The babysitter's dead! There is a corpse wrapped in a carpet! There is blood all over the bathroom! Oh, wait… that is from Stephen King's it movie and novel about that dumb clown who is built off of fear. Speaking of clowns...there are MURDERING CLOWNS running around! These are all urban legends. An urban legend is a story or a legend based on some kind of truth, but the story is exaggerated and spread out from its original story. The urban legend has been used to make things interesting and scaring teenage girls right into the arms of a dreamy football player and you know how that works out. The geek takes over and wins, leaving the quarterback behind for the serial killer. On the other hand, all of these urban legends have fear in them. But …show more content…
My great friend Landon Herrmann, who goes to school with me did a research project and presentation on this urban legend. I was able to interview him and look detailedly into his presentation to prove his information accurate. Which it is. Landon said that the incidents that happened with his legend were a huge factor in sparking the popularity of that legend. They had a big impact on the media, which then sparked the information of the legend to be known. I think what was being said here, was that the incident really only happened once, but with the news media they made the people believe that it was happening all over and scared the heck out of those innocent people. They all believed a made up story. Which caused them to be terrified for their children not being …show more content…
Completely opposite to Stephen King’s IT movie and novel, there really was a guy dressed as clown and murdered children and hid their bodies in his crawl space. But don’t worry GEORGIE is safe. During his reign of terror John Gacy became fond of his father and got the obsession of murdering children. Many years later, after the case was solved and the children had been dead for awhile. Even though the legend was distinctly spoken before, the news sparked the legend and it became popular years after the actual incident. The people were terrified that their children would be murdered by Pogo the clown and found another reason to protect their
	Even though most people believe those young girls were the only ones accused, also grown men and women were too. History tells about how a neighbor’s pig fell astray into the Nurse family’s yard and Rebecca Nurse yelled at her neighbor. Soon after the neighbor feel ill and died of a stroke.
In April I sat down with a friend at my house and asked about any urban legends or ghost stories he had encountered. After a couple legends he had seen in movies, he mentioned a haunted bridge about ten minutes away from downtown. He is a twenty-one year-old White male; his father owns an appliance store and his mother helps out with the books. He first heard this story in the ninth grade from a couple of friends. Supposedly, they had heard from kids who had actually been to the bridge and heard strange things at night. The bridge is located off of Uniontown road, between a couple old farms. He has not encountered the bridge first hand but still remembers the story surrounding it:
Robert Knapp has come up with some ways to identify different types of rumors in his writing called A Psychology of Rumor. Knapp says, “In practice it has been found that the emotional needs most frequently served by rumors are wish, fear, and hostility” (496). Knapp uses the name Pipe-dream and Wish Rumor to describe the rumors that contain wishful thinking. He also uses the name Bogie Rumor when describing a rumor that comes from the fear and anxiety of the people. Knapp lastly uses The Wedge-driving Aggression Rumor when describing a rumor that is made out of aggression or hatred. One of these names will be chosen to categorize the reading called Paul is Dead by Alan Glen. The name that will categorize the rumor is the Bogie Rumor.
In the town, of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight year old boys (Chris Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch) went missing May fourth, the following day they were found bruised, mutilated, hogtied, and stripped of their clothes with signs of rape present due to the dilation of the anus. The body of Byers was found submerged in the creek about 60 yards south of Interstate 55(Crime scene or dump site?). The other two bodies was located exactly five feet in both directions of Byers body. (It was determined that Moore and Branch both died from multiple traumatic injuries to the head, torso, and extremities with drowning; while, Byers died of the multiple traumatic i...
...s made its way all the way to England and Illinois. Lastly, even though some people might not believe in this legend, it should definitely be considered and never dropped because one day something horrible could happen and everyone would be very clueless. This beast is amazing at doing what it does, and after all these stories one can conclude that this creature is real.
The Atlanta child murder was a notorious killer starting in July of 1979. The murders of African-American children and young men went on for twenty-two month. The signature of this killer would be that he would strangle them. He would abduct the children by sneaking into open windows, snatching them when they were playing outside or going from one place to another alone. From 1979 and 1981, the Atlanta child murderer murdered a total of 29 people.
What about the old man claiming to hear the boy yell? How could this be
How is the word myth used popularly? In today’s society, myths are more commonly referred to as a story that is known amongst a group that may or may not have any truth or validity to it. These type of stories have been told from one generation to another generation with a common theme every time it is said or repeated. I remember growing up my older sister would scare us younger kids with the urban myth of Candyman. This was during a time before I even knew about the movie, and for her, it was a way to scare us kids out of our wits. She would tell us about this story of a slave who returns from the dead as a ghost who was in search of revenge and could only be summoned by saying his name five times while facing a mirror.
It was really an odd way of how the Salem witch trials all started. Something so big is caused by a group of such young girls. They were known as the “afflicted girls” (Brooks). There were about a total of 9 girls involved. Supposedly after playing a fortune-telling game they all started to act out in very abnormal ways. Three of the girls: Mercy Lewis, Betty Parris, Mary Warren, were all examined by Dr. William Griggs and he suggested that they were bewitched (Brooks). During this time Salem separated into accusers and the accused. One of the accused women was a former slave, Tituba. She of the three women accused confessed the use of witchcraft. All three of the women were arrested and questioned. Tituba confessed seeing a few girls acting weird and confessed treating some of the girls in a rude way. She however did n...
...ide to them. The mythical side is present because a culture or society does not want to believe the facts that are known in an attempt to give reassurance to ones inner self. A modern example of a myth is the belief that one cannot achieve a pregnancy upon the primal intercourse experience. Research has proven that this is not true, but many believe or are told that this is the case. These types of myths are used today to create reassurance for those believing them. The word myth has been defined by scientific evidence throughout history. As scientific evidence has become clearer, early myths have become less clear to the present day human being. Even though early myths are becoming obsolete, they are still being studied to teach all aspects of life and culture past and present. Also, modern myths are being studied just as well to teach the aspects of the world today.
Fairy-legends in particular often reflected the people’s fears and became a way for them to explain things they just could not understand. These fairy legends were told very long ago before people had an understanding of science so when an unexpected death or a child went missing fairy legends were created to explain this. People’s anxieties were greatly reflected in fairy legends such as giving birth to a child and what had to be done, children being taken and replaced by changelings, women getting taken away, and children being abducted.
When people hear the name “Dr. Seuss,” images of Loraxs and cats in hats spring to mind, but not many people know the story of his rise to fame. Theodor Seuss Geisel was a loving husband, a phenomenal story teller, and somehow had the ability to get kids to read and comprehend the words they are given. He did all of this while making whimsical characters, and giving his opinion about what was happening during World War II. Dr.Seuss is a brilliant mastermind because he didn’t give up on his calling of children's books, he made kids love to read, and all of his hard work made him very accomplished by the time of his death.
Urban legends are the supernatural folklore of our modern society. From one generation to the next, they orally travel throughout the world, constantly changing from one region to the next. Although cultural variations exist, the core of all these urban legends remains the same, to unveil the universally known individual and societal fears. “The Graveyard Wager” is a timeless urban legend told again and again, and the one of which I will explore more in depth.
In the quiet New York town of Savona, Eric Smith, age thirteen, intercepted four year old Derrick Robie on his way to a park recreation program and offered to show him a shortcut. Hesitatingly, Derrick set off with Eric. He never made it to the park. That same day the little boy's savagely beaten body was discovered outside the park area (Seifert 98).
...hich is which and who is who", we see the Wicked Witch of the West looking at the dead feet of the Wicked Witch of the East.