Can you do an origin on “the ribbon”? It was one of my favorites in the scary story collection because it does a good job at making it seem like an normal story till the end (which was oddly my favorite pt as a kid).
Can we please get an episode on Nuada Airgetlám from Irish mythology [Hellboy 2 also has a character inspired by him]? The idea that you can't be a king if your body isn't intact is interesting.
You should do the messed up origins of the Bible. I feel you’ll be the best to tell your findings the most truthful. I think it’ll blow all of our minds
The most scary part of this story for me has always been the fact that the family was not only fine with eating a random human toe bur that the parents were like proud of their kid for bringing it home
I was told these kind of stories are usually set around a great famine. Where getting meat is scarce. It's to keep people from doing taboo things like cannibalism,etc. I've heard different versions of this story.
I always felt the opening premise of The Big Toe was part of what made it so spooky. The fact that the family found nothing strange in a human toe sticking out of the dirt, and then proceeded to cook and eat it as though that's just what you do when you find such a thing, gives the story an unsettling, surreal quality from the very beginning. Makes the reader feel like they're already in this weird dream world where things just aren't quite the way they should be... a feeling wonderfully accentuated and magnified by the illustrations. It just so perfectly sets the mood for the story, and likewise for the entire anthology.
I read a story like this here in Sweden when I was little. It was about a boy whose grandma had passed recently and was still stored in the attic before she was to be taken to the morgue. The boy was ordered by his parents to out to town and buy a liver for their dinner, but the boy being very lazy decided to instead sneak into the attic and just take his grandma's liver. So later that night, the shambling corpse of his grandmother called out "who has taken my liver". Always felt this one was a bit more sensical than the big toe story, as the protagonist is driven by laziness and a liver rather than a toe is something people actually use in cooking and might not be able to tell immediately what "animal" it came from.
Heard a similar version except the kid was given money to buy liver but bought candy instead then cut out a stranger's liver. "Give me back my liver!" Agreed, also a human liver is easier to mistake/swap for an animal's than a toe.
Omg my dad told me the same story But instead he bought candy with the money instead! And the boys name was Johnny and he dig up a corpse instead and took its liver and also the boy got so scared his hair turned white when the corpse came to take it back
Too many characters were down with cannibalism in the books. Like they find/get a human body part, take it home, cook it and then eat it…like even without the angry spirit looking for their body part, why would you do that…
God, I remember reading that story for the first time. I had such trouble sleeping because I kept peeking out the window wondering just where the toe monster was. Also, I'd love it if you covered Sounds, A Weird Blue light, and The Girl Who Stood on the Grave.
This story I always found to be strange and disturbing. My first thought as a kid was "Why would anyone eat some toe?" I think you should do all of them since you have only done 3 of the Scary Stories to tell in the dark.
I love the bone soup story from I think is from the third book. The little old lady just screaming "FINE HERE'S YOUR BONE" while tossing it out the window then just sits down to eat her soup is hilarious.
I love this series! The "I ate what I shouldn't have" trope is always one of my favorites. One I would love for you to cover is the "Me tie dough-ty walker" story. Not sure if you will, but that one gives me the serious chills. Not sure if I mentioned it before, sorry. Not trying to be pushy. Love your content.
lol I was just trying to remember what that rhyme was when I clicked on the video, I actually thought it was part of this story cuz my memory is shit and I was specifically looking at the comments hoping someone would mention it so thanks for the reminder 😅
I remember my family checking out the audio book from the library. We put a blanket over our kitchen table to make a fort and shut off the lights. We listened to this story in the dark of our fort and even as a kid who loved creepy things, I screamed and ran to my room after hearing it 😅
You know, there’s a pub in Alaska with a cocktail called the “sour toe”. It’s a whiskey cocktail that has a mummified/frost bitten human toe dropped into it. The toe was formerly attached to a miner who rushed to Alaska during the 1800s gold rush. If you gulp it down and catch the toe in your mouth, you get your 8x10 picture posted over the bar.
I’m so happy you ended up continuing to follow the “Stories to Tell in The Dark”. And you absolutely nailed Mark Twain’s advice. That ending to the toe story scared me good. 😂 cant wait to see what story you share next!
This story reminds me of the tailypo with some random person finding a body part that coincidentally belongs to some demonic figure that wants their part back and does whatever possible
The big toe patern is used with: silver coins, a liver and so on but in the story ,,cemetery soup,, the protagonist a middle-aged lady finds a bone in a cemetery on the ground and ads it to her soup findinv the result delicios and the owner of the bone starts saying ,,where is my bone'' and ,,give me back my bone'' and the lady being the only smart person in the entire scary stories to tell in the dark series yeets the bone yelling ,,take it''! And enjoys the soup without the bone. And the ghost never bothered her again.
