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What's an urban legend or myth of your region?

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theepicoftyler

Member
There are a few areas around my hometown where if you allegedly park your car at night and flash the lights three times a ghost of some murder victim will show up. I feel like probably every town in America has a story like that though. It was pretty popular at my high school.
 
R

RangerX

Banned
Theres a huge tree in the middle of the park in my estate that is hundreds of years old. Monks used to live here in the 17th century and one of them supposedly hung himself from the tree. Legend has it that if you walk past the tree at midnight he appears and if you run he follows you but if you walk he doesn't. Its just a ghost story obviously but I have to say I have walked past it on my own near midnight and felt pretty unsettled. Human nature I guess.
 
H

Hickbilly Deluxe

Banned
Theres a bunch pf supposedly haunted farms and roads where I grew up, its all bullshit that keeps being spread because idiots go out there and get high off their asses and start hearing shit or seeing ghosts.

Its especially fun because the owners of one of the farms will actually shoot at people on his property its gotten so bad, so eventually there very well may be ghosts out there.
 
B

B_Spooky13

Member
Around my place is the Screaming Tree.

A tree with a bunch of kids sneakers in it and if you're quiet or scream you can hear the screams of the victims

Its actually a peacock farm close by and peacocks make screaming sounds
 
E

Eylos

Banned
The most famous are the witches in My town. But as a latin American i love the chupa cabra.


CHUPA-CABRA.jpg


I like him because talk shows in the 90s Talked a lot about It, and newspapers. It was absurd and funny.
 
SpaceHorror

SpaceHorror

Member
Soap Sally is a pretty popular legend down South. When I was bad as a kid my parents would tell me that Soap Sally would come get me if I wasn't good. They'd even leave messages on a chalk board and claim she wrote them. Or my dad would drive me down this old dirt road out in the country and past this decrepit house that he claimed was her home. Scared the hell out of me.

She's basically an old witch that kidnaps misbehaving children and uses their bones to make soap.

http://www.scaryforkids.com/soap-sally/
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
Various Hollywood ghosts haunting old hotels and whatnot.


A bit closer there's rumor of this canyon being haunted, and whether you believe in ghosts or not, it's not exactly a canyon you want to be in at night. At least one end of the road is basically a cliff at any given time and there's only a single lane going in either direction. Looks like the empty void of Rainbow Road at night and there are weirdly placed houses and abandoned stores that make it look even creepier.
 
G

GeordieMark

Member
tonysidaway said:
The Cauld Lad.

Wae's me, wae's me,
The acorn's not yet fallen from the tree,
That's to grow the wood,
That's to make the cradle,
That's to rock the bairn
That's to grow to the man
That's to lay me!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauld_Lad_of_Hylton

There's also the Lambton Worm (a dragon that grows big enough to terrorise the locals and feed on their cattle) but that's more a folk tale than a spooky story.
Click to expand...

I never expected to see the Lambton Worm mentioned on NeoGAF.

One Sunda morn young Lambton went
A-fishing in the Wear;
An' catched a fish upon he's heuk
He thowt leuk't vary queer.

But whatt'n a kind ov fish it was
Young Lambton cudden't tell-
He waddn't fash te carry'd hyem
So he hoyed it doon a well
 
T

TickleMeElbow

Member
The prolly isn't what you're looking for OP, but there's this urban legend in Columbus OH where this local car dealer Fred Ricart was caught cheating by his wife, so she stuck a curling iron up his ass and turned it on.
 
E

espher

Member
Most notable cryptid, probably:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Utopia_(New_Brunswick)

Local legend has it that the Lake is inhabited by a sea monster known as the Lake Utopia Lake Monster. The story goes that long ago two Maliseet Natives were canoeing on the lake when suddenly the monster appeared and chased them from one end to the other. Since the arrival of Europeans to the area in the late 18th century, the story has continued, with new sightings being reported every three-five years.
Click to expand...

