The Backroad Legends of Callaway County |
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Do Copperheads Smell like Cucumbers? Do Snakes Chase People? Some Say That Water Moccasins and Blue Racers Will, But It’s A Mystery. Crybaby Bridge: A Backroad Legend. Free E-Books |
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WHAT IS A BACKROAD LEGEND? A Personal Explanation
Back in high school, I spent many nights and weekends cruising the backroads with my friends. I would sometimes hear stories about certain stretches of roads or about cemeteries and bridges along such roads. They were usually spooky stories having to do with the supernatural and the occult. They weren’t just stories told for the sake of entertainment or passing the time though; they were told more from a fascination that something that weird could actually happen or even as a warning to be |
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careful if you’re in that area. So these stories were allegedly true. At first, it’s easy to get caught up in such stories. But after a while, I heard so many different stories told about the same places that it was too much to believe. So if not all the stories could be true then it was likely that none of the stories could be true. I had no idea how these stories began or why they began, but I most definitely had my doubts about them. Then in English class, we covered a section on urban legends. We read examples from a couple of Jan Harold Brunvand’s books and discussed urban legends or potential urban legends that we had heard ourselves. I thought about the stories about the backroads and decided that’s what they must be: urban legends. There were so many of these kinds of stories that they could have been put in their own little category. That’s probably when I first came up with the term ‘backroad legend.’ Years later, as an adult, I began researching and writing about these ‘backroad legends.’ I was fascinated by the phenomena but couldn’t find any information about such stories in any folklore literature. There were characteristics about them that set them apart from typical urban legends –aside from just their settings. (I’ve already described these characteristics in the book so I don’t want to bother repeating it all here.) It was by accident that I later came across the terms ‘legend-trip’ and ‘legend-tripping’ while researching a different subject. This sounded like what I was looking for. This finally gave me something to go on and I found a few writings (quite literally a few) on the subject; mostly from a man named Bill Ellis. But even though I now had an actual name for the subject, I still chose to keep my own term. One reason is because it simply sounded better. The other reason is because ‘legend-trip’ refers more to the activity of visiting locations where stories took place and less to do with the stories themselves. One of the most exciting aspects of reading about legend-trips –as well as reading about urban legends in general –is recognizing stories that I had heard myself or at least being familiar with certain aspects of what I’m reading. Often the stories I had heard were told about some location in Callaway County; which would make sense since that’s where I lived. This brings me to another term that I want to explain: migratory legend. Many legends migrate. They travel from one place to another yet they’re able to call each area home. For example, there may be a particular bridge that you know about that is haunted. You may know about the origins of why there are ghosts haunting the bridge and you may know about what people have experienced there to show that it is haunted. But these same stories about that one particular bridge may be the same stories told about another particular bridge or bridges elsewhere. So, is the legend about this bridge or this bridge or that bridge? The answer is ‘yes’; the legend is about all of these bridges. It all depends on where you yourself live. The legend may have started at one particular bridge, but it moved on to other bridges and took roots in all of them. They’re like pollen that fly through the air; they came from one flower but move on to produce the same type of flower anywhere it lands. Thus there are flowers that grow in central Missouri that are basically the same flowers that grow in Kentucky or Iowa or Minnesota. To show how common this is: there are many areas that have stories about water moccasins. There are more places that have stories about water moccasins than there are places that actually have water moccasins living there. I was not as interested in researching urban legends in general –only select kinds of urban legends. And perhaps these kinds of urban legends are actually what should be called ‘backroad legends.’ For example, I was interested in stories about snakes and panthers. Both subjects have entries in Brunvand’s Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. But the ‘urban’ part of that term seems inappropriate on occasion. Snakes and panthers are not as often discussed in urban areas (at least as far as I know). Instead they are more often discussed in rural areas. They are discussed by people who have their mailboxes located alongside a gravel road or at least have to go down a gravel road on occasion to visit relatives or friends. The types of things these people talked about were what I was interested in pursuing the truth about. So perhaps what sets an urban legend apart from a backroad legend is the location in which they are told. But location is only one element to consider. Time is another factor to consider. Sometimes it seems like the main difference between what is considered an urban legend and what is called ‘folklore’ depends on when a story or belief was spread. Urban legends have been told in the past few decades while folklore was told in ‘the old days.’ Most folklore consists of folk stories and superstitions that are no longer believed. However, some of these old beliefs have survived into more modern times. So perhaps a ‘backroad legend’ is the middle ground between ‘urban legend’ and ‘folklore.’ It’s hard to define what the term really means. The best way to explain what a backroad legend is is to just give a list of examples. You may have heard a number of these. If you’ve heard four or more of the following, then you might be a redneck! (Just kidding!):
-Although the experts say otherwise, mountain lions still live around here. -Water moccasins are aggressive snakes. They’ll come after you if you’re in their area. -Some types of cooked fish will become raw again if left out. -If you’re bit by a snapping turtle, it won’t let go until there’s thunder. -There’s a group of devil worshippers that practice weird ceremonies in that area. -That old abandoned house is haunted. -Black widows live underground. If you build a new house, they may start coming up your sink, toilet, or bathtub and filling your house. -A racer snake will chase you. -There are catfish in there that are big enough to eat a man whole. -There’s a black panther that lives around here. You can hear it at night. It sounds like a woman screaming. -If a brown recluse bites you, it can cause a big hole to grow in your skin. You may have to have the part amputated. -A bat will get caught in your hair. -Copperheads smell like cucumbers. -Jesse James was in this area once and [did something interesting]. -Frogs will give you warts. -The power plant has caused mutations in the animals. People have caught fish with three eyes and seen frogs that glow at night. -If you drive there at night, you can hear the sound of babies crying. -Daddy longlegs are very poisonous. |
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