Witches' Trains AKA Zombie Trains

Witches trains, also known as zombie trains, are an element of the folklore of Southern Africa.  As the story goes, a person wandering alone at night may encounter a train, sometimes on an established track, sometimes simply moving along the landscape as if on a track despite the lack of rails,  that will stop for them.  If the unlucky wanderer boards the train, a conductor will ask whether they are seeking a "single" trip (one way) or a return trip. 

Answering "single" results in the unlucky passenger being killed and resurrected as a zombie, to spend their un-life doing the bidding of a witch or sorcerer.  Those who respond "return" will find themselves beaten, and then thrown from the train several miles away from where they boarded, often stranded with no clear means to return home.  


Commentary:  It needs to be made clear - the Zombie of African and Caribbean folklore is a different creature from the zombie of U.S. and European pop culture. 

In African and Caribbean folklore, the zombie may be someone who has actually died and been re-animated by a sorcerer or priest, or they may be someone who has never actually died but been made to look dead, and then had their soul captured by the sorcerer or priest.  Either way, the body is alive again, but without a mind or will of its own, and can be made to do the bidding of its master.  There are numerous accounts of former zombies being released, or otherwise re-gaining their minds/souls/wills, and leaving their masters.  And there is active debate as to just how much truth there may be to claims of pharmacological zombies - people put into a zombie state through the use of herbs or chemicals and used as slave labor by the people who prepared the concoctions.  A discussion of how much, if any, truth there is to these often sensationalized accounts is beyond the scope of this blog.  I would recommend that anyone interested start by reading materials available through groups such as National Geographic, and beware the frequent news accounts, which tend to dwell on the creepy or gruesome without critically examining the claims made.

The story of the zombie train appears to be tied into the concurrent development of railroads and European colonization.  Local folklore mixed with political realities in which the European colonists were oppressing the locals in a matter somewhat reminiscent of how a sorcerer oppresses his zombie slaves.  In post-colonial times, this story appears to have become attached to the development and enforcement of apartheid laws in South Africa, where a white minority held both de-facto and legal control over the lives and well beings of a large but subjugated black majority.  Moreover, both during the apartheid era, and following it, cheap workers from other locations were often brought in to work sites  by train rather than hiring local workers, leading to further impoverishment of local communities, the exploitation of migrants, and a distrust of outsidersm, making the zombie train a fearful thing both for migrants who fear becoming zombies, and for those who are displaced in the workforce by migrants, who they perceive as zombie-like. 

In a sense, this appears to be a case where political realities came to be reflected in the folklore.  An interesting, if disturbing, development.

Sources: Wikipedia, Blog

The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach

On the roads outside of Cannon Beach, Oregon, and especially an old, now bypassed, section of Highway 101, a strange and disturbing creature stalks the night. Drivers have long reported seeing a man, clad from head-to-toe in bandages stained with blood and other less identifiable fluids. Those who have come close enough report that the ersatz mummy smells horribly, as if he is rotting. And those who slow down, or who are unlucky enough to be walking when the creature comes out towards the road, have been savagely attacked. Sometimes it is claimed that the bandage man can simply appear in passing vehicles, without any obvious entry. Oddly, the bandage man is also said to eat dogs. Sometimes the bandage man leaves behind bits of putrescent bandages that fell off during attacks.

Stories of the origins of this being are variable, some holding that this is the ghost or re-animated corpse of a logger who had been severely injured in a sawmill, and died while in bandages. Others hold that this is a vengeful spirit of no earthly origin. Whatever the story, the bandage man is said to be violent, malevolent, and to be avoided.


Commentary: Now that I am back home after seven months on a time-consuming project for work, Halloween seems like a great day to begin posting stories on this blog.

This is a beautiful urban legend, complete with claims of physical evidence left behind (the bandages are often said to mark the scenes of his attacks, much like the hook left behind by a serial killer in one popular urban legend. The story is pretty damn creepy (although the part about eating dogs, while probably intended to be horrifying, simply sounds rather silly), and as someone who has driven on California's forested coastal highways late at night, I can attest that it is easy to let one's imagination run away and start seeing all manner of evil creature out of the corner of your eyes. In addition, the presence of a specific location allows legend tripping for the youth of the Cannon Beach area. It is also delightful to note that one of the sources listed below even contains a "friend-of-a-friend" story that fits the urban legend perfectly.

