Urban Legends

Part 1:

A great-great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after laying in a coma for several days. Her husband was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.

After the doctor pronounced her dead, the old man insisted that she was not. They had to literally pry him away from his wife's body so they could ready her for burial.

They prepared a proper coffin and committed the body (in its coffin) to its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, the old man protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed.

His wife was buried

That night he woke to a horrific vision of his wife hysterically trying to scratch her way out of the coffin. He phoned the doctor immediately and begged to have his wife's body exhumed. The doctor refused, but the old man had this nightmare every night for a week, each time frantically begging to have his wife removed from the grave.

Finally the doctor gave in and, together with local authorities, exhumed the body. The coffin was pried open and to everyone's horror and amazement, the old lady's nails were bent back and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.

Part 2:

There are many stories to proves as evidence that this type of urban myth isn't only myth and was in fact true.

Before modern embalming techniques were in widespread use, people were found on rare occasions to have been buried alive. Many stories are said to have come from the 18th and 19th century by the medical discovery that victims of suffocation and drowning could be resuscitated — that, though they appeared dead, they really weren't.

Going back even further, to te very 1s century, it is said that a magician, Simon Magus, buried himself alive expecting a miracle - it didnt happen.

British Medical Journal, 1877 wrote:

A correspondent at Naples states that the Appeals Court has had before it a case not likely to inspire confidence in the minds of those who look forward with horror to the possibility of being buried alive. It appeared from the evidence that some time ago, a woman was interred with all the usual formalities, it being believed that she was dead, while she was only in a trance. Some days afterwards, when the grave in which she had been placed was opened for the reception of another body, it was found that the clothes which covered the unfortunate woman were torn to pieces, and that she had even broken her limbs in attempting to extricate herself from the living tomb. The Court, after hearing the case, sentenced the doctor who had signed the certificate of decease, and the Major who had authorized the interment each to three month's imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter.

Part 3:

This myth doesnt as much interest me as to worry me. I have a fear of being buried alive and my mind went straight to the urban myths due to my own personal fear. I think that personal fears do bring on the onslaught of urban myths and help them grow and change throughout the years (rather like ghost stories), yet unlike a lot of ghost stories told simply to scare people, urban myths tend to have some rank of truth in them, as seen with the myth of being buried alive.


sources:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/horrors/a/buried_alive.htm
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/buried.asp

Part 1:

During the war a soldier faithfully wrote his mother every week so she would know he was all right, until one week she didn't get a letter and immediately began to worry. Within a couple of weeks she got a letter from the Army saying that her son had been captured and was being held in a Prisoner-of-War camp, and they assured her that they had no reason to believe the American prisoners were being mistreated in any way. A few weeks later the woman finally received another letter from her son, it read: "Dear Mom, Try not to worry about me, they are treating us well and I'll be released as soon as the war is over. Make sure that little Teddy gets the stamp for his collection. Love you, Joe" The woman was overjoyed to hear the news, but was confused because she had no idea who "little Teddy" was. She decided to steam the stamp from the envelope and have a look. When she did she saw that written on the back of the stamp were the words: "They've cut off my arms".

Part 2:
There is almost exactly 0 evidence this ever happened. This started in the Civil War era, when vets and new recruit's trainers would tell them this to freak them out or trying to prevent mutiny or trying harder to not get captured.

Part 3:

It interested me because of the irony, the letters would not have stamps, as they are government mail, which would be pre-paid. also, it is a slightly amusing story.

Part 1:
When St. Cuthbert died on Lindisfarne in 688, he requested that if the island was ever under threat, the monks residing there should sail to the mainland and take his body with them. As it happened, the Danes did try to take the island, so the monks did as they were told and moved to Chester-le-Street until the Danes retreated, and then went on to Ripon. When the Danish threat was completely quashed, the monks tried to move back to Chester-le-Street, but their progress was inhibited when they found they could no longer lift the saint's body (which was still miraculously preserved, by the way) and they were "told" by an unnamed entity that they should erect a shrine to Cuthbert at Duirholm. Not knowing where Duirholm was, the monks asked a couple of milkmaids leading a cow to show them the way. When they had reached their destination, the monks built a cathedral in honour of the saint.

Part 2:
The only evidence - but it is still pretty solid - for this myth is a picture of a cow carved onto the tower of the cathedral. It is not known if the carving has been dated.

