Legend: A babysitter left alone in charge of sleeping children receives several threatening phone calls. After reporting the calls to the phone company, the girl is notified by the telephone operator that the calls are originating from the upstairs extension. The babysitter flees the house just ahead of an armed intruder who has already murdered the children.

Example 1: A young couple living in a large isolated house had gone out to a dinner party one evening and left the baby-sitter in charge of their two children. The children had been put to bed and the baby-sitter was watching the television when the phone rang. She answered but all she heard was a man laughing hysterically and then a voice saying, "I'm upstairs with the children, you'd better come up." Thinking it was "one of those phone calls" or a practical joke she slammed down the receiver and turned the television sound up. A short time later the phone rang again and, as she picked it up, the unmistakable hysterical laughter came down the line and the voice once again said "I'm upstairs with the children, you'd better come up." Getting rather frightened she called the operator and was advised they would notify the police and, should he phone again, could she keep him talking in order to give them time to trace the call and have him arrested. Minutes after she replaced the receiver the phone rang again and, when the voice said, "I'm upstairs with the children, you'd better come up," she tried to keep him talking. However, he must have guessed what she was trying to do and he put the phone down. Only seconds later the phone rang again, this time it was the operator who said, "Get out of the house straight away, the man is on the extension." The baby-sitter put down the phone and just then heard someone coming down the stairs. She fled from the house and ran straight into the arms of the police. They burst into the house and found a man brandishing a large butcher's knife. He had entered the house through an upstairs window, murdered both the children and was just about to do the same to the poor baby-sitter.

Variations:

· In some versions the mysterious caller just laughs maniacally instead of making threatening statements.

· The number of murdered children (one, two, or three) varies.

· Sometimes the girl sees the killer first, then runs from the house and summons the police herself.

· In an alternate humorous version (in which the babysitter runs out of the house without first seeing the murderer) the police arrive to find that one of the children upstairs has been making the threatening calls as a prank.

· Another variation (combined with elements from ) involves two babysitters. After the first girl learns from the operator that the calls are originating from the upstairs extension, she runs to the stairway to summon her friend. As she approaches the stairway she hears a thumping sound coming from the stairs -- the sound of the friend, her limbs severed, dragging herself down the stairway. (In some versions the mutilated friend warns the first babysitter that the children have all been murdered and urges her to flee the house.)

Origins: This tale, like several other adolescent horror legends, seemingly originated (or at least was first collected) in the early 1960s. Its obvious features deal with the insecurity felt by adolescents as they are required to accept increasing responsibilities while making the transition to adulthood. The teenage girl is not simply left alone to fend for herself, but she is also made responsible for the safety of other children (in what might be considered a "dress rehearsal" for motherhood). She fails at her task in the most catastrophic manner (with the implication that she is at least partly to blame for being too absorbed in watching television), and, in a delicious irony, she herself is threatened through the instrument that is a teenage girl's favorite means of social communication.

Sightings: The plot of the 1979 movie is based on this legend. The 1974 film features a murdering maniac hiding in a sorority's attic who telephones after every killing. In the 1998 film , the folklore professor regales his class with this legend.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legend: Hours after sending her boyfriend in search of gasoline, a girl is rescued from her stranded car by police. Though cautioned not to turn around, she does . . . and sees her boyfriend's lifeless body hanging from a tree branch above the car.

Example 1: Two students had gone out to neck in a car on an isolated country road. Afterwards, the car wouldn't start. The girlfriend got spooked. The boyfriend said he would walk for help, but suggested she first get down on the floor of the car in the back and put a blanket over her so no one looking in would see her... and told her not to look out or get out until he returned and told her to, no matter what she heard. Then he walked off, leaving her hidden. He didn't return, and he didn't return, and then she heard a strange tap-tap-tap sound on top of the car. Tap-tap-tap. Despite her growing panic, she didn't get out and remained huddled there, all night long, listening to the irregular tapping sounds. Finally, the day grew light outside and she heard someone walking up to the car. A man's voice called out "Is anyone in there?" It was the local sheriff. She peeked out and he told her to get out of the car, walk down the road to the waiting sheriff's car, and whatever she did, not to look back at the car. She walked down the road to the sheriff's car but looked back at the last minute and saw her boyfriend's head impaled on the CB antenna, dripping blood onto the car.

