Legend tripping

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The Bunny Man Bridge, location of a 1970s urban legend about a man in a rabbit costume threatening people with an axe

Legend tripping is a practice in which a usually furtive

urban legends, and can serve as a rite of passage. Legend tripping has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States.[2]

Sites for legend trips

While the stories that attach to the sites of legend tripping vary from place to place, and sometimes contain a kernel of historical truth, there are a number of motifs and recurring themes in the legends and the sites. Abandoned buildings, remote bridges, tunnels, caves, rural roads, specific woods or other uninhabited (or semi-uninhabited) areas, and especially cemeteries are frequent sites of legend-tripping pilgrimages.

Reactions and controversies

Pope Lick Trestle in Louisville, Kentucky, the reputed home of the Pope Lick Monster

Legend-tripping is a mostly harmless, perhaps even beneficial, youth recreation. It allows young people to demonstrate their courage in a place where the actual physical risk is likely slight.

trespassing, vandalism, and other misdemeanors, and sometimes acts of animal sacrifice or other blood ritual.[4] These transgressions then sometimes lead to local moral panics that involve adults in the community, and sometimes even the mass media. These panics often further embellish the prestige of the legend trip to the adolescent mind.[3] In at least one notorious case, years of destructive legend-tripping, amounting to an "ostensive frenzy," led to the fatal shooting of a legend-tripper near Lincoln, Nebraska followed by the wounding of the woman whose house had become the focus of the ostension.[5] The panic over youth Satanism in the 1980s was fueled in part by graffiti and other ritual activities engaged in by legend-tripping youths.[3]

Associated places in the United States
Bachelor's Grove cemetery (in infrared)

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-8153-3350-1
  2. ^ Peter Monaghan, "The Surprising Online Life of Legends" The Chronicle of Higher Education Dec 12, 2011 [1]
  3. ^ a b c Ellis, Bill. "Legend Trips and Satanism: Adolescents' Ostensive Traditions as 'Cult' Activity." In The Satanism Scare, ed. James T. Richardson, Joel Best, and David G. Bromley, 279-95. NY: Aldme DeGreyter
  4. JSTOR 1499739
    .
  5. ^ Summers, Wynne, L. "Bloody Mary: When Ostension Becomes a Deadly and Destructive Teen Ritual." Midwestern Folklore 26 (2000):1 19-26.
  6. ^ "The Devil's Chair". October 3, 1996. Archived from the original on August 20, 2006.
  7. ^ Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery is the most haunted graveyard in America; article; Roadtrippers; Accessed 25 June 2022
  8. ^ Mikkelson, David (5 November 2000). "Black Agnes". Snopes.
  9. ^ "The Truth About Bunnyman Bridge". Center for Paranormal Research. Archived from the original on 2014-07-19. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
  10. ^ Brian A. Conley. "The Bunny Man Unmasked – Fairfax County, Virginia". Fairfax County Public Library. Archived from the original on 2011-10-30. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
  11. ^ "Crawford Road - Colonial Ghosts". 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  12. ISBN 978-1625841735
    .
  13. ^ "Hexenkopf: The Witch's Head". horrorfind.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-26.
  14. ^ "The Hornet Spook Light". prairieghosts.com. Archived from the original on 2007-02-13. Retrieved 2007-03-09.
  15. ^ "The Gore Orphanage". Forgotten Ohio.
  16. ^ Legend Tripping in Ohio: The Gore Orphanage
  17. ^ "Captain McHarry's Vault – New Albany, IN – Weird Story Locations on Waymarking.com". Waymarking.com.
  18. ^ "The Witch's Ball of Myrtle Hill Cemetery". Forgotten Ohio.
  19. ISBN 978-1604739831
    .
  20. ^ "Our Lady of the Angels School Fire December 1, 1958 Chicago Illinois".
  21. ^ "Stull Cemetery! One of the Seven Gateways to Hell?". prairieghosts.com. Archived from the original on 2007-07-11. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  22. ^ "The Waverly Hills Sanatorium". Archived from the original on 2004-04-02. Retrieved 2004-04-22.
  23. ^ Ohio Trespassers – Ohio legends & Waverly Hills

Further reading

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