Lore, fairy tales and legends of your region -

[Monika H.]

Hallo, hallo!!

The historical Heinrich Himmler had a profound interest in medieval lore, popular fairy tales and legends; and like him, so do I!

So, why don't we share the most popular and fascinating tales and legends of our regions?
I'm quite sure this thread would become a fine collection of fables and tales.

To get the thread rolling, I'll start with sharing a popular legend of my country.
It's the legend of the Dívka lesa, (literally, the Maiden of the forest, or the young girl of the forest) also called Paní z lesa (Lady of the forest).
She's a benevolent spirit that inhabits forests and woods and takes the appearance of a beautiful young girl (or in some accounts, a pregnant woman or a finely dressed noblewoman) that presents herself to lone travelers and asks them something to give her. It the traveler were farmers, she would ask for food; if they were merchants she would ask for a cloth, a book or a piece of ware; instead, if she crossed a monk or a priest she would request them to say a prayer with her.
On the rare instance she found someone without anything to give her (beggars and afflicted people) she would ask them to pick up fruit or firewood to give her.
Anyway, if her request was satisfacted, she would bless the traveler with good luck and if they were lost, she would show them the correct way.
Otherwise, if her request was refused, she would just start crying and disappear in the woods.

This legend isn't exclusive of my country, but also appears in Polish and German lore with other names.

 

[Rumpled Foreskin]

Up here in upstate New York, there’s lots of snow, and lots of farms, and lots of nothing. There was a story from Oneanta I was told years ago. Apparently, since the snow can accumulate to many feet, underground tunnels were created between the college campus buildings. Story goes, that if you wander around the tunnels between midnight and 3 am with just a candle to light the way, there’s a chance you’ll wind up at a very strange metal door painted a bright green. The area the door resides in varies from account to account. If enough courage is mustered, and one opens the door, a strange sight will greet you. The door opens up into an impossibly large warehouse. Scattered about are dusty bones and empty cans of beans and sardines. After enough inspection, you begin to notice lizards flitting about the room. Out of nowhere a voice will then be heard.

Spoiler

”WELCOME TO FRANK’S LIZARDS! COME ONE COME ALL!”
After looking around in confusion tinged with fear, usually the person will ask: “How much is your...uh...menagerie?”
The booming voice then echoes through the warehouse: “ABOUT TREE FIDDY”
Now it was about this time you begin to suspect that the voice is coming from a three story tall mezazoic monster.
“GOD DAMN LOCH NESS MONSTER, GET OUT OF HERE, YOU DON’T GO TO COLLEGE!”

 

[The Shadow]

I'm gonna go with a classic piece of Southeast US folklore that's entered popular culture at places:

Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at a Crossroads to become a great blues player. It's not solely attributed to him, but he's the most famous blues man to have supposedly done so.

Of course, music and mystic or demonic forces have long been associated in folklore. European tales often describe Satan as a great fiddler. And crosstoads themselves have symbolic properties. I know in some European traditions dead were reburied at the crossroads if they were suspected of being 'restless'.

 

[Thomas Paine]

Legend has foretold of a phantom of flesh that haunts these lands. It is said that if you call his name, he will not be summoned, but insult him and he shall appear.
He groans and moans with fearsome notes unheard by mortal men. The visage of the beast is said to make women blind, and to curdle the their milk so their children will starve.
There are a few methods for summoning this creature; some myth, some stories to scare children, but one that works if you wish to invoke Satan's bastard son to haunt your heels.

Spoiler: Summoning Ritual

Mention how he got thrown out of The Hut and how Pete Clark could beat his ass

 

[GarthMarenghisDankplace]

Scotland has Alexander 'Sawney' Bean. He was born in the 1500's and he and his wife Agnes lived in a coastal cave with 48 of their children, incestuously created grandkids and very disturbingly their grandkid/kid hybrids. The legend is that they lived in the cave for over 25 years. They used to murder and rob travellers on the road at night and at some point began to embrace the Scottish attitude of 'waste not want not' and put the corpses to use feeding their brood.

The most common estimate of their victims is around 1000 (48 is a big family to support on seaweed and people meat). You might wander how 1000 people could go missing without anyone noticing, but notice they did. When mangled remains began washing up on the shores wild animals were suspected and hunts were organised but no wolves were found to explain the mess. Suspicion then fell on local inn keepers and several innocents were lynched, but still the body parts kept washing ashore. Patrols were set up through the countryside searching for the culprits. During one excursion a cave opening was noted in the cliffs but it was considered too small, dark, dank and wet for any human to live in.

