

The Killer in the Backseat

As told by reader Emily Dunbar:

One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes she noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on the car was going to pass when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.

Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her and he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

The moral of the story: Always check the back seat!

Analysis: In another common variant of this legend, the imperiled female (and it's always a female, please note) pulls into a gas station and is frightened by the odd behavior of the attendant, who keeps trying to get her to leave the car and join him in the office. It turns out he has glimpsed a knife-wielding murderer in the backseat and is trying to save her life!

Folklorists have traced the legend back to the 1960s and believe it may have been inspired by a vaguely similar real event in 1964 involving the discovery by a New York City policeman of an escaped murderer hiding in the backseat of his (the cop's) own car.

"The Killer in the Backseat" was among the legendary horror stories dramatized in the 1998 film Urban Legend. Let us not assume, however, that real-life evildoers never lie in wait for their victims in the backseats of vehicles. As reported in the Decatur Daily News on September 14, 2007, a female college student in Alabama was threatened by a man with a gun who popped up suddenly in the backseat of her SUV. She escaped, fortunately, by slamming on the brakes and bolting from the car.

Premature Burial

As told by a reader...

My great-great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after lying in a coma for several days. My great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.

After the doctor pronounced her dead, my great-great grandfather insisted that she was not. They had to literally pry him away from his wife's body so they could ready her for burial.

Now, back in those days they had backyard burial plots and did not drain the body of its fluids. They simply prepared a proper coffin and committed the body (in its coffin) to its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, my great-great grandfather protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed. His wife was buried and that was that.

That night he woke to a horrific vision of his wife hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife's body exhumed. The doctor refused, but my great-great grandfather had this nightmare every night for a week, each time frantically begging to have his wife removed from the grave.

Finally the doctor gave in and, together with local authorities, exhumed the body. The coffin was pried open and to everyone's horror and amazement, my great-great grandmother's nails were bent back and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.

It's a fact that once upon a time, before modern embalming techniques were in widespread use, people were found on rare occasions to have been buried alive a circumstance that could not have been pleasant for anyone concerned, least of all the poor souls who woke up six feet under.

Here's one grisly example of a real-life case of premature burial, as reported in the New York Times on January 18, 1886:

BURIED ALIVE

WOODSTOCK, Ontario, Jan. 18. Recently a girl named Collins died here, as it was supposed, very suddenly. A day or two ago the body was exhumed, prior to its removal to another burial place, when the discovery was made that the girl had been buried alive. Her shroud was torn into shreds, her knees were drawn up to her chin, one of her arms was twisted under her head, and her features bore evidence of dreadful torture.

It didn't help that medical science was slow to produce a reliable checklist of vital signs, nor that many doctors prior to the late 19th century were too poorly educated (or incompetent, or both) to tell a living body from a dead one.

It is also a fact that something of a moral panic concerning premature burials took hold in parts of Europe and North American during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, the fervor of which was scarcely warranted by the facts. Historians surmise it may have been prompted by the medical discovery that victims of suffocation and drowning could be resuscitated that, though they appeared dead, they really weren't. This must have been a disconcerting realization for many people at the time.

In any case, so strong was the fear of "precipitate interment" during the 19th century that some folks who had the means took to stipulating in their wills that their coffins be outfitted with signaling devices just in case. No one knows if any of these were ever actually put to good use.

The Dead Boyfriend

Also known as "The Boyfriend's Death" and "The Mad Axeman"

Example #1:

As told by Shirley Pugh...

A girl and her boyfriend are making out in his car. They had parked in the woods so no one would see them. When they were done, the boy got out to pee and the girl waited for him in the safety of the car.

After waiting five minutes, the girl got out of the car to look for her boyfriend. Suddenly, she sees a man in the shadows. Scared, she gets back in the car to drive away, when she hears a very faint squeak... squeak... squeak...

This continued a few seconds until the girl decided she had no choice but to drive off. She hit the gas as hard as possible but couldn't go anywhere, because someone had tied a rope from the bumper of the car to a nearby tree.

Well, the girl slams on the gas again and then hears a loud scream. She gets out of the car and realizes that her boyfriend is hanging from the tree. The squeaky noises were his shoes slightly scraping across the top of the car!!!

Example #2:

As told by Isabel Espaldon...

Here's a story my mom told to me and my friends when I was about seven years old. You can imagine I was scared to death...

A woman and her boyfriend were on their way home from somewhere (not important) one night, and suddenly his car ran out of gas. It was about one in the morning and they were completely alone in the middle of the nowhere.

The guy stepped out of the car, saying comfortingly to his girlfriend, "Don't worry, I'll be right back. I'm just going to go out for some help. Lock the doors, though."

She locked the doors and sat restlessly, waiting for her boyfriend to come back. Suddenly, she sees a shadow fall across her lap. She looks up to see... not her boyfriend, but a strange, crazed looking man. He is swinging something in his right hand.

