Another story about Nine Mile Bridge accredits the cries to babies that were born of slaves. According to this legend, the slave owners didn’t want their slaves to have children, so the newborns were killed by being thrown over the side. But it seems unlikely that such a thing would happen. A slave’s newborns would have been considered property of the slave owners and so he could have sold them for profit or kept them for future workers. Unless of course, as local historian Terry Smith suggests, the babies were born partially white which would have been evidence of an owner’s taboo relationship with a slave.

Why are there so many stories about babies and bridges? How did such a seemingly unlikely connection get started? Smith has a couple of suggestions. First, she suggests that the sound of crying babies that someone thought they heard was actually the sound of kittens. It was once common for unwanted kittens to be put in a sack and thrown off a bridge to drown. So perhaps a sack didn’t sink or had floated to the side and the scared kittens were the ones making such a sound.

Second, she suggests that people might have actually heard a baby cry because a mother was caring for her sick child under the bridge. In the years before modern medicine and running water, it was common to try to lower a child’s fever with cold creek water. This would have commonly been done under a bridge to provide a shade in the summertime and to keep the baby from getting sunburned. Smith said to imagine what it would have been like for a child to walk on a bridge and hear such sounds but not be able to see where it was coming from. “It would have been like the troll under the bridge –the old stories about the fear of what’s under the bridge.”

Ghostly legends that involve crying babies are not just told in America , but internationally as well. The Japanese movie The Locker was inspired by such legends. Why are there so many ghosts who cry like babies? In Japan and the island nation of Taiwan, some people attribute the phantom cries to unborn babies who were aborted. Some stories say that a woman who has an abortion may be haunted by this crying anywhere she goes. Others in Taiwan have heard that when a person dies, they are, in so many words, ‘born into ghost-hood.’ Thus in the early days of being a ghost, they are a baby ghost and this is why so many ghosts make the sounds of a baby crying. This may also be connected to the legend presented in the Hong Kong film The Eye 2, in which ghosts of the recently departed search for the bodies of unborn babies to enter so that they can be reincarnated with another life. Other Taiwanese legends say that ghosts often cry like a baby because of a situation that happens when a deceased person is finally reunited with their deceased parents.

Other types of backroad legends and urban legends are stories about young couples who have scary experiences while parked in some kind of Lover’s Lane or other desolate spot. Sometimes one of them, usually the boy, is murdered by a serial killer. You may be familiar with the legend about the escaped murderer who has a large metal hook in place of one of his hands. Sometimes the couple is saved from being murdered in the nick of time when they decide to start up the car and drive away. Usually the girl is scared and wants to leave. Sometimes the boy is frustrated because he wanted to go further than the girl was willing to go. But if the couple had not left, they could have been slaughtered.

One function of urban legends is to keep kids away from places they’re not supposed to be. Some folklorists speculate that stories about psycho killers on Lover’s Lane were spread in an attempt to curb the sexual experimentation of young people. The same theme seems to be unintentionally echoed in splatter films; as pointed out in the movie Scream: virgins stay alive. Such speculation about such stories makes me wonder about ‘ Crybaby Bridge ’ or ‘Crybaby Hollow’ or ‘ Crybaby Road ’ stories in a different light. Some rural areas where adolescents hang out are also the same areas where one could supposedly hear the crying of babies. Is it possible that such stories were spread in an attempt to scare young couples away from recreational or impulsive sex? After all, what better sound could there be to remind people of the possible consequences of recreational sex?

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To read more about this and related subjects, check out the THE BACKROAD LEGENDS OF CALLAWAY COUNTY. To order, you can e-mail Book Express directly at bookexpress@sbcglobal.net. Or search at Alibris at http://www.alibris.com