Example 2: A teenager is driving his girlfriend home from a date. The boy had been playing around earlier about the car running out of gas as a means to make out with her. Well, it doesn't work and she's mad. He starts up the car to take her home, apologizing all the way, when lo and behold they actually do run out of gas. He pulls the car over by some trees. It's very late and the area is secluded and wooded. The boy tells his girlfriend that he saw a gas station a couple of miles back and since going ahead would take even longer, he tells her to stay in the car with the windows rolled up and locked and he'll get back as fast as he can, no sense in both of them going, right? Well, the girl waits in the car. It's been about 20 minutes when she hears a faint scratching noise. It starts to bother her, but she blows it off as the tree branches hitting the car, it had been windy that day, She decides to turn on the radio to listen to some music so it won't freak her out. Well, now it's been almost 2 hours and she's starting to get worried. Her boyfriend was a jock and could have easily made it there and back in under an hour. A half hour later she's very worried and decides to turn off the radio and look around. He had told her not to get out under any circumstances so she tries to peer out the window, she sees nothing. To her annoyment the scratching sound is still there. She decides that she will get out just long enough to break off that damn branch. She gets out and notices the gas can on the ground near the door. She immediately turns around and sees her boyfriend hanging upside down from the tree, throat slit, and his fingernails dragging across the top of the car making a scratching sound. Of course, had she been listening to talk radio instead of music, she would have known a maniac had escaped from the asylum near the woods where they were parked.

Example 3: A lass someone at college knew was travelling in her boyfriend's car late at night through the New Forest when their car suddenly started spluttering and stalled. They'd run out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. At first she thought it might be a ruse by her bloke to get a bit of rural slap and tickle, but the concern on his face soon scotched that. It was pitch black, and the only light they could see was coming from what looked like a mansion or hospital some miles away. The boyfriend told her to lock the doors and wait while he went for help. Hours passed, and still no sign of him. She was beginning to get very nervous. Still more time went by, when she was startled by a horrendous banging on the back, then the top of the car. Before she could scream, the car was surrounded by police cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing. A voice over a loud-hailer told her: "Get out of the car slowly, walk steadily towards the police line, and don't, repeat don't, look around." She did as she was told, but as she neared the police line, she couldn't stop herself looking round at the car to see what was making the awful thumping noise . . . only to see an escaped psychopath banging her boyfriend's severed head on the car roof.

Variations:

· Without exception, the girl remains with the car while the boy strikes out unaccompanied in search of gasoline. The murder victim is always male, and the one rescued and cautioned not to look back is always female.

· In American versions, the couple is often parked under a tree, and the boyfriend's corpse is left hanging upside-down from a branch, the fingernails scraping against the car. European versions typically have the madmen himself holding the boyfriend's decapitated head in one hand and tapping on the roof of the car with his fist or bloody axe.

· This legend is often said to have happened in particular lovers' lanes that are well known to storytellers and their audiences.

· Sometimes when the girl looks back and sees her dead boyfriend hanging there, her hair instantly turns white.

Origins: The earliest documented instance of this story was collected in 1964 from a freshman at the University of Kansas. Since that time the story has spread mightily, and it's now uncommon to encounter anyone who hasn't heard it. As for how widespread it is, by the late 1970s, a version of it was circulating in Malaysia.

It's possible the roots of legends like The Boyfriend's Death and lie in distorted memories of real life Lover's Lane murders. There were actual cases of kids who went out necking and came back in pine boxes. The residue of news stories about those events would likely remain around for a while, mutating into cautionary tales with the addition of bloody hooks and scraping sounds on the roof of the car. Common elements of The Boyfriend's Death include the parked couple, the abandoned girl, the mysterious scratching, tapping or dripping, the daybreak rescue by parents or police, the entreaty not to look back, and the hanging or decapitated boyfriend.

