I was trying to research some of the creepiest, strangest, eeriest (probably not a word I guess) legends from folklore or what have you are out there. I have several books on these sort of things, but many of them have the same stories in them that everyone has read before. I like to use these sort of tales to spring board for short story ideas.
I found one in a book my sister and her family brought me from a trip to California titled, Ghostly Tales and Mysterious Happenings of Old Monterey. It talks of these strange dark figures that watch hikers through the Santa Lucia Mountains, from a distance. They are known as Dark Watchers and were written about by notable writers John Steinbeck in his short story, Flight and poet, Robinson Jeffers, in his poem, Such Councels You Gave to Me. Wasn't able to find out much else on them though.

I would be interested in what obscure legends others out there have found?

Here in Dallas, we have The Lady of the Lake. It's a mutation of a hithiker story that has been bent and twisted to fit a few other local settings.

Here's a cut and paste from another site:

One of the best-known Dallas legends is the so-called "Lady of White Rock Lake," a ghostly figure who is said to haunt the park's environs. Everyone it seems has heard one or more versions of the story (which seem to have become more gruesome and embellished over time) but is there any truth to them? Or is the "lady" nothing more than an urban legend that has its counterparts in other U.S. cities? No one seems to know for sure.
It appears the story has been circulating for quite a while. Students at Woodrow Wilson High School in East Dallas were telling the tale to one another at least as early as the 1930s, although whether it originated with them or not is uncertain.
A woman named Anne Clark wrote what may be the earliest published account of the legend. Titled "The Ghost of White Rock," Clark's brief story was included in the Texas Folklore Society's 1943 publication, Backwoods to Border. It read:

One hot July night a young city couple, having driven out and parked on the shore of White Rock Lake, switched on the headlights of the car and saw a white figure approaching. As the figure came straight to the driver's window, they saw it was a young girl dressed in a sheer white dress that was dripping wet. She spoke in a somewhat faltering voice.

I'm sorry to intrude, and I would not under any other circumstances, but I must find a way home immediately. I was in a boat that overturned. The others are safe. But I must get home.

She climbed into the rumble seat, saying that she did not wish to get the young lady wet, and gave them an address in Oak Cliff, on the opposite side of Dallas. The young couple felt an uneasiness concerning their strange passenger, and as they neared the destination the girl, to avoid hunting the address, turned to the rumble seat to ask directions. The rumble seat was empty, but still wet.

After a brief, futile search for the girl in white, the couple went to the address she had given and were met at the door by a man whose face showed lines of worry. When he had heard the couple's story, the man replied in a troubled voice. "This is a very strange thing. You are the third couple who has come to me with this story. Three weeks ago, while sailing on White Rock Lake, my daughter was drowned."

In 1953 a similar but much more detailed account was included in Dallas author Frank X. Tolbert's book, Neiman-Marcus, Texas: The Story of the Proud Dallas Store:

One night about ten years ago a beautiful blonde girl ghost appeared on a road near Dallas' White Rock Lake.

Mr. and Mrs. Guy Malloy, directors for display for the world-famous specialty store, Neiman-Marcus, saw the girl. Only they didn't recognize her, right off, for a ghost. She had walked up from the beach. And she stood there in the headlights of the slow-moving Malloy car. Mrs. Malloy said, "Stop, Guy. That girl seems in trouble. She must have fallen in the lake. Her dress is wet. Yet you can tell that it is a very fine dress. She certainly got it at the Store."

By "the Store," Mrs. Malloy meant the Neiman-Marcus Company of Dallas.

The girl spoke in a friendly, cultured contralto to the couple after the car had stopped. She said she'd like to be taken to an address on Gaston Avenue in the nearby Lakewood section. It was an emergency she said. She didn't explain what had happened to her, and the Malloys were too polite to ask. She had long hair, which was beginning to dry in the night breeze. And Mrs. Malloy was now sure that this girl was wearing a Neiman-Marcus dress. She was very gracious as she slipped by Mrs. Malloy and got in the back seat of the two-door sedan.

When the car started, Mrs. Malloy turned to converse with the passenger in the Neiman-Marcus gown. The girl had vanished. There was a damp spot on the back seat.

The Malloys went to the address on Gaston Avenue. A middle-aged man answered the door. Yes, he had a daughter with long blonde hair who wore nothing but Neiman-Marcus clothes. She had been drowned about two years before when she fell off a pier at White Rock Lake.

The point of this story - for our purposes - is not that Mr. and Mrs. Guy Malloy, a hard-working, sober, no-nonsense couple, say very firmly that they saw a ghost. Other folks say they have seen the beautiful girl ghost of White Rock. The point of this story is that she was a very well-dressed ghost. And Mrs. Malloy at once identified her as wearing Neiman-Marcus clothes.