The story of Catarinetta reminds me of Uncle Lupo/Uncle Wolf, a werewolf also from Italy 🇮🇹, whose niece passes off horse turds as beignets, dirty swamp water as white wine, and makes a loaf of concrete bread, after eating it all and even quaffing all the wine. Uncle Wolf also comes after her and devours her alive!
Me and my dad used to spend time reading books to each other. We should sit on his bed in his dimly lit room and ready spooky tales. I'd read goosebumps while he would read any old book from our collection down stairs. One night it was my fathers tern to read and he picked this book. And of course, this story was first. My father was always good with reading storys with passion, but never before did he scare me with a story. When a story would tell him to do so he would say the last words in a wimper instead, but that night he decided I was old enough to be scared. So when he read the part where the creature was coming towers the bed he looked away from me and only at the book, and started to stomp his feet on the ground beside his bed. Slowly he stomped louder and louder with his back faced towards me. He paused for just a minute then launched at me screaming: "YOU HAVE MY TOE!!". He yelled so loud the dog next door started barking. I remember being scared of my father all night. Even if he hugged me right after. He sent me to bed and walking in that dark hallway to my room was never as scary as then. I remember getting in bed and worrying the story would come true hours later when I heard my dad stomping slowly towards my door. I cried in fear that for some reason my dad would scare me again. Turns out my father was just really tired and going to the bathroom past my door and only looked in my room to make sure I was asleep. I was only 10.
I remember four stories from those books. One was about a girl who was raised by wolves. "The Wolf Girl." The second was the spider-zit story. The third was the bride in the chest. And the Fourth was the one with the headlights.
There was a story in a completely different set of scary stories that involved a flute, which it turns out, was made from the leg bone of a dead man. Every time it was played, the corpse came to the location in search of it. The story ends with the new owner of the flute, knowing nothing of its origins, sitting at home playing, and not hearing the sound of the front door being smashed in. Corpses coming back for body parts is a really chilling story trope.
I was hoping you would do this one. Me and my brother were discussing old horror stories and all these years we still wonder who the heck finds a random toe and thinks "Let's eat it."
I remember "The Golden Arm" and another variation of it Can't remember what its called but its about this timid woman cooking for her bully of a husband. She starts cooking up liver, the thing while she is taste tasting the liver it turns out to be so good that she continues to eat it, until its all gone. Knowing that her husband will beat her when he finds out that she eaten his favorite meal....she remembers that someone had died recently........A while later her husband comes home and eats his meal. Later that night while husband and wife are sleeping; the wife awakens to hear a voice calling "Who stole my liver? Who stole it?" The voice comes closer and closer, until it's in the bedroom, and the poor woman is shaking with terror. Finally she points to her husband and shouts "He has it!" Then her husband starts to scream...
Fittingly the one story that Scwartz adapted many other times in his books. The others include as you mentioned "Clinkity-Clink" from Joel Chandler Harris 10:42, Just Delicious (A tale similar to this covered here: 12:56), Cemetary Soup, and the Teeny Tiny Woman. The latter 2 had the protagonists survive by giving into the ghost's demands and giving back the item stolen. Along with Who Do You Come For, and It's Him, minus the body part stealing.
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell us the story of the woman with the golden leg. Similar to the golden arm, but kids stole it instead of her husband. I loved it.
I loved reading The Big Toe at sleepovers. It was so much fun. I would love to see you cover either "The White Satin Evening Gown" or "High Beams" at some point.
You forgot the 4th and most important legit use of a corpse, Taking it to a beachparty bonfire causing it to start a conga line that leads to an ancient cursed treasure!
Hi Jon! Awesome stuff as usual. I've always enjoyed these stories, and learning about the lore behind them is great. One I would definitely love you to cover is the "What do you come for" story. With the Jangly Man, still to this day, this story has always freaked me out the most. And has always stuck with me.
Hey John love these episodes on the Scary Storeies books series, they were the first things of the horror genre I’ve read and they have always stuck with me. That Golden Arm story is interesting because I remember hearing a different version of it from my dad as a kid. It was about a man who loses his arm because he hung it out the window while driving and replaced it with a golden arm. However, overtime the arm repeatedly tries the strangle the man until he dumps it one day. But then in the middle of the night the hand came back to him and finished the job. My dad would end the story with him tickling us pretending to be the Golden arm. I had no idea it was originally a story by Mark Twain all these years later so that was interesting to hear.
I remember when I was little my dad would scare the crap out of me by reciting, "WHERE'S MY BIG TOE?" in a big booming voice. I, too, his under the covers before he'd grab me playfully and I'd scream. Fun times.
I was born in 1962 and grew up hearing a similar type of scary story with the repeated line "Give me back my bloody finger!" (First in a deep low tone through the story, and finally louder as a jump scare). That's all I really remember of the story though, lol
That was awesome...you scared me! Man....I remember looking at that book at the school library and being shocked at how frigging creepy they were....I couldn't believe they would let us see it. They are still the creepiest images there is. Soooooo disturbing...
