Urban Legends

My fascination with urban legends began when I discovered the wonderful collection of stories by Alvin Schwartz.  Perhaps some of you remember "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," "More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," and "Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones."  In these collections Schwartz gathered a wonderful assembly of urban legends, some in their original forms, some rewritten, and presented his readers with some truly classic stary tales.

 

As a kid I never really paid attention to where these tales came from, but recenly as I was flipping through the indexes of the books I found that Schwartz made a point to not only include American folklore in these books, but also legends from other countries.  

Urban legends, in my mind, are cautionary tales.  They are vehicles for lessons on how our lives should be lived, and the sorts of situations and people that should be avoided.  I love these stories for their ambiguous nature, which in a way is odd because as a writer I have always been taught that details and establishing time and place are imperative.  But urban legends don't have to have a setting.  You don't have to know the time of year, or the backgrounds of the characters involved.  These are probably the only types of stories where you can get away with that.  Of course, this goes along with the notion that urban legends were commonly used as a vessel for passing down lessons.  In that respect, because the stories were being told over and over again, year after year, things like place, time, and setting weren't really a necessity.  They could be adjusted and changed as often as the story was told. 

In urban legends, the endings are always the best part.  Whether it's the young couple finding the bloody hook hanging from their car door, the girl discovering a man with a knife hiding in her backseat, or the babysitter discovering that the mysterious phone calls she is receiving are coming from a room upstairs, it's the endings that pack the punch.

In terms of whether there are any truth to these stories, the answers are somewhat vague.  It's always customary for the storyteller to claim that a particular story happened to "a friend of a friend," and so on.  For me, this adds an irresistable charm to the tales.  There may not always be conclusive evidence to prove that a story is true, but if it's told with enough conviction a seed is planted in the mind of the person listening to the story.  Because there is always the question of "what if....?"  

Again, the mind comes into play.  Regardless of what we know, regardless of evidence to the contrary, there is always a possibility that the unfortunate occurances that befall the victims in urban legends can happen to us if we are not careful.  And of course, it's very easy for us to believe that when we are home alone with the lights out, and hear strange noises coming from the upstairs.