Urban Legends.

Where do they come from? how did they start? We all know one!

Wherever we are around the world it would seem

Somebody has a story to tell.

Urban myth, urban legend or urban tales are all part of modern folklore passed around and circulated. Its a little bit like Chinese whispers, they get distorted and changed, exaggerated and sensationalized the more they get passed on.

However despite the name an urban legend does not always have an urban setting.

Urban legends are passed on over the airwaves, by email, mouth to mouth and they mostly start with someone saying ‘A friend of a friend, knew this man/ woman, who did this and saw that.’

This doesn’t mean that urban myths are not true at all. Just changed, to suit regional differences and modernized as time changes.

I think we can all recall an urban myth that we’ve heard about; I know I can remember three or four.

The one about the man getting to his car that was parked in a multi story car park. It was a dark, rainy night and the car park was virtually empty. The man got into his car and set off home. He had to go through some very quite, country roads and as he looked into his rear view mirror he saw a man, complete with knife sitting on the back seat! Now ever since I heard this one I always check my back seat out before getting into my car.

The more I sit here and think about it, the more seem to be popping into my head and a lot of them involve cars, dark and rainy nights and knives!

Storytellers of these legends normally structure them as complete stories with plot and characters and typically they do involve elements of mystery, horror, murder or at least fear. They are presented as warnings or beliefs.

Telling that it happened to a friend, relative or someone they know personalizes it and makes it almost believable.

But like any tale they may only contain a very small amount of truth and very flimsy details on date, time and location.  Some of the myths tend to be so far-fetched and not at all likely but others are very believable.

I guess these urban myths will be around for the foreseeable future, so make sure you don’t get caught out and just enjoy them for what they are.

FAIRY TALES