Legend tripping

{{Short description|Visits to sites associated with urban legends}}

Image:bunnyman bridge night.jpg 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 nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting."Legend trip", entry in American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, ed. Jan Harold Brunvand (1996) {{ISBN|0-8153-3350-1}}{{Not in citation|date=February 2024|reason=Term "legend tripping" is not used in the cited work other than in a footnote referencing another source, where it is referred to as "Adolescent Legend-Tripping" - "Ellis. Bill. 1983. Adolescent Legend-Tripping. Psychology Today (August): 68–69."

"American Folklore - An Encyclopedia", by Jan Harold Brunvand, only uses the term "legend trip" - NEVER "legend tripping".}} The practice mostly involves the visiting of sites endemic to locations identified in local urban legends, and can serve as a rite of passage. Legend tripping has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States.Peter Monaghan, "The Surprising Online Life of Legends" The Chronicle of Higher Education Dec 12, 2011 [http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/the-surprising-online-life-of-legends/29221?sid=cr]

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

Image:Popelick2.jpg, 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.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 However, in what Ellis calls "ostensive abuse," the rituals enacted at the legend-tripping sites sometimes involve trespassing, vandalism, and other misdemeanors, and sometimes acts of animal sacrifice or other blood ritual.{{cite journal|last1=Ellis|first1=Bill|title=Death by Folklore: Ostension, Contemporary Legend, and Murder|journal=Western Folklore|date=July 1989|volume=48|issue=3|pages=201–220|doi=10.2307/1499739|jstor=1499739 }} 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. 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.Summers, Wynne, L. "Bloody Mary: When Ostension Becomes a Deadly and Destructive Teen Ritual." Midwestern Folklore 26 (2000):1 19-26. The panic over youth Satanism in the 1980s was fueled in part by graffiti and other ritual activities engaged in by legend-tripping youths.

Associated places in the United States

The Baird Chair monument in Kirksville, Missouri{{cite web | url=http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/mipages/bairdchair.html| title=The Devil's Chair| date=October 3, 1996| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820115207/http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/mipages/bairdchair.html| archive-date= August 20, 2006| url-status=dead}}
Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, outside of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois[https://roadtrippers.com/stories/bachelors-grove-cemetery-is-the-most-haunted-graveyard-in-america Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery is the most haunted graveyard in America]; article; Roadtrippers; Accessed 25 June 2022
The Black Agnes statue, formerly in Pikesville, Maryland and now in Washington, DC{{cite web | url=http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/agnes.asp| title=Black Agnes| first=David| last=Mikkelson| date=5 November 2000| publisher=Snopes}}
Bunny Man Bridge near Clifton, Virginia{{cite web| title=The Truth About Bunnyman Bridge| url=http://www.virginiaghosts.com/bunnyman.php| publisher=Center for Paranormal Research| access-date=2016-05-12| archive-date=2014-07-19| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140719070740/http://virginiaghosts.com/bunnyman.php| url-status=dead}}{{cite web| url=http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/| title=The Bunny Man Unmasked – Fairfax County, Virginia| publisher=Fairfax County Public Library| author=Brian A. Conley| access-date=2016-05-12| archive-date=2011-10-30| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030185642/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/bunny/| url-status=dead}}
Crawford Road in Yorktown, Virginia{{Cite web | date=2017-08-15 |title=Crawford Road - Colonial Ghosts |url=https://colonialghosts.com/crawford-road/ |access-date=2022-05-28 |language=en-US}}
Goat Man's Grave near Rolla, Missouri.{{cite book | last1=Tremeear| first1=Janice| title=Haunted Ozarks| date=16 August 2011| publisher=Arcadia Publishing| isbn=978-1625841735}}
Hexenkopf Rock in Williams Township, Pennsylvania{{cite web | url=http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/ghosts/hauntedus/hexenkopf.htm| title=Hexenkopf: The Witch's Head| publisher=horrorfind.com| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://archive.today/20130126151828/http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/ghosts/hauntedus/hexenkopf.htm| archive-date=2013-01-26}}

File:Bachelors Grove taken on IR.jpg) ]]

The Hornet Spook Light twelve miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri{{cite web| url=http://www.prairieghosts.com/devprom.html| title=The Hornet Spook Light| publisher=prairieghosts.com| access-date=2007-03-09| archive-date=2007-02-13| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213234938/http://www.prairieghosts.com/devprom.html| url-status=dead}}
The Lake View Public School, also known as the Gore Orphanage, near Cleveland, Ohio{{cite web | url=http://www.forgottenoh.com/gore.html| title=The Gore Orphanage| publisher=Forgotten Ohio}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20051030045007/http://lorain.lib.oh.us/local/history/gore.asp Legend Tripping in Ohio: The Gore Orphanage]
McHarry, Captain Frances burial spot in Harrison County, Indiana{{cite web | url=http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM34WC_Captain_McHarrys_Vault_New_Albany_IN| title=Captain McHarry's Vault – New Albany, IN – Weird Story Locations on Waymarking.com| publisher= Waymarking.com}}
The Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Medina County, Ohio{{cite web | url=http://www.forgottenoh.com/Counties/Medina/myrtlehill.html| title=The Witch's Ball of Myrtle Hill Cemetery| publisher=Forgotten Ohio}}
Ong's Hat, New Jersey{{cite book | first=Michael | last=Kinsella | year=2011 | title=Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat | publisher=University Press of Mississippi | location=Jackson, MS | isbn=978-1604739831 }}
Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago, Illinois and its Fire Memorial in nearby Queen of Heaven Cemetery.{{cite web | url=http://www.olafire.com/| title=Our Lady of the Angels School Fire December 1, 1958 Chicago Illinois}}
Stull Cemetery in Stull, Kansas, claimed to be a "gateway to Hell"{{cite web| url=http://www.prairieghosts.com/stull.html| title=Stull Cemetery! One of the Seven Gateways to Hell?| publisher=prairieghosts.com| access-date=2007-07-14| archive-date=2007-07-11| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711152659/http://www.prairieghosts.com/stull.html| url-status=dead}}
Waverly Hills Sanatorium, an abandoned hospital for tuberculosis victims, in Louisville, Kentucky{{Cite web |url=http://www.prairieghosts.com/waverly_tb.html |title=The Waverly Hills Sanatorium |access-date=2004-04-22 |archive-date=2004-04-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040402065524/http://prairieghosts.com/waverly_tb.html |url-status=dead }}[http://www.ohiotrespassers.com Ohio Trespassers – Ohio legends & Waverly Hills]

Legend tripping

Sites for legend trips

Reactions and controversies

Associated places in the United States

See also

References

Further reading