Scary Stories Complete Set

by Alvin Schwartz

  p. 27“The White Wolf”: This is a retelling of an incident reported by Ruth Ann Musick in The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Stories, pp. 134–35. (I) Lester Tinnell, French Creek, West Virginia, 1954. Motifs: E.423.2.7 (revenant as wolf); E.320 (return from dead to inflict punishment).

  p. 31“The Haunted House”: This story was reported by Richard Chase in American Folk Tales and Songs, pp. 60–63. He collected it in Wise County, Virginia, prior to 1956. Abridged slightly for clarity.

  p. 35“The Guests”: This story has been told in many places. At one time it was well known in the area around Albany, New York. The version in this book is based on two sources: the recollection of my wife, Barbara Carmer Schwartz, who grew up in the Albany area, and an account reported by Louis C. Jones in Things That Go Bump in the Night, pp. 76–78. Dr. Jones’s informant was Sunna Cooper.

  3. They Eat Your Eyes, They Eat Your Nose

  p. 39“The Hearse Song”: Variant of a traditional song, Brooklyn, New York, 1940s. For a compilation of variants, see Doyle, PTFS 40:175–90.

  p. 40“The Girl Who Stood on a Grave”: This is a retelling of an old tale that is well known in America and the British Isles. In other versions, the victim is pinned by a stick, a post, a croquet stake, a sword, and a fork. See Boggs, JAF 47:295–96; Roberts, South, 136–37; Montell, 200–201. Motifs: H.1416.1 (fear test: visiting a graveyard at night); N. 334 (accidental fatal ending of game or joke).

  p. 43“A New Horse”: This witch tale has been told all over the world. The retelling in this book is based on a tale from the Kentucky mountains reported by Leonard Roberts. In that version the old man takes a gun and blows his wife’s brains out after he realizes she is a witch. See Roberts, Up Cutshin, pp. 128–29.

  p. 45“Alligators”: This story is based on an Ozark tale Vance Randolph reported as “The Alligator Story” in Sticks in the Knapsack, pp. 22–23. He collected it from an elderly woman at Willow Springs, Missouri, in August 1939.

  p. 47“Room for One More”: RU, 1970. This legend has circulated for many years in the United States and the British Isles. For two English versions, see Briggs, Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 545–46, 575-76.

  p. 50“The Wendigo”: This Indian tale also is a summer camp tale that is well known in northeastern United States. It is adapted from a version that Professor Edward M. Ives of the University of Maine narrated for me. He first heard it in the 1930s when he attended Camp Curtis Read, a Boy Scout camp near Mahopac, New York. For a literary version of this tale, see “The Wendigo” by the English author Algernon Blackwood, in Davenport, pp. 1–58. The name DéFago used in the above adaptation is taken from this story.

  p. 55“The Dead Man’s Brains”: The first paragraph of the story, MFA, 1975. The rest is so widely known, it is not based on any particular version.

  p. 57“‘May I Carry Your Basket?’”: (I) Tom O’Brien, San Francisco, 1976. This is a bogeyman story the informant learned from his English father around the turn of the century. For a close variant, see Briggs, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 500. Also see Nuttall, JAF 8:122, for a reference to an ancient Mexican Indian tale of a human skull that chases passersby, stops when they stop, runs when they run.

  4. Other Dangers

  p. 60“The Hook”: This legend is so well known, particularly on college campuses, that this telling is not based on any particular variant. For parallels, see Barnes, SFQ 30:310; Emrich, p. 333; Fouke, p. 263; Parochetti, KFQ 10:49; Thigpen, IF 4:183–86.

  p. 63“The White Satin Evening Gown”: This tale has been reported in several sections of the United States, particularly the Midwest. The retelling is based on a number of variants. See Halpert, HFB 4:19–20, 32–34; Reaver, NYFQ 8:217–20.

  p. 65“High Beams”: This retelling is based on a report by Carlos Drake in IF 1:107–109. For parallels, see Cord, IF 2:49–52; Parochetti, KFQ 10:47–49. In a variant I collected in Waverly, Iowa, a woman stops for gasoline at a service station in a rundown neighborhood. The attendant notices a man hiding in the back seat. He takes the woman’s money, but does not return with her change. After waiting several minutes, she goes inside for her money. The attendant then tells her about the man, and she calls the police.

  p. 69“The Babysitter”: (I) Jeff Rosen, sixteen, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 1980. In a widespread version, the intruder is captured by the police after the children are found murdered in their beds. The sitter escapes. See Fouke, p. 264. An American film based on this theme, When a Stranger Calls, was released in 1979.