Analysis: Wherever and however this story is told, the injunction not to look back is a constant. Taboos like this are always broken in folklore, whether in fairy tales or in modern urban legends. When she disobeys and looks, the girl's hair turns white from shock -- another familiar legend motif and itself a reminder of what happened to Lot's wife when she ignored a similar instruction. The girl in this story is perceived as helpless and incapable of venturing away from the safety of the car (no one ever suggests she accompany her boyfriend), whereas her male companion immediately dons the mantle of midnight adventurer and seeker of help. The stereotyped roles of frightened female and fearless male are strictly adhered to. His job is to do battle with the unknown whereas hers is to obey orders, staying with the car no matter what until rescued. Not even thumps, bumps, or scratching noises incite her to attempt to save herself. Interestingly, the heroine in the 1998 version quoted earlier on this page does disobey the boyfriend's orders. This lone exception in the 30-plus years of this legend's history leaves the vehicle without being instructed to do so. Even then, it's not to go looking for help or to find out what happened to her companion, it's to dispose of an annoying branch which is tapping on the car, disturbing the tranquility of her long wait to be rescued.

Sightings: Look for this tale in the 1989 film , 1998's , and 2001's Sugar and Spice. It also shows up in an episode of TV's Millennium ("The Pest House," original air date 27 February 1998).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My mother swears this is true... My great-great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after laying in a coma for several days. My great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long that it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts. After the Doctor pronounced her dead, my great-great Grandfather insisted that she was not. They had to literally pry him away from his wife's body so they could ready her for burial. Now, back in those days they had backyard burial plots and did not drain the body of its fluids. They simply prepared a proper coffin and committed the body (in its coffin) to its permanent resting place. Throughout this process, my great-great grandfather protested so fiercely that he had to be sedated and put to bed. His wife was buried and that was that.

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 my great-great grandfather 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, my great-great grandmother's nails were bent back and there were obvious scratches on the inside of the coffin.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_____________________________________________________________________

Legend: Chanting "Bloody Mary!" thirteen times in front of a candlelit mirror will summon a vengeful spirit.

Example 1: If you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror with the lights off and the room completely black, and then say 'Bloody Mary' thirteen times, a woman will appear and scratch your face up/off. I was told that if you said "Hell Mary" seven times in front of a mirror in a dark room, you would see Satan's image in the mirror. The story was embellished further by the teller, who claimed that after three "Hell Mary", the mirror turned red, and that after five an unclear face appeared. Here's how I always heard the story. You go into a room with a mirror and turn all the lights off (this works well in a bathroom). You begin, in a whisper, to chant "bloody mary. bloody mary, Bloody Mary", as you continue to chant your voice should grow louder and louder into a near scream. While you are chanting you should be spinning around at a medium rate and taking a glimpse in the mirror at each pass. Near the 13th repetition of the words . . . "she" should appear and...? A friend of mine said that her roommate tried this and ran out screaming from the bathroom. She was shaking and appeared genuinely terrified and refused to talk about the incident, but those who were around her when she came out noticed that her clenched fingers were covered in blood.

Variations: · The avenging spirit goes by many names: Bloody Mary, Bloody Bones, Hell Mary, Mary Worth, Mary Worthington, Mary Whales, Mary Johnson, Mary Lou, Mary Jane, Sally, Kathy, Agnes, Black Agnes, Aggie, Svarte Madame. · Summoning Mary requires the right chant. "I believe in Mary Worth" is the key phrase according to one version, but others require the shouting of "Kathy, come out!" or the repetition of "Bloody Mary" into the mirror as many times as the ritual demands. (Sometimes Bloody Mary gets more of a script and is summoned by calls of "Bloody Mary! I killed your baby!") · The precise requirements of the ritual vary. Some specify that the mirror must be illuminated by a single candle; in others, there must be a candle on each side. In some versions, the message to Mary is repeated by just one girl who is either a volunteer or one selected by the others to summon up the mirror-witch. The number of chants needed to fetch Mary also varies. · What the mirror-witch does upon arrival varies too. She may strike her summoner dead, drive her mad, or fiercely scratch her face. She may merely peer malevolently out through the mirror, or she may drag one of the girls back through it to live with her.

