What old myths and legends did you grow up with where you are from?

[BOOTS52PollyPrissyPants]

I remember my older brother was babysitting us as kids and he scaring us about the Banshee will come and get us and we were terrified...

Anne Boleyn rides around in a carriage looking for her head, on the anniversary of her death. Which I think was yesterday, but I didn’t see her 😭

My nephew grew up terrified of the sauna elf (he's from Finland).

My children are told by their minder that if they're not good the Coco might come (south america).

I remember being told about a ghost called the White Lady as a kid (France), and we'd go out at night to look for her.

My parents were Londoners, and talked of Spring-heeled Jack.

We had a witch that turned into a hare to confuse hunters

South America has a lot of scary ones also..

Headless horseman in the woods neat us. Scared the crap out of me!

As a child I was told of an evil "wolf king" in the forest by edge of my grandma's village. He would get you and drag you to his den if you were out after dark. There were wolves in that forest and every evening when they'd howl my blood would run cold. I think they told us these stories so we'd be home before dark!

Oops, forgot to say, this was Lebanon 1980s 😃

I love mythology and folklore.

i want a brownie to come live in my house. I promise I’ll never do anything dreadful like thank it for doing all my housework.

Hmm... my parents were (a) observant low-church semi-protestant (b) of a scientific frame of mind (c) quite possibly neurodiverse at least one of them anyway

so very few, really. I mean, we did Father Christmas and the tooth fairy but none of us ever actually believed in either; and we talked about angels and Satan without the slightest expectation of ever actually encountering such a thing; and we read fairy tales and Robin Hood and dressed up as witches at Halloween but it was obviously all stories.

"Boney'll get yer!" - but said very much tongue-in-cheek

The worst thing we were told is 'we were born under a head of cabbage' jesus christ we were definitely green to believe that crap. I remember as a kid when there were electricity blackouts and the old neighbours would come in and sit around the fire and tell stories, miss that as never seems to be done anymore.. We were terrified but equally facinated..

My dad had me convinced that there were "carpet crocodiles" in the carpet which came out at night and ate your feet if you were out of bed.
My Irish great aunt went on about banshees and the dullahan. My Russian great grandmother thought every body of water had a predatory spirit in it. My Yorkshire gran liked giant dogs with red eyes. How I ever slept...

I can't decide with my own dc whether childhood isn't childhood without magic and storytelling and a little terror of ancient folklore or whether I should be teaching healthy scepticism and critical thinking from an early age. I think I zig zag unpredictably between the two and hope my dc learn to enjoy and question stories.

I'm from Manchester, and my parents used to talk about Spring Heeled Jack too!

Curious what is Spring heeled jack..

The 9 o'clock horses - Leicestershire. It was a way to get kids to go to sleep...

My maternal family are Polish, and I remember being told the story of the “Devil’s Car” as a kid.
The story goes that a black limousine driven by the devil himself would roam the streets of Warsaw kidnapping children 🤯

My nana had some lovely songs she used to sing us, one about the bogie man, she sang them to my children too 🤣

Dagenham.

We had Leo the Tramp, who apparently was a millionaire but lost all of his family in a house fire so was scared to live in a house.

I haven't seen him for about 10 years though.

I recall my (Londoner) nana mentioning Spring Heeled Jack as well now! Not sure who/what he was/is though, but I think he got children after dark?

It was never elaborated on, just “spring heeled jack will get you!” said with an evil cackle 😂.

Just found this on wiki re Spring Heeled Jack

I grew up in Norwich and I remember on car journeys home from visiting my cousins in Holt being terrified we’d encounter the infamous omen dog, with red eyes like saucers. My cousins were robust country kids who always made sure they’d recounted the legend just before my nighttime departure. One of them wrapped in a velvet curtain with a torch under their chin.

As The Darkness famously sang, ‘Black Shuck, Black Shuck, that dog don’t give a fuck.’ 👿 🐩

Jinny Greenteeth (witch/water spirit who drags unwitting children down) and Black Dogs (North West)

I'm from Liverpool and have read about spring heeled Jack in the Haunted Liverpool books. There's also one I've heard called Screaming Ginny, the ghost of a witch who haunts an old abandoned railway line.

There really are those claw marks on the church door at Bungay though! (I think Black Shuck was quite transient between the two counties)