  5. “Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

  p. 72“The Viper”: (I) Leslie Kush, fourteen, Philadelphia, 1980. For a parallel, see Knapp, p. 247.

  p. 74“The Attic”: Compiler’s recollection. In a variant, the hunter has two children who disappear. He decides to look for them in the attic, then screams when he opens the door. See Leach, Rainbow, pp. 218–19.

  p. 77“The Slithery-Dee”: UMFA, (C) Andrea Lagoy; (I) Jackie Lagoy, Leominster, Massachusetts, 1972.

  p. 79“Aaron Kelly’s Bones”: This story is a retelling of a tale collected along the South Carolina coast prior to 1943. The collector was John Bennett. He reported the tale with the title “Daid Aaron II,” in The Doctor to the Dead, pp. 249–52. His informants were Sarah Rutledge and Epsie Meggett, two black women who told the story in the Gullah dialect. Motif: E.410 (the unquiet grave).

  p. 82“Wait till Martin Comes”: Retelling of a traditional Negro folk tale that has circulated in southeastern United States. In some versions the cat waits for “Emmett,” “Patience,” or “Whalem-Balem,” instead of Martin. See Pucket, p. 132; Cox, JAF 47:352–55; Fauset, JAF 40:258–59; Botkin, American, p. 711.

  p. 85“The Ghost with the Bloody Fingers”: WSFA, (C) Ramona Martin, 1973. In a variant, the ghost is a monster that kills everyone who occupies a haunted hotel room, except for a hippie who plays the guitar. See Vlach, IF 4:100–101.

  Bibliography

  Books

  Books that may be of interest to young people are marked with an asterisk (*).

  Beck, Horace P. The Folklore of Maine. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1957.

  Belden, Henry M. Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri FolkLore Society, vol. 15. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri, 1940.

  Bennett, John. The Doctor to the Dead: Grotesque Legends & Folk Tales of Old Charleston. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1943.

  Bett, Henry. English Legends. London: B. T. Batsford, 1952.

  Blackwood, Algernon. “The Wendigo.” In Basil Davenport, Ghostly Stories to Be Told. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1950.

  Blakeborough, Richard. Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire. Salisbury-by-the-Sea, England: W. Rapp & Sons, 1911.

  Bontemps, Arna, and Langston Hughes. The Book of Negro Folklore. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1958.

  Botkin, Benjamin A., ed. A Treasury of American Folklore. New York: Crown Publishers, 1944.

  ———, ed. A Treasury of New England Folklore. New York: Crown Publishers, 1965.

  ———, ed. A Treasury of Southern Folklore. New York: Crown Publishers, 1949.

  Briggs, Katherine M. A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales. 4 vols. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1967.

  Brunvand, Jan H. The Study of American Folklore. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978.

  ———. Urban American Legends. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980.

  Burrison, John A. “The Golden Arm”: The Folk Tale and Its Literary Use by Mark Twain and Joel C. Harris. Atlanta: Georgia State College School of Arts and Sciences Research Paper, 1968.

  *Cerf, Bennett. Famous Ghost Stories. New York: Random House, 1944.

  Chambers, Robert. Popular Rhymes of Scotland. London, Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1870. Reprint edition, Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1969.

  Chase, Richard, ed. American Folk Tales and Songs. New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1956. Reprint edition, New York: Dover Publications, 1971.

  *———, ed.
Grandfather Tales. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948.

  Cox, John H. Folk-Songs of the South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925.

  Creighton, Helen. Bluenose Ghosts. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1957.

  Dégh, Linda. “The ‘Belief Legend’ in Modern Society: Form, Function, and Relationship to Other Genres.” In Wayland D. Hand, ed., American Folk Legend, A Symposium. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1971.