Origins: The research into Bloody Mary goes back to 1978, when folklorist Janet Langlois published her essay on the legend. Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was even at that time widespread throughout the U.S. Mary is summoned whenever squealing girls get together for a sleepover, but boys have been known to call on her too. She's said to be a witch who was executed a hundred years ago for plying the black arts, or a woman of more modern times who died in a local car accident in which her face was hideously mutilated. (Barbara's husband notes: The 'Bloody Mary' legend was common when I was a kid in the early 1970s. We typically performed the "ritual" in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of our suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows. A familiar 'Bloody Mary' story was one about a girl who supposedly ended her incantation with a spiteful "I don't believe in Mary Worth," then tripped over the doorjamb while exiting the bathroom and broke her hip.) Why would otherwise rational youngsters want to risk setting a murderous spirit on the rampage? Gail de Vos offers the following explanation: So why do children continue to summon Bloody Mary, flirting with danger and possible tragedy? The ages between 9 and 12 are labeled "the Robinson age" by psychologists. This is the period when children need to satisfy their craving for excitement by participating in ritual games and playing in the dark. They are constantly looking for a safe way to extract pleasure and release anxiety and fears. It's possible these "mirror witch" games have their roots in oldtime divining rituals involving unmarried girls and future husbands. There are a number of variations of these divinations, some involving chanting a rhyme in a darkened room on a special night and then quickly looking in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the bridegroom-to-be. The concept of mirrors as portals between this world and the realm of spirits shows up in other beliefs, namely those surrounding funerals. It was common practice to cover mirrors in a house where a death had occurred until the body was taken for burial. (Back in the days before funeral homes, corpses were washed by the deceased's relatives, dressed in their funeral finery, and laid out in coffins in the front parlor. Consequently, the dead would be in the house for days.) It was believed if the dear departed caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, his ghost would remain in the house because the mirror would trap his spirit.

Sightings: The villain in the 1992 film Candyman <http://us.imdb.com/Details?0103919> is summoned by chanting his name into a mirror. In the 1998 movie Urban Legend <http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/urbanlegend/>, two co-eds try to summon an evil spirit by chanting 'Bloody Mary.' In an episode of television's The X Files ("Syzygy," original air date 26 January 1996), two teenage girls lure a rival for a boy's affections into the bathroom -- and a "Bloody Mary" ritual -- during a birthday party. They prevent her from leaving the bathroom, and the camera cuts to the rest of the partygoers downstairs, who hear a crash of breaking glass and a scream.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonsai Kitten Petition

Email text contributed by Urban Legend Member 99, 4 June 2001:

www.bonsaikitten.com

Hi, friends:

To anyone that feel some love or respect for any form of life...

What follows may be hard to believe. Please bare in mind that Dr. Mengele, the Nazi war criminal, once said: "The more we do, the less you seem to believe it". There is a Japanese man living in New York that sells "BONSAI CATS".

The guy puts the kittens in glass bottle then puts a probe in their anus that gets out from a gap in the bottle to dispense their urine and faeces. For the kittens to take the bottle shape, they are fed with chemicals to melt the bones. Then he keeps the cats for as long as they can survive. They can't move, walk or clean up. He calls this "art". This cruelty is the last fashion in NYC, China, Indonesia, New Zealand, because is a "decoration pet". We are making a list to sent to Animals Protection Association in USA and Mexico, and to TV news, to stop this. We call out to anybody that loves cats or just has basic respect for LIFE - please put your name in the end of this list, then forward this e-mail to anyone you can think of.

If in the list you find more than 500 names, please send a copy to anacheca@hotmail.com
We are very thankfull to your help and we ask you to send this e-mail. Comments: First things first: The Bonsai Kitten site is a hoax - a sick joke. No one is really doing those awful things to kittens (see "Bonsai Kitten" for the history of this prank). Arguably it's no less reprehensible for its inauthenticity, and many people honestly believe it may incite cruelty to animals whether it's real or not. I won't attempt to dispute that here, but I am duty-bound to observe that the petition is based on the false presumption that Bonsai Kitten is real and is thus both misleading and pointless. The text originated in Spanish and was badly translated into English during its worldwide travels. Unsurprisingly, the petition effort appears to be strongest in non-English-speaking countries, where it may be harder for users to discern that the site is a prank. The humor may be juvenile, but such clues as there are to its tongue-in-cheek intent are subtly conveyed. Even many native English speakers miss them. That said, we're not sure whether to attribute the apparent sincerity of the petition to a misunderstanding on the part of its author(s) or to further pranksterism. I.e., the petition itself could be a hoax, but we don't know. We've tested the email address listed as the collection point and found it to be a valid, working account, but it's anybody's guess what the owner may be doing with email sent there.