The search was abandoned until one night a couple was riding home from the fair, when their carriage was attacked by the men of the clan. The wife was murdered and torn apart before her husbands eyes, but he was armed and was able to hold them back with a pistol whilst he freed one of his horses and fled back to town. Now that the authorities knew what they were looking for they struck out again, this time leaving no stone unturned and entered the cave which was full of Beans, corpses and loot.

The family were led away in chains and the men were sentenced to bleed to death, whilst the women were burned at the stake with the exception of the youngest daughter who was spared as a baby but would, as a young women, be hung for her own cannibalistic appetite.

Sawney Bean probably didn't exist, most contemporary records don't report a surge of missing people and the first written accounts of the case were in the English press which makes it even less likely. But the area he was in was fucking wild in medieval times and there has been some evidence for medieval cannabalism in Scotland so it might have a bit of truth and have grown in the telling. Either way it's a good wee horror tale.

 

[Nekromantik]

La llorona The weeping woman

There's a lot of different versions of this story that get passed around. The one I heard the most growing up was that a young woman from a poor family was charmed by a rich nobleman that was passing through town. It wasn't long after that she found herself pregnant with his children and they got married. But he didn't really want a family so one day he just never came back from a trip. She was so distraught that she drowned her children in a near by river and than killed herself.

When she got to heaven St. Peter asked her "Where are your children? You can't get into heaven with out them." So now she wanders by rivers and lakes crying out "¡Ay, mis hijos!" looking for her children. Sometimes she's said to kidnap children that she thinks look like hers and drown them to take them with her.

Other versions say that she was a single mother that killed her children so a nobleman would marry her, but he didn't, or that she killed her children because she was jealous of the fact that her husband spent more time with them and not her. In that one it's the husband that asks where our the children and when he finds out what she did he kills her.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

>tfw the place you live in has no real history or culture

 

[Lunete]

Crybaby bridge stories are real popular in my state. Most of these stories involve a mother intentionally or accidentally killing her baby while traveling across the bridge and if you drive over the bridge late at night you can hear the baby's cries.

 

[Clop]

Lalli came home and his wife told him that the archbishop had come around to eat their food, so Lalli went after the archbishop and killed him with an axe because fuck the archbishop.

No consensus whether it's true presumably because people living neighboring to vikings don't keep records of who gets axed to the face, but churches tend to think it's a terrible story and the populace tends to go 'that's fucking metal, fuck yeah.'

 

[Nekromantik]

Lechuza That ugly bird lady.

Said to have the head of an old woman with fangs and the body of a white owl. She is said to fly around at night looking for prey, mostly she'll try to eat your baby if you let them sleep in a room with the window open. If you hear her cry, or see her fly over your house it means someone's going to die soon.

Salt is said to keep her away. Also if you hear her cry cuss her out and she'll go away and no one will die. So if you hear you Spic neighbor cursing in the night, don't get mad. We might just be saving your life.

 

[Mongolian_CoolRat]

These two are mostly south east asian ones i think

Can't remember the name of it/can't get much info of it online but the south east asian equilvalent of the were-wolf is the were-tiger, and most depictions of them have em being adult women/grandmothers.

The other one is The Orang Minyak/The Oil Man,its a demon who looks like a naked guy as black as oil. They prey on young women,seduce them and get them possessed but heck they're mostly used in horror comedies now bc no one can take it seriously unless they're super old or have never seen those weird ultra black guys who try harassing/picking women up in some parts of malaysia

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

I'm going to look into some famous California American stories and legends.

Bodie, California: cursed ghost town.

If you go to Bodie don't take anything from the town because you will get a curse.

An authentic ghost town, it’s the forever home to many entities, including a giggling child and a Chinese maid. But whatever you do, NEVER pick up anything from there.

Bodie is a cursed ghost town.

The inhabitants of this old gold-mining town were fiercely possessive about everything there. That’s why their ghosts ensure that everything they left behind stay that way. Even if you take a rock from Bodie, you’re bound to experience misfortune and tragedy. Possibly even after you’ve returned it.

Park rangers have received many items that were taken by visitors. There’s even an album filled with letters from those suffering from the curse.