He sticks his face close to the window and slowly pulls up his right hand. In it is her boyfriend's decapitated head, twisted horribly in pain and shock. She shuts her eyes in horror and tries to make the image go away. When she opens her eyes, the man is still there, grinning psychotically. He slowly lifts his left hand, and he is holding her boyfriend's keys... to the car.

Analysis: "The Dead Boyfriend" is reminiscent of the hook-man urban legend, in which a pair of teenagers necking on Lovers' Lane race off in a fright after hearing a radio alert about a murderer on the loose with a hook for a hand. On returning home they discover, to their horror, a bloody hook dangling from one of the car door handles.

Whereas the protagonists of "The Hook" escape with their lives, the present tale concludes with the boyfriend murdered and the girlfriend in fatal jeopardy (though in some variants she is ultimately rescued by passersby). Folklorists regard both narratives as examples of cautionary tales but tend to interpret their meanings differently. "The Hook" is usually read as a warning against adolescent sexual activity; "The Dead Boyfriend" has been interpreted as a more generalized warning not to stray too far from the safety of home. "On a literal level a story like 'The Boyfriend's Death' simply warns young people to avoid situations in which they may be endangered," writes folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, "but at a more symbolic level the story reveals society's broader fears of people, especially women and the young, being alone and among strangers in the darkened world outside the security of their own home or car." (The Vanishing Hitchhiker, W.W. Norton, 1981.)

Thematically, "campfire stories" such as these have much in common with the plot lines of modern horror movies, but there is an important difference. Typically, the villains in slasher films exhibit supernatural traits such as inhuman strength and "unkillability" (e.g., Michael Myers in Halloween and Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street), while the hook-handed madmen and crazed axe murderers of urban legendry are only slightly exaggerated versions of the real-life serial killers we read about in newspaper headlines.

The Killer in the Window

Also known as: "The Face in the Window" and "The Killer's Reflection"

Example #1

As told by reader Destinee (Aug. 25, 2000):

This girl was home all alone watching TV on a cold winter night. The television was right beside a sliding glass door, and the blinds were open.

Suddenly she saw a wrinkled old man staring at her through the glass! She screamed, then grabbed the phone next to the couch and pulled a blanket over her head so the guy couldn't see her while she called the police. She was so terrified that she remained under the blanket until the police got there.

It had snowed a lot during the day, so the police naturally decided to look for footprints. But there were no footprints at all on the snowy ground outside the sliding door.

Puzzled, the police went back inside the house and that's when they saw the wet footprints on the floor leading up to the couch where the girl was still sitting.

The policemen looked at each other nervously. "Miss, you're extremely lucky," one of them finally said to her.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because," he said, "the man wasn't outside at all. He was in here, standing right behind the couch! What you saw in the window was his reflection."

Example #2

As posted online (May 29, 2010):

A 15 year old girl was babysitting her little sister while her parents went out to a party. She sent her sister off to bed around 9:30 while she stayed up to watch her favorite T.V. show.

She sat in her recliner with a blanket and watched until it went off at around 10:30, after it went off she turned around in her seat to face the big glass door and watch the snow fall. She sat there for about 5 minutes or so when she noticed a strange man walking toward the glass from outside. She sat there staring as he stared at her back. He started to pull a shiny object out from his coat. Thinking it was a knife she immediately pulled the covers over her head. After about 10 minutes she removed the covers and saw that he was gone. She then called 911 and they rushed over.

They examined outside for any footprints in the snow, but there were none to be found. Two cops walked into her house to tell her the bad news and they noticed a trail of big wet footprints leading up to the chair where she was sitting.

The cops came to their conclusion and immediately told the girl she was very lucky because the man she saw staring at her was not standing outside, but he was standing behind her and what she saw was his reflection.

Analysis: This chilling variation on the familiar trope of the threatened babysitter (see also "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" and "The Clown Statue") makes effective use of the "shocking reveal" -- our protagonist learns after the fact that the prowler hadn't been watching her from outside the house as she had assumed; but was inside the house the whole time, making her close call with the boogeyman all the closer, and all the more horrifying in retrospect.

As in "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs," the cautionary message of this tale is aimed at the teenage protagonist: stay alert, be careful, mind your responsibilities. The consequences of distraction can be dire. "The moment that the sitter relaxes (eat a snack and watch TV) and lets her guard down," notes Simon J. Bronner in American Children's Folklore (August House, 1988), "is when dangers lurk."

But though the babysitter's main job is to protect the children (and in some variants of these tales the children are killed), it's the young woman whose safety is directly threatened, a motif that links "The Killer in the Window" to other close-call-with-intruder narratives like "Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light" and "Humans Can Lick, Too." Subtextually, these stories convey a decidedly more retro message than the one mentioned above, namely that young woman set themselves up to be victims merely by going about their business unchaperoned. For better or worse (surely the former), they no longer pack the moral punch they once may have had.