Few other lake monsters and ghosts and such but nothing really notable. Basically as generic as generic can be.

First Nations lore/myths/legends are generally more interesting than anything recent.
 
D

Dreez

Member
There's a "gravity hill" where if you put your car in neutral it looks like your car's going up the hill instead of naturally down. Urban myth is some kids died or some shit and if you check the back of your car you'll see hand prints.

Another one is there's a tunnel where if you drive through it you'll see a lady in the mirrors.
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
Local hills have myths of satanists killing native american children there long ago and that their ghosts still haunt the area, or that it's simply an indian burial ground. Along with ongoing myths of satanists still having get togethers up there.

I've heard stories of an abandoned mental hospital in the area where a lot of people got abused but I've never seen it myself.

In the same area, a gate people call Devil's Gate, supposedly something like this which is placed right up against the side of one of those large hills, opening to nothing but a dirt wall. I never found that particular one myself but my friends did a long time ago. I think it got removed in the early 2000s.

More interesting to me is that there is another gate in that area around a bend on an unpopular road covered in vegetation with nothing but more thick vegetation behind it. Just a sort of isolated little valley between two hills that belongs to nature as far as I can tell. The weirdest part? The gate is covered in cameras, lights and warnings. There's even a secondary fence around the gate, and a vegetation-hidden wall going around the entire little valley area. Get up high enough to look inside and it doesn't look like there's anything in there. Maybe some old rubble. What are they protecting, and who is protecting it? Those questions have haunted me for years. Some people have taken to calling this Hell's Gate now since the other one is apparently gone.

Another mystery from that area is the story of a plane crash into the side of a mountain in the 1950s. Not that mind-blowing, except for the part where apparently everyone on board were never identified. People have told that story since before the internet.

Up north an hour or so is another gate people call Devil's Gate. It's a very popular name. Hell has very easy access, I guess.

Another in the same area, there's a house around another bend that is a little bit isolated from the others where a murder occurred at some point a couple decades back. Of course now it must be haunted.
Go more into town and there's a house in the old district that someone was hanged from a long time ago. That one must be haunted too, apparently.

That's all I remember from my hometown specifically, but drive to another canyon about 40 minutes southeast and there are ongoing rumors of continued witchcraft and animal sacrifice shit going on there. My buddy decided to drive through there at 1am some years ago with his girlfriend. He came upon a group of people gathered somewhere dark and they literally started running after his car which had his girlfriend bawling, but he just drove off and cant really say what they were up to.
 
P

pbayne

Member
Ghost sightings on a certain road. No real context to it but it did gain a little media attention for a while.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
Less of a regional thing and more cultural, but for hispanics there's "La Llorona", a story about a woman who drowned her kids in a creek or some shit and late and night you can still hear her crying/wailing.
 
P

Panthalassic

Member
We have a couple local cryptids here in The Bahamas that I'm really fond of.

First is the Chickcharney, which varies from household to household specifically, but is pretty much a harpy. My dad told me that it turns the heads of bad children around to face backwards, but I've also heard that if you meet one, good things will happen to you if you treat it well, and bad things will happen to you if you treat it poorly.

The legend probably stems from the (now extinct) Tyto pollens, which was previously found on the island the legend comes from, and was a 3 foot tall Barn Owl. I wish they were still around...

Secondly is the Lusca, which is a shark/octopus hybrid that lives in the blue/sink holes and sucks people down to eat them. This one stems from blue holes sometimes being tidal or having suction aspects to them (since they are just underwater cave systems). I'm not as familiar with this one...
 
S

steve9842016

Neo Member
LucidMomentum said:
The Winchester Mansion. It isn't a myth but a cool, kind of creepy locale.

http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Click to expand...

I’ve lived a quarter of a mile from the Winchester mansion basically my whole life, and I still have never been inside.

