American Urban Legends: Campfire Tales
For Halloween 2022, I am taking a quick detour from my usual posts and the lore vs the facts for something more fun - American Urban Legends! We all have our favorite ones, told around the campfire or at slumber parties. No one ever really knows how the legend started, but we all know some version of it...
Stepping away from the facts and with no debunking allowed, this spooky season I want to bring you not just the generic story, but possible locations for origins, eyewitness accounts of monsters, and any possible "how-to" when it comes to summoning...whatever goes bump in your lore.
Now don't say I didn't warn you. After all, I didn't check the facts. One legend might not get you, but go looking too deep and I'm sure another one will.
Campfire Tales
Please Note - All of today's tales are Reader Story Submissions and have not been edited. Please contact Lily's Lore & Legends if any story needs to be removed.
The Graveyard Wager
A group of young girls were having a slumber party one night and began to exchange ghost stories. One girl claimed that the old man who had been buried earlier that week in the graveyard down the street had been buried alive. She claimed that if you tried, you could hear him still scratching at the lid of his coffin. The other girls called her bluff and told her that she wouldn’t do it. They said she was too afraid to go down there to the grave that very night. They continued to challenge her and eventually she gave into the peer pressure and accepted their challenge. Since she was going to go alone, she needed to prove to the others that she actually followed through with the task. She was supposed to take a stake with her and drive it into the ground so the next day the girls would know that she had been to the grave.
She headed off to the gravesite, stake in hand, and never returned. The other girls assumed she had "chickened out" and had just gone home instead.
The next morning as they passed the graveyard they saw her there at the old man's grave. She had accidentally staked her nightshirt to the ground and when she tried to run from the grave, she couldn’t... she died of fright right on the grave!
The Licker
My great-grandmother lived alone up in the mountains at her cabin. Her husband had died, so she was there all alone. She only had one companion, and that was her loving dog. T hey both loved each other very much and the dog loved her and comforted her. Every night when she went to bed, the dog would lick her hand to let her know that he was there to protect her.
One night, she had gone to bed and the dog had licked her hand like he had done routinely every night since her husband died. But this night was different. She had woken up in the middle of the night because she heard her dog whimpering. She wanted to comfort him and let her know she was there for him, so she stuck her hand out by the bed and she felt the dog gently lick her hand like always. She figured he was just cold so she went back to sleep.
The dog's whimpering had woken her up a second time in the night so she stuck her hand out, the dog licked it and she went back to sleep. This happened a third time, and she stuck her hand out and the dog stopped whimpering and came and licked her hand. She stayed awake a few moments afterward and the dog had stopped whimpering. She went back to sleep again.
In the morning, she woke up and stuck her hand out by the bed, but nothing licked her hand. She thought that the dog had already awaken and was just in the front room. She rolled over and got out of bed and heard a drip......drip.....drip.....drip, so she walked into the kitchen and turned the handles on the sink faucet, but it wasn't dripping.
She continued into her bathroom to take a shower. As she walked in, the drips got louder! She turned and looked above the bathtub and SCREAMED! There, hanging from the light by his tail, was her loving companion, with his blood dripping into the bathtub. She screamed and began to cry. Wiping her eyes and sobbing, she turned around and looked at the mirror. In the mirror she saw the dog hanging and written on the mirror with a finger, in her dog's blood with drips and streaks hanging down from each letter, were the words... HUMAN'S CAN LICK TOO!
China Doll
A beautiful 8 year old girl, Izzy, got this adorable china doll for her birthday. She called her Sam. One day Izzy was playing with her doll until her mom called her for bed. Izzy put the doll in the basement and went up to bed.
In the middle of the night she heard weird noises. Then she heard "China doll, china doll in the basement, china doll, china doll on the stairs, china doll, china doll in your parents room, now they're dead." Izzy fell back into a troubled sleep.
In the morning she raced to her parents room and they were dead. She cried as her brother planned the funeral. Izzy did not play with Sam that day. She went up to bed early and fell asleep.
In the middle of the night she heard chanting again. China doll, china doll in the basement, china doll, china doll on the stairs, china doll, china doll in your parents room, china doll, china doll in your brothers room now he's dead." Izzy shivered and fell into another troubling sleep.
In the morning she went to her brothers room, he was dead. She spent the day in her room and wouldn't come out. Night fell again and she went to sleep.
She heard the chanting again. "China doll, china doll in the basement, china doll, china doll on the stairs, china doll, china doll in your parents room, china doll, china doll in your brothers room, china doll, china doll in your room." She gazed up to see the doll. "Now you're...dead!"
The police found her the next day with no sign of the murderer. All they heard was chuckling in the distance. The chuckle of a brown haired, brown eyed china doll, on the hunt for her next victims.
For more stories and legends like these, check out Lily's Library.
Whether told around a campfire with friends or as a scary bedtime story for not-so-little ones, these tales are sure to make you think twice before turning out the light.
Be sure to check out the rest of the American Urban Legends. I will update the main page as I share posts but to make sure you don't miss a legend, sign up for email notifications. I swear, I will only message you when there is a new post or extra important news.
Until next time lore lovers, stay spooky💖
~Lily
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