Legend tripping refers to the practice of visiting a location of paranormal or tragic significance. It generally involves a clandestine visit, and such trips are often undertaken at night to rural or abandoned sites. The phenomenon is well documented in the West, where such visitations are often planned by adolescents and framed as transgressive or even dangerous. As there are often taboo or antiauthoritarian elements to such excursions, sexual experimentation and the use of alcohol or drugs to heighten the experience are occasional features. Certain dates, due to their association with either the solar calendar or the occult, enjoy a cluster of legend trips associated with them. These include the summer solstice, winter solstice, and Halloween. Legend trips are often marked by ritualistic elements that highlight the more dangerous or supernatural elements of the experience and involve some ritual of confirmation. Storytelling often plays a central role, with aspects of the legend recounted to the uninitiated to sharpen anticipation.
The origins of legend tripping derive from the religious pilgrimages that were common throughout the medieval and early modern periods, and still continue in diminished form to this day. These pilgrimages were often local in nature to nearby shrines, but could also involve trips across the breadth of Europe, even to the Holy Land. At the same time, a countercurrent of simultaneous fear of and obsession with the devil pervaded medieval Christianity, with stories about cursed graveyards and ancient burial sites often attracting rather than repelling. Records of visiting a site where something of unexplainable or terrible significance occurred extend back into the oral tradition of medieval Europe, as evidenced in the “Ballad of Tam Lin,” first recorded in written form in sixteenth-century Scotland. The first documented modern legend trip, however, did not occur until the early part of the twentieth century. In 1905, a group known as the Ancient Order of Druids held an initiation ceremony at Stonehenge, ushering in a century filled with legend trips to that site, both by larger, organized groups (Neo-Pagans, New Age Travelers, etc.) and smaller groups. Like many of the more famous sites for legend tripping, Stonehenge has struggled with limiting nocturnal access, site degradation, and other problems.
There are numerous legend trip sites throughout the United States. Local pilgrimage destinations abound, and there are even quite a few of national significance. Different categories of legend tripping can be identified, each with their own flavor of potential danger or intrigue. Perhaps the most common sites are those that are reputed to be haunted, often by the ghost of a person who was murdered or terribly wronged in some fashion or another. These sites are most often rural and/or abandoned, as access is more difficult in places with greater security or oversight. In addition to haunted locations, another category involves spots where criminal behavior occurred, or where something horrific happened. As many of these sites are urban in nature, a fine line exists between local pressure to capitalize upon a site’s infamy and its credibility among those seeking an experience more transgressive in nature. For instance, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, has so thoroughly exploited its 1692–1693 witch trials that each and every site of interest has become heavily invested in tourism. Other such locations, still privately owned, have gone in the other direction, actively seeking to discourage legend trippers, either through limiting access or by taking other security measures. For instance, due to continued interest in the Manson Family following their 1969 murder spree, and the number of people who visited the house where Sharon Tate was murdered, the street address was changed to disguise the location in the 1990s.
A third category involves visiting burial sites, most commonly in the form of nocturnal pilgrimages to graveyards. This category combines the features of the previous two, as it often involves paying homage at the grave of a person who was murdered horrifically or died tragically, and who now is said to exist in spirit form. Although it derives from a European story where, in a darkened house, young girls would stare into a mirror and invoke the name “Bloody Mary” to see a picture of their future husband, there are several legend trip sites that profess to be the final resting place of Bloody Mary. One of these is a legendary figure who lived on Long Island, where dozens of story variants have her murdering her abusive mother with an axe, or being sentenced to hang as a witch, or committing suicide upon hearing of the death of her husband. This Bloody Mary is rumored to be buried at the head of the harbor, or at a number of cemeteries on Long Island. A local legend at the harbor holds that should a person find the exact site of her burial and say a specific phrase, he or she will have the power to wake the dead. Not all graveyard legend trips are steeped in supernatural intrigue, however. For decades, Rudolph Valentino’s crypt in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery has been a pilgrimage site, with an added dimension of interest in the fact that each year, upon the anniversary of his death, a mysterious woman dressed all in black appears to lay a single red rose upon his grave.
Two other categories fit some of the criteria for legend tripping, although they do not tend to be considered as part of this phenomenon. The first involves journeys to sites where cryptid creatures have been reported. For instance, following the release of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, which purported to capture footage of the Sasquatch popularly known as Bigfoot, people flocked to the Bluff Creek area of northwestern California in hopes of having their own sighting. Likewise, Lake Champlain in Vermont and Lake Okanagan in British Columbia have become destinations for those hoping to see the lake monsters reputed to live there (Champ and Ogopogo, respectively). Although there are elements of danger should such a creature actually make an appearance, in general these trips are more about tourism and generally undertaken by adults rather than adolescents. Furthermore, although unexplained, the creatures are biological, and therefore natural rather than supernatural. There is nothing transgressive about the pursuit, and thus considering cryptid-chasing as a full partner in legend tripping is tenuous at best.
