In July 2009, an urban legend was circulated online through emails, and this urban legend contained a warning about ants in the brain.
Apparently, around this time, a little boy who was enjoying some sweets but happened to be eating his snacks close to naptime. His tiredness outweighed his love for the sweets and he fell asleep with the sugar-treats on him. As he lay napping, sugar still melting in his saliva and with his candy in reach, ants detected the sweet treats and started to crawl around him to get their fair share of sugar. Some of the ants crawled inside the sleeping toddler and many crawled right inside his ears.
The boy awakened after his short rest but several hours later, his ears began to itch a bit and he complained that his face felt itchy.
He was taken to a doctor but the doctor couldn't find a reason for the itchy discomfort the little boy was complaining about. The doctor decided to take an x-ray of the boy and when the results were examined, the doctor was horrified!
What the doctor saw in the x-ray was a group of live ants in the boy's skull. Apparently, the doctor couldn't operate right away because the ants were alive and moving around.
Needless to say, without the doctor being able to perform surgery, the little boy died.
This story was circulated with urgent warnings for people not to have food items in bedrooms or near places where they sleep - whether these be sweet treats or anything else. The sender of the story urged parents to never let their kids eat sweet items just prior to sleep times, for fear that ants would be attracted to the sweets.
All in all, a very creepy little tale, don't you think?
Can you pick out the obvious signs that it is an urban legend?
Showing posts with label accidental survival in urban legends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accidental survival in urban legends. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Hub 8 in the Hub Challenge: The Goatman of Maryland
http://urbanlegendfolkloremyths.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
The Goatman of Maryland is a hominid cryptid creature said to have originated in the Maryland, U.S.A. region.
The Goatman is part man, part goat, but there are different tales available about how the man came to have half man features as well as the body parts of a goat.
Some say The Goatman was into Black Magic and turned himself into a goat. Other stories differ and say a man was part of a strange medical experiment in a remote area of Maryland. This latter experiment went all wrong and a man ended up as a freakish hybrid man-goat who stalks the Maryland area still today. Most accounts tell of a hard-working goat-farming man who was overcome by a natural disaster, science experimentation, government/scientific projects, or black magic. Afterward, it seems the man survived, but not as a whole human being - rather - as a half human, half goat creature.
Some accounts give details about the Goatman's insanity
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Hub #3 in the Hub Challenge: Accidental Survival in Urban Legends
Accidental Survival happens in a lot of Urban Legends. More appropriately this is called "LUCK," plain and simple.
Some people whose lives are spared in many stories haven't really 'earned' their survival. Stories that involve accidents, murderers and stalkers, animal attacks, freak storms and violent natural elements, etc., often also contain messages about being cautious, planning ahead for emergencies, making good moral decisions...
However
"Accidental Survival" often happens when the main character has failed to plan ahead, has made bad decisions and hasn't been cautious at all...somehow the person's life is spared, anyway, despite risk-taking behaviors, distractions, short-sightedness, etc.
Sometimes a person survives due to a miscalculation on the part of a stalker, killer or other sort of attacker in an urban legend. Sometimes a 'safe person' or authority figure shows up 'in the nick of time' to save a person who has been careless, forgetful, or cocky in urban legends. In any case, with accidental survival, the character in question (the one in the most danger) doesn't actively save him or herself - the survival/saving happens from an external force.
On occassion, the person in danger hasn't actually done anything wrong and ends up in the wrong place at the right time, thus placing him/ or herself in danger. This is actually quite rare, but can happen in stories/urban legends.
More often, even something as seemingly small and insignificant as a person driving at nighttime - when they've been at a legitimate function and have done no wrong prior to the time of danger - is actually considered a 'mistake' and 'fault' on the part of the person......in other words, the person should have KNOWN to drive during the daytime. A situation like this is found in a few versions of "Don't Flash The Headlights/Gang Initiation" where a person flashes but somehow the "gang" car malfunctions, sparing the life of the person who flashed the headlights. If the 'victim' has survived for such reasons, this is like an accidental survival. A survival that wasn't planned out or made possible by the victim's own skills.
My third entry in the Hubpages Hub Challenge is called "Accidental Survival in Urban Legends."
So far on the hub, I have shown the "Knife in the Briefcase" urban legend - a basic version as well as the "Good Samaritan" version which isn't the same story but is similar in end-result. Both stories contain a man whose briefcase is somehow left in a car. In one version, a woman escapes from a killer 'accidentally' because she is actually forgetful, believe it or not! In a similar story, in the "Good Samaritan" version, a woman is annoyed with a man and acts assertively - then finds out afterward that he was intending on killing her.
Enjoy the hub!
Some people whose lives are spared in many stories haven't really 'earned' their survival. Stories that involve accidents, murderers and stalkers, animal attacks, freak storms and violent natural elements, etc., often also contain messages about being cautious, planning ahead for emergencies, making good moral decisions...
However
"Accidental Survival" often happens when the main character has failed to plan ahead, has made bad decisions and hasn't been cautious at all...somehow the person's life is spared, anyway, despite risk-taking behaviors, distractions, short-sightedness, etc.