Long time ago I heard similar story called Maria Angula. Maria Angula was young wife who was not good at cooking, and when her husband wanted specific dish, she run to lady in neighborhood and asks about recipes, but when lady tells recipe, Maria Angula always laughs that recipe is so easy. Neighbor Lady gets tired and annoyed by Maria, and once when she asks about recipe again, lady tells her to go to the graveyard, wait for the fresh body, and cut out guts from it. Maria does everything, cooks guts and gave her husband for dinner, but at night she was awaken by voice calling ,,Maria Angula, give me back my guts that you stole from my holy burial". Maria hides under cover of her bed, scared for her life, and after that cold hands took her legs, and dragged her from house. Next day her husband searched for her everywhere, but she never appeared again. I think that story was spanish, and i'm from Poland, so if I forgot some elements or wrote something wrong, I'm really sorry
I heard the Golden Arm one. Strangely enough, there was also a football player so skilled he was dubbed to have a "Golden Arm." There is also a Golden Arm award given to football players with outstanding achievements. When I read the story, I never knew of the connection, but apparently my dad did, as he went to the same university as Johnny Unitas. (My whole family did.) He told me of the football player, and when I went to University of Louisville, I saw a dormitory tower that bears his name.
I think the real problem I have with the movie version of the story is that he could have - following standard folklore ghost logic of them buggering off once appeased - just told the ghost the toe was in the kitchen and been fine. He didn't actually go through with eating it as far as I can tell (It seemed like he spat it back out), unlike in the original story where the whole family eats part of the toe and thus the kid wouldn't be able to just give it back. These sorts of scenarios only really work if the person can't or is unwilling to give back the stolen property.
My grandpa used to tell us this story a lot, along with raw hide and bloody bones. There was also a story, where at the end we’d all get up and jump on grandpa. It went. ‘There once was a man, a boy….. and a big black dog!’ And after he said dog we pounced. I hope to have stories like that with my kids and grandkids.
Grew up reading these stories, now at 40 yrs of age, i read them to my kids. The Thing was always the one that creeped me out, and still does if i look at it too long. If you find the time, please cover "the thing". Apple your work.
I've always seen the "Scary stories to tell in the dark" movie as a more mature version of the Goosebumps movie from 2015. Both movies follow a group of teens who encounter characters from children's stories that wreak havoc throughout their town, but while there are no deaths in the goosebumps movie and the "Havoc" that the monster's cause is more inconvienient than deadly, it's still a similar premise. with SSTTITD (Scary stories to tell in the dark) the monsters are more deadly because of the macabre nature of their stories while the goosebumps monsters are more wacky and silly.
I love your videos and the amount of time you clearly put into it. Hopefully, we will get to see more background stories of scary stories to tell in the dark in the future.
This was my first exposure to the scary stories series as my 3rd grade teacher read it to us in a spooky (for 3rd graders) and almost theatrical way and I was absolutely hooked because it freaked me out so much. The fact that cannibalism is just.. accepted in many of the stories is so creepy. The supernatural elements aren’t the scariest parts, it’s the willingness of people to eat random human body parts they find
I love this story! I actually got to tell this story to the 5th grade classes where I work. The screamed and jumped so high but they loved it! It was so much fun! They even got to write their own scary stories and they were awesome! ❤❤
I was honestly expecting a plot twist wherein the family are ghouls in an HG Wells inspired story about ghouls raising humans like cattle. But no, they are just plain humans who like to eat dead bodies.
I was told the story of the Golden Arm when I was a cub scout, however in the version I was told the husband doesn't just take the arm from his wife's corpse; he actually murders her in order to acquire it.
Haha. I jumped. Not only that I turned up the volume during the story telling. Almost like leaning in. The the scare made me jump so bad. You got me. 😂😂😂
Another great video! Watching this I realized that the show Courage the Cowardly Dog, had an episode that had the same lesson as The Big Toe and stories like it. It's the one with King Ramses. My least favorite episode only because that mummy's face still scares me to this day.
my poor rural farmer mother told me this story as a child. it began with an old couple finding a piece of meat among the beans in their garden. they were so happy to have a piece of meat when later that night something came looking for its "big toe"... I never put two and two together as a child to understand it was a buried body and the implications of that... I just thought it was some boogeyman who for some reason lost its big toe in the soil of this garden sometime in the past. That might have been more eerie. Something extremely sad about the depression era starving elderly couple in my mother's version of the story too.
My health issues are plaguing me and I'm kind of out of it. I'm laying here listening to this video and the first thing that registers with me is ride me around the countryside. I seriously sat up in bed like, the f**k he just say? Legit though dude I freaking love your videos!
This was always my go-to story when we told scary stories at sleepovers, it always freaked me out. I have since shared it with my nieces, nephews, and children! Thanks for this video! I was hoping you'd do this story!
