Urban Legends

To many, urban legends are nothing more than harmless tales told round a camp fire, in a dormitory, or ’round a table in a pub with the express aim of provoking a frisson of fear in the listener through the use of some horrific shock element in a familiar location and an unlucky protagonist who is known to a friend of a friend of a friend. But is there something working at a deeper level?

We have all heard stories of the Deep Fried Rat, the Ghostly Hitchhiker, the Hook Handed Killer, or the Poodle in the Microwave, but should we take them at face value or greet them with scorn and derision? Did the events in these tales ever really happen or are they the product of over-active imaginations fearful of the outside world?

In this book Nick Harding sets out to describe a host of urban legends, suggesting that we should not dismiss them purely as nonsense nor accept them as gospel truth but strive to understand their underlying meanings and begin to see their true worth as folklore for the modern world.

To understand folklore, and therefore the realm of the urban legend, is to understand the psyche of a nation. By understanding urban legends we can gain an insight into our own fears and those of our fellow human beings.