There are some stories which I guess count as urban legends. Since I heard them when I was very young, I never expected them to continue to spread to today! In an era which has seen a explosion in available information, in which more and more things rapidly fade away, this is hard to imagine.
Well, I won’t talk too much about that. Let me first talk about the versions of the legend I heard when I was small.
A group of friends had a sleep-over. They slept in a Japanese style room together. One of them, well, I guess you could call him the main character. The main character heard a strange noise in the dead of night. He got up to check it out and found that one of his friends was pacing back and forth holding a watermelon knife. The main character felt very afraid and was afraid to say anything, so he just secretly watched his friend.
His friend was holding the watermelon knife in one hand and with the other hand, he would rub the head of of their friends. Then he would shake his head, and move onto someone else and rub the head of another one of them. After he felt all of their heads, he seemed dissatisfied, so put away the watermelon knife and went back to sleep.
The second day, the main character couldn’t help but ask his friend why he got up in the night. His friend said, “I didn’t. I slept very well last night. I even had a strange dream, I dreamt that I was looking for a good watermelon in a watermelon field. But I didn’t find any good watermelons, the watermelons were all very strangely shaped, so I gave up.”
Actually, when I first heard this story, it wasn’t really as an urban legend, it was more as black humor. This person thought his friends’ heads were watermelons and nearly decapitated them. It’s kind of scary, but also sort of funny. Of course, this wouldn’t be a joke if he had actually tried to cut off their heads, then it wouldn’t be a joke, it would be a scary story.
What surprises me is that, although this doesn’t seem to be based on any specific story or incident, the story continues to be spread even now. And there’s a version which is a scary story! Why I would say that this is an urban legend is because it has become so widespread that I think it must reflect some kind of fundamental fear, as expressed in a contemporary form.
For example, sleepwalking. In premodern times, sleepwalking must have been thought to be possession by some kind of ghost, demon, or supernatural entity! But in modern times, we all know that sleepwalking is a natural phenomenon. And so what is scary is a natural phenomenon. Because nobody can be sure what kind of behavior they’ll have when sleepwalking.
The disconnect between people and their behavior, this makes people afraid. I believe that is one of the reasons for the spread of this urban legend.