What is somewhat unique is that, as far as I have been able to determine, the bandage man is a one-of-a-kind, location-specific urban legend. Although elements of the story are common in many wide-spread urban legends, I have not been able to find anything quite like the bandage man anywhere outside of Cannon Beach, Oregon. And that makes this a story worth remembering.



Sources: Published Book, Internet, Internet, Internet

La Llorona

There was a beautiful widow who had two children. Although her children meant the world to her, she knew that she could not support them on her own and so she began to search for a new husband. She spent most of her evenings in saloons, cafes, anywhere where the men of her town would gather, searching for a husband who could help support her family. One night while she was out, bandits attacked her home and killed her children. When she returned home, she saw what had happened, and the knowledge that she might have been able to stop the murders had she been home rather than at the saloon drove her insane. She began to wander, crying "where are my children?" To this day, her ghost is still seen wandering the countryside, calling out for her lost children.

If that sounds a bit off, try this version:

A widow with two children fell in love with a man who had no interest in children. After trying for a long time to get his attention, she finally decided that her children were the impediment, and so she drowned them in the river. When the man discovered what she had done, he was horrified and refused to have anything to do with her. She was hung, but her ghost can still be seen wandering the riverbanks, crying for her lost children.

Still not quite right? How about this version:

A woman married and had two children with a horrible man, a ne'er do-well and a philanderer. One evening, he came home with another woman on his arm. He told his wife that he wished to see his children, but that she meant nothing to him any longer, he had replaced her with someone younger an prettier. The only way to get revenge against this man was to kill the children, which she did. After she had drowned them in the river, she realized what she had done, and gave herself up to the authorities. To this day, her ghost can still be seen wandering the banks of the river, crying and searching for her lost children."

...and there are many other versions. In some, the mother murders her children, in others they die due to her neglect, and in others she is arguably blameless in their deaths, and yet blames herself anyway. In some versions, she kills herself, in others she is executed, and in others she dies a natural death but is condemned to Earth by God for her failings as a mother.


Commentary: La Llorona (pronounced La Ya-Rona) or "the crying woman" is one of the classic ghost stories. Although this story is a common urban legend, it has been attached to many specific locations throughout the Americas, primarily Latin America and locations with large Hispanic populations within the U.S. and Canada. In addition to tellings of the story, reported sightings of La Llorona are common in these areas as well.

The origins and meaning of the story are very much open to intepretation.

One origin claimed for the story is that the Aztec the goddess Cihuacoatl or Coatlicue appeared before the Spanish arrived, crying for the death of her children, thus prophesying the destruction of the Aztec empire at the hands of the conquistadors. Over time, this story may have evolved into the La Llorona story. However, I am very skeptical of this, as the story of the prophecy sounds like a story developed after the destruction of the empire in an attempt to mythologize and make sense of the empire's destruction, and therefore it seems just as likely that later La Llorona tales influenced this story as that a pre-Colonial story morphed into La Llorona.

Another source that is often broguht up is the Banshee of Irish folkore. While there are some similarities, and a few specific La Llorona stories clearly claim that the crying woman is a harbinger of death, there are also a number of differences (La Llorona is a ghost, while the Banshee is a fey spirit, just for starters). Also, La Llorona appears in places with large Spanish-speaking populations, begging the question of why these people would be continuing an Irish story. It is nonetheless very likely that Banshee stories did influence the development of various La Llorona stories.

Most likely in my own personal estimation, the story began as a folktale in Latin America and moved along with immigrant populations throughout the Americas. Local conditions, different storytellers, and local traditions influenced the further development of the story, and as such, you have a number of different variations now.

The purpose of the story is also variable. First and foremost, it seems to be a campfire story - the sort of story that friends tell each other for entertainment, without taking the story too seriously. A second function appears to be as a safety tool for parents - water figures prominently in many (if not most) versions of the story and the ghost is usually reported at the riverbanks, suggesting that the story may be used to scare kids away from drowning hazards, and in the arid southwest of the United States (one of the places where this story is especially popular) flash floods in the arroyos are a deadly hazard.

Also, La Llorona appears to have become something of a boogey man, with parents telling their children "if you're not good, La Llorona will get you!"


The ghost story is a popular one, and has served as the basis for a film. What seperates it from most urban legends is that, as mobile and clearly "urban-legendish" as it is, there are still sightings of La Llorona, elevating it to an allegedly true ghost story.

Special Treat: The guys from Hometown Tales put together a video segment on the La Llarona legend as it is known in New Mexico. Check it out:



SOURCES: Internet, Internet