Urban Legends

Hello Everyone:

Blogger and The Candidate Forum were feeling pretty depressed after yesterday's post and decided to   write about something fun. Convienently Halloween provides us with a fun subject to talk about, urban legends. Where do they come from and why they continue. Urban legends are scary good fun and are not just reserved for Halloween.  In the spooky spirit of Halloween and Día de los Muertos, let us proceed down the dark path. 

Where do urban legends come from?  Urban legends are a vital part of popular culture. They offer some insight into our fears and the current state of society.  Blogger wonders what kind of urban legends are being created right now. University of Wales folklorist Mikel J. Koven told Live Science,

Life is so much more interesting with monsters [livescience.com; Oct. 14, 2005; date accessed Oct.30, 2018],.... It's the same with these legends. They're just good stories. (Ibid; Aug. 27, 2006)

Who does not love a good monster story, unless you are the squimish-type.  Not that it is any of dear readers, right?  How does an urban legend start?  By the way, the social media does play a part in the spread of urban legends 

Folklorists have their own ideas about what makes an urban legend.  Mr. Koven told Live Science, "Academics have always disagreed on whether urban legends are, by definition, too fantastic to be true or at least partly based on fact." (Ibid). He believes that urban legends are partially based on fact. 

Discovering the truth behind the story is not nearly as important--and frankly a buzzkill--as the lesson they are meant to teach. Besides, trying to uncover the truth about an urban legend is a pointless exercise because they are not so easily verifiable.  Like a fish story, urban legends get passed by word of mouth (Ibid; May 15, 2006) or, more commonly via email or the social media. They always start the same way, with typical, hapless, unsuspecting friend of a friend," which makes finding the true source of the story impossible. 

Jan Harold Brunvand wrote in his 1981 book The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meaning (W.W. Norton & Company, 1981),

The lack of verification in no way diminishes the appeal that urban legends have for us,.... We enjoy them merely as stories, and tend to at least half-believe them as possibly accurate reports. (Ibid; Aug. 27, 2006)

Heather Whipps points out in her article "Urban Legends: How They Start and Why They Persist," that the first part of Mr. Brunvand's book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, "...is named for a classic legend, the subject's seminal work" (Ibid).

Urban legends usually have some moral lesson and the meaning depends on who is telling the story.  The lessons do not have be the great meaning-of-life variety (Ibid). 

Mr. Brunvand told Live Science, "Urban legends are also good indicators of what's going on in current society" (Ibid). He said,

By looking at what's implied in story,new get an insight into the fears of a group in society....[Urban legends] need to make cultural sense. (Ibid)

Some remain part of the societal fabric forever and some end up consigned to the ash heap of fiction.

Generally, it is the lack of information coupled with fear that gives rise to new legends.  You know all those so-called stories you might have read on the social media sites like the story of the pizza restaurant that was a front for child pornography?  That is could be construed as an urban legend.  However Jan Harold Bruvand said that the "...abundance of conspiracy theories and legends" surrounding, for example mass shootings, indicate a "distrust in the government among some groups" (Ibid).  

Let us be honest, urban legends are just good fun.  They just a part of human culture and have been around for as long as humans have existed and needed an explanation for life's curiosities.

One of Blogger's favorite urban legends is La Llorona--The Weeping Woman. It said she haunts the rivers and canals of California and the American Southwest. She is also considered an omen of death (americanfolklore.com; date accessed Oct. 30, 2018) to those who see her.

It said La Llorona was once a poor young woman who lived a rich nobleman with whom she had three children.  The young woman wished to marry the father of her children but he refused, telling her that he could not such a thing because the children were born out of wedlock. The young woman was quite determined to marry her nobleman and drown her children to prove her love for him.  He still would not marry her; mad with grief, she roamed the river banks, calling for her children.  They were gone, she drowned herself, and was condemned to wander the waterways to search for eternity for her children (Ibid). 

S.E. Schlosser, the author of Spooky California, shared this story:

Now I have heard that one night, two young men were car-pooling home from work with the windows down when they heard a terrible wail. It sounded like the desparate cry of a baby or perhaps an injured tom-cat. Beside the road, a white mist began to gather. It moved swiftly among a grove of palm trees and when it reached the largest tree, it became the figure of a lovely young girl dressed all in white...She began to weep and wring her hands in agony, and men realized they were seeing the ghost of the Llorona. The driver gunned the engine and they drove away as fast as they could.  The glowing figure of he Llorona remained visible in the rear-view mirror until the car turned the corner.

The men were upset by the vision, afraid the rumors about the Llorona might be true.  But nothing happened to either of them the rest of the night, so they laughed away the incident, deciding they imagined the whole thing.

The next night, the men were riding home from work when their front tire burst at the place in the road where they had seen the ghost the previous night.  The car spun out of control and hit the largest tree in the palm grove in the exact place where the Llorona had appeared to them. Both men were killed instantly. (Ibid)

Happy Halloween and Día de los Muertos.