Another good one in the San Jose/Alum Rock avenue is Hicks Road:
http://searchlightsj.com/2015/hicks-road-haunted-or-hyped/

I’ve driven up there once and turned right at the fork and it is pretty creepy at night. Basically just a small secluded village stuck years in the past. And a graveyard right in the outskirts.

The albino myth has been around forever though.
 
G

gaugebozo

Member
Mine's from my wife's childhood home in Northern Michigan.

Dogman is a cryptozoological creature allegedly first reported in 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan. The creature is described as a seven-foot tall, blue-eyed, or amber-eyed bipedal canine-like animal with the torso of a man and a fearsome howl that sounds like a human scream. According to legends, the Michigan Dogman appears in a ten-year cycle that falls on years ending in 7.
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It became a big thing when a local DJ wrote a song about it. It still spooks my wife out, but as somebody from the Detroit area the name always makes me laugh.
 
ThatStupidLion

ThatStupidLion

Gold Member
SomedayTheFire said:
Banshee, I guess

Kelpies, Selkies, and Changelings are Irish too. leprechauns too, unfortunately.
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ahhh one of my favorite "are you afraid of the darks" when I was a child was a tale about changelings and a leprechaun vs. a banshee


and since were on the topic - darby ogil and the little people is a fantastic film involving the lore
 
H

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
Ninja Scooter said:
Less of a regional thing and more cultural, but for hispanics there's "La Llorona", a story about a woman who drowned her kids in a creek or some shit and late and night you can still hear her crying/wailing.
Click to expand...

Isn't she also going to grab other kids because she misses her own?
 
B

BreezyLimbo

Banned
In Mexico, Guadalajara, there was a building that had statues of Lions on it. As a kid my family would tell me that these statues would sometimes move and change positions. It was a wide spread myth about them.
 
G

Gunblade47

Neo Member
In Zulu mythology, Tikoloshe, Tokoloshe or Hili is a dwarf-like water sprite. It is considered a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by drinking water. Tokoloshes are called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others. At its least harmful a tokoloshe can be used to scare children, but its power extends to causing illness or even the death of the victim. The creature might be banished by a n'anga (witch doctor), who has the power to expel it from the area.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikoloshe

I haven't heard of it since my childhood but many people were legitimately scared of it and would put their bed on bricks for safety (it kills you in your sleep). It's the only legend that comes to mind apart from generic ghost stories and such.
 
Y-Z

Y-Z

Member
My town of 20.000 has its own unique'where do baby's Come from' Story.

A famous Urkish folktale is the story parents tell their children when they want to know where the babies come from. The tale involves a large exposed rock which can be seen in the IJsselmeer about 30 metres (98 feet) from the shore. This stone is known as the "Ommelebommelestien".

Urkers often tell their children that there are two kinds of people-- vreemden (strangers) and Urkers (people from Urk). Strangers are usually born from a cabbage, or a stork brings them to their new parents, but Urkers come from a large stone which lies about 30 metres (98 feet) from the shores of their former island. Nowadays, the stone is usually called "Ommelebommelestien" (Ommel-Bommel Stone), but in former times it was called "Ommelmoerstien": moer means "mother's" in the Urkish dialect.

In the tale, a stork comes all the way from Egypt to put babies in the stone. When the baby is about to be born, the baby's father is said to have to go to Schokland to pick up the key that gives access to the stone. So when an Urkish man is asked if he has been to Schokland, he is actually being asked if he has children.

In the older days, when both Urk and Schokland were still islands in the Zuiderzee, the father had to take the obstetrician in his boat and row from Urk to Schokland to get the key, and then from Schokland to the Ommelebommelestien to get the baby. Nowadays he would be able to go to Schokland by car, but according to the legend he still has to row. The door to the stone is somewhere below sea level, so it is difficult to find.

Once the door was found, a small price had to be paid for the baby: traditionally one Dutch guilder for a girl but two for a boy.

The mother was said to be kept in bed with a nail through her right foot. There she would celebrate that she had just become a mother.
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