Urban Legends

This revised edition of the original reference standard for urban legends provides an updated anthology of common myths and stories, and presents expanded coverage of international legends and tales shared and popularized online. From roasted babies to vanishing hitchhikers to housewives in football helmets, this exhaustive and highly readable encyclopedia provides descriptions of hundreds of individual legends and their variations, examines legend themes, and explains scholarly approaches to the genre. Revised and expanded to include ...
Read More

From Alien to When a Stranger Calls, many films are based on folklore or employ an urban legend element to propel the narrative. But once those traditional aspects have been identified, do they warrant further scrutiny? Indeed, why is the study of folklore in popular film important? In Films, Folklore and Urban Legends, Mikel J. Koven addresses this issue by exploring the convergence of folklore with popular cinema studies. Well beyond the identification of traditional ...
Read More

Which came first--the monster or the myth? Journalist Linda Godfrey investigates present-day encounters with mysterious creatures of old. The monsters of ancient mythology, folklore, and more contemporary urban legend have long captured the popular imagination. While most people in America today relegate monsters to just that--our imaginations--we continue to be fascinated by the unknown. Linda Godfrey is one of the country's leading authorities on modern-day monsters and has interviewed countless eyewitnesses to strange phenomena. Monsters ...
Read More

Have you ever heard an improbable story told about a friend of a friend? Did you ever listen awestruck to extraordinary tales of ordinary life? Don't believe everything you hear -- you've just been exposed to an urban legend! From phantom hitchhikers to deadly clouds of floating flatulence, these are tall tales of extremely dubious origin. More than 500 brain-mangling, credibility-straining stories arranged conveniently by theme contained in one fun volume. From sex to sport, ...
Read More

This collection of strange and bizarre anecdotal tales drawn (ostensibly) from real life contains 200 stories that have circulated across metropolitan areas--all invariably sworn to be true. "The Poodle in the Microwave, " "The Mouse in the Coke Bottle, " and "The Accidental Cannibals" are just a few of the legends presented in this volume. Illustrated by artists from DC Comics. Mature readers Read Online : This content is shown only to authorized members. It ...
Read More

It's the dead of night; you are fast asleep. Suddenly, you are wide awake but unable to move. Hunched over you in the shadows is an eight- or nine-foot-tall gaunt entity with spider-thin limbs, dressed in an old-style black suit, its pale face missing eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. You finally manage to cry out. The monstrous thing disappears as suddenly as it appeared. You just had a terrifying encounter with the Slenderman. Who--or what--is ...
Read More

The groundbreaking book that launched America's urban legend obsession! Folklore scholar Jan Harold Brunvand assembles the best-known urban legends―including "The Hook," "The Spider in the Hairdo," and "The Baby-Sitter and the Man Upstairs"―and provides an enlightening and entertaining analysis of their variants and evolution. The Vanishing Hitchhiker was Professor Brunvand's first popular book on urban legends, and it remains a classic. The culmination of twenty years of collection and research, this book is a must-have ...
Read More

A fabulously entertaining book from the ultimate authority on those almost believable tales that always happen to a "friend of a friend." Alligators in the sewers? A pet in the microwave? A tragic misunderstanding of the function of cruise control? No, it didn't really happen to your friend's sister's neighbour: it's an urban legend. And no matter how savvy you think you are, you are sure to find in this collection of over 200 tales ...
Read More

To many, Urban Legends are nothing more than harmless tales told round a camp fire, in a dormitory or round a table in a pub with the express aim of provoking a frisson of fear in the listener through the use of some horrific shock element in a familiar location and to an unlucky protagonist who is known to a friend of a friend of a friend. But is there something working at a deeper ...
Read More

Bizarre tales you won’t believe of The Titanic, nuclear cockroaches, alligators in the subway, the two-headed dog, Black Bart the Pirate, Bonnie and Clyde, The Bunny Man, and much more! Fact or fiction? Did you hear about the kids who found a Ferrari buried in their garden? What about the man who sued Satan? Or the woman who woke up in the middle of her funeral? Do you know the legend of the Bunny Man? ...
Read More

Do you believe that Ring Around the Rosie refers to the Black Death? Or that Eskimos have 50 (or 500) words for "snow"? Or that "Posh" is an acronym for "Port Out, Starboard Home"? If so, you badly need this book. In Word Myths, David Wilton debunks some of the most spectacularly wrong word histories in common usage, giving us the real stories behind many linguistic urban legends. Readers will discover the true history behind ...
Read More