Can be city, region, even country

37 comments

  1. Locally, one of the possible [Caves of the Seven Sleepers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers) is near where my family lives. I like the story a lot.

    There is a country-wide urban legend which is very funny. In my childhood, there was this interactive game show called [Hugo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(game_show)) where you connected via telephone (my parents didn’t let us because it was expensive). At that time, not everyone had phones with keys, some had those where you turned a wheel with numbers, which didn’t work. Legend says that one day a kid connected with such a phone and failed quite early. The host (he was called Tolga, and was super nice and polite) tried to console him, but the kid screamed “fuck Hugo, and fuck you too!” and hung up.

    Well, this didn’t happen, Tolga denies it, too. But a whole generation is full of people saying “yeah, I watched that episode! It was wild!” and every now and then there are news that the kid who swore to Tolga on TV has been found.

    This was like 25 years ago, but it still pops up every now and then. I don’t know if younger people know about it, though. Probably not.

  2. Sadly, I think tales of these sorts are out of fashion around here. I have a book with folk tales collected in the mid-20th century, these are cool. There are some about ghosts, haunted bogs, mountains with dwarves and Wild Men. I like those about Wild Men. They’re an echo of times where people settling in the country as farmers came into contact with a population who were hunter/gatherers.

  4. There is a lot of civil war related urban legends in my city, because the biggest battle happened here. It’s all ghosts and stuff. None of it is especially interesting.

    My favourite one however is probably a lesser known one, but on the grounds of an old manor near downtown there is a natural rock with the phrase ”Lord knows his own” in Greek. The rock is called ”the grave of a freemason”, though nobody is actually buried there. It’s believed to originate from the late 1700s, when Gustaf III, the king of Sweden, was visiting the manor. Both Gustaf III and the owner of the manor were freemasons and there are multiple urban legends, tales, and theories of what it means. It’s a fun mystery. My theory is they were just drunk and chiseled something on a rock as a joke.

  5. There is mountain range nearby, where people tend to disappear. They even made a movie about it named Trhlina.

    I only sorta knew one person who disappeared there many years ago. Only thing they found was his ID on the other side of mountains.

  6. In my hometown we have a legend about a donkey and a carrot.

    Once upon a time our fair city was under attack by the evil and despicable Aalstenaars, a vile and utterly disgusting people. As they attacked the city we closed the gates but one was unable to close as the key had been lost. So the gate keeper decided to use a carrot instead. Alas a donkey was passing by and decided to eat the carrot because he’s a donkey. And thus the gates opened to the enemy and they were let into the city.

    Not really a happy ending. But at least now the carrot has become our biggest symbol so there’s that. We also became known as the ‘boldest of the cities’ because we faced an enemy with open gates.

  7. I would like to share the legend of St Hilary’s shoes. According to legend, seeing the saint walking barefoot through Parma on a snowy day, a shoemaker gave him a pair of shoes as a pity gift. The next day, the shoemaker found a pair of golden shoes in the place where the donated shoes had been placed. Because of this, shoe-shaped biscuits are traditionally baked on the day of the patron saint.

  9. Legend has it that the Welsh coastline used to extend much further West into what is now known as Cardigan Bay. A series of dykes drained the land and held back the water for 100 communities known as Cantre’r Gwaelod (The Lowland Hundred). Until one night, through drunken negligence, the sea overwhelmed the floodgates and everything was destroyed.
    The bells are said to toll beneath the waves in times of peril etc.

    I like that there’s a geological causeway jutting perpendicular to the coast a few miles North called Sarn Gynfelin, which is said to be a road to Cantre’r Gwaelod. A few miles further still, remnants of a sunken forest are exposed after storms.

  10. Probably not quite what you were looking for, but every school in the mid-00s worth its salt had an urban legend about what happened to the Frosties Kid.

    Basically, there was an [incredibly](https://youtu.be/4S6N_gQPYIM) irritating Frosties advert at the time featuring a teenage boy singing a jingle with some very awkward rhymes and accompanied by some very awkward dancing. The advert received a huge amount of backlash at the time and it started becoming a meme to speculate on what happened to the kid after the ad aired, resulting in some very strange urban legends that apparently varied depending on which part of the country you were from.

    The most common theory apparently, was that he was so badly bullied that he decided to commit suicide by sticking a pencil up each nostril and ramming his head against a wall repeatedly. Other theories include that he was exiled to the Serengeti or to Vladivostok. The one at my school in London was that he was approached one day by some muggers wanting to steal his phone, when suddenly one of the muggers recognised him off the ad. In a fit of rage, the mugger then stabbed the kid to death.