The Fatal Hairdo

Also known as "The Spider in the Hairdo" and "The Deadly Hairdo"

Example #1

As told by Jennifer Morrison:

A very stylish teenage girl grew tired of spending hours carefully "ratting" (teasing) and spraying her hair to attain an extreme beehive do. She washed her hair in sugar-water, allowing it to harden in the style she wanted. At night, she carefully wrapped a towel around it and slept on a special half-pillow designed not to disturb the hair.

One morning she failed to come down for breakfast. Her mother went to her room only to find her dead in bed. When the towel was removed from her head, it was discovered that she had been gnawed to death by rats (or bugs I've heard both versions).

Example #2

As told by Jen Rasi:

My mother grew up in Ostersund, Sweden. When she was in her early teens, when beehive hairdos were popular, she was told about a girl in her school who wrapped her hair around bread dough to achieve maximum height to her beehive.

After about three weeks of her winning hairdo she began to suffer severe headaches. She was finally taken to an emergency room, almost unconscious, where it was discovered that the dough, and consequently her scalp (really believable, that!), was totally infested with maggots.

Example #3

As told by Joel Harvey:

There's this guy who you might have seen walking around town with two huge dreadlocks, one on each side of his head. One day he decides to get them cut off. So he's off to the hair dresser, and of course they can't get the clippers through his hair, so out come the biggest pair of scissors you've ever seen.

They start to hack into one of the dreads and get about halfway through when he starts screaming and runs out of the shop. His girlfriend finds him dead in their flat the next day.

The coroner found that a nest of red-backed spiders had moved into his hair and started biting him when the scissors cut the nest to bits.

Example 4

Forwarded email text contributed by Brenda F., May 14, 1999:

Please take caution. Pass this along to your friends and family. Must Read!

Something terrible happened to a 10 yr. old girl who had braids. The little girl had been wearing her braids in a ponytail for the longest and apparently the braids were old, at least 2 to 3 months old, and the mother never took them down to wash them or let them air out or anything.

Anyway, the girl had been complaining about having a headache for approximately two weeks to her mother who just brushed it off, assuming that she had hit her head against the wall or something. Well one morning the child again complained to her mother about having a headache while getting ready for school. Again the mother brushed her off. When the child got to school, she told her teacher that her head was hurting. The teacher assumed that the braids were too tight in the child's hair and attempted to let the ponytail down. When she removed the hair piece and let the braids loose, there was a spider in the childs hair.

The spider had laid eggs in the childs hair and the spiders were eating her scalp. The child was rushed to the hospital were she later died.

This happened in Monroe, La. It was all over the news and in the papers for about a week or two. Please, parents, don't leave braids, or any kind of hair extensions in childrens or your own hair no more than 2-3 weeks.

Analysis: The most familiar variants of this creepy-crawly legend date from the early 1960s when "beehive" hairdos were popular, but believe it or not there's at least one version dating back as far as the thirteenth century. In her 1976 paper, "Three Medieval Tales and their Modern American Analogues" (reprinted in J.H. Brunvand's Readings in American Folklore, W.W. Norton: 1979), Shirley Marchalonis shares this ecclesiastical rendition:

There is a sermon story of a certain lady of Eynesham, in Oxfordshire, "who took so long over the adornment of her hair that she used to arrive at church barely before the end of Mass." One day "the devil descended upon her head in the form of a spider, gripping with its legs," until she well-nigh died of fright. Nothing would remove the offending insect, neither prayer, nor exorcism, nor holy water, until the local abbot displayed the holy sacrament before it.

Marchalonis continues: "The high school girl with the nest of spiders in her hair offends contemporary standards of behavior just as the proud medieval ladies offended contemporary belief. In both cases the story acts as warning and example." It's the very definition of a cautionary tale.

I should add that the email variant quoted above, which is about a 10-year-old girl with unwashed braids, touches on another popular theme in contemporary folklore just now: parental neglect.

Bride-and-Seek (The Missing Bride)

Also known as "The Lost Bride," "Bride-and-Go-Seek," "Ginevra," "The Mistletoe Bough," "The Mistletoe Bride," "The Bride in the Oak Chest," "The Bride in the Trunk"

Example #1

As told by a reader:

A young woman was about to get married, and she decided she wanted to hold the wedding in the backyard of the large farmhouse where she grew up. It was a beautiful wedding and everything went perfectly.

Afterwards the guests played some casual party games, and someone suggested hide-and-seek so they could get the children to play too. It wouldn't be hard to find a place to hide around the house.

The groom was "it," and the bride wanted to make sure that she won the game. When no one was looking she slipped inside the house. She ran up to the attic, found an old trunk and hid in it. No one could find her. Her new husband wasn't worried though, he figured she must have just gotten tired and went inside to rest. So everyone went home.

The groom looked around the house but he couldn't find her anywhere. He and her parents filed a missing persons case, but she was never found.

A few years later when her mother died, the woman's father went to go through his late wife's things that were collecting dust in the attic. He came to an old chest. The lid was closed and the old lock was rusted over and holding it closed. He opened the lid and was terrified to see his daughter's decaying body in the chest. When she hid there, the lid had closed and the rusty parts of the lock had latched together, trapping her there.