I read this trilogy before any of my peers, since I liked scary stuff and I was an advanced early reader. I loved practicing my delivery following the suggestions in the book on all the kids on my school bus in the morning, and it became an event for me to bring a new short story to tell for the bus ride at least three times a week. Then some other little kid got legit freaked out and told his mom, and I had to stop. 😑 Wuss.
Heard/read several variants as a child. Love the fact that in "Teeny tiny woman" the woman just...throws the bone she found to the ghost who demads it back and goes back to bed. 😂
I’ll be honest, none of these stories scared me that much as a kid, when I read the books in my school library. Instead, I found them fascinating. Especially interesting to me were the appendices after the stories, telling the lore, history, and origins of all the stories. Pretty much like what you do with every video you make.
My grandpa tells a story about a boy who spends his grocery money on candy instead of meat for his mother. He sees a freshly filled grave and digs it up to find a man and decides to cut out his liver and pass it off as an animal's. After his mother prepares it for dinner he refuses to eat it. Later that night he hears a voice saying 'i want my liver back'. At the end he would always yell 'gotcha!' Instead of 'You've got it'
There are at least three other stories like this in the series: Cemetery Soup, Clinkity-Clink, and Just Delicious. Clinkity-Clink follows the formula to a tee, but Cemetery Soup differs in that the old woman throws the "soup" bone out of the window and the corpse skiddadles, while "Just Delicious" differs in that the victim of the ghost's revenge isn't the woman who stole and cooked its liver, but the woman's abusive husband who ate it.
It was the scary stories series that got me into reading as a kid. Had a hard time keeping the teachers from taking the books away because they felt it was too gruesome and more something that’s only okey on Halloween.
Before we ever got the scary stories book. My father would tell us "The Golden arm" story. One afternoon, he was telling it to us because we all begged. We didn't know my mother had ordered pizza. The doorbell rang as the jump scare ending was reached. We all just started screaming. Lol, that pizza guy was really confused.
I had heard several variants before the age of ten. One of them is the English tale "Teeny Tiny Woman", where the stolen thing is a bone the teeny tiny woman decidesto use for bone broth. When the dead guy comes back to reclaim his bone, the woman simply yells at him to take the bone back.
I absolutely love this series! One thing I keep encountering in the comments though is why would someone so readily engage in cannibalism?! The reason is that the time these tales were created occurred during periods of great famine and plague in most of Europe, the result of which was massive economic downfall which in turn caused devastating poverty and starvation. Due to this desperate people turned to desperate measures which included abandoning their children and/or dependant relatives, stealing from both the living and the dead, and in extreme cases cannibalism! That is why so many folktales and fairy stories are filled with such morbid and macabre subject matter. This was really happening! These tales were used as both warnings and moral lessons and as a lover of all things spooky and a little dark I find this both horrifying and fascinating! Keep shooting first Jon, your videos are amazing! 😍🤩
I would love to see you cover "Maybe You Will Remember". Ever since I first read the Scary Stories collection, that particular story has lived rent free in my head, specifically because it was the sort of horror you didn't quite get as a young child, but once you're a bit older it hits you full force. It's perfect Fridge Horror.
Jon: And instead of yeeting himself out the nearest window like he should have Me: You mean, instead of yeeting the big toe down the hallway at the monster like he should have? (For real though, Auggie didn't actually eat the toe! He still had it. Just give it back FFS!)
This one was the one that stuck with me my whole life. The thought of being so hungry you're willing to eat rotting human flesh, bone, and nail 🤮 was incredibly gut-wrenching when I was in elementary school. Thank you for deep diving into this one! It was intriguing to hear the background to this story!
The new merch looks dope! Jon ain’t wrong when he said it looks metal af. Also- this oddly sounds very similar to Taily Po. Kinda fascinating how many cultures and regions have a story and/or myth letting people know not to eat unknown substances that don’t belong to you and to leave dead corpses alone if you aren’t going to help bury them respectfully with the proper burial rights 🫠
There's one story in the series about a girl who always wears a ribbon tied around her neck. She never takes it off. The girls grows up and gets married. She still is wearing the ribbon. She makes her husband promise to never remove the ribbon around her neck. Years go by and eventually the girl, now an old woman is on her death bed. Again she tells her husband to not remove her ribbon. She has never explained why she's worn the ribbon all of her life. When the old woman passes away, her husband's curiosity gets the best of him. He decides to gently untie the ribbon, which provides him that solves the mystery of the ribbon.
The Big Two is my six years old favorite scary story. She loves the big scare at the end and the build up to the thing coming to get the boy. It really is a great story to start with with younger ones.
When you mentioned at the beginning that they were cautionary tales, it reminded me of "Jenny Greenteeth"! I forgot where I had read this as a child, but children living near some pond or lake were told not to go near it since the corpse of a girl who had drowned would pull them under.