    In truth, the Frosties Kid was a child actor in South Africa where the ad never aired, and so his classmates never really knew about it and he continued living a happy life free of bullying.

  11. Legend has it that during the time the Moors held the region, their king was given a bride who was a princess from a northern land. The bride had the most beautiful smile, but shortly after the wedding her sadness became apparent to all. When asked why she was so sad, the princess told her husband that she missed her homeland, a land of pure white snow. Determined to bring back her smile, the king ordered his subjects to plant almond trees all across the land, so that when they bloom in the colder months their white flowers would remind his wife of the snow and her homeland.

    This legend serves as an origin story for the almond trees commonly found in my region, and it’s one I’ve heard many times.

  12. The only one I know is the Dame Blanche ( White Lady ). There is 2 versions I have heard about : on first one it’s a ghostish lady that suddenly appear in you car on a seat and scream to make you avoid a fatal accident by night, second one is a Lady with a white dress you see on a field looking at you while you are driving by night and that mean you will die very soon.

    There is also the Ankou in my area ( Brittany ). A skeleton-looking god with traditional Breton outfits with an undead horse and a cart full of corpses coming for you when you are about to die

  13. There is a story about how the site of today’s [Red Lake](https://www.croatiaweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/HR-2.jpg?x31331) near Imotski came to be.

    The protagonist of this historic tale is a man named Gavan who had a large estate in the field of today’s Red Lake.

    Gavan was a very rich but very greedy man for whom the locals said he had a face of a man, but a soul of the devil. He had so much money and treasure that he didn’t know the number of it, but the soul he did not have. He also had a wife, Gavanica, of a same temper, children and a lot of servants. Gavan was not only known for his wealth but for his arrogance. He mistreated all his servants and people who came to him.

    To convince of Gavan’s arrogance, an angel descended to the ground disguised as a beggar, seeking charity from Gavan. Gavanica opened the door, and didn’t want to give him any food or water. The angel then asked Gavanica, “Are you afraid of God?”, to which she replied that she was not afraid of anyone while her Gavan is there.

     At that moment the earth rumbled, the thunder and the lightning striked, and the whole Gavan estate, Gavan, Gavanica, and the children drowned into the land that has opened due to earthquake.

  14. Classic german legend. Half goat half otter, lives in our rural river, eats children that come close to the water by themselfs, you know the drill.

  15. *Die Teufelsmauer*

    There’s a 20 kilometres long rock formation [like this](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsmauer_(Harz)#/media/Datei:Teufelmauer_Mittelstein_2010.jpg) northeast of the Harz mountain range in Germany.

    The legend says the devil made a bet with god that he could build a wall that separated the plain from the mountainside in one night. He almost succeeded, but some woman who went to the market in the dark of the night stumbled nearby and a rooster she wanted to sell had been so upset he cockadoodled. The devil thought his plan was foiled and crushed the almost finished wall to the pieces that remained.

    Teaching: Do not ragequit. Also, supply a safe detour for commuters around your construction site.

  17. One of my favourite folk tales from here in Scania is the one about the [drinking horn and bone whistle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Ljungby_horn_och_pipa.jpg) at [Trolle Ljungby Castle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Trolle_Ljungby_slott.jpg) outside the town of Kristianstad.

    Each year on the dark night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the local trolls held a huge feast underneath [Maglestenen](https://uddautflykter.se/guide/skane/maglestenen/) – a large boulder rock not far from the castle. One such Christmas night the stable boy of the castle got curious and went to have a look underneath the rock. The drunken trolls invited in him in to part in the feast and handed him a shining silver drinking horn and a festive whistle made of bone. But when the stable boy saw how fancy these items were, he decided to carry them away with him, and swiftly got out from under the rock and ran away. As he ran, the trolls cursed him so that ill would come to the owners of the castle for many generations to come. And sure enough, that family of owners at the castle soon died out from disease and misfortune.

    But the goblins’ drinking horn and whistle are still kept at the castle to this day, and once a week the current castle owners put them on display in a castle window facing the road, so that the public passing by outside can see that the stolen goods are indeed still there, to the great chagrin of the trolls under the rock.

    This folk tale is known already from the early 17th century, when Scania was still Danish, and might even have a Medieval origin. Even the great biologist and explorer Carl Linnaeus wrote about it and visited the castle and the rock during his Scanian expedition in the 18th century.

  18. “Witte Wieven” (white witches) are a very old farmer’s folk tale. They were probably derived from the illusion of white figures that you can see on a misty field at night. In my area there is even a place in the forest where they are told to ‘spawn’. I found them very scary as a kid even though I knew they were fake, probably because we always went to this themed playground that had life-size representations of them scattered around.

