Myths+and+Urban+Legends


 * < __**Urban Myth**__ ||< The Radley house is haunted and Boo Radley is dead[[image:mockingbird2012/to_kill_a_mockingbird_08_t.jpg width="167" height="86"]] || If a kid is bad the seasons will change This is why it starts snowing when winter come ||  || No Crawford minds his own business ||< Aunt Alexandria says that the longer a family lives on a piece of land the better person they are || Every third Merriweather is Morbid || The truth is not in the Delafields || All Ewells are poor and can't take care for themselves ||
 * < __**Possible Origin**__ ||< Boo Radley never comes out of his house || Parents/adults trying to get the kids to be good. ||  || Crawfords tend to be nosy and have to know about everyone's lives ||< Many people in Maycomb have lived there for many years, including Aunt Alexandria. She probably thinks that this makes you a good person. || They like to talk about very disturbing things || The Delafields are not truthful and are always found telling lies || The Ewells aren't very nice and they are pretty poor ||
 * < **__Fact__** ||< Boo Radley is NOT dead and he is forced to stay in his home because, he committed a crime when he was younger and his father is making him stay in the house for the rest of his life as a punishment. || The seasons changing has nothing to do with kids being good or bad. ||  || Crawfords are kind of outsiders and know one tells them anything ||< You are a good person depending on how you act, and how your relationship with God is, not on how long you've lived somewhere. || NO KNOWN FACT || NO KNOWN FACT || NO KNOWN FACT ||

Myths and Urban Legends Myths are not just stories people believed long ago. People throughout time have believed myths. The people of Maycomb County in the 1930s did, and we have myths we believe today. Myths help us make sense of our world. They explain why things are the way we think they are, why people do as they do. Myths are not always about gods and goddesses. They explain the trivial as well as the important. They may not be true, but many people believe them anyway.

The myths of Maycomb County taught its citizens that certain things were true: Crawfords don't mind their own business; Bufords walk a certain way because their Bufords; Delfields don't tell the truth, so never take a check from one without calling the bank first; Mrs. Merriweather sips gin out of a Lydia Pinkham tonic bottle just like her mother did; non-whites are not quite human and do not fall under the same protection as whites; a lazy man is more deserving of justice that a hard-working non-white.

// Your Job //: List several myths from To Kill a Mockingbird. Identify their sources, if you can find them. Tell what actually happened. Also, discuss reasons why you think the myths got started and why anyone would believe them.

//** Example : **//
 * Urban Myth** : Spiders will crawl into the hair of a person with a lot of hair or with dreadlocks and cause the person to grow sick and die.


 * Possible Origin** : People have often said that with some hairdos, a person might forego washing it in order to preserve the style.


 * Fact** : There is no known case of someone having died from a bite by a spider who set up residence in a person's hair.