Urban Legends in San Antonio and South Texas

To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.” ― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Urban legends are friend-of-a-friend stories (FOAFS) that are told to describe strange, but supposedly real events, when in fact they are fictional through word of mouth invention or distortion. There is usually a true element to the legend, but it becomes fictional as it is passed from one person to the next. Core elements in most urban legends remain similar, but the details of the story can differ from one milieu to the next. 

―Just one definition of what an urban legend is, from Ljubomir Hristić, Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade

Definition & Theory → What makes a story an urban legend? How do scholars define it? 

Media & Transmission → How do legends circulate (oral, print, digital)? 

Place & Community → How do South-Central Texas legends anchor identity or history? 

Function & Meaning → What do these legends do (teach lessons, resist authority, explain fear)? 

The tabs on the research guide have pre-classified groups of closely-related urban legends! Consider the following:  

Origins (first appearances, earliest sources) 

Variations (how it’s told in different times/places) 

Functions (what anxieties or hopes it reflects) 

Media Traces (newspapers, TikTok, local archives) 

What do we notice when we place these stories side by side? 

Historical lens (time, place, origin context) 

• When and where does this story first appear in the record? 
• What are the earliest newspaper articles, oral accounts, or archival traces? 
• Are there similar stories in other regions? 
• Resources to try: Chronicling America, Portal to Texas History, UTSA archives, local newspapers, oral history collections. 

Cultural lens (identity, belonging, migration, resistance) 

• What work does this legend do in the community? 
• Preserving cultural memory or identity? 

Media lens (oral, print, digital, adaptation) 

• Examine several versions of the legend from different sources (e.g. a newspaper clipping, a TikTok retelling, and a scholarly summary). 
• Compare them: what changes, what stays the same? 

Psychological lens (fear, morality, cautionary function) 

• Does this legend teach morals or cautionary lessons? 
• Does it express fear, trauma, or resistance? 

The goal is to show not just the legend is, but why it matters and how it circulates. 

Who tells this story, and to whom?  

Where do you see this story circulating today (blogs, podcasts, tourism websites, TikTok, murals)? 

How does the medium shape the telling?