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Folklore

A story carried by a community, with no single origin to point at.

226 entries · page 5 of 5
Folklore
The luz mala
The luz mala, or evil light, is a bright ball of light reported floating just above the ground in rural Argentina and Uruguay. Country people have long taken it for a soul in torment.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The manglalabas in the widow's house
Three days after a father's death, a manglalabas starts coming to his family's house at night. It throws stones, breaks the water-jars and pinches the widow, and the family decide to leave.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The mujina of Kii-no-kuni-zaka
A man tries to comfort a young woman weeping near Kii-no-kuni-zaka hill and finds she has no eyes, nose or mouth. Lafcadio Hearn puts it down to a mujina.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The omens before Constantinople fell
Chroniclers reported a dense fog and a fire-like light over Hagia Sophia in the days before the Turks took Constantinople on 29 May 1453. Later tradition adds a priest who vanished into a wall.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The penanggalan
A being of Malay belief that flies at night with its entrails hanging below it. Walter William Skeat's Malay Magic (1900) quotes Munshi Abdullah's account of it.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The pishtaco
The pishtaco is the fat thief of Andean tales, told in nearly every Quechua-speaking place. The rumour keeps returning in Peru, in a 2009 police claim the authorities disowned and in crowd violence against people accused of being pishtacos.
Before you read on. Pishtaco rumours put real people in danger. In Sicaya, near Huancayo, residents seized two people they accused of being pishtacos who traffic in organs; RPP Noticias reported that police rescued them before they could be lynched, and that a crowd of about 500 with stones and sticks then surrounded the police station.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The possessed Xuxa doll
A 1989 rumour in Sorocaba that a Xuxa doll, modelled on the children's television presenter, was possessed and had attacked someone. A crowd gathered at the cathedral, and the parish priest told the press it was a rumour.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The rumour that Kitchener survived
HMS Hampshire sank on 5 June 1916 with Lord Kitchener aboard. Rumours that he survived or had never sailed spread within weeks.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The rusalka
A water spirit of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian folk belief, held to be the soul of a girl who died before marrying or of a child who died unbaptised.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The soucouyant
The soucouyant is a figure of Caribbean folklore, an old woman who sheds her skin at night and flies as a ball of fire to drink a victim's blood. Belief in her survives to some degree from Trinidad to Guyana.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The wreck of the SS Valencia
The passenger liner SS Valencia grounded on a reef off Vancouver Island's southwest coast on 22 January 1906, and scores of people drowned.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The yeti
The yeti is a figure of Himalayan legend. Evidence offered for it includes footprints photographed during a 1951 Everest attempt and scalps held by a monastery and a village; a 2017 DNA study and a 2019 account of the 1951 print both point to bears.
Something SeenObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
Tikbalang
The tikbalang is a Philippine forest being, most often pictured as a very tall figure with horse's hooves or a horse's head. Records run from a 1589 list of Tagalog phantoms to modern sculpture. None of these sources counts it among the aswang.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
Tiyanak
The tiyanak is a Philippine creature that takes the form of a baby and cries in the forest to lure travellers. Its oldest recorded form, from 1589, was the lament of a woman who died in childbirth.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
Tokoloshe
A small, harmful water spirit of Nguni belief, said in South African sources to be made or sent by witches to cause illness or death.
Before you read on. Belief in the tokoloshe has been tied to violence against young children in South Africa: IOL reported in 2001 that a man was convicted of murdering a baby he believed was a tokoloshe, and The Herald in 2005 linked an attack on a toddler to the killer's belief in omens and spirits. A 2015 study places the tokoloshe within a fear of witchcraft that affects social cohesion in South Africa.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Tomino's Hell
A poem by Yaso Saijō, published in his 1919 collection Sakin, which an urban legend says will curse and kill anyone who reads it aloud.
Something Left BehindObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
Toyol (tuyul)
An undead infant of Malay and Indonesian belief, known as the toyol or tuyul, that shamans call up through black magic, often for financial gain. A 2009 scam used the belief to rob an elderly woman.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
Tupilaq
In Greenlandic tradition, a tupilaq was a figure its owner made in secret to cause harm. No real one has ever been found in Greenland; the carved tupilaq figures made in large numbers since 1905 are representations.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Umm al-Duwais
Umm al-Duwais is a figure of Emirati and Gulf folklore: a beautiful woman with a cat's eyes who calls men to follow her, then turns into a frightening old woman and kills them. In Qatar she is called Umm Ghannan.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Wadi al-Jinn
Wadi al-Baida, known as Wadi al-Jinn, is a valley in al-Baida Park about 30 km northwest of Medina, Saudi Arabia, where cars left out of gear seem to roll uphill. Many people credit jinn, Arab News reported; Wikipedia calls it an optical illusion.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Wakwak
Wakwak is a Philippine name for a bird-like night creature said to carry people off. Some use it as another word for the aswang; others treat it as a being of its own.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
Winchester Mystery House
Sarah Winchester's house, the subject of lasting stories that she believed in Spiritualism and consulted mediums. Her biographer found no record of a seance, and a later researcher found no evidence she had consulted a medium.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
Yuki-onna, the woman in white
Two men caught by a snowstorm shelter in a mountain hut. A woman in white breathes on old Mosaku until he freezes, then tells Minokichi she had meant to do the same to him.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Folklore
Zhalmauyz Kempir
Zhalmauyz Kempir is a man-eating old witch of Kazakh folk tales. Forms of her name turn up across many Turkic languages.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Ötzi the Iceman
The body of a man found in the ice on the Austria-Italy border by two German hikers in September 1991. German and Italian media later wrote of a curse on people linked to the find.
Something Left BehindObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
Āl (Al), the childbirth spirit
The āl is a figure of folk belief in Iran, Armenia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, feared as a danger to women in childbirth. In Persian belief she lives in springs and comes to a new mother left alone.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7