Urban Legends.

[LordOfThe5Rings]

I know I've been hogging the boards the last few days, but I don't care :P Just been curious on other peoples opinions on things.

I didn't know where to put this, so I apologise if it's in the wrong category.

I was wondering what everyones favourite Urban Legend/Cautionary Tale was. I have been fascinated in them for pretty much forever, due to so many meanings and of course expressing the nations fears.

So what are your favourites? Feel free to share the UL with us! :)

Lol!

Re the jigsaw one - don't you see it was a painting of the room which magical dark forces had placed the gruesome spectre of the axe murderer in. Quite a common trope - think 'The Witches' or 'Dorien Gray'.

Ah, the magical dark forces makes more sense. I had a mental image of the axe man turning up every day with an easel and canvas. That would've taken ages though and the old lady probably would've noticed.

Also if she was an avid jigsaw fan she probably would've done the people first because they are easy and left the hard bits like wallpaper and floor until last.

Oooh dear, some of these are pretty freaky.

I am not sure what the most scary thing that's happened to me was there has been a few. One is really odd though.

It was Halloween (I know, I know corny, but true) and I was 12 years old. I was over at my friend Becky's house and we watched a few horror films after trick or treating. I fell asleep before her and she obviously didn't want to wake me up so left me downstairs and put a blanket over me. I woke up approximately halof an hour afterwards I would say and looked around all fine so shrugged and went back to sleep. Next thing I knew I woke up feeling extremely cold. I had woke up outside in her garden, with the blanket blown off somewhere in the garden. Strange thing is her Mum had the key to the doors out to the back garden, as they were patio doors and couldn't be opened from the inside. How on Earth I got outside I don't know. I knocked on the door, which was locked and had to be let back in by her shcoked mother, who was as freaked out as I was. :o

I also had an experience where I was upstairs listening to music it was around 7.55 or something and then I had a weird experience; my body went cold as if something went through me and then my vision went completely in shades of green, no kidding. It lasted about 5 or 6 seconds, then stopped. Freaked out, I went downstairs (about 11 / 12 when this happened too) my Mum was at work at my Dad was driving her there and they'd be about 45 minutes. Anyway my cat (I had 2 at the time, but only one in) walked in the room. I began to watch Eastenders and then saw a black shadow in the corner of my eye. I thought it must be my tortoiseshell but mainly black cat and thought she must've sneaked in with my ginger and white cat. No, she was nowhere to be seen. This happened again. Then I heard a harsh hiss. It was my ginger and white cat. Now when I say he was the softest cat you'd ever meet I am not exaggerating. He has never bit or scratched me, even though he put up with me at 7 and 8 years old as a kitten. Now he was hissing at me. I went, "It's OK Dougal, it's OK what's wrong?" and then he lunged for me. I ran out of the room and shut the door. He was scratching like a mad man (well cat, but you know) on the other side of the door and didn't stop for a good 5 minutes. I went upstairs til my parents came in.

I have weird experiences. :o

Lol, you gotta love those magical dark forces, they make this stuff so much easier. But I do love the idea of him studiously photoshopping with his Wacom tablet and pen, cursing as he tries to get the opacity right then thinking "Oooh, i've done a good job with that. I was going to just post it to her but fuckit - that's worthy if a jigsaw!'

rainy thanks for the link...Stickmen are horrid! Had no idea the legend was so common. Am going to be firmly shutting my bedroom window tonight and sweating it out til dawn. There's a tree right outside so no way am I looking out the window at night again!

northernmonkey That's happened to me!

Cleo it's a scary phenomenon!! Think we need to highlight it more

No please don't I've just had to go to the shop in the dark and was shitting myself

The jigsaw one was scary, but now all I can do is PMSL at the thought of the murderer tapping away on his Mac trying to get the picture right and then eagerly rushing to meet the postman every day to find out if he's got anything from Snappy Snaps

"Real" fairies, as opposed to the cute silvery-winged Victorian fairies, are supposed to be very tall and very thin with long arms and legs. I wonder if the "stickmen" is a modern day interpretation of this?

Fairies, aliens or disgruntled scarecrows, whatever they are I can't read anymore Stickmen stories-had the worst night's sleep last night (thought I saw red eyes on the bedroom wall) and to top it off blood-curdling fox shrieking in the street at 1am...pesky imagination!

Have never heard of the stickmen phenomenon. I've no idea how that passed me by.

world, I too wonder if they're a variation on 'proper' fairies.

This is the slender man picture which creeps me out!

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos?from=Main.TheSlenderManMythos

Oh god, and this one www.tumblr.com/tagged/slender-man?before=1344375653

(Last one was the one with the mother and child together)

Worldgonecrazy. Dh has spent many years telling the dcs that the tooth fairy is really a six foot tall, hairy man with a bit of a beer belly. He's very convincing too

Is it just me but I couldn't see any slender men in half the photos linked just below.

I like the idea that he's the BFG though!

That's what's scary - you can't see them at first and then they just jump out at you

When I read the description of a tall man in a long white coat all I could think of was the number taker from Numberjacks

Man, I am SO glad I read this thread at work, during the day with lots of people around. The clown one and the murderer reflected in the window freaked me out and the jigsaw puzzle explanations PMSL

The only urban legend I know is really lame. Someone was making a chocolate cake with icing in the middle, but ran out of icing, so she put toilet paper. We found that HILARIOUS as kids.

I watched Mothman Prophecies alone once, in a hotel and totally freaked myself out, as apparently they only appear to certain people and I thought "I am TOTALLY the kind of person Mothman would appear to" and then got freaked out by my glowing red mobile. Muppet.

OMG, shivered so many times reading through this thread. Yuk, eugh, horrible. I don't know why I do it - it creeps me out BIG time yet so compelled to read more.

This one did the rounds a couple of years ago and friend sent it to me whilst pregnant. I seriously couldn't sleep for a couple of nights.

Sorry:

I also got freaked out by the thing in Japan where a man found out that there was someone living in his cupboards. We have very big cupboards in the flat, and in more vulnerable moments I have scared myself silly with the thought of someone climbing out of them when we sleep