Your local legends, folklore, and myths

Ever seen the Mothman?  What about the Jersey Devil?  Is there an old house in your town that everyone thinks is haunted?  Share your local tales.

Mine are kinda boring. 

The Woods - I grew up in the boonies.  My "town" is basically a collection of state conservation areas connected by overgrown gravel roads with a few houses scattered in there.  We'd all take off into the woods to party when we were teens and unfortunately really bad people took off into the same woods to do terrible things.  A young woman was stalked, kidnapped, raped in a cemetery, and then was marched by gun point into the thicket and shot dead.  People claim her ghost still haunts the woods.  A woman murdered her husband and he haunts the woods.  Countless other similar tales.

There are also stories of people hearing screaming and seeing red eyed creatures in the woods.  I've seen the eyes and heard the screams.  We have mountian lions out there but the state refuses to confirm it.  I know we do, I saw a dead one (a farmer shot it and I went to see it).  So I just chalk it up to those crazy kitties.

The Civil War House - For such a tiny town we sure have an illustrious history.  We played a big role in the American Civil War and one house from that era still stands.  It's about 166 years old.  The house is a top a hill and across the way is another hilltop (which is now a cemetery - a different one from the above).  Confederate soldiers fought the Union soldiers from that yard.  People claim you can still see the dead wandering around some nights.

Now, I've been to that house plenty of times and it is kinda creepy.  Never saw dead soliders, but the place does give off a weird vibe.

Of course, the cemetery is haunted by the Union soldiers too.  I've never had weird feelings there though.

Surely you have better stories than I do.  What are your local tales?

Of course our most famous is The Loch Ness Monster and is still going strong to this day. Many have claimed to have seen her, heard her, and even to have taken pictures of her, but nothing has been proven...still people believe.

Then we have numerous Haunted Castles, I have been to quite a few but I have never seen anything that would confirm that yes there is a presence there.

We have Culloden Moor Battle Field where the Highlanders were slaughtered by the English. I have been there quite a few times and yes it is eerie but I have never seen anything. Think the eeriness comes from knowing that so many soles fell there...you can feel the death.

When I lived in the Orkney Islands all the Islands are split into parishes religion is very strong there. Anyway there is one of the Islands which is called Hoy and the west of the Island is like walking into the Jurassic age, it has a Glen called the fairy glen and the climate within the Glen can not be found anywhere else it is very spooky but lovely at the same time. Anyway between the west and east side of the Island there is a strip of land which runs the width of it and it is deemed as No-mans-land there is one grave on it and it is the grave of a witch(Betty Corrigall) who was burned at the stake (although they will not admit to this and claim she commited suicide, the locals once you get their trust will tell you different) neither parish wanted her to be buried within the bounds of their parish so her body was cast out where her soul was never to find peace and she is said to wander the strip of land at night, her cries can be heard. I have stopped at her grave a number of times and although i have never seen her you can feel such emptiness when standing there....you leave feeling like you have been touched with her sadness. I always left her some flowers.

Nothing very exciting..

Bigfoot lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest...and I think I read an article that someone saw Brownies or Sprites on the banks of the Willamette River.

I lived (and still work) right across the river from where mothman was supposedly sighted.  I've been to the TNT area, the WWII munitions dump, where he supposedly spent the most time.   There is a huge mothman statue and they have a mothman festival every year.  My husband was even in a band called Mothman.  No one around here really talks about what happened.

In my hometown there were lots of  haunted places.   My favorite was The Light.  Legend says that if you park at one end of the road and flash your headlights three times, a single light will float down the road toward you.  I've seen it and it scared me to death.  However, it wasn't as scary as the farmer who knocked on our car window with the business end of his shotgun.  He could've just asked us to leave.

The town i grew up in is home to the second largest natural lake in CT, which was home to a tribe of native american's called the Wangunks. the legend of the lake is that long before the white folks showed up and started settling around it, the Wangunk braves started suddenly dying while out in their canoes fishing. The distraught chief consulted the medicine man to find out why their great spirit was angry with them and taking the lives of their strongest braves. he asked what they could do to stop his wrath. the medicine man determined that the sacrifice of the chief's fairest daughter, Na-moe-nee was the only thing that would appease him.

The chief awoke Na-moe-nee and told her what she had to do, and she nobly accepted her fate. they walked together to the highest cliff on the side of the lake, where he tied her hands and feet and she threw herself off into the water.

after that, no more braves from the tribe ever died in the lake.

i loved the story as a kid, and as kids we used to try to freak each other out by saying that her bones were still at the bottom somewhere.

There is a town next to us with a street named Chalk Hill and supposely there was a school there where a bunch of kids died in a fire. They say if you go down that street at midnight  you can hear the kids playing.

I don't know if it is true I never went down the street.

Jewelsmch - what town are you originally from? your stories sound very familiar, I grew up in northern va, where md, DC met, metropolitan area

Local Legends? I live in/around San Francisco, so there's the World Famous Bush Man who lives down at the wharf and makes a living jumping out of bushes freaking tourists out, there's the Emperor of San Francisco.

That's all I can think of right now...

I'm from MO.

Great stories guys. 

Andie, I've always loved Nessie since I was a child.  I used to make up stories about her and Champ.

One of the houses on my campus is supposedly haunted. I haven't ever experienced anything, but my friend who lived there our sophomore year said she has had a ghost showering with her, lights go on and off and doors open and close with no wind. Creepy!

I have another one. My friend's mom had her mother's spirit put in her house somehow.(at least that is what she told us) But we would be in the living room and all of the sudden the blinds would move. And one time her brother was in his room making out with his girlfriend and he swore he saw red eyes in his closet and then he starting calling his grandmothers name and they went away.

I personally think the family was a little crazy.

The Maori people of New Zealand (reprezent!) have some wonderful legends - mostly concerned with a demi-god named Maui. He is said to have taken his uncle's jawbone fish hook to go fishing with in his canoe. He felt a  pull on his line, a huge pull from an enormous fish. He battled and struggled with it for hours, but because of his great strength, and the magic imbued in his uncle's jawbone, he triumphed over the fish and pulled it to the surface, where he saw it to be a giant stingray. But the huge ray gave one last thrash and overturned Maui's canoe before it perished.

Maui's fish and canoe are still where he left them, they form the North and South Island's of New Zealand.

I don't know. The biggest one is probably the Ogopogo. I don't live in the Okanagan though. I don't think there's much tales of hauntings and such that goes on in Vancouver.

There's the grave of Mercy Brown. She was an alleged vampire. After she passed away she was supposedly making her brother sick. When they went to dig up her grave she was turned over and I guess unusually well preserved. So they took out her heart, burned it, and fed it to her brother.
Locals frequent the grave site because it's supposed to be haunted. I've been there on halloween years ago.

Then there's the Lad School (or Ladd Center) which is now shut down. I think it was for mentally handicapped people, but they were treated very poorly. There are a lot of sick and twisted stories that come out of that place. My great aunt was actually kept there for a while. My mom had been in there to visit her, and she said it was one of the most disturbing places she had ever been in.  If you google it you'll come across some stories I'm sure. Of course people think it's haunted. It's harder to get in there to look around now though because I believe security is pretty tight.

That's all I can think of...