  Dorson, Richard M. American Folklore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959.

  Flanders, Helen H., and George Brown. Vermont Folk-Songs & Ballads. Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Daye Press, 1932.

  Fowke, Edith. Folklore of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976.

  Gainer, Robert W. Folklore of the Southern Appalachians. Grantsville, W. Va.: Seneca Books, 1975.

  Gardner, Emelyn E. Folklore from the Schoharie Hills, New York. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1937.

  Halliwell-Phillips, James O. The Nursery Rhymes of England. London: Warne & Company, 1842.

  Harris, Joel Chandler. Nights With Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1882.

  Hole, Christina. Haunted England: A Survey of English Ghost-Lore. London: B. T. Batsford, 1950.

  *James, M. R. The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James. London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1931.

  Johnson, Clifton. What They Say in New England and Other American Folklore. Boston: Lee and Shepherd, 1896. Reprint edition, Carl A. Withers, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.

  Jones, Louis C. Things That Go Bump in the Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1959.

  Knapp, Mary and Herbert. One Potato, Two Potato: The Secret Education of American Children. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1976.

  *Leach, Maria. Rainbow Book of American Folk Tales and Legends. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co., 1958.

  ———, ed. “Revenant.” Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Publishing Co., 1972.

  *———. The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Stories. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co., 1959.

  *———. Whistle in the Graveyard. New York: The Viking Press, 1974.

  Montell, William M. Ghosts Along the Cumberland: Deathlore in the Kentucky Foothills. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1975.

  Musick, Ruth Ann. The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1965.

  Opie, Iona and Peter. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

  ———. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1951.

  Puckett, Newbell N. Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1926.

  Randolph, Vance. Ozark Folksongs. Columbia, Mo.: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1949.

  ———. Ozark Superstitions. New York: Columbia University Press, 1947. Reprint edition, Ozark Magic and Folklore. New York: Dover Publications, 1964.

  ———. Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Folk Tales. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.

  ———. The Talking Turtle and Other Ozark Folk Tales. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957.

  Roberts, Leonard. Old Greasybeard: Tales from the Cumberland Gap. Detroit: Folklore Associates, 1969. Reprint edition, Pikeville, Ky.: Pikeville College Press, 1980.

  ———. South from Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1955. Reprint edition, Pikeville, Ky.: Pikeville College Press, 1964.

  ———. Up Cutshin and Down Greasy: The Couches’ Tales and Songs. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1959. Reprinted as Sang Branch Settlers: Folksongs and Tales of an Eastern Kentucky Family, Pikeville, Ky.: Pikeville College Press, 1980.

  Sandburg, Carl. The American Songbag. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.

  Shakespeare, William. The Works of William Shakespeare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938.

  White, Newman I. American Negro Folk-Songs. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928.

  Articles

  Bacon, A. M., and Parsons, E. C. “Folk-Lore from Elizabeth Cith County, Va.” JAF 35 (1922):250–327.

  Barnes, Daniel R. “Some Functional Horror Stories on the Kansas University Campus.” SFQ 30 (1966):305–12.

  Beardsley, Richard K., and Hankey, Rosalie. “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” CFQ 1 (1942):303–36.

  ———. “The History of the Vanishing Hitchhiker.” CFQ 2 (1943):3–25.

  Boggs, Ralph Steele. “North Carolina White Folktales and Riddles.” JAF 47 (1934):289–328.

  Brown, Jennifer. “The Cure and Feeding of Windigo: A Critique.” American Anthropologist 73 (1971):20–21.

  Cord, Xenia E. “Further Notes on ‘The Assailant in the Back Seat.’” IF 2 (1969):50–54.

  Cox, John H. “Negro Tales from West Virginia.” JAF 47 (1934):341–57.

  Crowe, Hume. “The Wendigo and the Bear Who Walks.” NMFR 11 (1963–64):22–23.

  Dégh, Linda. “The Hook and the Boy Friend’s Death,” IF 1 (1968):92–106.

  Dorson, Richard. “The Folklore of Colleges.” The American Mercury 68 (1949):671–77.

  ———. “The Runaway Grandmother.” IF 1 (1968):68–69.

