The Wordsworth Book of Urban Legend [antikvár]

Prologue It was a perfect July evening in 1976; George Melly was to perform at the Guildhall, Cambridge, and we had met beforehand in the yard of the Eagle Tavern in Bene't Street. George sat on a plastic beer-crate, wearing his Max Miller suit, with hat, cigar, cane and grin - exuding the charisma of a twentieth-century Samuel Johnson. Discussing some anecdote, he said: 'That's a whale-tumour story . . . Do you know what a whale-tumovir story is?' At that time, I didn't. He continued: During the war, when whale-meat was offered as a substitute for beef, a woman bought some whale-meat steak, took it home, and put it on a plate before preparing it for the oven. Her husband was sitting in the living-room, and suddenly a movement in the kitchen caught his eye on investigation, they found that it was the whale-meat, which contained a live tumour, gently throbbing A whale-tumour story is one of those that people swear is true - it happened to a friend of theirs, but you never actually meet this friend. And you keep hearing of the same thing happening to friends up and down the country After that, I started to notice and collect whale-tumour stories, and dredge further examples from my capacious memory. The first fruits of the labour, with some thoughts arising, were published as The Tumour in the Whale (Duckworth & W H Allen, 1978). And in 1984, Duckworth published a further collection of tales -Ws true .it happened to a friend - which carried on the work. By that time, the WTS had become the UL, or urban legend, by which title such tales are now dignified. This book updates the original work, for there have been many new occurrences since 1978 - and attitudes have certainly changed since then. It does not purport to be a complete collection of tales to date, but it does explore many topics, both general and personal, that I hope will give some insights into ULs in particular and life in general.