I was obsessed with these books as a kid but I had no clue that Stephen Gammell was an illustrator of other children's books, like totally normal ones. Then a couple years ago I found a book and the illustrations looked oddly familiar. I knew I'd seen that style before and kept getting flashes of really creepy ones. I had a suspicion and googled his name and yep, Scary Stories popped up. I can't imagine how weird it would be as a kid to read some silly little story from him right after reading Scary Stories. The tonal whiplash would leave you not trusting the rest of the cute little story and each page you'd expect something creepy to jump out.
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jon solo solos the whole story with out showing an emotion but funny af classic jon
I have my diaper on thank you for the warning
Can you do an origin on “the ribbon”? It was one of my favorites in the scary story collection because it does a good job at making it seem like an normal story till the end (which was oddly my favorite pt as a kid).
Can we please get an episode on Nuada Airgetlám from Irish mythology [Hellboy 2 also has a character inspired by him]? The idea that you can't be a king if your body isn't intact is interesting.
You should do the messed up origins of the Bible. I feel you’ll be the best to tell your findings the most truthful. I think it’ll blow all of our minds
The most scary part of this story for me has always been the fact that the family was not only fine with eating a random human toe bur that the parents were like proud of their kid for bringing it home
I was told these kind of stories are usually set around a great famine. Where getting meat is scarce. It's to keep people from doing taboo things like cannibalism,etc. I've heard different versions of this story.
My mom would've send me to the psych ward 💀
And then she would have cut herself a slice of that toe after pan searing it in olive oil and oregano😉
They were probably broke ash and meat is a commodity for them only way I can see being excited to eat a dirty ahh toe
I always felt the opening premise of The Big Toe was part of what made it so spooky. The fact that the family found nothing strange in a human toe sticking out of the dirt, and then proceeded to cook and eat it as though that's just what you do when you find such a thing, gives the story an unsettling, surreal quality from the very beginning. Makes the reader feel like they're already in this weird dream world where things just aren't quite the way they should be... a feeling wonderfully accentuated and magnified by the illustrations. It just so perfectly sets the mood for the story, and likewise for the entire anthology.
W
Absolutely
Exactly I hate these people that always treat these stories like they suck and the art is the only good part
Yeah, that didn't sit right with me
I read a story like this here in Sweden when I was little. It was about a boy whose grandma had passed recently and was still stored in the attic before she was to be taken to the morgue. The boy was ordered by his parents to out to town and buy a liver for their dinner, but the boy being very lazy decided to instead sneak into the attic and just take his grandma's liver. So later that night, the shambling corpse of his grandmother called out "who has taken my liver". Always felt this one was a bit more sensical than the big toe story, as the protagonist is driven by laziness and a liver rather than a toe is something people actually use in cooking and might not be able to tell immediately what "animal" it came from.
Heard a similar version except the kid was given money to buy liver but bought candy instead then cut out a stranger's liver. "Give me back my liver!" Agreed, also a human liver is easier to mistake/swap for an animal's than a toe.
Omg my dad told me the same story
But instead he bought candy with the money instead! And the boys name was Johnny and he dig up a corpse instead and took its liver and also the boy got so scared his hair turned white when the corpse came to take it back
Too many characters were down with cannibalism in the books. Like they find/get a human body part, take it home, cook it and then eat it…like even without the angry spirit looking for their body part, why would you do that…
your profile picture matches your comment.
Nice pfp
You got me there lol 😂
@@tell-me-a-story-Oooooooooooo!
The story I was told was set during a great famine...in that context I guess it makes sense.
God, I remember reading that story for the first time. I had such trouble sleeping because I kept peeking out the window wondering just where the toe monster was. Also, I'd love it if you covered Sounds, A Weird Blue light, and The Girl Who Stood on the Grave.
If you didn't eat anyone's toe, you'd be totally fine. No toe monster will come get you.
@cesarjimenezanimator that just leave the other ones out there to getcha 😆
This story I always found to be strange and disturbing. My first thought as a kid was "Why would anyone eat some toe?" I think you should do all of them since you have only done 3 of the Scary Stories to tell in the dark.
I saw a cartoon version with mice and was just confused.
@@tell-me-a-story- Interesting.
Kid: "Why would anyone eat some toe?"
Adult: "Those foot fetishists are into some *really* weird shit."
google "man eats foot taco"
I just assumed that they thought it was a toe plant or something
-“ Nice and plump”.
A TOE- SHE SAID THAT ABOUT A TOE.
TF IS THE MOM ON?
I love the bone soup story from I think is from the third book. The little old lady just screaming "FINE HERE'S YOUR BONE" while tossing it out the window then just sits down to eat her soup is hilarious.
I love this series! The "I ate what I shouldn't have" trope is always one of my favorites.
One I would love for you to cover is the "Me tie dough-ty walker" story. Not sure if you will, but that one gives me the serious chills. Not sure if I mentioned it before, sorry. Not trying to be pushy. Love your content.