  19. Near my hometown there’s a ruined castle with a cool folktale attached to it.

    The lord of the castle was a thoroughly unpleasant person. He participated in the northern crusades and got rich off of it. Unfortunately while he was gone his daughter fell in love with the miller’s apprentice in the valley below. When the knight found out he threw his daughter off of the walls, killing her. But he was overcome with remorse and locked himself away in his castle. He haunts the ruin as a dark shape with glowing red eyes and protects his treasure against anyone who trying to find it.

    His daughter however haunts the mill where she protects the local women, belps them give birth when the midwife can’t reach them in time, and guides lovers towards each other.

  20. I grew up close to Hårga, which has a legend that’s kinda similar to the Piper of Hamelin. Basically the youth of the village were lazy and just wanted to dance and party, so one day the devil showed up disguised as a fiddler and when he played the violin the youths could not stop dancing. He took them up on the mountain (more like a hill unless you are Danish tbh) and had them dance until first their shoes were worn down, but they still couldn’t stop. They danced so long that the skin of their feet flayed off and they were just bones left and then they died.

    So to celebrate (?) this each year there is a long distance folk dance competition, as in they have to dance through several towns, so it’s just as much endurance as style. Though these days they just dance through three places.

  21. It would have to be Näkki (Nøkken for fellow northmen)

    It’s an old pagan water spirit often described as a handsome boy, who tricks women and children to lakes, rivers and ponds with his singing or music. And then he drags them underwater to drown.

    The story is still used today. My parents told me that so i wouldn’t go swimming alone or too far from the shore. And i was scared shitless by it.

    And here are a few local tales:

    A sailor who almost became the emperor of Madagascar when his ship was shipwrecked on the island.

    Our lighthouse which is apparently haunted by seamen who died in a storm

    And a tale of 2 loves who lived on opposing sides of a road. They lit candles on the windows at night for each other. However the girl died in a tragic accident (can’t remember how exactly) and her spirit still haunts the house. A man saw her in the mirror, standing by the door and he quickly turned around to shoot her. The shotgun shot is still visible on the old door.

  22. The existence of a small creature called zášupšák, which hides all kinds of items in your household.

    It is the reason why you have odd socks and your keys aren’t where you think you put them yesterday.

  23. The story of Giant Finn

    Long time ago, in the beginning of the 1100s, a monk lived in Lund. He was called Saint Laurentius, or Saint Lars as he was also called. Saint Lars used to preach in a large open space called the Helgonaback, which lay a bit outside the city. Under the hill lived a giant, his wife and children. The giant thought that St. Lars disturbed them when he attracted all people to come and listen to his sermons. The giant asked, “Why are you standing here on my hill and disturbing my family?” The monk answered that there was no church in Lund where they could keep their worship services.

    The giant felt sorry for the monk and all the people and promised to build a church for them. But one thing he should promise him. When the church was built, Saint Lars would take down the moon and the sun to his children. “No one can take down the moon and the sun from the sky,” replied the monk. “Then I want your eyes instead,” said the giant. As Saint Lars would love to have a church he promised his eyes. “But, said the giant, if you will know my name, you can keep your eyes”. After that, the giant picked up stone boulders from Romeleklint and Höör and he carried them to Lund. Slowly but surely, Cathedral in Lund began to take shape.

    Meanwhile, the monk Saint Lars asked to himself “What could be his name?” “How are you Gunnar? shouted the monk up to the giant who sat on the roof and fixed the plates.” Sture? “Filip?” Or Magnus? ” But no name was right. The church was soon built, and yet Saint Lars didn’t know the name of giant. Then he walked around for a long time looking at the forests, the flowers, the sky and everything else beautiful in nature, for now he knew he would lose his eyes. When he came across Helgonabacken, he heard a mother singing good night lullaby for her children. The monk thought it was so beautiful that he stopped listening. What did the mother sang? Yes….

    “Sleep little sleep, sleep my son,
    your father Finn,
    sits and makes the walls above.
    Sleep little Gerda, my lovely daughter,
    your father Finn,
    until the evening comes with the gift. ”

    “Aha, the real name is Finn!” The monk became so happy and he ran down the hill to the church where Finn sat on the tower and was putting in the last stone: “Finn, Finn put the last stone in,” cried Saint Lars. Then the giant became so angry that he threw away the last stone and rushed into the crypt. There he took one of the pillars and tried to destroy the church he had just built. But all the forces suddenly ended and he turned into stone. Maybe he shrunk a little too. If you go down to the crypt, The Giant Finn stands there today and hugs his pillar.

