Tag Archives: Urban Legends

Hobo’s Castle

Text: 

In the suburbs of Chicago, there is a long-deserted building by a railroad that stands about ten stories tall. It has holes, its windows are broken, and its doors remain open. This building is called Hobo’s castle. There are hobos that live inside, and if you go in there and get caught by them, they’ll eat you!

Context: 

It’s probably called Hobo’s castle because its size makes it look like a castle from the outside and hobos would stay there in between hitching rides on trains back when it was first abandoned. There have been hobos living there since then. Parents would tell their children not to go there. So, obviously, the kids would all bike there and explore. Only the first floor was accessible, but the kids would explore it, all while poking each other to scare their friends and daring them to do things. The people living there would chase them out sometimes, which is likely what spurred the children to begin telling each other that if they got caught, they would be eaten. 

Analysis: 

A recently popularized phrase found online is “fuck around and find out”, which is to engage in an action that is usually risky, and usually results in an unpleasant consequence. The desire to fuck around and find out is unquenchable in children, and this legend came about because of this. Children always want to feel more like full humans when they can, as in many areas of life they are limited by rules even when they feel that they have the physical and mental capabilities to be on par with everyone else, even if this feeling is erroneous. Thus, when there is no one around holding them to rules, they like to break the rules that they don’t think are necessary. They also embellish stories of their lives to make them seem more interesting and with higher risks, like how they view those of adults. Thus, the hobos in the castle will eat them if they are caught, not merely tell them off.

Hotel Cecil and Elisa Lam

Nationality: USA and Mexico
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: 4/5
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Context:
The informant is a 20 year old female college student at USC. The performance took place in her dorm room.

Text:
Informant: About 10 years ago, there was a girl who died in a hotel right around here in downtown LA. The footage of her acting weirdly in the elevator was all over the Internet. Some people said that she was possessed by demon and other said that she’s crazy. Her body was later found in the water tank at the hotel couple months later. I don’t really know if they’ve figured out what happened to her, but people said that the hotel has been haunted ever since.

Analysis:
The death of Elisa Lam is one of the famous unsolved mystery that happened in Los Angeles. The legend of haunted places often occurred after peculiar death or suicide. Because of the Internet, the legend has spread worldwide. The building has been renovated into affordable housing complex to help the local unhoused population, though most of the rooms remain empty (https://www.latimes.com/california/cecil-hotel-housing-vouchers-latt-123). The history of the hotel is extremely bothering, see link https://thecrimewire.com/multifarious/Los-Angeles-Cecil-Hotel. The video mentioned by informant, see link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjVBpyTeZM (trigger warning: unsettling scene)

The Goat Lady

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, Texas
Performance Date: 3/30/23
Primary Language: English

Context

S, a 19-year-old from Houston, Texas, says her fourth grade teacher, Ms. Q, told her about the Urban Legend of the Goat Lady. Ms. Q detailed her own experiences with the Goat Lady, having encountered her in the woods with a couple of her friends during childhood. Ms. Q recalled seeing the Goat Lady stand on her hind legs and stare with lifeless eyes, before barreling rapidly forth towards Ms. Q and her friends. S remembers being absolutely horrified by the retelling of the Goat Lady encounter. S’s family planned a hike in the woods for Easter weekend, but having just heard the story of the Goat Lady, S was terrified to go on the hike with her family. For a while, she was extremely hesitant to go into the woods at all.

Text

According to legend, the Goat Lady is a woman resembling a goat-human hybrid that inhabits the woods of Eastern Texas and eats wandering children who trespass onto her territory. The legend is usually, as is in this example, shared by word of mouth.

Analysis

Notably, the Goat Lady is said to live in the woods and eat children, which is a common theme in cryptozoology. The woods are often viewed as a liminal space, where fear of the unknown easily takes hold and strange encounters are likely. Often, especially in many early American towns, the woods were viewed as the boundaries of civilization, and beyond civilization, is the perception of savagery. In many cultures, especially Native American cultures, the goat is viewed as a symbol of fertility and sexuality. Therefore, it would make sense for the figure of a woman to be crossed with a goat, given that women are primarily viewed as potential mothers and the bearers of offspring. Additionally, women tend to be inherently more sexualized for these abilities. The Goat Lady’s practice of eating young children could be an obscure depiction of backwards behavior, which juxtaposes the accepted norm of women mothering children in a civil society. The opposite of bearing children is eating them; therefore, the Goat Lady could represent the backwards and savage antithesis to the expected status of mothers in women. Given that the liminal space of the woods is often considered a backwards realm beyond civil society, the Goat Lady can viewed as an emblem of female dissent in opposition to societal norms.

The 27 Club

The 27 Club

Context:

B first heard about this urban legend when she was in high school during her forensics class. They had done projects on celebrity deaths and the urban legend became a discussion topic.

The context of this piece was during a movie when one of the well-known “members” of the 27 club had a song used in the film.

Text:

B: “The 27 club creeped me out at first when we first started talking about it during forensics. I mean I don’t really like English songs like that so I never really knew about the club at first until they brought it up in the presentation. I would of thought it was just a coincidence you know? But I feel like its weird that so many celebrities joined the club. I remember it being like a mysterious death type of thing. I know it was a bunch of famous people that died from stuff like OD’ing or alcohol poisoning, but they all died at 27. I remember being shocked that they died so young, I think that’s why I remembered about the club.  It was people like Cobain and that one Wine something girl.

Me: “You mean Amy Whinehouse?”

B: “Yeah that’s her name. I think I remember some people saying they thought they made some kind of devil pact or something to get famous so that’s why they all died at 27.”

Analysis:

I found this interview really interesting because the urban legend of the 27 club had become a cultural phenomenon with a big following in recent times. I think it was interesting to see how someone like B, who by her own admission recognizes her lack of experience with English-speaking musicians or members of the club, would know about this urban legend. It’s also interesting to see how fast an urban legend can gain traction in the media. I think B’s knowledge of the urban legend goes to show how lore is constantly being spread to different types of people. I also think its interesting how the cultural phenomenon evolved into this urban legend as more and more celebrities are joining the list of 27 club members.

El Familiar

Nationality: U.S. Citizen
Age: 47
Occupation: High school history teacher
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English

The following Argentinian urban legend was told by my old high school history teacher:

“There are many urban legends in Argentina, my favorite being El Familiar.  According to the legend originating in the sugar plantation in Salta, Tuchman, and Jujuy, the Argentinian government was struggling economically which meant the sugar industry would take a big hit. However, the titans of the sugar industry found a way around their economic misfortune, by partnering with the Devil.  The Devil promised to protect the sugar industry from the failing economy in return for a yearly human sacrifice.  The sacrifice would be selected by the sugar industry and then dragged to the Devil in Hell by a decapitated black, rabid dog dragging a chain around its neck.  Legend has it, the dog still rabidly wander the sugar plantations searching for its next victim”

Analysis:  Although this is only a legend, it has increased religious practices of protection in the northern areas of Argentina.  The eminent threat of the Devil leads Argentinians to use rosaries or blessed crucifixes for protection.  This is one of my favorite pieces of folklore because I am very interested in urban legends.  Although they are never true, they have a great impact on the communities and culture around them.  In this case, the old urban legend has decreased unwanted activity in sugar plantations and increased religious faith in northern Argentina.