Example #2

As told by a reader:

Back in '75 a young couple, both 18, decided to get married right after high school. The father of the bride lived in Palm Beach in a mansion and was able to afford a big wedding for them. To make a long story short, they got married and the wedding was beautiful.

After the wedding they had a big reception in an old building and everyone got pretty drunk. When there were only about 20 people left, the groom decided that they should play hide-and-seek. Everyone agreed and the groom was "it." They all went and hid and the game went on.

After about 20 minutes everyone had been found except the bride. Everyone looked everywhere and tore the whole place apart looking for her. After a few hours the groom was furious, thinking the bride was playing a terrible trick. Eventually, everyone went home.

A few weeks later the groom, having placed a missing persons report, gave up looking for her. Heartbroken, he tried to go on with his life.

Three years later a little old woman was cleaning the place up. She happened to be in the attic and saw an old trunk. She dusted it off, and, out of curiosity, opened it. She screamed at the top of her lungs, ran out of the building and called the police.

Apparently, the bride had decided to hide in the trunk for the game of hide-and-seek. When she sat down, the lid fell, knocking her unconscious and locking her inside. She suffocated after a day or so. When the woman found her, she was rotting, her mouth in the shape of a scream.

Example #3

As told by a reader:

A bride and a groom were both very young, around 16, but decided to get married anyway, as was the way in those days. It was a huge, elaborate wedding and the reception was held at an old mansion, an heirloom of the family, of sorts.

After most people had left and all were drunk of wedding champagne, the bride whined she was getting bored. When asked what she'd like to do, she grinned and said she always loved a good game of hide-and-seek. Though reluctant to play such a childish game, all agreed and the maid of honor was "it."

It took only about 30 minutes for all to be found... all but the bride, that is. Everyone began searching the entire house, but no one found her. The groom, thinking maybe she had second thoughts about the marriage, grew angry and sent everyone home. After two or three days, he put out a missing persons report but no luck. Eventually he moved on with his life.

After the girl's father died, the mansion was being cleaned, the family taking what they would before the auction came around. The mother of the long-gone bride was up in the storage attic, cleaning out the old clothes and junk when she saw an old trunk with a lock on it. After breaking the lock, she peered inside... and began to scream. All ran upstairs to see what was happening.

Inside the trunk was the bride, dead after the lid fell on her head and crushed part of her skull... though she was still grinning at her little game of hide-and-seek.

Analysis: Even though one of the variants above takes place in modern-day Palm Beach, Florida, its Gothic flavor betrays the true longevity of this legend, which is at least 200 years old, probably more.

The earliest version I've found in print is an anonymous newspaper article published in 1809 entitled "A Melancholy Occurrence." It opens with the announcement of a "singular and calamitous event" in Germany, an incident "long involved in the deepest mystery," and ends, as above, with the discovery of a crumbling skeleton in an old, forgotten trunk a trunk in which a newlywed bride had inadvertently locked herself and "miserably perished" years before.

The best known version is an English ballad still sung at Christmastime on both sides of the Atlantic, "The Mistletoe Bough," written by Thomas Haynes Bayly and set to music by Sir Henry Thomas around 1830.

Bayly, it's said, took his inspiration from "Ginevra," a rendition set in the palace of an Italian nobleman by the British poet Samuel Rogers, who included it in his volume Italy, a Poem in 1822. Rogers made an interesting admission in the endnotes of that book, namely that while he believed the tale to be based on fact, "the time and place are uncertain. Many old houses in England lay claim to it."

Among those old houses are Minster Lovell Hall in Oxfordshire, Marwell Hall, Hampshire, Bramshill House, also in Hampshire, Tiverton Castle in Devon, and Exton Hall, Rutland (the list goes on). Each of the locales boasts a ghost story based on the legend. The ruins of Minster Lovell Hall have long been reputed to be haunted by a "White Lady," for example, identified by locals as the restless spirit of "the mistletoe bride." The phantom was mentioned in a New York Times article dated Dec. 28, 1924:

The neighbors believe that a wailing figure carrying a light which is said to flit in and out of the castle is the ghost of the bride of one of the Lords Lovel, who was suffocated on her wedding night. As the story goes, she hid in an old oak chest during the festival in a game of hide-and-seek, and the lid shut, her young Lord finding her body some hours [sic] later.

Some 70 miles away, the halls of Bramshill House (now a Police College) have been said for at least 150 years to be haunted by an identical apparition, as noted by George Edward Jeans in Memorials of Old Hampshire, 1906:

Bramshill has indeed a ghost, the "White Lady," who haunts the "Flower-de-luce" chamber immediately adjoining the gallery, and she may have been concerned with the tragedy of the "Mistletoe Bough," which tradition attaches to Bramshill.

Despite the persistence of the legend in so many locales over so long a period of time, there's no historical evidence that any such event ever took place. A thorough discussion of the historicity of the tale (or lack thereof) may be found in Shafto Justin Adair Fitz-Gerald's 1898 book, Stories of Famous Songs.