    *****

    The first story of Giant Finn was written down in 1654 by Jens Lauritzen Wolf, but before that it had been told from generation to generation. The two pillars of the rock statues in the crypt have been interpreted in many ways. Among other things, they think they can represent the Bible’s Simson and Delila. Or Jakin and Boas, two major bronze columns at the entrance to the temple of Salmos.

    *****

    An Ancient Nordic Giant is not the same as the old Giants from Greek and Roman beliefs. Nordic Giants are often the same size as humans just that they are stronger, faster and physically better then humans.

  24. I can’t think of many urban legends, but there’s this one I’ve heard a couple of times. There is a railway tunnel not far from where I live, which was then abandoned after the track was electrified and the tunnel was too small to fit in overhead wires. They just built a new tunnel nearby and left the old tunnel alone.

    The tunnel is still there and have stayed relatively intact, despite nature slowly taking over its entrances. That’s why it’s well hidden from those who don’t deliberately try to find the tunnel. The legend says it has been a hotspot of gruesome satanic rituals.

  25. As a Nottinghamian, Robin Hood.

    Probably the most famous figure from English folklore, known the world over. Also avowedly socialist which is a bonus.

  26. *North Germany / The City of Hamburg*

    [Klaus Störtebeker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_St%C3%B6rtebeker) , a pirate/privateer from the 14th century, captain and one member of the [Vitalien Brothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers) allegedly did several quite fantastic things but the most important one:

    Störtebeker and his crew were caught and apparently Störtebeker made a deal with the mayor of Hamburg that **all members of his crew that Störtebeker walked past AFTER his decapitation would be spared**. Allegedly he walked past 11 crew members (allegedly 12m or roughly 40 feet) before the executioner tripped him up with his leg (or in another version he threw the execution block in front of him) . The mayor then also broke his word and executed every last one of the 73 privateers under Störtebekers command.

    The heads of all the privateers were put on stakes along the river Elbe.

    ​

    There are more legends about Störtebeker though:

    – He allegedly offered the City Council of Hamburg a chain made of pure gold that would reach around the entire city in exchange for his life after he was sentenced to death.

    – He allegedly got caught because one of his crew ( a traitor) poured lead into the rudder.

    – The executioner apparently executed every single one of the pirates himself and after he was praised for that by a member of the city council the executioner responded with “Oh I could still execute all of the council members without any problems.” and thus was promptly executed at site by the youngest council member.

    – When they tried to disassemble his ship they tried to saw through the masts but suddenly met something hard: One of the masts was filled with gold, one with silver and the third mast was filled with copper.

    – All of Störtebekers belongings were allegedly burned in the [Great Fire of Hamburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_fire_of_Hamburg) in 1842

    During his life he and the other Vitalien Brothers allegedly worked for everyone from the Queen of Denmark, to the English crown, to the rulers of Mecklenburg and East Frisia and King Albert of Sweden.

    There are no contemporary sources regarding Störtebeker but there are loads of statues of him all around Hamburg and generally north Germany. There are sports clubs, houses, ships and more named after him, graphic novels, portraits and memorials, [open air theatre festivals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%B6rtebeker_Festival) and much much more.

    Nowadays scientists believe that the “real” Störtebeker was someone named Johann Störtebeker who lived at least till 1413, but some of the legends might be because of Nicolao Stortebeker.

    There are movies, documentaries, books, ballads, theater plays and much much more about him.

    Interestingly even though he was a pirate and privateer in many sources about him he is portraited as honourable and heroic.

    PS: He allegedly had quite a majestic beard. [Proof](https://img.welt.de/img/geschichte/mobile230569405/3872509247-ci102l-w1024/Kunz-von-der-Rosen-vDHopfer-Kunz-von-der-Rosen-DHopfer.jpg)

  27. The black dog. It comes before a calamity. There are different variances of it. Some taking on the dog from Greek Mythos or the Vikings mythos. In some instances its not even a dog but a black panthera or a wolf. More of a cryptic being. Known to stalk people. Many try to understand it, some see it as a form of symbolism. In modern times its as though the black dog is a representation of pure wildness or even freedom.

    Good example of this is from Fantastic Mr. Fox.

    https://youtu.be/9n5JOvKQ7Mo

  28. The gist of it is: grumpy old dude comes out of Ülemiste lake once a year during an autumn midnight to ask if Tallinn is finished yet. You gotta say an avid denial, otherwise he’ll flood the city.

