Folklore and Legends
The ghosts, legends, night lights and monsters that cultures around the world have passed down for centuries, where the stories came from, and what historians and scientists make of them.
Ghosts Around the World: Yūrei, Banshees, La Llorona and More
How Japan's yūrei, Ireland's banshee, La Llorona and China's hungry ghosts differ, what they share, and what they reveal about how people remember the dead.
8 min readUrban Legends: Why Stories Like the Vanishing Hitchhiker Spread
What makes a story an urban legend, how the vanishing hitchhiker traveled from old Sweden to Chicago, and why some tales spread faster than the facts can catch up.
6 min readWill-o'-the-Wisps, Ghost Lights and Phantom Ships
Will-o'-the-wisps, the Marfa and Brown Mountain lights and the Flying Dutchman: the folklore of lights and ships that aren't there, and what investigators found.
7 min readVampires and Werewolves: The Real History Behind the Legends
The 18th-century Serbian vampire reports, New England's tuberculosis exhumations, Europe's werewolf trials, and what the bodies and the court records really show.
8 min read