Shew just reading the title sent a shiver down my spine, that one freaked me out as a kid!
@@haleykeck7430 Right? I avoided the dogs for a bit after reading that as a kid, and definitely the fireplace 🤣🤣🤣
lol I was just trying to remember what that rhyme was when I clicked on the video, I actually thought it was part of this story cuz my memory is shit and I was specifically looking at the comments hoping someone would mention it so thanks for the reminder 😅
@@SpydersByte Mine is too, I had to Google it! So, no worries friend. I hope you're having a great holiday. ♥
"You're gonna be shitting and pissing all over your pants"
Me looking at my sleeping newborn. "please don't"
I remember my family checking out the audio book from the library. We put a blanket over our kitchen table to make a fort and shut off the lights. We listened to this story in the dark of our fort and even as a kid who loved creepy things, I screamed and ran to my room after hearing it 😅
You know, there’s a pub in Alaska with a cocktail called the “sour toe”.
It’s a whiskey cocktail that has a mummified/frost bitten human toe dropped into it.
The toe was formerly attached to a miner who rushed to Alaska during the 1800s gold rush.
If you gulp it down and catch the toe in your mouth, you get your 8x10 picture posted over the bar.
Heard about this on QI, I believe the mummified one was eventually gotten rid of; and an amputated one with a corn was used...
What the fuck 💀
I’ve never heard of this before and I’ve lived here my entire life. I’m gonna search for this! Seems cool!
I’m so happy you ended up continuing to follow the “Stories to Tell in The Dark”. And you absolutely nailed Mark Twain’s advice. That ending to the toe story scared me good. 😂
cant wait to see what story you share next!
Ok but the eating feces one, I can just picture some pissed off zombie walking around saying ,” Who ate my shit?!”
I recall reading a Bible verse stating something like, "Eat your own dung and drink your own p!$$!"
This story reminds me of the tailypo with some random person finding a body part that coincidentally belongs to some demonic figure that wants their part back and does whatever possible
The big toe patern is used with: silver coins, a liver and so on but in the story ,,cemetery soup,, the protagonist a middle-aged lady finds a bone in a cemetery on the ground and ads it to her soup findinv the result delicios and the owner of the bone starts saying ,,where is my bone'' and ,,give me back my bone'' and the lady being the only smart person in the entire scary stories to tell in the dark series yeets the bone yelling ,,take it''! And enjoys the soup without the bone. And the ghost never bothered her again.
The story of Catarinetta reminds me of Uncle Lupo/Uncle Wolf, a werewolf also from Italy 🇮🇹, whose niece passes off horse turds as beignets, dirty swamp water as white wine, and makes a loaf of concrete bread, after eating it all and even quaffing all the wine. Uncle Wolf also comes after her and devours her alive!
My brother always read this story sooo perfect 😭😭even the “you’ve got it” part
Me and my dad used to spend time reading books to each other. We should sit on his bed in his dimly lit room and ready spooky tales. I'd read goosebumps while he would read any old book from our collection down stairs. One night it was my fathers tern to read and he picked this book. And of course, this story was first. My father was always good with reading storys with passion, but never before did he scare me with a story. When a story would tell him to do so he would say the last words in a wimper instead, but that night he decided I was old enough to be scared. So when he read the part where the creature was coming towers the bed he looked away from me and only at the book, and started to stomp his feet on the ground beside his bed. Slowly he stomped louder and louder with his back faced towards me. He paused for just a minute then launched at me screaming: "YOU HAVE MY TOE!!". He yelled so loud the dog next door started barking. I remember being scared of my father all night. Even if he hugged me right after. He sent me to bed and walking in that dark hallway to my room was never as scary as then. I remember getting in bed and worrying the story would come true hours later when I heard my dad stomping slowly towards my door. I cried in fear that for some reason my dad would scare me again. Turns out my father was just really tired and going to the bathroom past my door and only looked in my room to make sure I was asleep. I was only 10.
I remember four stories from those books.
One was about a girl who was raised by wolves. "The Wolf Girl."
The second was the spider-zit story.
The third was the bride in the chest.
And the Fourth was the one with the headlights.
There was a story in a completely different set of scary stories that involved a flute, which it turns out, was made from the leg bone of a dead man. Every time it was played, the corpse came to the location in search of it. The story ends with the new owner of the flute, knowing nothing of its origins, sitting at home playing, and not hearing the sound of the front door being smashed in. Corpses coming back for body parts is a really chilling story trope.
I was hoping you would do this one. Me and my brother were discussing old horror stories and all these years we still wonder who the heck finds a random toe and thinks "Let's eat it."
I remember reading this story for my schools story telling event. It's held a special place in my heart ever since. Thank you for covering this!
I remember "The Golden Arm" and another variation of it Can't remember what its called but its about this timid woman cooking for her bully of a husband. She starts cooking up liver, the thing while she is taste tasting the liver it turns out to be so good that she continues to eat it, until its all gone.
