Is There a FOAF in Your Future? Urban Folk Legends in Room 112

Abstract

At first glance, a group of stories about a parcel of land on Indianapolis's northeast side may seem to have little to do with the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Upon closer examination, however, a connection can be established: both are examples of folk legends, oral narratives which are transmitted primarily by word of mouth and which exist in many versions, varying from geographic region to region. The stories told today about the House of Blue Lights rival those woven by scops a thousand years ago. Folk legends belong to the larger genre of folklore; other categories are fables, fairy tales, myths, ballads, riddles, and jokes. Long before humans were literate, they told folk tales, with each retelling shaping, changing, and adding something new, each storyteller revising to taste. Just as Paul Bunyan, Babe, Ichabod Crane, and Sleepy Hollow derive from the American experience, the passing decades have generated a new crop of tall tales: the urban folk legend. These are stories whispered at slumber parties or around a campfire; they are captivating, plausible even, but fictional-yet their tellers and listeners swear they are truth.