A contemporary Dallas writer, Rose-Mary Rumbley, confirms this story, more or less, in her more recent book, Dallas Too, which was published in 1998 by the Eakin Press.
"My good friend Barbara Rookstool," Dr. Rumbley writes, "vows that her daddy, Guy H. Malloy, was the one who created the Lady of the Lake legend." One Friday night, she continues, he worked late on a window display at the Neiman-Marcus store in downtown Dallas. It was after 2 a.m. on Saturday morning when Mr. Malloy, driving home to East Dallas, "first spotted the Lady of the Lake rise from White Rock." Afterward, reports Rumbley, "he told the story of the sighting" and it "has been told ever since."
"As time passed," Rumbley remarks further, "the story grew," adding, "Malloy just saw her. He never took her home." Although this story does not match Tolbert's account in every detail (Rumbley has it taking place in the 1930s, for instance), the former schoolteacher agrees that the alleged spectre "was wearing a dress from Neiman-Marcus."
Was there really someone named Guy H. Malloy, who worked as window dresser for Neiman-Marcus? The answer is most definitely "yes." He and his wife Josephine are listed in Dallas telephone books of the time and some of the earlier directories confirm his occupation. But did he, or he and his wife together, really see a ghost? That question is a bit more difficult to answer.
Another contemporary Dallas author reports that the "Lady of the Lake" has been seen, not in a Neiman-Marcus dress but in a flowing negligee and that she is believed to be the ghost of a despondant young woman who committed suicide by drowning herself in the reservoir. This begs the question: Has anyone ever done such a thing? Again, the answer is yes.
On Friday, July 5, 1935, Mrs. Frank Doyle found a suicide note left by her sister, Louise Ford Davis, who resided at the Melrose Court Hotel. Mrs. Doyle immediately alerted the police, who sent seven squad cars racing to White Rock Lake, in hopes of preventing a tragedy. But they were too late. "Detective Bryan," reported the Daily Dallas Times Herald, "who was driving along the Garland road, turned on to the lake road [East Lawther Drive] and shortly afterward saw Mrs. Davis' head bobbing in the water."
"It was estimated," reported the paper, "that she had been in the lake five minutes when he [Detective Bryan] dragged her to shore." Although artificial respiration was employed in an attempt to revive Mrs. Davis, it was in vain and police remarked that if they had been called only "two or three minutes sooner," they might have saved her. The woman's car was parked nearby, a reporter added, and a "sheet and a pair of white gloves were found on the car seat." However, there was no mention of what she was wearing and the contents of the suicide note were not revealed. After a Saturday funeral service in Dallas, Mrs. Davis' body was taken to Albany, Texas for burial.
On November 24, 1942, another distraught woman, 35-year-old Rose Stone of Mansfield, Texas, also committed suicide by drowning herself in the lake. Her body, dressed in sweater and skirt, was discovered in eight feet of water near the muncipal boathouse by Johnnie Williams, who assisted the park superintendent and city fireman in the search. A note was pinned to her sweater asking that relatives in Fort Worth be notified of her death. Mrs. Stone's coat and hat were found on the shore.
So is Louise Davis or Rose Stone the "Lady of the Lake?" Is it the spirit of one of these unfortunate women that people have seen over the years, rising from the lake? Or is the alleged ghost the troubled soul of a young girl who fell off a pier and drowned, a girl who lived with her parents on Gaston Avenue and had a preference for clothes from Neiman-Marcus?

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Cool. I've been trying to research the most obscure legends, creatures, whatever I can find to write a story on. I love those kinds of weird tales. I think I'm going to try and write something to submit to the Dead Letter Press project that they have posted about in the Independant Press section of these forums. They are looking for stories about evil books. Sounds kind of fun to try.

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Ken

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Ken

Some people have all the luck. The strangest thing that ever happened to me is when my wife actually said yes when I asked her to mary me, and she even followed through on it!:)

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Ken

Here's one that's sort of an urban legend I guess.
A couple in New York bought a condo that used to be a tavern. They had a huge wine cellar that they had to clear out. They found out that one cask, hidden in the back of the room was still full. They tested it out and found out that it actually held brandy, and it was the best either had ever tasted. They started to serve it at dinner parties, and the fame of the brandy grew. An expert on brandy went to the house to write an article on it, and declared it to be a very unique brand from the eighteenth century. Eventually it ran out and the couple decided to keep the lid of the cask as a momento. When they pulled off the lid, they found a skeleton dressed in eighteeth-century regal clothing inside.

For those of you who drink, would it be worth it for the best brandy you ever tasted?

And here I used to enjoy brandy...Ewwwwww

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

'tis ok For a horror writer I get grossed out pretty easy. Yet I like it...how disturbed is that?

It's pretty eerie too. A few months ago I started collecting wine (reds of course) with creepy labels. My husband asked if I was ever going to drink them. I said no way! Who knew what ingredients fester in these macabre bottles...

And now we have one answer!

(I used a bottle of Vampire wine to scare the skirt off my sister-in-law last fall at our bon fire muahha useful things they are...yes indeed...)

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

Wow, a place with that kind of history should end up being haunted for real at some point. I noticed awhile back with the haunted house type of stories (my favorite), that the reason behind the haunting is often much more relivant than the haunting itself. A tale like the one you just posted should turn up some sort of hideously amalgamated entity, that should be quite pissed off. I love that sort of thing.

They're my favorite too. Imagine the pain and hate locked in a place like that...

