What Urban Legends do you remember from childhood?

[Palomiino]

The ones that stick in my mind are;

Supermodels harbour tapeworms as a way to keep their weight down.

Prince had a rib removed so he could give himself oral.

Various iterations of terrorist plots (IRA in the 80s) where an Irish chap told someone you know not to go to a particular shopping centre on a certain date because there was going to be a terrorist attack.

A woman driving her car was being stalked by another driver who was actually trying to warn her about an assailant on her back seat.

My mother in law still believes there are Panthers knocking about to this day. It must be true because her hairdresser has absolutely, definitely seen them….

The Uncanny podcast did an episode about him in their recent Cold Cases series.

I immediately thought of this one when I read the thread title!

Me too! That and quicksand

We had him in Liverpool too!

Ha I said the same!

Eating the leaves or drinking tea made from the plant increases urine production, historically leading to the folk belief that it could cause bed wetting

If you wore trainers without socks, you might find that your toes had disappeared when you took them off. (Sandals were ok, because you could see your toes were still there.)

If you cheated at pin the tail on the donkey, you would actually go blind. So it was in your interest to be blindfolded properly for the game!

Same. The image of the dismembered leg next to a scorched patch will forever be etched into my memory 😭

I remember being warned that some transfer sticker tattoos were really LSD tabs that you could absorb through your skin. I think my parents might have even got a chain letter warning them about it because that’s how you had to stir up a panic in the 1980s.

And rattlesnakes! Although there were signs to beware of adders in Scotland.

Hence its nickname pissenlit in French (piss the bed)

I think we saw the same picture! Absolute nightmare material. I remember being told it only happened if you were alone. And I think it was more likely to happen if you were near a lamp.

Purple Aki was a huge bogeyman figure who went round asking to feel children’s muscles. One child refused and he chased him onto a train track and the child died.

I was well into adulthood when I discovered that he wasn’t an urban myth.

The woman who bought the cutest little chihuahua ever in the Canaries on holidays. She couldn't resist it, so she smuggled it home in her luggage. The dog didn't seem too well after the journey so upon arriving home she took it to the vet who revealed..... it was a rat!!

The girl who was approached in the supermarket queue by the older woman a few people in front of her, who told her she was the spitting image of her dearly departed daughter who was still so sadly missed. The tearful, bereaved mum asked the girl for one favour, just to remind her of her daughter - please, as I leave the store, please wave at me and say "Bye Mum"

The girl obliged but then omg, the cashier then tried to make her pay for that lady's shopping. The woman had told the cashier that her daughter was behind her in the queue and would pick up the bill!

In fairness people get stuck and sucked down on the beach near me quite regularly. Coastguard will spend hours digging people out.

A group of people who were HIV positive were really bitter about it, so on the weekends they would go around bars and clubs and inject people with their HIV positive blood, then put a note in the person’s pocket saying ‘Welcome to the HIV club’
Apparently no one can feel the needles as there’s a part of the back or arm where you can’t feel it.
We we’re all terrified of this in the 80s and used to check our pockets after being in busy pubs and clubs.

Was about to say that’s real! Think he died recently.

And completely coincidentally, if you smoked
...

That the Queen (Elizabeth II) had been knighting a man and he didn't kneel down properly, so as a punishment she immediately beheaded him with the sword.

I genuinely believed this when I was six, I think I had taken the "Alice" books and the 'off with his head' idea a bit too seriously.

People having their heads flushed down the toilet on they first day of secondary school.

That various things in your garden or window was a sign your parents were swingers. Mostly pampas grass and I think glass bowls.

If you hit the floor if you fell in a dream, you'd die in real life

I saw it happen to others at my school and they tried to do it to me, but they were interrupted by a teacher. Horrible place, horrible bullies.