Spark writer Valentina Stephens puts together myths and horror stories compiled from her Italian and American background.

What about you, readers? Do you have any scary stories to share from your culture?

31st of October, in my opinion is the scariest night of the year. It’s Halloween! It’s a time for candy, scary costumes, and best of all HORROR STORIES!

Here are some horror stories from around the world.

Enjoy:)

Italy

In Italy we have a saying “Il gatto nero non e cosa pensi” which means “The black cat isn’t all what it seems”. In the 1800’s black cats where considered bad luck because they thought that these cats could transform into witches and tear your heart out while you were sleeping. They were also a symbol of death and people always preferred to avoid them. In fact locals used to take the kittens of black cats and drown them in rivers! One thousand were slaughtered in a town square because they thought they were witches or that they were the reason someone had died. Anyway, there is a myth in Italy where they say if black cat jumps over a dead body, the body will come back to life, stand up and walk straight.

America

Well, we all know about the big ‘Black Cat” superstition, but do you know about the wood myth? Basically the myth is if you say that you have never broken a bone you have to immediately touch wood, or else you will actually break a bone! This myth isn’t real, but who knows? It might be. In fact, Ela Kalra tells me that her soccer coach recounted that she never broke a bone before a soccer match, and guess what…she didn’t touch wood and ended up breaking her leg during the match and was rushed to the hospital! This happened over 20 years ago but I bet there are a lot of similar stories like this one. So all I have to say is, be careful what you say and ALWAYS touch wood. Better safe than sorry! 🙂

If you have some horror stories of your own then feel free to write them in the comment box 🙂