Do you believe that Ring Around the Rosie refers to the Black Death? Or that Eskimos have 50 (or 500) words for “snow”? Or that “Posh” is an acronym for “Port Out, Starboard Home”? If so, you badly need this book. In Word Myths, David Wilton debunks some of the most spectacularly wrong word histories in common usage, …
Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, Updated and Expanded Edition (2 Volume Set)
From roasted babies to vanishing hitchhikers to housewives in football helmets, this exhaustive and highly readable encyclopedia provides descriptions of hundreds of individual legends and their variations, examines legend themes, and explains scholarly approaches to the genre. Revised and expanded to include updated versions of the entries from the award-winning first edition, this work provides additional entries on …
“… an original study of an exciting, often shocking body of material.” — Jan H. Brunvand”… particularly valuable addition to the urban folklore literature… ” — Contemporary Sociology”Crime Victim Stories provides the reader with a fascinating account of the way in which New York urbanites relate their experiences and perceptions of violent crime.” — Urban Studies”Wachs brings scholarship …
Legend has it that alligators live in the New York City sewers. But city life isn?t for everyone. Some of those alligators packed up and swam away in search of peace and quiet. Why, they could be living right under your feet. This explains a lot of things. Like what does the babysitter do after you go to …
Part of every legend is true. Or so argues Jody Enders in this fascinating look at early French drama and the way it compels us to consider where the stage ends and where real life begins. This ambitious and bracing study explores fourteen tales of the theater that are at turns dark and dangerous, sexy and scandalous, humorous …
Take a haunted journey to discover the ghosts and legends of South Bend and northern Indiana. Meet the ghosts of football great George Gipp, that still haunts his old stomping grounds at Notre Dame University and the infamous Belle Gunness, who murdered over 40 people at her LaPorte farmhouse. Feel goose bumps rise as you learn of a …
What’s an urban legend? It’s a story that gets passed around so frequently that no one really knows how it began. All we know is that the tale is so amusing, dark, coincidental or ironic that, whether it’s true or not, we are dying to believe it–and pass it on. In the successful tradition of Alligators …
Baby on the Car Roof brings together 222 totally new, funny, quirky, frightening, bizarre and always entertaining urban legends. Urban legends or myths are dramatic and often humorous stories that circulate under the guise of truth and usually as having happened to “a friend of a friend” even though often they are entirely made-up. Organized by genre, …
The couple in Falkirk whose pet dog is crushed in a freak accident; The Glasgow girl who visits an elderly aunt in an institution and doesn’t find it so easy to leave; The Aberdeen baby-sitter and the murderous, mystery caller; We all know a tale or two of scary or amusing events said to have happened to someone …
In our high-tech, consumerist culture, traditional folklore has found itself revived in an eclectic mix of popular works from B-movies, TV shows, and superhero comics to pulp novels and supermarket tabloids. With a strong emphasis on narrative and very little reliance on aesthetics, these forms of popular entertainment have often defied analysis. The Bosom Serpent fills this gap …