    In my family we usually refer to it when during spring/summer there’s typically a bunch of road work and construction going on, something like ‘hey at least we’re not getting flooded any time soon’

  30. A long time ago a women killed her husband. As a punishment she had to run the gauntlet. If she reached the ridge were she could se the church she would be freed. She died just before managing to see the church. You have to put a coin or a stick on the place where she died to avoid getting bad luck. Therefore it a large pile of sticks there today. When they rebuilt the road the pile of sticks and branches reapered on the side of the road. I usually place a branch there everytime I pass by when I am on a walk.

    Wikipedia link in swedish: [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantans_h%C3%B6g](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantans_h%C3%B6g)

    There is also the island named Estbröte. It came because a man from the Farm of Asknäs (the farm right beside the church) had been in Estonia, rading and crusading. Doing that he made a lot of enemies. When he went home some Estonians followed him and attacked the farm and killed him. His wife then rowed to the farm of Slagsta and gathered men to avenge her husband. The Estonians stopped at an island and in the knight the wife attacked and killed the Estonians. The name Estbröte was named so because the Estonians where broken there.

    Wikipedia link in Swedish: [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estbr%C3%B6te](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estbr%C3%B6te)

  32. North of France has the reputation of being awfully rainy and cold, full of poor people that drink and sad cities with abandoned industries and unemployment. In the meantime, people from northern France have a reputation of being generous and welcoming.
    That’s why there is a saying about that (my) part of my country, that says :

    “When you come to North, you cry twice : once when you arrive, and once when you leave.”

  33. Folk tale: *The blacksmith and the devil*.

    My great-grand-pa who was a blacksmith in his young years always told that one:

    A wandering blacksmith encountered a sullen gentleman and his lame horse in the woods and offered to fix the horse by removing a crooked nail. When the gentleman asked for pay, the blacksmith said that it was a free favor. But when the guy got on his horse again, the blacksmith caught a glimpse of his feet under his long cloak and saw that the guy had hooves for feet. So the blacksmith bolted out the woods, but his knapsack became heavier and heavier with every step. and when he finally reached a inn and took down his backpack, it was full of gold coins.

    Urban legend:

    Either the one guy who is rumored to have hid his wife’s body in an abandoned well on his property in the 1960s or the creepy aged sonnyboy down on my streed who allegedly hastily returned to Austria and living with his mommy dearest ever since, because he killed his wife in Washington in the 1990s.

    Not a easy pick, you decide .

  34. The cat-man of Greenock. Allegedly a Russian sailor who left his ship and got drunk and after he’d passed out and woke up, he ship had left without him. Without a lick of English he resorted to living ferally eating rats and other small animals he could catch. There’s even alleged videos and photos you can find online.

    It’s not a ‘traditional’ folk story like Cat sibh or the blue men of the minch but it’s one that I found interesting enough.

  36. I have to say, this thread has a few good ones.

    I suppose the most famous one where I live is the legend of the Lambton Worm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambton_Worm

    Basically the young Lord Lambton was arrogant, and one Sunday skipped going to church – as was his family’s custom – to go fishing in the Wear. All he caught was a small worm. Disgusted, he threw it in the well in anger.

    Eventually, he went to fight in the Baltic Crusades, and forgot all about the incident. Meanwhile the worm grew and grew until it became a great water dragon, emerging from the river to attack sheep grazing on the banks of the Wear. When it ran out of sheep it began attacking people instead.

    Meanwhile, Lambton returned back to England to hear the news. He went to see a witch who gave him some kind of magic ointment that would render him immune to the creature’s attacks. She also told him that when parts of the Worm were cut off, they re-attached again. So Lambton went into battle, and with his sword cut the creature into pieces. However, he scattered them into the Wear (if I’m remembering it right) and the parts of the monster floated so far away in the water they were unable to re-attach. He then killed it, and was hailed as a hero.

    However, he forgot to pay to the witch back (or something like that) and so his family was cursed with bad luck from then till this day.

  37. In the Spreewald region you can meet the Plón (Lower Sorbian for dragon, Upper Sorbian zmij). It is a house spirit of Sorbian and Wendish mythology. It rarely shows itself, but can sometimes be seen in the evening hours in the sky or on the barn roof.

    Similar to other house dragons like the Gluhschwanz or the Korndrachen, the Plón brings unexpected wealth into the house.

    In exchange, however, it demands to be fed millet porridge and cookies. Depending on what the dragon brings, a distinction is sometimes made between grain dragons (žitny zmij), milk dragons (mlokowy zmij) and money dragons (pjenježny zmij).

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