The piquant irony of all this, of course, is that the international circulation of this petition is only racking up more and more traffic for the much-hated Website. The nameless pranksters behind Bonsai Kitten are surely delighted with the results.

Bonsai Kitten The world's most hated Website?

Dateline: 02/14/01

By Daniel Nickson

I'm relieved to say it's been a week or two since anyone has written to ask me if the activities depicted on the Bonsai Kitten Website [user discretion advised] are real. Clearly, they are not. Even so, the site, which purports to describe "the lost art of body modification in housepets" (consisting basically of stuffing small kittens into glass jars), has offended and angered quite a large number of people. But probably just as many are baffled by the fact that anyone would think it's meant to be taken seriously. What began as a tasteless, puerile joke has turned into an Internet cause celebre. Animal welfare advocates decry it and defenders of free speech, well, defend it. Not since Mahir Mania has a lone, non-commercial Website commanded this much worldwide attention. It has inspired online petitions, condemnation by the Humane Society of the U.S. and news coverage in media both online and off. It's safe to say that neither side in the roiling controversy expected the latest development, an investigation by the FBI. Last week the Bureau supoenaed "any and all subscriber information" pertaining to the site from MIT, on whose servers it originally resided last December. (It has since migrated from host to host and sprung up on various mirror sites until offered a permanent home on the consistently offensive Rotten.com [a whole lot of user discretion advised].) One of the campus pranksters responsible for Bonsaikitten.com, "Dr. Michael Wong Chang," told Wired News he was surprised by the move. "I really thought that the FBI had better things to do," he said. "That's your tax dollars at work." Nobody expects serious legal consequences to come of the investigation, which as a matter of fact only appears to be drawing more attention to the much-hated Website.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bridegroom's Revenge

As told by Urban legend Member 32, 02/24/00...

Here is one I just heard from my husband. A guy where he works "swears" it happened to someone he knew...

A bride and a groom are at their wedding reception. Everything is going perfectly when the groom stands up to give a toast. He thanks all the guest for coming and for the stack of presents on the table, he thanks the father of the bride for the beautiful reception.

He then tells the guests that he has a surprise for all of them. He instructs them to look under their chairs. They do and find a picture taped to the bottom of each seat.

The guest are shocked and horrified! It's a picture of the bride and the best man having sex! The groom says he had a feeling they were having an affair and hired an investigator who took the photo. He then says to the father of the bride, "Thanks for the $30,000 sit-down dinner and party, but I'm out of here." And he walked out.

He filed for an annulment the following Monday.

* * *

Contributed anonymously:

I heard this from someone who said their brother was at the wedding...

Apparently, a man and a woman had a huge wedding. When they were at the reception and it was time for the best man's speech, the groom stood up instead. He said he knew it was highly irregular that he was speaking, but he had something to say. He wanted everyone to know that the wedding was totally legal and on the up and up. The man with him, he continued, was his divorce lawyer. If the wedding guests would all flip over their plates, they would see the reason. With that, he tossed off his champagne and walked out.

On the bottom of every plate was a picture of the bride and best man walking into a cheap motel room together. The electronic dating of the photo was three days before the wedding.

* * *

I heard this story about a man and woman who got engaged. They were both from very wealthy families. Eventually the wedding day arrived. It was a huge wedding with hundreds of guests, many of whom had flown or driven great distances to be there. The ceremony went off smoothly and all the guests headed for the lavish reception.

When it was time for the groom to give his speech he thanked all the guests for their wonderful gifts and for taking the trouble to travel so far to share the happy occasion. He said that he was so grateful to all the guests that he had arranged a gift for each person at the reception. All they had to do was reach under the chair and they would find an envelope stuck to the bottom of the chair with the gift in it. Naturally, all the guests quickly reached under their chairs and retrieved the envelopes. Each one contained an 8X10 color glossy photo of the bride and the best man having sex and obviously going for it with a will.

Naturally, there were gasps of horror and fainting women. Amidst all the bedlam the groom got the final words in by cursing the bride and the best man, stating that he had known of the affair for some time and that his lawyer would be applying for an annulment on the following day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------