Sometimes a person survives due to a miscalculation on the part of a stalker, killer or other sort of attacker in an urban legend. Sometimes a 'safe person' or authority figure shows up 'in the nick of time' to save a person who has been careless, forgetful, or cocky in urban legends. In any case, with accidental survival, the character in question (the one in the most danger) doesn't actively save him or herself - the survival/saving happens from an external force.
On occassion, the person in danger hasn't actually done anything wrong and ends up in the wrong place at the right time, thus placing him/ or herself in danger. This is actually quite rare, but can happen in stories/urban legends.
More often, even something as seemingly small and insignificant as a person driving at nighttime - when they've been at a legitimate function and have done no wrong prior to the time of danger - is actually considered a 'mistake' and 'fault' on the part of the person......in other words, the person should have KNOWN to drive during the daytime. A situation like this is found in a few versions of "Don't Flash The Headlights/Gang Initiation" where a person flashes but somehow the "gang" car malfunctions, sparing the life of the person who flashed the headlights. If the 'victim' has survived for such reasons, this is like an accidental survival. A survival that wasn't planned out or made possible by the victim's own skills.
My third entry in the Hubpages Hub Challenge is called "Accidental Survival in Urban Legends."
So far on the hub, I have shown the "Knife in the Briefcase" urban legend - a basic version as well as the "Good Samaritan" version which isn't the same story but is similar in end-result. Both stories contain a man whose briefcase is somehow left in a car. In one version, a woman escapes from a killer 'accidentally' because she is actually forgetful, believe it or not! In a similar story, in the "Good Samaritan" version, a woman is annoyed with a man and acts assertively - then finds out afterward that he was intending on killing her.
Enjoy the hub!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Looking for Sawney Beane
Do you have information about a legend about Sawney Beane (sometimes spelled, "Bean")?
From my research efforts so far, what I have turned up is that no sure documents have been discovered about a person by the name of Sawney Beane who was actually proven to be a cannibal in fifteenth or sixteenth century Scotland.
According to legend, Sawney Beane, along with the help of his 40+member clan, is supposed to have murdered and performed acts of cannibalism upon over 1000 human beings - somewhere in the area of "East Lothian." Eventually, Sawney Beane and his clan grew too big, got careless and were found out. They were executed...
The cave where Sawney Beane and his notorious clan supposedly lived, undetected, for a quarter of a century was located in an area known as "Galloway." Galloway has been re-named and is now called "South Ayrshire."
Some people think that the actual cave is in existence today and is called the present-day "Bennane Cave." This cave is located between a burgh of about 8000 people called, "Girvan," and a place called "Ballantrae," both located in South Ayrshire.
Ballantrae is featured in famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson's book, "The Master of Ballantrae," written in (first ed.) 1889.
Hopefully, posting a few of these Scottish regional and burgh names will jog someone's memory - of a story heard or overheard about The Legend of Sawney Beane.
Most researchers of folklore and legends, as well as historians, believe the persona of Sawney Beane to be a purely fictitious figure - pure myth.
But - ya never know, now...
Legend of Sawney Bean:
The terrain of Scotland is notoriously varied in hills, valleys, caves - not to mention all the features of terrain caused by Scotland having maritime qualities...
What do you think? Could the Legend of Sawney Beane be rooted in truth?
Is is possible that a notorious cannibal and his despicable clan could have hid out in caves for a couple of decades and preyed - literally and physically - upon unsuspecting passersby who journeyed along 16-Century pathways?
From my research efforts so far, what I have turned up is that no sure documents have been discovered about a person by the name of Sawney Beane who was actually proven to be a cannibal in fifteenth or sixteenth century Scotland.
According to legend, Sawney Beane, along with the help of his 40+member clan, is supposed to have murdered and performed acts of cannibalism upon over 1000 human beings - somewhere in the area of "East Lothian." Eventually, Sawney Beane and his clan grew too big, got careless and were found out. They were executed...
The cave where Sawney Beane and his notorious clan supposedly lived, undetected, for a quarter of a century was located in an area known as "Galloway." Galloway has been re-named and is now called "South Ayrshire."
Some people think that the actual cave is in existence today and is called the present-day "Bennane Cave." This cave is located between a burgh of about 8000 people called, "Girvan," and a place called "Ballantrae," both located in South Ayrshire.
Ballantrae is featured in famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson's book, "The Master of Ballantrae," written in (first ed.) 1889.
Hopefully, posting a few of these Scottish regional and burgh names will jog someone's memory - of a story heard or overheard about The Legend of Sawney Beane.
Most researchers of folklore and legends, as well as historians, believe the persona of Sawney Beane to be a purely fictitious figure - pure myth.
But - ya never know, now...
Legend of Sawney Bean:
The terrain of Scotland is notoriously varied in hills, valleys, caves - not to mention all the features of terrain caused by Scotland having maritime qualities...
What do you think? Could the Legend of Sawney Beane be rooted in truth?
Is is possible that a notorious cannibal and his despicable clan could have hid out in caves for a couple of decades and preyed - literally and physically - upon unsuspecting passersby who journeyed along 16-Century pathways?
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