Urban Legends in San Antonio and South Texas

Theme: children as liminal beings, innocence warped or protective.

• Fang-Toothed Toddler of Old Pearsall Road – Child-as-cryptid (fabulate with memorate flavor).
• The Ghost Tracks – Protective child spirits, inversion of the “dangerous ghost” motif (fabulate, migratory legend).
• Headless Nun of Santa Rosa Hospital – Though not a child, tied to hospital/innocence/death of the vulnerable (fabulate).

• "child ghosts" AND folklore

• "protective spirits" AND legend

• children AND liminal beings AND folklore

• "ghost tracks" AND migratory legend

• innocence AND haunting

Note: UTSA’s catalog will be a bit lean on urban legends specific to our region. We unfortunately do not have a folklore program or a center for horror studies. As such, it may be beneficial to broaden the search language so you can still pull useful scholarly sources in JSTOR, Project MUSE, Anthropology Plus, etc., through the UTSA Libraries search. You can also use Google Scholar! 

The themes (weeping women, children ghosts, headless riders, etc.) show up in lots of cultures, so you can compare across regions.

Ostensive Healing: Pilgrimage to the San Antonio Ghost Tracks

Lindahl, C. (2005). Ostensive Healing: Pilgrimage to the San Antonio Ghost Tracks. The Journal of American Folklore, 118(468), 164–185. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaf.2005.0023