Freaky Urban Legends That Are Based On True Stories...

We've all heard of urban legends and it seems that every country has their own stories that they talk about. It can be really terrifying when you find out about one around where you live, especially when they're true. They're are countless tales from all over the world, here is a collection of the freakiest, most spine chilling urban legends...

Samuel Page

Samuel Page was a blacksmith who worked at the RDS in Ballsbridge in the 1830’s.  Samuel and his wife Sarah had two girls Becky and Hannah. For all intents and purposes the Page’s were a well-adjusted family who were very much a part of the Dublin community in the mid-19th century. However, by night Samuel and his family ran a satanic cult from the basement in their home.  Once their evil practises were discovered, their house was burned to the ground by locals.  Bodies of all the family were discovered, except for Samuel’s. For weeks afterward Dubliners were excavating the tunnels looking for the corpse of Page but it was never found. They say that his soul is owned by the devil and that disciples of Page’s cult still follow him today. After last weeks' strange occurrences in the RDS we got really freaked after we heard about the devil worship that used to take place there...

Jack the Ripper

One of the most infamous urban legends is of course , Jack The Ripper, a serial killer that brutally murdered prostitutes in London's white chapel district. The mystery behind this urban legend is that it's unsolved and it has a supernatural element to it. Jack would come out of a fog, violently kills his victims and vanishes without a trace. BBC made a show based on the infamous killer called Ripper Street which shows the detectives trying to figure what was happening, to no avail...

Headless Horseman

This is European urban legend and has different iterations depending on when you go. The Irish legend recalls him as being a dullahan (dark man)  or a headless fairy. The horseman would stop riding his horse when death appeared and would call out a name, who would immediately perish. In German Folklore the headless horseman appears while a woman is in the forest picking acorns and she hears a hunting horn, She heres it again and out comes a headless man in a long grey coat riding on a horse. Ok, so this one is a bit supernatural, but you know how these tails get out of hand.

Slit Mouthed Woman

This urban legend comes by way of Japan and China known as Kuchisake-onna or her nickname the Slit Mouthed Woman. One day, she cheated on her husband with a younger and better-looking man. When the husband returned, he discovered her betrayal; enraged and furious, he took his sword and slit her mouth ear-to-ear. Some say that the woman was cursed to never die, and still wanders the world so that people can see the horrible scar on her face and pity her.

The White Death

This is the story of a little girl from Scotland who hated life and so wanted to get rid of every trace of herself. She committed suicide and when her family found out, they all died in the following days having their limbs torn apart. The legends says  that the girl’s ghost might come and find you, and knock repeatedly on your door. Each knock gets louder, till you open the door and she kills you for fear that you’ll tell someone else of her existence; her main goal is to prevent anyone from knowing about her.

Elisa Day

Another tale from Medieval Europe about a woman named Elisa Day whose beauty was like a wild rose. A young man came to town a fell in love with her. On the third day, he took her down to the river—where he killed her. 

The horrible man supposedly waited till her back was turned, then took a rock in his fist, whispering, “All beauty must die”—and with one swift blow, he killed her instantly. He placed a rose between her teeth, and slid her body into the river. Some people claim to have seen her ghost wandering the riverside, blood running down the side of her head, a single rose in her hand.

Bloody Mary

A more well known one is of course Bloody Mary, the tale goes that If you turn out the lights, look into a mirror, and say Bloody Mary three times (in some versions the number of times differs) then you will summon the spirit of Mary Worth, a woman who was supposedly executed for being a witch.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Possibly one of the oldest urban legends still being told, the story tells of a motorist who picks up a female hitchhiker on a lonely stretch of road. He then drives her home only to find that she has disappeared from his backseat. After knocking on her door, he is told the girl died in a car accident years ago in the very same spot that he picked her up.

The Babysitter and The man upstairs

This one has no specific time period, but it probably must have been in the last 50 to 60 years. A babysitter started getting strange phone calls from a strange man, telling her to check on the children. She ends up calling the police to try and trace the man's call. They immediately call the babysitter back and tell her to get the kids out of the house immediately because the calls are coming from within the home itself. The police arrive to find a man in the upstairs room where the kids are sleeping, but it is already too late as all of the kids have been brutally murdered... Grim stuff

The Hook

This legend tells the story of a young boy and girl who drive off into the woods only to hear on the radio that a convicted killer with a hook for one of his arms has just escaped from a nearby mental facility. The boy simply locks the car door and insists they stay but the girl wants to leave. The boy then reluctantly takes off and when they return home, depending on the version of the story, there is a bloody hook hanging on the outside handle of the car door. 

The Boyfriend's Death

A couple are driving through the countryside and the boyfriend gets out of the car to use the bathroom but doesn’t come back for some time. The girl decides to get out and go looking for him only to see a dark figure in the shadows. She runs back to the car and tries to start it, but realises that the back bumper has been tied to a tree. She then hears a scream and after turning around, she sees her boyfriend hanging from the tree.