The other category that only partially fits the criteria are the sites professed to involve UFO encounters. For instance, many have traveled to Roswell, New Mexico, to visit the site of the reported UFO landings of July 1947. Likewise, in west Texas, people routinely visit a roadside pullout to view the Marfa Lights, a series of lights that, under certain barometric conditions, can be seen in the distance. Despite having been conclusively demonstrated to pertain to cars on a distant highway, these lights continue to be imbued with extraterrestrial significance, and people continue to flock to this location. And although it doesn’t involve alien sightings, Area 51 north of Las Vegas has become a destination for thrill seekers, as it is purported to be the site of experimentation on extraterrestrial creatures and spacecraft. Although one cannot go to or even near Groom Lake at the center of the military installation, pilgrimages to the boundary have become commonplace, with pictures taken in front of the foreboding “Restricted Area” signs. Much like cryptid-chasing, however, most of these UFO destinations are visited by adults. And although there is a supernatural element at work, there is little semblance of danger or transgression. Thus, such UFO-themed visitations can only partially be considered legend trips.
Certain locations are well known for their clustering of legends based upon paranormal or criminal activity, and thus for their interest among would-be legend trippers. Louisville, Kentucky, is one such destination, boasting supposedly haunted hotels, caves, and a sanatorium. In addition, there is a secret passageway leading from one of the hotels that was used by Al Capone, and the Pope Lick Monster allegedly holds court under the railway trestle over Floyd’s Fork Creek. Washington, D.C. likewise boasts a number of ghosts reputed to haunt the governmental buildings, although the nature of such locations makes access difficult; like Louisville, most of the sites that are publicly accessible have become tourist attractions.
In its focus upon taboo and transgression, elements of imagined danger, and primacy of adolescent adherents, legend tripping enjoys similarities to the horror film genre. The practice is mostly considered to be harmless, although breaking and entering, graffiti, and vandalism are three low-level crimes often associated with such trips. Legend tripping has been studied for its qualities of ritual, transgression, and resistance to authority by folklorists, anthropologists, and psychologists. In particular, the ascendancy of this phenomenon in the decades following World War II is generally considered a feature of the growth and development of youth culture.
Roadside Rushmores
Americans have long written our legends into the very landscape around us, reshaping primeval wilderness into farmland and urban centers. This impulse gave birth, in the twentieth century, to a new, idiosyncratically American monumental mode. The presidential busts on Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota represent visions of American history writ large in stone: so, too, do a number of figures of American folklore, legend, and popular myth and media populate the berms of American highways, particularly in the Midwest. From Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, to ancestral Vikings, to founders and frontiersmen, to gargantuan effigies of local produce and wildlife, this mostly mid-twentieth-century phenomenon embodies a peculiarly “Roadside America” vision of our national narrative, a vision brought to life in wayside monuments that manifest the dreams and aspirations of the Middle America that gave birth to them.
C. Fee
Andrew Howe
See also Area 51; Bigfoot or Sasquatch; Champ; Haunted Houses; Roswell (New Mexico) UFO Landings; Salem Witch Trials
Further Reading
Balzano, Christopher. 2008. Picture Yourself Ghost Hunting. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Belanger, Jeff. 2014. “About Legend Tripping.” Legend Tripping website. http://legendtripping.com/about-legend-tripping/. Accessed July 21, 2015.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. 1994. “Playing with Fear: Interpreting the Adolescent Legend Trip.” Western Folklore 53 (3): 191–209.
Couch, J. Nathan. 2012. Washington County Paranormal: A Wisconsin Legend Trip. West Bend, WI: CreateSpace.
Kinsella, Michael. 2011. Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Legend Tripping—Primary Document
Visitor’s Guide to Salem (1894)
In the nineteenth century, Americans began to preserve documents and historical sites in recognition of their youthfulness as a nation and a desire for a sense of historical “rootedness.” The history of Salem, Massachusetts, became an object of fascination because of its early settlement, its maritime history, and, of course, the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692–1693. The town also became famous for the House of the Seven Gables, the subject (and title) of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s widely read 1851 novel. In the late 1800s, the town began publishing an annual Visitor’s Guide for tourists who sought to experience the nation’s colonial history firsthand, an early form of legend tripping.
