Urban legends. Do you believe them?

As “wikipedia” says: “an urban legend is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them. Like all folklore, urban legends are not necessarily false, but they’re often distorted, exaggerated,…”

Some years ago, urban legends were transmitted by word of mouth, and sometimes even the newspapers or radio programmes echoed the legend. It was the typical “a friend of a friend of mine has…”

Nowadays, the best way to find and send urban legends is the internet. Searching io the web you can find any urban legend you want. There are urban legends for everyone: from dark, unknown murders to some stupid action of a company that lead to going bankrupt.

TV has also made the most of urban legends. Shows such as Urban Legends, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, and later Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed tried to test people and see if they could guess which of the legends were true. Usually, they gave scientific facts to prove why the legend could or could not be true.

More recently, the Discovery Channel show: Mythbusters has reached our screens. On this TV show a group of engineers and scientists try to examine all types of urban legends and show if they are true or not.

Let’s see some two the most famous examples:

I’m sure you’ve heard at least once about the crocodiles of NY’s drains. It is said that in the 30’s it was usual to buy crocodiles or alligators brought from Florida. When the animals reached a respectable size and they changed their “innocent” activities for more dangerous behaviour, they were thrown down the toilet by their owners. This urban legend reached its height in the 60’s, when people really thought they lived over a world of alligators and crocodiles. It is said that some expeditions were sent to the drains to search for and kill the alligator colonies of New York. This legend changed slightly in other countries like, for example, the snakes that were thought to be in Santiago de Compostela’s drains.

Another great and most well known urban legend is that of “the girl at the bend in the road”. This phenomenon has been told throughout Spain, and more countries. Some people have even reported this ghostly apparition to the police. It is said that the girl warns the driver about the danger of the bend in the road were she was killed. Then, there are two versions of the same story. In the first one, the drivers turns his head back to look at the girl, and crashes. The other version says that he drives carefully until there’s no danger, and when he turns his head back the girl has disappeared…

As I said before, an urban legend doesn’t have to be false( it’s been proved that the alligators can survive one or two weeks in the drains, but then they’re killed by infection) although some of them are changed. Anyway, there are still lots of urban legends that haven’t been proved true (or false), and it’s in your hands to believe them or not.

Have a nice moondream.

From MPK’s quill

Interesting links for urban legends

English pages
http://www.Snopes.com (all urban legends)
wikipedia(information and definition)
http://www.ehow.com/how_2130830_tell-story-urban-legend.html (how to guess if it’s true or false)

Spanish pages
http://leyendasurbanas.org (some urban legends and more)http://www.ionlitio.com (some urban legends, comments and different versions)