They didn't catch the lady either. She took off as soon as she got wind that the authorities were on their way. So the spirits weren't able to see justice done either.

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

I am obsessed with urban legends, can't get enough of them. For some reason they are the only thing that actually creeps me out. Books and movies have given me great entertainment and thrills but I've never actaully felt fear, and for some reason I do when I listen to urban legends.

Matt, I found some background to the UL you posted about the brandy cask. Or at least a similar story. It's referred to as the legend of Packenham's Rum. This was documented in Jan Harold Brunvand's "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" (which is a collection of different urban legends dealing with gruesome themes) and Florida Folktales by J. Russel Reaver.

Packenham was an the English commander in the battle of New Orleans, he was shot and killed during the battle. It was his wish that if he were killed, his remains should be returned to England for burial. However back then sailors wouldn't allow a dead body on a ship because of superstition and so the officer in charge found a way to smuggle the corpse inside. As a form of preserving the corpse they placed it inside a barrel of rum, removing the head so that it would fit and placing it beside the body. The barrel was then sealed and hidden deep in the hold of the ship. What happened was that the crew was not happy with the long trip, the bad weather and little food. One of the men accidentally found the barrel and told his mates that the officers were keeping the good stuff for themselves, so they managed to bore a hole in the barrel and take little nips. As a result the general's corpse was almost dry when they opened the barrel in England.

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There's one legend I remember which was said to take place in Berlin after WWII when things were really tight and people were famished. The legend tells of a woman who notices a blind man in the middle of a crowd. She walks to him and asks him if all is well. The man mentions he has to deliver a letter but can't manage to find the address and asks her if she wouldn't mind delivering it for him. She accepts and walks away with the letter but in the last minute turns around to ask the man if there was anything else she could do for him. What she sees is the man swiftly making his way through the crowd, no shades, no cane. She thought there was something fishy and talked to the police. Eventually the police raided the address where the letter was to be delivered. There, they found pounds of human flesh which was meant for sale. The contents of the letter the woman was about to deliver were: "This is the last one I'm sending today."

Cesar

Thanks for the info, Cesar. I'm a big fan of Urban Legends as well. I'm keeping my eye out for some more to post. I told my wife about your post about the lady with the envelope last night just before she was about to fall asleep. She seemed like she would prefer that I wait and tell her that stuff in the daytime to avoid nightmares. I don't have nightmares anymore. I haven't for years (at least the cool monster type). I remember the last one I had was when I was about thirteen years old. I woke up from it and said, "Cool". I tried to go back to sleep and get back into it, and that was it. My theroy to get rid of nightmare is: Start to enjoy them, and they don't come around anymore.

I also can't remember the last time I was scared awake by a nightmare, although there is one dream I have every once in a while where for some reason I'm roaming inside a mall that looks nearly empty. It's never the same mall but the feeling of unease is always the same. The one time I remember waking up frightened was one night when I was a kid and the poster above my bed detached from the wall and fell on top of me. That night I woke up and this dread took hold of me that I started screaming.

Looking forward to any more ULs you might post

Cesar

We should start a scariest nightmares post. I love dream related stuff. The story I'm working on now involves alot of weird dream stuff. I'll have to try and think back to remember the ones I used to have.

I hope they got a refund from the hotel! That's gruesome...particularly knowing you were sleeping on top of a corpse

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

By the way Raven,
I enjoyed the five obsessions meme (I really don't know for sure what a meme is either) peice posted on your blog. I think my five would be pretty similar.

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<b>~Raven Bower
Author of Horror & Dark Fantasy

How about this one:

It concerns a woman visiting Cape Town where there are some warnings about not riding third class on the train at night. This woman needed to take the train from Kalk Bay because she needed to get home and she had no choice. So she gets on and the only other passengers were 3 men sitting side by side and an old man reading a newspaper. This man watched her with such intensity when she got on that she was a bit scared and sat across from the three guys, one of which (the one in the middle) seemed to be drunk and just stared. The other two guys simply seemed to be minding their own business.

She then notices the old man with the newspaper getting up and walking all the length of the car to sit beside her. She is frightened and keeps looking at the men across her but they just sit there. The old man reeks of booze. He leans to her and says "Have you read the news?". So the woman who's terrified by now takes a glance at the man's newspaper and reads a handwritten note that says:

GET OFF AT THE NEXT STOP. THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE IS DEAD.


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It's interesting how a big number of these legends end with a creepy message someone has written, many times in lipstick or blood: "Humans can lick too", "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights", "Welcome to the world of AIDS", "Call 911, your kidney has been removed", etc.

Matt, have you seen a movie called "Campfire Tales" ? It's about a group of kids who gather around a fire after an accident and start telling urban legends. The second story (there's 3 of them) is "Humans can lick too" and it's very creepy. In this particular version, the killer has been living in the family's attic for a long time and there's a really disturbing scene of him under the bed. The other two legends in the film are "the scratching on the roof of the car" and one about a traveler asking for shelter in a haunted house.

"Humans..." has also appeared in the movies "Urban Legends: Final Cut" and "Urban Legends: Bloody Mary".

Cesar

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