Timbaler del Bruc.
Catalonia was occupied by the Napoleon French army in the early nineteenth century. Then a young village boy who had only a little drum, began to play the drum with all their forces near the mountains. The sound it made was multiplied by the echo of the mountains and the invaders think that a large army was waiting and the french army fled.

This was one of the first defeat of Napoleon army who was thought to be invincible.

Not in, but thanks. +1
Great idea for giveaway.

There's an urban legend about old world war 2 bomb shelters being reconfigured as nuclear shelters with a network of tunels running under my town to connect them.
These seem to be linked to the space research centre at Surrey University.
Apparently, the university qualified as a target with a number of Soviet nukes aimed at the university.

My personal favourite local legend though is more a matter of historical fact.
in 1036, Alfred, son of Aethelred the Unready (one of the contestants for the throne) stopped at Guildford Castle on his way to London.
Him & his entire party was slaughtered in their sleep.
This is supposedly one of the events that led to the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Not outstanding in any way, but one of those best known, is a tale of King Matjaž.

I think the summary at Earthen Chivalry is well written, so I will quote it with very minor corrections:


The image of the sleeping king residing under a hill or mountain seems to be a popular one. From my own culture the first image that springs to mind is that of King Arthur, but it could equally be applied to Merlin and Bran the Blessed. Slovenia too has a similar legend, that of King Matjaž (Kralj Matjaž).

King Matjaž was a just king whose throne sat at Krn castle. His rule was the golden age, and always was he ready to help those in need. But other kings were very envious of his power, so they united their armies against him and with the battle that followed only King Matjaž and a hundred of his men survived. They have retreated to Mount Peca, which had protected them from their enemies, and shelters their sleeping forms to this day.

Around a stone table they all sit and it is said that when the beard of King Matjaž circles it nine times, they will again awake and the golden age of Slovenia will be renewed.


Well, apparently our beloved king hasn't woken up yet.

Some depictions of King Matjaž:

There's a legend from the war against the french here in Catalonia. It's called "El timbaler del Bruc (Bruc's Drummer). It's told that the Drummer, alone, started to play the drums in the mountain, and with the echoes, the French though it was an army coming and ran away.

there is a deranged man with the head of a horse living in the woods behind my summercamp. he isn't the jersey devil but his description is a direct ripoff

I'll tell you about how the Earth got made in Finnish folklore.

At first there were only water and air, and the only living creature was Ilmatar, the air maiden. She was bored of her solitary life, and went swimming in the sea one day. The winds of the ocean got her pregnant, but even after nine years she hadn't given birth. She was sad and cried, when suddenly an aythya (a certain member of a species of ducks) landed on her knee and made a nest there. The duck laid six golden eggs and one iron egg in the nest. Ilmatar shifted her knee, when suddenly all the eggs fell into the water and broke. The land, sky, the sun, the moon, the stars and clouds came to be from the fragments. The child in Ilmatar's womb still wasn't born, but some time later decided to come out on its own. A man called Väinämöinen, a sage, wizard and all-around bad-ass of a dude saw the light of day. This man was the first human there ever was.

If I should win, I would like Leisure Suit Larry: Greatest Hits and Misses! - thank you for the giveaway.

You know about vampires, right? Well, they were initially called "Strigoi"(both plural and singular) with "Vampir" only being used by a small subgroup of romanians called Megleno-romanians. In romanian tradition, when you're being haunted by strigoi, it's almost always a relative, and the way to get rid of the curse was this: You and all the other affected people go to the cemetery, and dig up the corpse of the person who was considered the strigoi, and the corpse would be stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake. Afterwards, the heart would be taken out, charred, and mashed into a fine powder, which was then added to a cauldron of boiling wine, which the people affected by the curse would drink to be cured.

In and +1.

One of my favorite ones is the Nuckelavee its this centaur like beast that appears as if it was skinned alive it has big sharp claws it causes crops to die with its breath and livestock to get sick, it also starts killing if enraged

L'home dels nassos, or the man of the noses, is a sort of joke to entertain the children in which they are encouraged to look the streets for this extraordinary man.

From Wikipedia:
The legend says that, on New Year's Eve, this man walks the streets and has as many noses on his face as days the year has. In this way, children of Catalonia are led to believe that there is a man with 365 noses, but of course, being the last day of the year, he conveniently and ironically has only one, the rest have been already lost.

So everybody is l'home dels nassos.

My favourite folk tale is irish in origin and concerns a hero called Cu Chullain, who, even from early childhood, was destined to be a warrior after he killd the kings hunting hounds with a ball.

I suppose he would have been considered a berzerker character class in a videogame as, in the heat of battle, he went bonkers and killed everything around him.

His most famous tale is based on a a story called The Tain, it is about a king and queen arguing who has the most prized possessions, eventually its decided that the kings treasure is better as he has a famous bull, but this bull had been born into the queens herd, only, he didnt want to be owned by a woman, so he left and went to the kings herd.

To enhance her treasures, she decides to rent a bull from another part of the country, but the people from whom she intended to rent the bull, find out she would have taken it by force, if they declined to rent. The negotiations break down and so the queen raises an army to take the bull.

A witch puts a curse on the queens enemies and they are defeated, except for Cu Chullain, who is off having some nookie with some woman. So, he starts a guerrilla campaign against the queens army, picking them off one by one as they travel back to the queen, eventually holding them to a stand off be demanding they send their greatest warriors one at a time to fight him, man to man. this goes on for month's. He is visited by a witch before one fight, who says she will aid him in combat if he "loves" her, but, he refuses, and therefore she casts a succession of spells hindering him in combat. Eventually the queen gets the bull as Cu Chullain fights and eventually defeats the witch.

Later he finds and old injured woman and he heals her, it turns out to be the witch again, but during this fight he is badly injured. his father comes to his aid and casts a sleeping spell on him while he heals him, meanwhile, some youths from his guild try to come to his aid and are slaughtered by the queens army.

When Cu Chullain wakes up and finds out, he goes into a berzerk rage and kills 6 of the queens soldiers for every one youth that was slaughtered. This produces another stalemate and the single combat sessions resume, but the queen breaks the rules and sends many warriors against him. Eventually she sends his foster father and his best friend (who he kills) against him.

Around this time, the curse on Cu Chullains army wears off and they head off to battle, to rescue him and fight the queen and king. The queen and king are defeated and retreat, but they still have the bull, when they get home, the bull kills their own bull, but becomes mortally wounded himself and also dies.

Later on, Cu Chullain does die in battle, as the battle progresses, he becomes terribly wounded and straps himself to a pillar, so he can die facing his enemies, but his prowess had wrought such fear in his enemies, they were too afraid to approach him, until they saw a raven land on his shoulder and drink his blood.

EDIT : MORE CU Chulainn stories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%BA_Chulainn

Actually, he was considered Lancer character class.

Actually he would as his weapon the Gae Bolga was a spear. :)

Whats that character sheet from, looks cool?

Gae Bolg, yes. Good times.

It's from the game Fate/Stay night (wishlist). But don't get your hopes up: it's actually more of a visual novel, so you don't really get to use those stats. It's just something to give you an idea of the skills of each of the 7 heroes summoned for the battle royale. But it does have a great story, IMO.

Not in, but great giveaway, and interesting reading!