The witchcraft delusion, which caused many to flee for their lives from Salem two centuries ago, now brings thousands of visitors every year; yet there are few people so unenlightened nowadays as not to know that belief in witchcraft was world-wide at that period, that it was the time and not the place which caused the reign of terror. Salem ought not to be held responsible by intelligent persons for the breaking of this cloud over her head, though she does take credit to herself that the general jail delivery, which took place within her borders the following year, closed this chapter in her history and was the forerunner of the breaking up of the delusion throughout the civilized world. The judges acted under English law and were appointed by the Provincial Governor and the majority of them who conducted the trials were not from Salem. The delusion was a frenzy, but it was, none the less, a fact; relics of it may be found at the Court House where is preserved testimony from the trials, with the celebrated “Witch pins” produced in Court with which the prisoners were accused of torturing their victims. Only one death warrant has been preserved, but it is the original document. For seven months of the year 1692 did the proceedings rage and during that time nineteen supposed witches were hung, fourteen of them being women, while Giles Corey who would not plead was pressed to death for his contumacy.
The atmosphere is clear enough now, and walking through the quiet streets of Salem to-day it is impossible to realize that the pathos and tragedy of two hundred years ago were in lives and not in story. Yet no tragedy of fiction appeals to the heart as do the simple records of those tried souls.
The dwellings which most of the early Salemites built for their families, were plain and prim, the chimney, large enough to accommodate a modern elevator, being the most prominent feature of the architecture, unless we except the remarkable parsimony of the builder as to land. Why, with a whole continent to use, the colonists placed their homes as snugly together as if they were modern Fifth Avenue residences, with generally never an inch to spare between the house and the roadway, is the speculation of many. Doubtless this was an imitation of the thickly settled English towns from which they came. The Narbonne House (71 Essex street) is an interesting specimen of the houses built before the witch-craft episode, for though plain, it has a distinctive flavor of the antique in its lines. The oldest house standing so far as known, is the Roger Williams House built before 1640, at the corner of Essex and North streets. Roger Williams was one of the early ministers of the First church, but the minister and magistrates not being harmonious, Williams it will be remembered fled to what was then the wilderness, now the placid little state of Rhode Island. If the stranger inquires for the ‘’Witch House” he will be directed to this same dark scowling building which is set back far enough from the sidewalk for a drug store to be put in front of one part of it. Unfortunately for those who love the mysterious, no witch ever played pranks under the roof and the only ground for the house being so named, is the tradition that some of the preliminary examinations took place there, being at that time the residence of Justice Jonathan Corwin. Truth also compels the statement that the house has been altered since those historic days and this may not be the original roof at all. But if one would gaze upon the spot genuinely connected with the witchcraft trials and not have his honest awe misplaced, let him look across the street to No. 315 Essex street, which, as the home of the dyer Shattuck, figured in the trial of Bridget Bishop. …
WITCHCRAFT SITES IN SALEM. The personal memorials of the witch-craft delusion must, of course, be looked for chiefly in the town of Danvers (Salem Village, 1692: now Danvers Centre, Danvers Plains, and portions of Peabody, Beverly, Middleton and Topsfield), where most of the personages connected with the events of that time lived. In Salem, how-ever, are the official reminders of the delusion for here the court appointed by the Provincial Governor, Phips, who had himself but just received office from the Crown, held the trials and here, too, the executions ordered by that court took place and such records of that court as still remain are preserved. Few buildings in Salem today can trace their history back to a connection with the events of 1692 and the list of sites given here which are made memorable by those events must be visited from sentimental feeling rather than with the expectation of obtaining a picture of the past. Such buildings and other objects as still possess a direct connection with the witchcraft times are specially noticed.
THE MEETING HOUSE, where the examination before Deputy Governur Danforth and others of the council took place, was the First Church (a building removed in 1718) the site of which is occupied by the present church edifice at the corner of Essex and Washington streets. These examinations were made April 11, 1692, after others had been held in the smaller meeting-house at Salem Village (now Danvers Centre) by the local magistrates Corwin and Hathorne. This assumption of authority by the government …, changed the character of the whole matter: “before it had been a Salem affair. Now it was a Massachusetts affair.”…
THE ROUTE TO “GALLOWS HILL,” by which the prisoners were taken to execution “in a cart,” was from the jail through St. Peter, Essex and Boston, nearly to Aborn streets, thence, turning back in order to ascend the least precipitous slope of the hill, to the highest point at its southern end, now approached almost in a direct line from Boston street through Hanson. Here nineteen persons were hanged. A movement is being made, under the auspices of the Essex Institute, to place upon the summit of this hill a suitable monument to the memory of those whose martyrdom took place there and to commemorate, also, the general jail delivery in 1693, the forerunner of the breaking away from the delusion throughout the world.
Source: Hunt, T. F., comp. Visitor’s Guide to Salem. Salem, MA: E. Putnam, 1894.