So, while you’re there, don’t even think of grabbing an authentic souvenir. If not for your own, for your loved ones’ sake.

https://catierhodes.com/2012/04/the-curse-that-follows-you/

 

[Mister Loser]

Here on Long Island, there's not too many legends, per se. But from my family, I've got a pretty funny folk tale.
My Italian ancestors were mostly fisherman from the south of Italy, so every day they'd go down and sit on large rocks nearby the ocean to fish. And every day they fished, they would also blast massive farts on those rocks, laughing and cheering.
Supposedly, if you visit those rocks today, there are large holes right where they sat fishing.
Guess where those came from?

 

[The Shadow]

Not sure if this counts, but out in the desert around Palm Springs, was Patton's desert training center prior to the US forces' entry into North Africa.

Anyway, legend has it that Patton buried tons of weapons and equipment out in the desert in a SHTF plan in case the Japanese reached the West Coast. It has never been found, but everyone out that way has heard legends of it, and some have searched for it.

I'm going to look into some famous California American stories and legends.

Bodie, California: cursed ghost town.

If you go to Bodie don't take anything from the town because you will get a curse.

An authentic ghost town, it’s the forever home to many entities, including a giggling child and a Chinese maid. But whatever you do, NEVER pick up anything from there.

Bodie is a cursed ghost town.

The inhabitants of this old gold-mining town were fiercely possessive about everything there. That’s why their ghosts ensure that everything they left behind stay that way. Even if you take a rock from Bodie, you’re bound to experience misfortune and tragedy. Possibly even after you’ve returned it.

Park rangers have received many items that were taken by visitors. There’s even an album filled with letters from those suffering from the curse.

So, while you’re there, don’t even think of grabbing an authentic souvenir. If not for your own, for your loved ones’ sake.

https://catierhodes.com/2012/04/the-curse-that-follows-you/

Bodie is a cool place to visit and I highly recommend it.

 

[ulsterscotsman]

The problem is that where I live there is so many it's difficult to pinpoint a certain one.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

In my area there is an old farmhouse that has been affectionatly refered to as This Old House, partly due to it being the former home of a restaurant by that name. The house itself is well over 100 years old and has a long and colorful history of being everything from a private residence to a legit wild-west whorehouse. I have fond memories of going to the steakhouse with my family and having them tell me it was haunted. They weren't just saying that either, people who worked at This Old House swore up and down that there was some kind of strange atmosphere about the place. Creaks on the stairs when no one was around, flickering lights on the second floor, clearly there was some presence in the house that wasn't part of the living. The activity always seemed to be focused on that second floor of the buiding where they had a private dining room.
After a very good multi-decade run, This Old House closed and was replaced with an A.J Spurs. Whatever presence in the house didn't like that one bit and it didn't take long for A.J Spurs to get replaced with Pinky Whateverthefuck's, which got replaced with The Clubhouse. That didn't last long either and the building has been largely unused for the last ten years, except as a hangout for local farmers. We joke that the spirit loved This Old House and was upset about it closing, and has cursed every subsequent business to fail.
I did a little digging recently and discovereda very interesting tidbit of history that may solve the riddle of the myserious spirit. Apparently in the years preceeding the original restaurant, a man owned that property and lived in that house. It is said that a chimney fire got out of control and the man was burned to death, unable to escape the flames that were engulfing the room. That room, of course, being on the second floor where to this day people swear strange paranormal activity occurs.

 

[Powerdrilldo]

Where I am from we have this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Ship_of_Northumberland_Strait
It's the burning ghost ship, it only appears certain times of the year and it's been documented that if you get to close to the ship it just poof, disappears. Sometimes with the sighting you apparently can hear guns being fired, or see a giant ball of fire in the sky.

Also there was a horrible train wreck that happened years ago where I grew up the sight now is infamously haunted, people have reported seeing a light that looks like a floating lantern "walking" up and down where the tracks were or hearing and seeing the light and sounds of a train going by even though we haven't had trains here in years.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Before it became a museum, the basement of the building used to be a daycare. If you go down in the basement during the night, you can hear the screams of children being abused.

 

[keyboredsm4shthe2nd]

I don't know if the exact tribe around here had it in their folklore, but there is the Wendigo, which seems to rear its ugly head in all the Indian tribes who lived in buttfuck nowhere freezing cold areas. And I fucking believe it to an extent. Maybe there wasn't exactly a "spirit", but there was a "spirit". Fucking freeze your ass off for five months in the dark with no food because you didn't plan ahead and I'd go absolutely mental too.

ETA: They fucking do, oh God

 

[the autist of dojima]

The legend about how a koi fish became a dragon by swimming up a waterfall
How the fuck did that ever happened who knows