  ———. “The Roommate’s Death and Related Dormitory Stories in Formation.” IF 2 (1969):55–74.

  Doyle, Charles Clay. “‘As the Hearse Goes By’: The Modern Child’s Memento Mori.” PTFS 40 (1976):175–90.

  Drake, Carlos. “The Killer in the Back Seat.” IF 1 (1968):107–109.

  Fauset, Arthur Huff. “Tales and Riddles Collected in Philadelphia.” JAF 41 (1928):529–57.

  Halpert, Herbert. “The Rash Dog and the Bloody Head.” HFB 1 (1942):9–11.

  Himelick, Raymond. “Classical Versions of ‘The Poisoned Garment.’” HF 5 (1946):83–84.

  Ives, Edward D. “The Haunted House and the Headless Ghost.” NEF 4 (1962):61–67.

  Jones, Louis C. “Hitchhiking Ghosts of New York.” CFQ 4 (1945):284–92.

  Kennedy, Ruth. “The Silver Toe.” PTFS 6 (1927):41–42.

  Nuttall, Zelia. “A Note on Ancient Mexican Folk-Lore.” JAF 8 (1895):117–29.

  Parochetti, JoAnn Stephens. “Scary Stories from Purdue.” KFQ 10 (1965):49–57.

  Parsons, Elsie Crews. “Tales from Guilford County, North Carolina.” JAF 30 (1917):168–208.

  Randolph, Vance. “Folk Tales from Arkansas.” JAF 65 (1952):159–66.

  Reaver, J. Russell. “‘Embalmed Alive’: A Developing Urban Ghost Tale.” NYFQ 8 (1952):217–20.

  Speck, Frank G. “Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs.” JAF 48 (1935):1–107.

  Stewart, Susan. “The Epistemology of the Scary Story.” Scholarly article in process, 1980.

  Stimson, Anna K. “Cries of Defiance and Derision, and Rhythmic Chants of West Side New York City (1893–1903).” JAF 58 (1945):124–29.

  Theroux, Paul. “Christmas Ghosts.” The New York Times Book Review (Dec. 23, 1979):1, 15.

  Thigpen, Kenneth A., Jr. “Adolescent Legends in Brown County: A Survey.” IF 4 (1971):183–207.

  Vlach, John M. “One Black Eye and Other Horrors: A Case for the Humorous Anti-Legend.” IF 4 (1971):95–124.

  Acknowledgments

  The following persons helped me to prepare this book:

  Kendall Brewer, Frederick Seibert Brewer III, and Shawn Barry, who sat in the loft of a barn with me in Maine and told me scary stories.

  The Boy Scouts at Camp Roosevelt at East Eddington, Maine, who told me their scary stories.

  Several folklorists who shared with me their knowledge and scholarly resources, particularly Kenneth Goldstein of the University of Pennsylvania, Edward D. Ives of the University of Maine, and Susan Stewart of Temple University.

  Other scholars whose articles and collections were im
portant sources of information.

  Librarians at the University of Maine (Orono), the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and at the folklore archives listed on page 89.

  My wife, Barbara, who did the musical notation in Chapters 1 and 3, carried out bibliographical research, and contributed in other ways.

  I thank each of them.

  —A. S.

  Copyright

  SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK. Text copyright © 1981 by Alvin Schwartz. Illustrations copyright © 1981 by Stephen Gammell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover art by Stephen Gammell

  Cover design by Catherine San Juan

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Schwartz, Alvin.

  Scary stories to tell in the dark.

  Summary: Stories of ghosts and witches, “jump” stories, scary songs, and modern-day scary stories.

  ISBN 978-0-06-268282-6 (pbk.)

  1. Ghost stories, American. 2. Tales, American. [1. Ghost stories. 2. Folklore—United States] I. Gammell, Stephen. II. Title.

  PZ8.1.S399Sc 1981 80-08728

  398.2'5 AACR2

  * * *

  Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-268284-0

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-268282-6

  1718192021PC/LSCH10987654321

  Revised edition, 2017

  “The Thing” is adapted from an untitled story in Bluenose Ghosts by Helen Creighton with permission of McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., Toronto. Copyright 1957 by The Ryerson Press.