As cool weather descends and days become shorter, friends gather around the campfire one last time to tell spine-chilling stories of crying statues, headless horsemen and even strange noises coming from the local football stadium.

Urban legends, faceless hitch hikers, haunted houses and scary graveyards are all common, but what residents may not know is that Utah County has its own folklore, past and present.

"Folklore is looking at the values of a culture as shown through their oral traditions, performances and their material culture," said Deidre Paulsen, professor of English who teaches an introduction to folklore class. "Many people have the misconception that folklore means false."

But according to folklore specialists, the validity of these tales is the least of their worries.

"We don't really care about whether or not it's true," said Kristi Young, curator of Wilson Folklore Archives at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. "What we care about is how people use it [folklore] and how they react to it. Those are the things of interest to us."

Utah County has several interesting folklore tales, just waiting to be investigated.

Weeping Woman in Provo Cemetery

In the Provo Cemetery located on the southeast side of town resides La Llorona, also known as the weeping woman. She is a statue in the cemetery that is said to have actual tear marks flowing from her face.

Young said that there is a common pattern all over the country with tears on statues in cemeteries.

Similar stories take place in cemeteries and graveyards. It is rumored that in a Springville cemetery, a headstone lights up when visitors circle it, chanting a question of why the person died.

Utah Lake Monster

Despite Utah Lake's reputation for being extremely shallow and dirty; water-skiers still ride the wake. Rumors about a piranha swimming in Utah Lake are more recent, but back in the 1800s there was a genuine fear of a Utah Lake Monster. The height of the lake monster's "appearances" was between the mid-1860s to the early 1880s shortly after a monster was spotted up north at Bear Lake. The first reports ranged from fishermen seeing a large snake-like creature with black eyes to a strange sea animal shaped like a seal.

"I've never heard of it," said Zach Richardson, a junior from Orem majoring in communications. "Honestly, I think we wanted a piece of the Loch Ness monster pie."

Haunted Castle behind Utah State Hospital

Up until 1997, a castle-like building behind the Utah State Mental Hospital was a popular haunted house for locals to enjoy a Halloween scare. But before it served as a haunted house, and since those events ended, it's rumored that the castle is actually haunted again.

If interested in learning more about local folklore, even more specifically Mormon folklore, there are classes taught here at BYU. You can register for each under the English Department. To take a quick look at folklore topics, browse the Wilson Folklore Archives Web site: sc.lib.byu.edu/collections/folklore.html

Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Oct 2006