The Choking Doberman

As told by Lisa Foley...

My cousin and his wife lived in Sydney with this huge doberman in a little apartment off Maroubra Road. One night they went out for dinner and a spot of clubbing. By the time they got home it was late and my cousin was more than a little drunk. They got in the door and were greeted by the dog choking to death in the loungeroom.

My cousin just fainted, but his wife rang the veterinarian, who was an old family friend of hers, and got her to agree to meet her at the surgery. The wife drives over and drops off the dog, but decides that she'd better go home and get her hubby into bed.

She gets home and finally slaps my cousin into consciousness, but he's still drunk. It takes her almost half an hour to get him up the stairs, and then the phone rings. She's tempted to just leave it, but she decides that it must be important or they wouldn't be ringing that late at night. As soon as she picks up the phone, she hears the vet's voice screaming out:

"Thank God I got you in time! Leave the house! Now! No time to explain!" Then the vet hangs up.

Because she's such an old family friend, the wife trusts her, and so she starts getting the hubby down the stairs and out of the house. By the time they've made it all the way out, the police are outside. They rush up the front stairs past the couple and into the house, but my cousin's wife still doesn't have a clue what's going on.

The vet shows up and says, "Have they got him? Have they got him?"

"Have they got who?" says the wife, starting to get really pissed off.

"Well, I found out what the dog was choking on it was a human finger."

Just then the police drag out a dirty, stubbly man who is bleeding profusely from one hand. "Hey Sarge," one of them yells. "We found him in the bedroom."

Analysis: "The Choking Doberman" has circulated in more or less this form for at least three decades, on as many continents. In his book of the same title, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand cites a plethora of known variants, including a British version dating back to 1973. The legend became hugely popular in the United States during the early 1980s. It was published as an allegedly firsthand account in an American tabloid called The Globe in 1981, though subsequent research revealed that the pseudonymous author ("Gayla Crabtree") had actually heard the story secondhand in a beauty parlor.

Folklorists believe "The Choking Doberman" is a descendant of a much older (perhaps as old as the Renaissance) European folktale about a clumsy thief whose hand is either injured or amputated while committing a crime, marking him as the perpetrator. Among other interpretations it can be read as a "just deserts" tale in which the criminal, as a result of his own actions, undergoes a punishment appropriate to the crime.

The Knife in the Briefcase

Also known as "The Hatchet in the Handbag" or "The Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker"

Example #1

As told by Ann MacDonald:

One summer day in Southampton, New York, a woman pulled into a gas station. As the attendant pumped gas, the woman told him she was in a hurry to pick up her daughter, who had just finished an art class in East Hampton.

A very well-dressed man walked over to her car and started talking to her. He explained that his rental car had died, and he needed a ride to East Hampton for an appointment. She said she would be happy to give him a ride. He put his briefcase in the backseat and said he was going to the men's room quickly.

The woman looked at her watch and suddenly panicked. She drove off quickly, forgetting that the man was coming back to the car for a ride.

She thought nothing of him again until she and her daughter pulled into their driveway. She saw his briefcase and realized she had forgotten him! She opened it looking for some form of identification so she could notify him about his belongings. Inside she found nothing but a knife and a roll of duct tape!

Example #2

As told by Barb Thaine:

A young woman was leaving a local shopping mall, only to find that she had a flat tire. A well-dressed young man carrying a briefcase came up to her and asked if she needed help. She told him she would call AAA, but when she did she was told it would be over an hour before a truck would be dispatched to her site. The gentleman urged her to let him fix her flat and she finally allowed him to do so.

When he was finished, he asked if she would give him a ride to the other side of the mall, as his car was parked there. Looking at her watch, she realized how late it was and apologized to the young man saying that she needed to get home as it was her daughter's birthday and her husband was at home with the two children awaiting her arrival. The man went on his way.

When she got home, she told her husband what had happened at the mall and about the man who came to her aid. The husband went out to look at the tire and saw that the man had inadvertently left his briefcase in the trunk of the vehicle. He brought it into the living room and they opened it to see if they could find the man's name and phone number.

Upon opening the briefcase, they found only five items: a rag, chloroform, duct tape, a body bag and an icepick (which was probably used to cause the flat tire).

Analysis: A newer variant of this urban legend dating from 1998 was set in the parking lot of a specific shopping center in Columbus, Ohio, the Tuttle Crossing Mall. According to local police and mall officials, no such incident ever took place there.

Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand refers to the story as "one of the most common and most fully analyzed of all contemporary legends," which is partly a function of its age. A variant known as "The Hatchet in the Handbag" (or "The Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker") dates back to the horse-and-buggy era and features a driver consenting to give a ride to an elderly woman who turns out, on closer examination, to have really hairy arms a man in disguise! Justifiably afraid, the driver invents a ruse to get the "woman" out of the vehicle and speeds off to safety, only to discover a handbag left behing in the passenger seat containing just one item: a hatchet.

