Spider Tales 4: The stuff of (urban) legends: Dissecting three widespread spider myths
Urban legends are fascinating. These pieces of modern folklore are as creepy as they are entertaining, and provide a wonderful insight into how entirely made-up, far-fetched stories, can be believed and passed on, as long as they sound scary and shocking enough. Of course, they are often told for fun and entertainment, but there are also many people who sincerely believe in some of them and accept them as fact. A big part of their impact comes from their tendency to tap into the widespread fears and beliefs of the place and time they exist in. These cultural context elements, which give birth to the urban tales and transpire through them, can be highly specific to one particular location (such as a particularly creepy and mysterious abandoned building in a specific town) or be more vague, and representative of the concerns and anxieties of an entire demographic. The fear of all things foreign and unfamiliar, and of these foreign threats making an unwelcome intrusion in our world of fa