Knowing that her husband will beat her when he finds out that she eaten his favorite meal....she remembers that someone had died recently........A while later her husband comes home and eats his meal. Later that night while husband and wife are sleeping; the wife awakens to hear a voice calling "Who stole my liver? Who stole it?" The voice comes closer and closer, until it's in the bedroom, and the poor woman is shaking with terror.
Finally she points to her husband and shouts "He has it!" Then her husband starts to scream...
I think it’s called ‘just delicious’
@@AstroPR12 really? huh....thanks
Fittingly the one story that Scwartz adapted many other times in his books. The others include as you mentioned "Clinkity-Clink" from Joel Chandler Harris 10:42, Just Delicious (A tale similar to this covered here: 12:56), Cemetary Soup, and the Teeny Tiny Woman. The latter 2 had the protagonists survive by giving into the ghost's demands and giving back the item stolen. Along with Who Do You Come For, and It's Him, minus the body part stealing.
The scary voice line "Where is my Toe?" has the same vibe as "Where is my Tailypo?"...
Coincidence? I think not...
You noticed that too?
I kept thinking about the tailypo
My grandmother, who grew up in Finland, use to tell the Golden Arm story to my sister and I. It was one of our favorites from her.
One of my personal favorite of the series! Thanks for covering it! You're awesome, man!
Edit: Seriously. How does this man not have a Netflix show?
He's too good for Netflix. Netflix is kind of going down.
@@youtubecommentergal4346 You're right.
The picture of the boy from "Big Toe is so iconic I still remember it even years later
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell us the story of the woman with the golden leg. Similar to the golden arm, but kids stole it instead of her husband. I loved it.
I loved reading The Big Toe at sleepovers. It was so much fun. I would love to see you cover either "The White Satin Evening Gown" or "High Beams" at some point.
You forgot the 4th and most important legit use of a corpse, Taking it to a beachparty bonfire causing it to start a conga line that leads to an ancient cursed treasure!
Hi Jon! Awesome stuff as usual. I've always enjoyed these stories, and learning about the lore behind them is great. One I would definitely love you to cover is the "What do you come for" story. With the Jangly Man, still to this day, this story has always freaked me out the most. And has always stuck with me.
Hey John love these episodes on the Scary Storeies books series, they were the first things of the horror genre I’ve read and they have always stuck with me. That Golden Arm story is interesting because I remember hearing a different version of it from my dad as a kid. It was about a man who loses his arm because he hung it out the window while driving and replaced it with a golden arm. However, overtime the arm repeatedly tries the strangle the man until he dumps it one day. But then in the middle of the night the hand came back to him and finished the job. My dad would end the story with him tickling us pretending to be the Golden arm. I had no idea it was originally a story by Mark Twain all these years later so that was interesting to hear.
"Where is my toe?"
"Where is my taily-po?"
I remember when I was little my dad would scare the crap out of me by reciting, "WHERE'S MY BIG TOE?" in a big booming voice. I, too, his under the covers before he'd grab me playfully and I'd scream. Fun times.
I was born in 1962 and grew up hearing a similar type of scary story with the repeated line "Give me back my bloody finger!" (First in a deep low tone through the story, and finally louder as a jump scare). That's all I really remember of the story though, lol
That was awesome...you scared me!
Man....I remember looking at that book at the school library and being shocked at how frigging creepy they were....I couldn't believe they would let us see it. They are still the creepiest images there is. Soooooo disturbing...
Honestly, I think the hearse song got me the most. I still make sure to bow my head and stop laughing/talking when I see one.
Long time ago I heard similar story called Maria Angula. Maria Angula was young wife who was not good at cooking, and when her husband wanted specific dish, she run to lady in neighborhood and asks about recipes, but when lady tells recipe, Maria Angula always laughs that recipe is so easy. Neighbor Lady gets tired and annoyed by Maria, and once when she asks about recipe again, lady tells her to go to the graveyard, wait for the fresh body, and cut out guts from it. Maria does everything, cooks guts and gave her husband for dinner, but at night she was awaken by voice calling ,,Maria Angula, give me back my guts that you stole from my holy burial". Maria hides under cover of her bed, scared for her life, and after that cold hands took her legs, and dragged her from house. Next day her husband searched for her everywhere, but she never appeared again. I think that story was spanish, and i'm from Poland, so if I forgot some elements or wrote something wrong, I'm really sorry
I heard the Golden Arm one. Strangely enough, there was also a football player so skilled he was dubbed to have a "Golden Arm."
There is also a Golden Arm award given to football players with outstanding achievements.
When I read the story, I never knew of the connection, but apparently my dad did, as he went to the same university as Johnny Unitas. (My whole family did.) He told me of the football player, and when I went to University of Louisville, I saw a dormitory tower that bears his name.