Every variant of this cautionary tale shares the "close call" motif the driver, always a lone female, nearly falls into the clutches of a would-be assailant but escapes just in time. In some versions she senses a tell-tale sign of danger the old woman's man-like arms, for example, or, in the Tuttle Mall variant, the good samaritan's creepy insistence on being driven across the parking lot after he fixes the driver's flat tire. In other versions, including as the ones retold above, the driver escapes due to pure happenstance she suddenly recalls a pressing appointment and speeds off before the assailant can climb into the car. Either way, the close call is an obligatory narrative turn, else who would be left to (supposedly) tell the tale?

Breast Larvae Infestation

Netlore Archive: Viral image and video purport to document the case of a female anthropologist named Susan McKinley, who failed to seek treatment for a rash and wound up with an infestation of larvae in her breast.

Description: Viral image / Email hoax

Circulating since: 2003 (image) / 2005 (video)

Status: See below

Example:

Email contributed by Belinda P., April 20, 2006:

Fwd: Wash before Wearing!

It is horrible. Guys tell your wife, sisters, girlfriends, and girl cousins wash bra before wearing.

ALL PLEASE WASH ALL BRAS, UNDERWEAR WHEN YOU BUY BEFORE WEARING THEM. WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT PARASITE IS IN OUR CLOTHES WHEN WE BUY THEM. FORWARD TO EVERYBODY YOU KNOW. LET ME FORE WARN YOU THIS IS SO SQUIMISH, I FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS CRAWLING ALL OVER ME EVEN AS I SEND THIS TO YOU. BE AWARE. IT IS SO GROTESQUE. PLEASE WASH YOUR UNDERWEAR BEFORE WEARING. PREFERABLY IN BOILING HOT WATER.

This is not for the weak; I have never seen anything like this. Read the article first before looking at the picture and film. This looks horrible. Oh my God!!!!!!! Ladies this could happen to you and Guys this could happen to your wife, girlfriend, partner so please BEWARE, and also warn others.

*Image edited for graphic content*

Fwd: Wash before Wearing!

It is horrible. Guys tell your wife, sisters, girlfriends, and girl cousins wash bra before wearing.

Analysis: This forwarded message has three distinct components:

1. The text, which appears to have been fabricated.

2. The still image, which also appears to have been fabricated.

3. The video, which is authentic, though completely unrelated to the text and image.

The fabricated image first turned up on the Internet, uncaptioned, in June 2003. As David Mikkelson observes, it appears to have been created by combining elements of two separate images, one of a female breast and the other of a lotus seed pod.

The cautionary tale about "anthropologist Susan McKinley" and the breast larvae infestation she supposedly experienced (also described as "boob worms" and "nipple bugs") was attached to the image by person(s) unknown in August 2003.

The video which demonstrates that larvae infestations of the breast, though extremely rare, do occur was downloaded from the website of a medical journal in 2005 and attached to the already-circulating email, again by person(s) unknown. As originally published, it accompanied a scientific study entitled "Furuncular Myiasis of the Breast Caused by the Larvae of the Tumbu Fly (Cordylobia Anthropophaga)." The case, which was recorded in Nigeria, not South America, is described as follows:

"We report a 70-year-old woman who presented with a week history of itchy multiple discharging sinuses of the right breast. The sinuses contained wriggling larvae of C. anthropophaga. Fourteen larvae were extracted from the breast and the sinuses healed quite well after the extraction."

Please note that while the particulars of the "Susan McKinley" email remain unsubstantiated and the story is almost certainly a fabrication, its anonymous author does appear to know a thing or two about the causes of furuncular myiasis of the breast. The email warns: "Please make sure you iron your undergarments before you wear them and make sure that your clothes are ironed when they are dry and not damp." Compare that to the journal article's explanation of how the 70-year-old patient in Nigeria was exposed to infestation: "She usually spreads her washed dresses on a line near the bush and does not iron them before wearing them."

More horrible infestations:

Ants in the Brain!

Doctors looking for the cause of severe headaches and facial itching in a young child discover that ants have crawled in his ear and infested his brain.

Doctors Find Live Worm in Patient's Eye

When they operated, what was thought to be a growth or cyst actually turned out to be a live worm; what was thought to be mere dust in the patient's eye was actually an insect's egg.

Brown Recluse Spider Bite

Viral images purport to show the progressive deterioration of a necrotic wound caused by the bite of a poisonous brown recluse spider.

Brain Maggots or Sushi Worms?

Disturbing images of what appears to be a worm infestation of a live human brain. Was it the result of eating raw fish?

The Necrophiliac's Gift

Read this cautionary tale and learn a very good reason never to sleep with a necrophiliac (as if you needed one).

Sources and further reading:

Furuncular Myiasis of the Breast Caused by the Larvae of the Tumbu Fly (Cordylobia Anthropophaga)

BioMed Central, 29 February 2004

Breast Rash

Urban Legends Reference Pages, 11 September 2003

Last updated: 01/15/15

Carmen Winstead

In which we investigate the story of a 17-year-old girl allegedly pushed down a sewer and killed by a gang of bullies from her school. Can it possibly be true?