Part 3:
I find this myth quite intriguing, if only for its connection with the cow carving. For St. Cuthbert's body to have remained intact, let alone preserved, is a miracle in itself, as I assume that the monks carried it themselves all over the country. Nevertheless, it's a nice bit of folk hokum to tell your kids.

Sources: All paraphrased from John Timpson's Book of Curious Days. No copyright infringement intended, honestly.

Part 1:

Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light?

As the legend goes two girls were in the same science class and had a midterm the next day. One girl-I guess I'll call her Helga- got asked to a big bash by the hottest guy in the school, while her dormate-lets call her Zelda-Meg, pretty much no interest in going and she took notes on what the subject of the midterm. Helga was completely unprepared for the test, while Zelda was prepared for a night of study. Helga got back after midnight and decided to wake up Zelda early to ask for help with some studying. When she went to wake her the next morning, Zelda was sleeping on her stomach, seeming sound asleep. She rolls Zelda over to reveal her terrified face. Helga turned on the desk lamp and saw Zelda's study stuff open and covered with blood. Zelda was murdered and her blood was on the wall writting out, "Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light?"


Part 2:

These are some things that mention places were this legend is told.


I couldn't find anything else, but like a lot off college myths, just something to scare newbies.

Part 3:

Because it is more of a horror myth. It is one of those you tell to new college students to scare them. Plus things written in on walls are creepy. Like in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.



sources:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/horrors/a/turn_on_light.htm

Part 1:

Find and record (type) an urban myth of your choice

A young girl, Sarah, was poor but pretty. The boy of her dreams, Edward, finally notices her and asks her to the upcoming school dance. Sarah is happy, but realizes that she has nothing to wear to the dance, which is being held a very expensive hotel. Edward and all his friends come from money. Sarah and her mother scrape up what money they have and visit a second hand store. There she finds the perfect dress, pale pink and flowing, the dress is beyond beautiful and perfect for a night of dancing. The dress has a strange odor but Sarah and her mom are sure they can air the dress out before the dance.
The night of the dance arrives and Sarah gets dressed. She looks stunning, and Edward is blown away. At the dance she is the most popular girl, and never gets a chance to sit down. Halfway thru the dance she begins to fill light headed, but she does not want to ruin the first perfect night of her life. At the end of the evening, Edward takes her home. Sarah crawls into bed, sweaty and still dressed in her gown, telling her mother of her evening before falling to sleep.
The next morning when her mother goes to wake her, she finds Sarah dead. Horrified, the mother notices the strange odor of the dress has returned and intensified. The autopsy performed on Sarah shows that she died from poisoning, the culprit- embalming fluid. Sarah’s mother discovers that the dress they bought at the second hand had been brought in by an undertaker. He had removed the dress from a young girl before her burial, but after she had been embalmed. As Sarah danced and sweated that night, the embalming fluid soaked into her skin, eventually killing her.

Part 2:
There are links to this story in early mythology,the tale of Hercules and the poisoned robe and of the sorceress Medea sending a poisoned robe to her husband’s mistress. During the 1940’s this myth was told often, and many people claimed that it had happened to someone they knew, or that the dance where she began to feel ill was held at a popular hotel. Sometimes the dress was a rental, sometimes it was purchased at a department store. The department store uncovers that the dress has been bought and then returned, used in a funeral and then switched before the body is interred. There does not appear to be any link to an actual death, but rather, like most urban myths it’s a cautionary tale. In other version its almost as if the girl is being punished for wanting to associate above her level, and in researching this I discovered that in some versions the young woman is African-American, putting a racist spin on the story.
Part 3:

I first remembering reading this story in one of Scary Stories to Tell After Dark books when I was grade school- a long, long time ago. I love horror stories, I love to tell them, to watch them on the big screen, to read them in a book. I was probably in the 5th or 6th grade when I first read the story, so I related to the young girl falling for a boy, since I myself was just falling for boys my own age. I liked the tragic end to their star crossed love. It was Cinderella with a Romeo and Juliet ending. It seemed to me that it could happen, that you could buy a dress that someone dead had worn. To be honest, I had a strong aversion to wearing any kind of hand-me-downs because of this story for years. The story has all the right elements, romance and death, to make it a more sophisticated urban myth. There are no mad men with hooks for hands, no baby sitters with their eyes scratched out, no haunted house. The danger of this story is not the embalming fluid, it's greed. Greed is what prompts the undertaker to sell the dress for a quick buck that ends the life of the young woman. She dies just when her life is truly beginning, and that has always been what haunted me about the legend.

Sources
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/dress.asp
and my memory of one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark