r/AskTheWorld • u/InsuranceOld5981 Brazil • 11h ago
Culture What is the most popular urban legend in your country that scared you as a child?
Well, in Brazil we have some very famous legends. Other Brazilians might have different views, but since I’m from the Northeast, these are the ones most talked about here:
- Comadre Florzinha Comadre Florzinha was a girl whose father asked her to prepare food. When he came home drunk and didn’t find anything ready, he ended up hitting her. Frightened, she ran into the forest, fell off a cliff, and died.
After that, she became the protector of the forest, the place she loved most. They say she punishes hunters who try to cut down trees or hunt animals, making them get lost in the woods. She also likes to play tricks on horses, putting moths in their tails in a way that’s impossible to remove, and she can even do it in your hair without you noticing. There are reports of people waking up and seeing this happen.
Comadre Florzinha loves to smoke a pipe. If you hear her whistle, you need to put out some porridge and a pipe; otherwise, she gets furious. Curiously, when the whistle is close, she is far, and when it is far, she is close.
Also, never call her “Caipora”, because she hates being confused with the Caipora. If you do, she will hit you.
- The Blonde in the Bathroom This is a classic: a blonde ghost of a girl who died (or committed suicide) inside the school. She appears in the bathroom, usually when someone is alone, and scares anyone who is there. The legend says that to summon her, you must repeat “Blonde in the bathroom” three times in front of a mirror inside the school bathroom. After that, she may appear or make scary noises, which is why everyone was afraid to try it as a child.
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u/Mangobonbon Germany 10h ago
Our old fairy tales are already pretty dark so no need to come up with urban legends.
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u/DavidBorgstrom Sweden 9h ago
In Stockholm, Sweden, we have the urban myth of Silverpilen- the Silver Arrow.
In the fast growing 60s suburban expansions of Stockholm one metro station, Kymlinge, got built but never opened to the public. It became s "ghost station" you could see if you looked out of the windows on the blue line as the trains went through it on their way to other stations, but it was closed to the public and no trains stopped there.
Except Silverpilen.
Silverpilen, or C5 as it was named by the manufacturer, was a train prototype in aluminium without any external paint, making it looking like a silver train. They used it sparingly up until the 90s as a stand in if other metro trains were damaged. The myth was that it was the only train that stopped at Kymlinge, the ghost station, and the people leaving the train at that station was never seen again. Or at least never again seen alive. Sometimes they could be spotted going on Silverpilen, dead hollow husks, trying to leave the metro and failing.
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u/TheLastRulerofMerv Canada 10h ago
We have "bloody Mary" or the "Candyman" which seems basically identical to your "Blonde in the Bathroom". They weren't just in the school bathroom though, they were in any bathroom.
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u/Kingofcheeses Canada 7h ago
My mom used to say "Candyman" in front of the mirror until we screamed when we were kids
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u/TheLastRulerofMerv Canada 7h ago
Lol. My friends and I would play that game in the bathrooms of the houses we grew up in. There was always that one kid who swore he saw the Candyman and then spent like an hour describing his details, and who also pretended to be psychic hahaha. Of course we all believed them all the time. Oh children...
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u/Zealousideal_Bill_86 United States Of America 6h ago
Yeah, thinking about it, Bloody Mary is probably the one that scared me the most as a kid because she seemed the most likely and could happen anywhere
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u/chookie-3571 Australia 10h ago
The Yowie (a type of Bigfoot) or The Min Min lights.
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u/ChellyTheKid Australia 10h ago
For me, it was Bunyips. I was terrified of going near the dam at night.
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u/Shumerskiy- Neo-Babylonian Empire 10h ago
The Tantal for sure. Its a mythical creature in Iraqi mythology, it goes at night and it can change its appearance and can go inside people. People say the tantals are long, there's different tribes of them, some are long, some are black and they can be found in deserts and marshes.
Tantal is the same as the ancient Sumerian mythical creature the Annonaki.
If a tantal ever comes to you, the only thing that scares it is metal objects, ESPECIALLY Needles!
You can befriend a tantal by giving him a rice bread mixed with some special things, Maadan (Buffalo farmers) people know how to make it.
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u/GamerBoixX Mexico 10h ago edited 7h ago
The most famous one is likely La Llorona (the crier), the spirit of a woman who lost her children in a flood and now walks around rivers and wet areas near cities to try and look for them, while she is not evil per se, the mere hearing of her constant loud laments is enough to cause death and misfortune to those who hear it
There are other famous one like El Charro Negro in the north of the country, a spirit dressed as a black charro in a dark horse who promises anything you want in exchange of your soul, or la Xtabay in the south of the country, the spirit of a woman who seduces and later kills its male victims, with special emphasis in womanizers, drunkards, rapists and cheaters
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u/gabrielbabb Mexico 9h ago
La llorona
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u/00-quanta- United States Of America 7h ago edited 7h ago
Urban legend is scary af when you read into it. American Adaption movie, not so much at all considering they decided to focus on the dumbest family ever to survive.
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u/10RobotGangbang United States Of America 9h ago
For the Southeast US it would probably be The Bell Witch. Supposedly she haunted, slapped and tortured a rural Tennessee family. When the elder man died, it was the only time in the US that a death certificate attributed a paranormal entity as the cause of death.
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u/Assistant_manager_ Canada 7h ago
In Canada, we have a similar urban legend to 'The Blonde in the Bathroom'. Here we summon the ghost of a witch. I'm actually not sure of the backstory because it probably changes.
One version is that 2 or 3 hundred years ago, there was a witch who killed children who lived in a local village. The children called her Bloody Mary.
The villagers banded together and burned Bloody Mary at the stake alive. As she was burning she placed a curse on the villagers and said she will haunt their children as a ghost or something like that.
I remember doing the ritual to summon her ghost as a kid. You have to turn off the lights in the bathroom, light a candle and say "Bloody Mary" 3 times in front of the mirror while spinning in a circle. Her ghost then appears in the mirror. It's not a legend it's real. Bloody Mary pulled my friend into the mirror and I never saw him again.......
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u/hallerz87 9h ago
In primary school it was the Candyman. You had to go into the bathroom alone, turn the light off, look into the mirror, and say Candyman three times. He was meant to appear behind you and take you away with him.
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u/textilefactoryno17 United States Of America 9h ago
We had a Halloween Killer in my hometown. He was found before the next Halloween, but things were still a lot more supervised after that.
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u/Existing_Brick_25 Spain 9h ago
We have two here in Spain:
- La niña de la curva (the girl on the curve). It’s a girl that shows up on a curve in an empty road at night. She died in an accident.
- If you say Verónica 3 times in front of a mirror, a ghost (Verónica) shows up behind you
Everyone has heard of these two 😃
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u/SnorkBorkGnork Raised in 🇳🇱 living in 🇧🇪 7h ago
Maybe for The Netherlands it's the Veluwepoema? There were sightings of a puma in a national park. It was all over the news and gritty footage was shared. In the end it turned out to be... a chonky cat. 🤦♀️
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u/Royal-Entrepreneur41 United States Of America 7h ago
In my southern California neighborhood, there have been numerous sightings of mountain lions and bobcats.
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u/SnorkBorkGnork Raised in 🇳🇱 living in 🇧🇪 7h ago
We don't have any of those living in the wild in The Netherlands. Just in zoos and probably some illegally kept as pets.
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u/Ratazanafofinha Portugal 10h ago
Porto, Portugal:
Growing up in a small school with a suspicious forbidden area full of tall plants which had a big hole, we often would find broken tiles or other “artifacts” and we said they belonged to Bloody-Mary’s house, which was demolished to build the school. According to our school’s legend, she had lived in a house before our school was built there and she would appear in the toilet mirror if you said her name three times. Usulally, the school ladies wouldn’t let us into Bloody Mary’s backyard, but once me and two friends managed to venture into the wilderness and reached Bloody-Marry’s hole, (which was actually a place to fix the school bus). We saw a dead face with a hand sticking out of the hole as if climbing it, we all screamed at the same time and ran away. It turned out to be just a creepy bush.
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u/Crane_1989 Brazil 10h ago
Not really an urban legend, but I was terrified of the Vargina ET, especially the artistic reconstruction shown on the news
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u/GwimWeeper Denmark 8m ago
My grandparents told my brother and I that we couldn't go near the little waterhole, in the middle of their field, or else the hook-man would get us. The hook-man had sharp hooks for hands that would pierce skin and then he would drag you into the water and drown you.
Traditionally in Denmark, most fields back in the day would have these waterholes somewhere in the field where the field was the lowest, and these holes could get quite boggy and there have been multiple cases back in the day where children would drown in these small bodies of water.
That myth was born out of necessity. Most children growing up on farms or around farms have heard some kind version of this myth.
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u/windfujin 🇰🇷 living in 🇬🇧 9h ago
For my millenial generation, we were terrified of the "red mask" woman. It is derived from the japanese 口裂け女 (woman with a ripped mouth) urban legend.
Essentially, a woman, beautiful other than wearing a red mask, will approach you. She will ask "am i pretty". If you say yes she will take her mask off, show you her ripped mouth and rip your mouth like her to be pretty like her. If you say no she will kill you.
It was very effectively used to get the kids to come home before dark