Description: Chain letter

Circulating since: 2006

Ants in the Brain!

In this viral tale, doctors investigating the cause of severe headaches and facial itching in a young child discover that ants have crawled in his ear and infested his brain. Their considered opinion: never eat sweets before going to bed! Could this have really happened?

Description: Viral text / Urban legend

Circulating since: 2001 (this version)

Status: See below

Example: Email contributed by Mike K., Aug.10, 2001:

Subject: BEWARE of ANTS !!!

Case 1:

A little boy died because surgeons found ants in his brain! Apparently this boy had fell asleep with some sweets in his mouth or with some sweet stuff beside him. Ants soon got to him and some ants in fact crawled into his ear which somehow managed to go to his brain. When he woke up, he did not realize that ants had gone to his head.

After that, he constantly complains about itchiness around his face. His mother brought him to see a doctor but the doctor could not figure out what was wrong with him. He took an X-ray of the boy and to his horror, he found a group of live ants in his skull. Since the ants are still live, the doctor could not operate on him cuz the ants are constantly moving about.

The boy at last died. So please be careful when leaving food stuff beside your bed or when eating in bed. This might attract ants. Most importantly, NEVER eat a sweet before going to bed. You might fall asleep and suffer same fate as the little boy.

Case 2:

Another similar incident happened in the hospital in Taiwan. This man was warded in the hospital and was constantly warned by the nurses not to leave food stuff by his bedside for there are ants about. He did not head their advice. Ants finally got to him. His family members said that the man constantly complain about headaches. He died and a post mortem or autopsy was done on him. Doctors found a group of live ants in his head. Apparently, the ants had been eating bits of his brain.

Ughhhhhhh!!! So dear friends, better be safe than sorry!! Never leave food stuff beside your side when you go to sleep!!!!!

Analysis: Live ants eating your brain? I don't think so! This is the stuff of nightmares and tabloid tales stuff, that is to say, based more on imagination and a general dread of creepy-crawly insects than reality.

While it's true that bugs do occasionally crawl into people's ear canals, causing pain and discomfort, one finds no reports in the medical literature of ants, earwigs, cockroaches, spiders, or the like chewing their way through the eardrum into anyone's brain. It simply doesn't happen.

Despite the longevity of this legend, the anatomical improbability of it was recognized centuries ago for example, in an article entitled "Errors in Natural History," published in The Saturday Magazine in 1836:

If one of these insects should by chance get into the ear it would no doubt be an unpleasant inmate but the membranum tympani, the drumhead of the ear, would effectually prevent the progress of the insect, and the unwelcome visitor could be either killed, or dislodged with ease by means of a few drops of oil.

Let us not disregard the cautionary aspect of the tale, however. In both of the alleged incidents, the victim, a child, was said to have been eating snacks before bedtime and left food out beside the bed, attracting the insects. Read now what was reported just last year in the May 21, 2011 edition of the Taipei Times:

It is not unusual for mothers to stop their children from eating in bed, but now doctors are also telling their patients the same thing if they don't want ants crawling into their ears.

Although it is common to find small bugs in ear canals, a local doctor yesterday said he recently found as many as 25 dead ants in the ears of a 16-year-old girl.

Before seeking medical help, the girl, who has a sweet tooth, had been suffering from ear pain for several months, said Hung Yaun-tsung, chief of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Taipei City Hospital.

That's a lot of dead ants for one small person to have in their ears! If the report is accurate and it's fair to be skeptical perhaps there is something to the admonishment, "Never eat a sweet before going to bed."

On the other hand, nobody ever died after ants crawled in their ears. Have a cookie!

Sources and further reading:

Human Ant Farm: Girl Has Nest of Insects Living Behind Her Right Eye

Weekly World News, 16 April 1991

Eating in Bed Can Attract Ants into Your Ears: Doctor

Taipei Times, 21 May 2011

Girl Has More than 30 Ants in Her Ears

China Daily, 30 May 2011

Popular Errors, No. II: Errors in Natural History

The Saturday Magazine, 1836

Last updated 01/10/15

The Body Under the Bed

As told by reader Autumn Murphy...

A man and woman went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, and checked into a suite at a hotel. When they got to their room they both detected a bad odor. The husband called down to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager. He explained that the room smelled very bad and they would like another suite. The manager apologized and told the man that they were all booked because of a convention. He offered to send them to a restaurant of their choice for lunch compliments of the hotel and said he was going to send a maid up to their room to clean and to try and get rid of the odor.

After a nice lunch the couple went back to their room. When they walked in they could both still smell the same odor. Again the husband called the front desk and told the manager that the room still smelled really bad. The manager told the man that they would try and find a suite at another hotel. He called every hotel on the strip, but every hotel was sold out because of the convention. The manager told the couple that they couldn't find them a room anywhere, but they would try and clean the room again. The couple wanted to see the sights and do a little gambling anyway, so they said they would give them two hours to clean and then they would be back.

