The Magic of Urban Legends
by Shari Ann Richerson
~from Llewellyn's Magical Almanac 2004

Urban legends seem to be just about everywhere these days, spurred by the explosive communicative speed of emails and websites. Some of the legends are pretty gruesome; others are very interesting. What is the impulse that makes these legends seems so magical to some people?
In general, a legend is a troy told over and over. Sometimes these stories are verifiable through newspaper clippings and other similar sources, sometimes not. Naturally some legends are more intriguing than others. Nut the biggest factor that determines whether or not an urban legend stays around has to be its believability.
According to Blake Cahoon, publisher of "Beyond Infinity" (now defunct), one of the most famous urban legends is the story of a hitchhiking ghost. This legend is found all over the country, but essentially it is the same story everywhere. In the tale, a young girl is picked up as a hitchhiker by a naive young man, who drops her off somewhere and then finds out that the girl died long before. In Chicago, the girl even has a name: Resurrection Mary. She was killed long ago coming home from a ball.
Another interesting urban legend is a story of flesh-eating bananas, which goes like this. An e-mail states that flesh-eating bacteria has been found on a recent shipment of bananas. Since we all know bananas come from a foreign country, this gives the story a kind of xenophobic shock value. As with many other such e-mail warnings, the tale begins: "This is not a joke - please read and pass it on! Please forward to everyone you love!" The story continues with a warning - that shipments of bananas from Costa Rica have been infected with "necrotizing fasciitis, otherwise known as flesh-eating bacteria." Readers are advised not to purchase bananas for the next three weeks, or, if they have, watch for a sudden onset of fever followed by a skin infection. The story continues with great verve: "The skin infection from necrotizing fasciitis is very painful and eats tow to three centimeters of flesh per hour. Amputation is likely, death is possible." And readers are advised to burn off flesh in advance of the infection in order to stop its spread.
The e-mail warns that up to 15,000 Americans could be affected by this deadly epidemic. Of course, the reason that such a thing has not yet been announced through regular news channels is due to the government's fear of a nationwide panic. The e-mail concludes, as such e-mails often do, with an appeal to readers to "please forward this to as many people as you care about."
A characteristic of urban legends spread by e-mail is that they are very difficult to verify. Most often, there are reasons given why such information is not already widely known. Furthermore, the source of the information is usually very distant - a foreign country, or a friend of a friend. Almost always, there is an appeal made to the reader not to discount the information.
Another urban legend that I found fascinating had to do with the film version of the Wizard of Oz. I had never heard of this before, so maybe you haven't either, but according to lore there is an actual suicide filmed in the movie. The event in question is said to occur just after Dorothy meets the Tin Man and before the group meets the cowardly lion. Just as the three characters (Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow) say "To Oz," and then begin to dance, there is movement over Dorothy's left shoulder. Some say this is a man hanging himself, others say it's a bird. I'll let you decide for yourself.
While we're on the subject of movies and legends, I should mention The Blair Witch Project, which was based on just such lore. The movie covers the legend of Elly Kedward, who in February of 1785 was accused of drawing blood from several children she lured into her home. Found guilty of witchcraft, she was banished from the village. After an extremely harsh winter, she was presumed dead. But then, by November 1786, the children who accused her, along with half the town's children, vanished. The Blair townspeople fled out of fear.
In November 1809, the Blair Witch Cult was said to be published, recounting this legend. However, no known book by this title exists. By 1824, Burkittsville was founded where Blair used to be. Through the years, there were a number of reported sighting of a woman, or parts of a woman's hand, and accounts of missing children in the area. Then, of course, there are the disappearances of the three documentary filmmakers of The Blair Witch Project. Did they really disappear, or was the movie simply the creation of yet another urban legend?
Blake Cahoon sums it up very well: "Urban legends are all over the country and take on various shapes ands sizes from monsters to the serial killers lurking and scratching on a car hood. They serve to stimulate the imagination and to frighten us on those cold winter nights as we huddle around the fireplace, or on a cool summer night, huddled around a campfire.
Urban legends definitely come in all sizes and shapes. Some legends can scar you for life, while others will have you laughing. They definitely make for interesting conversation and if you dare, interesting research. Many urban legends seem to focus on nature or people, sometimes a combination of both. When I inquired as to why this was, Ram Varma, a meditation teacher, author, and seminar leader, responded: "Everyone has some unique talents. One who truly knows one's uniqueness, shares it with the rest of the world preferably in an unselfish way for the benefit of the community, will effortlessly become a legend in (due) course of time. That appears to be the law of nature."
Whether urban legends are a law of nature or a manifestation of mankind can only be determined by you and your beliefs. Regardless, they still make great fireside stories.

I have always loved urban legends and I love your post. I think the most common legend I've always heard was the one about the woman who gets in her car in the middle of the night and is followed by a trucker who keeps flashing his high beams behind her, only to find out he was trying to scare the serial killer in the back seat.

I have always found Resurrection Mary very interesting. Did you know that, although they call her "Mary," they actually do not have a pinned identity because there are about 3 different girls buried in the Resurrection Cemetary that fit the same descriptions and there's "reasons" per say that they might be stuck haunting in the afterlife. For example, one was relocated to an unmarked grave because some people in the cemetary weren't doing their jobs right. I don't know. I've always loved that urban legend because my grandfather is buried there as well.