Urban

Legends
Panait Andrada Georgescu Razvan
Andrei Cosmin
10th H

What exactlyareurban legends?

URBAN LEGENDS are popular stories alleged to be true and passed
from individual to individual via oral or written (e.g. forwarded email)
communication. Typically, said stories concern outlandish, humiliating,
humorous, terrifying, or supernatural events events which, in the
telling, always seem to happen to someoneotherthan the teller.
In lieu of evidence, theconveyorof an urban legend relies on
narrative flourishes and/or reference to trustworthy sources (e.g., "I
heard this from a friend of a friend," or "This really happened to my
sister's co-worker's hairdresser") to buttress its credibility. Sometimes,
but not always, there's an implied moral message, e.g., "Be careful, or
the same horrible (or embarrassing, or enraging, or inexplicable, etc.)
thing might happen to you!"
Urban legends are a type of folklore defined as the beliefs, stories
and traditions ofordinary people("the folk") so one way of
differentiating between urban legends and other kinds of narrative
(popular fiction, for example) is by examining where they come from
and how they're disseminated. Legends arise spontaneously and are
rarely traceable to a single pointof origin. And again, they're spread
primarily through interpersonal communication and only in atypical
cases via mass media or other institutional means.

They're usually false, but not always

Though it's become synonymous in common parlance with "false belief,"
academic folklorists reserve the term "urban legend" (aka "contemporary
legend") for a subtler and more complex phenomenon, namely the
emergence and propagation of folk narratives viral stories that are indeed
usually false but which may also, on occasion, turn out to be true, or at least
loosely based on real events. The crucial factor is that the story istoldas true
in the absence of verification. Folklorists are generally more interested in
thesocial contextand meaning of urban legends than their truth value.
Factual or not, when an urban legend is told it's meant to be believed. The
teller is apt to rely on skillful storytelling and/or reference to putatively
trustworthy sources e.g., "it really happened to my hairdresser's brother's
best friend" in lieu of actual proof or evidence.
List of common characteristics
Accordingly, your typical urban legend will exhibit most or all of the following
characteristics:
It's a narrative (a story).
It's of spontaneous (or indeterminate) origin.
It's likely to take the form of a cautionary tale.
It's alleged to be true though its veracity is unproven.
It's marginally plausible.
It's likely to be attributed to a putatively trustworthy secondhand source
(e.g., "a friend of a friend," "my boss's wife," "my sister's accountant," etc.).

Arent you glad you didnt turn on

the lights?
TWO DORMMATES in college were
in the same science class. The teacher
had just reminded them about the
midterm the next day when one dorm
mate let's call her Julie got asked to
this big bash by the hottest guy in
school. The other dorm mate, 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,
Julie 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, Julie spent hours getting
ready for the party while Meg started
studying. Julie tried to get Meg to go, but
she was insistent that she would study
and pass the test. The girls were rather
close and Julie didn't like leaving Meg
alone to be bored while she was out
having a blast. Julie finally gave up,
using the excuse that she would cram in

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.
Julie rolled Meg over to reveal
Meg's terrified face. Julie,
concerned, turned on the desk
lamp. Meg's study stuff was still
open and had blood all over it. Meg
had been slaughtered. Julie, in
horror, fell to the floor and looked
up to see, written on the wall in

A short while later, the music

suddenly stopped and an
announcer's voice came on,
warning in an urgent tone that a
convicted murderer had just
escaped from the state insane
asylum which happened to be
located not far from Lovers' Lane
and that anyone who noticed a
strange man lurking about with a
hook in place of his 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
A TEENAGE BOY drove his date to would be safe, attempted to kiss
a dark and deserted Lovers' Lane for a her again. She became frantic and
make-out session. After turning on the
pushed him away, insisting that
radio for mood music, he leaned over
they leave. Relenting, the boy
and began kissing the girl.
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

The Hook-man

AN URBAN LEGEND that says that

anyone who chants the words Bloody
Mary three times in front of a mirror will
summon a vengeful spirit. This spirit has
been reported to do a variety of things to
the person who summons her, including
killing the person, scratching their eyes
out, driving them mad or pulling them into
the mirror with the spirit generally
referred to as the spirit of a woman or
even a witch. This is an old legend, but in
1978 a folklorist named Janet Langlois
published an essay on Bloody Mary, which
led to the tale becoming a popular
slumber party ritual done by girls as well
as boys. No one knows the origins of the
Bloody Mary legend; over the years, she
has been rumored to be anything from a
witch that was killed for practicing
witchcraft to a modern-day woman killed
in a car crash, depending on what part of
the country you live in.

Bloody
Mary

The Killer in the

backseat

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. 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.
Through
everyflashing
stoplightthe
and
turn, it
Finally, her exit approached but the car continued
to follow,
brights
followed her until she pulled into her
periodically.
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

Humans can lick

too
A YOUNG GIRL named
Lisa was often left alone at
home because her parents
worked late, so they bought
her a dog to protect her and
keep her company. One night
Lisa was awakened by a
constant dripping sound. She
got up and went to the kitchen
to turn off the tap properly. As
she was getting back into the
bed
she
stuck her
hand
under
The
dripping
sound
continued,
so she went to the bathroom and turned off
the bed
and the dog
licked
it She went back to her bedroom and again
tap properly
in there,
too.
reassuringly.
stuck her hand under the bed, and again the dog licked it. But the dripping
continued, so she went outside and turned off the taps out there. She came
back to bed, stuck her hand under it, and the dog licked it again.
Still the dripping continued,drip,drip,drip. This time she listened and
located the source of the dripping it was coming from her cupboard. She
opened the cupboard door, and there was her dog hanging upside down with
its neck cut, and written on the window on the inside of the cupboard door
was, "HUMANS CAN LICK TOO."