When the couple had left, the manager and all of housekeeping went to the room to try and find what was making the room smell so bad. They searched the entire room and found nothing, so the maids changed the sheets, changed the towels, took down the curtains and put new ones up, cleaned the carpet and cleaned the suite again using the strongest cleaning products they had. The couple came back two hours later to find the room still had a bad odor. The husband was so angry at this point, he decided to find whatever this smell was himself. So he started tearing the entire suite apart himself.

As he pulled the top mattress off the box spring he found a dead body of a woman.

Analysis: It only takes one dead body under the mattress to spoil your whole honeymoon.

Befitting its "Sin City" reputation, Las Vegas has been the setting of some horrific urban legends (see "The Kidney Snatchers" if you don't know what I mean). What sets "The Body in the Bed" apart from the rest is how frequently incidents resembling the one described above have actually happened in real life just never, to my knowledge, in Las Vegas!

The closest encounter between fact and legend I've been able to document took place in Atlantic City (another gambling mecca, naturally) in 1999. This account comes from the Bergen Record:

The body of Saul Hernandez, 64, of Manhattan was found in Room 112 of the Burgundy Motor Inn after two German tourists slept overnight in the bed despite a rancid smell that prompted them to complain to the front desk.

The couple told motel officials about the smell Wednesday night but stayed in the $36-a-night room anyway. On Thursday, they complained again and were given a new room while a motel housekeeper cleaned Room 112.

In July 2003, a cleaning crew discovered a dead body stuffed under the mattress in a room at the Capri Motel in Kansas City, Missouri. This report was filed by KMBC-TV News:

Police said that the man appeared to have been dead for some time, but the body went unnoticed until a guest staying the room could no longer tolerate the smell.

Officers were called to the Capri Motel in the 1400 block of Independence Avenue around noon Sunday after cleaning crews made the grisly discovery.

KMBC's Emily Aylward reported that the man who checked into the motel room a few days ago complained to management about the odor two times over the three days. He then checked out on Sunday because he could not tolerate the smell.

In March 2010, Memphis police responded to a call from a local motel where employees had noticed a "foul odor" in one of the rooms. According to ABC Eyewitness News:

On March 15th, investigators were called back to room 222 at the Budget Inn, where the body of Sony Millbrook was found under the bed. Police say she was found inside the metal box frame that sits directly on the floor after someone reported smelling a strange odor. The box springs and mattress fit into the top of the bed frame.

Room 222, according to investigators, had been rented 5 times and cleaned many times by the hotel staff since the day Millbrook was reported missing.

Homicide investigators say Millbrook appears to have been murdered.

There's more than one moral to these story, to be sure, but the most disturbing of all is that urban legends do sometimes come true.

Sources and further reading:

"Body Found Under Motel Bed Is Identified." Bergen Record, 12 June 1999.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Baby Train. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

"Isle Mainland Traveler Shared Room with Corpse." Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1 August 1996.

"Maid Finds Dead Woman's Body in Ft. Lauderdale Hotel Room." Daytona Beach News-Journal, 17 Dec 2001.

"Man's Body Found Stuffed Under Motel Bed." KMBC-TV Kansas City, 14 July 2003

"Missing Mom Found Dead Under Motel Bed in Memphis." ABC Eyewitness News, 17 March 2010.

The Fatal Tan

As told by Kayla Pruett...

This one was told to me by a former co-worker. And who knows -- here in the south, home of fake tans and big hair, it might have happened!

A young woman was approaching her wedding day. She decided that she'd look better in her wedding dress if she had a little color, so a week before the wedding she went to a tanning salon. The salon staff, however, told her that for her own safety, she could only tan for thirty minutes a day. After she'd tanned for her thirty minutes, she decided it wasn't enough, so she went to another tanning salon the same day to tan. They told her the same thing. She still wasn't tan enough after that thirty minutes, so she went to a third tanning salon, and a fourth.

She did this for the next four days. Even though she was getting a little bit red, she kept thinking how good she'd look in her wedding dress.

The day before her wedding, she was found dead. Her internal organs had all burnt up from the tanning beds.

Analysis: This well-traveled story, delightfully retold by reader Kayla Pruett, inspired the title of Jan Harold Brunvand's third collection of urban legends, Curses, Broiled Again! There are many versions out there, but this is the classic one a bride-to-be who is so intent on looking great at her wedding that she ignores every safety warning and winds up cooked to death on a tanning bed.

The moral here is the same as that of "Spiders in the Hairdo" vanity kills. Interestingly, it's not enough in either story that the victim dies for her "sins" in the end; she must die a particularly gruesome, painful death. It's the horrific details, in part, that keep these old legends alive.

Nothing like what's described in this legend ever happened, of course.

No one has ever had their internal organs "cooked" or "broiled" or "burnt up" in a tanning booth, because it's physically impossible. The ultraviolet rays emitted by these contraptions can seriously burn your skin if you overdo it so don't but unlike, say, a massive, prolonged dose of microwave radiation, they could not possibly cook you "from the inside out."