Love this year's spooky season content keep it up
I think the real problem I have with the movie version of the story is that he could have - following standard folklore ghost logic of them buggering off once appeased - just told the ghost the toe was in the kitchen and been fine. He didn't actually go through with eating it as far as I can tell (It seemed like he spat it back out), unlike in the original story where the whole family eats part of the toe and thus the kid wouldn't be able to just give it back. These sorts of scenarios only really work if the person can't or is unwilling to give back the stolen property.
My grandpa used to tell us this story a lot, along with raw hide and bloody bones. There was also a story, where at the end we’d all get up and jump on grandpa. It went. ‘There once was a man, a boy….. and a big black dog!’ And after he said dog we pounced.
I hope to have stories like that with my kids and grandkids.
Grew up reading these stories, now at 40 yrs of age, i read them to my kids. The Thing was always the one that creeped me out, and still does if i look at it too long. If you find the time, please cover "the thing". Apple your work.
Man, I’m loving the recap of these stories. These stories were a HUGE part of my childhood, so this a very welcome throwback
My great granny told me this story as a child. The differences being it was a golden toe the farmer found and he spent it
I've always seen the "Scary stories to tell in the dark" movie as a more mature version of the Goosebumps movie from 2015.
Both movies follow a group of teens who encounter characters from children's stories that wreak havoc throughout their town, but while there are no deaths in the goosebumps movie and the "Havoc" that the monster's cause is more inconvienient than deadly, it's still a similar premise. with SSTTITD (Scary stories to tell in the dark) the monsters are more deadly because of the macabre nature of their stories while the goosebumps monsters are more wacky and silly.
I LOVE THIS SERIES ITS SO NOSTALGIC FOR 3RD GRADE ME PLS KEEP THIS UP JON!
I love your videos and the amount of time you clearly put into it. Hopefully, we will get to see more background stories of scary stories to tell in the dark in the future.
This was my first exposure to the scary stories series as my 3rd grade teacher read it to us in a spooky (for 3rd graders) and almost theatrical way and I was absolutely hooked because it freaked me out so much. The fact that cannibalism is just.. accepted in many of the stories is so creepy. The supernatural elements aren’t the scariest parts, it’s the willingness of people to eat random human body parts they find
I love this story! I actually got to tell this story to the 5th grade classes where I work. The screamed and jumped so high but they loved it! It was so much fun! They even got to write their own scary stories and they were awesome! ❤❤
Yo I was listening to this while driving, and the "YOUVE GOT IT" at 5:00 scared the hell outta me 😭 I was in an underground parking garage
I was honestly expecting a plot twist wherein the family are ghouls in an HG Wells inspired story about ghouls raising humans like cattle. But no, they are just plain humans who like to eat dead bodies.
I’ve seen people complain about the kid and his parents eating the toe but I assumed his family was poor and thus beggars can’t be choosers
I was told the story of the Golden Arm when I was a cub scout, however in the version I was told the husband doesn't just take the arm from his wife's corpse; he actually murders her in order to acquire it.
The first thing I thought when you told the story was "Tailypo!"
Very similar motifs.
So underrated very few creaters put this much research and passion into their work to actually creating a show
What would be scarier, is when the corpse comes to the canibal, the canibal just says, "oh boy, time for seconds."
I remember this one, but it was told to me and my cousin late one summer night by our auntie.
Haha. I jumped. Not only that I turned up the volume during the story telling. Almost like leaning in. The the scare made me jump so bad. You got me. 😂😂😂
Another great video!
Watching this I realized that the show Courage the Cowardly Dog, had an episode that had the same lesson as The Big Toe and stories like it. It's the one with King Ramses. My least favorite episode only because that mummy's face still scares me to this day.
my poor rural farmer mother told me this story as a child. it began with an old couple finding a piece of meat among the beans in their garden. they were so happy to have a piece of meat when later that night something came looking for its "big toe"... I never put two and two together as a child to understand it was a buried body and the implications of that... I just thought it was some boogeyman who for some reason lost its big toe in the soil of this garden sometime in the past. That might have been more eerie. Something extremely sad about the depression era starving elderly couple in my mother's version of the story too.
My health issues are plaguing me and I'm kind of out of it. I'm laying here listening to this video and the first thing that registers with me is ride me around the countryside. I seriously sat up in bed like, the f**k he just say? Legit though dude I freaking love your videos!
Really liking this series! Loved the vid about the pale lady (she’s my fave) so it’s really cool to see you continue it
Once again another great thank you keep up the good work
This was always my go-to story when we told scary stories at sleepovers, it always freaked me out. I have since shared it with my nieces, nephews, and children! Thanks for this video! I was hoping you'd do this story!
I read this trilogy before any of my peers, since I liked scary stuff and I was an advanced early reader. I loved practicing my delivery following the suggestions in the book on all the kids on my school bus in the morning, and it became an event for me to bring a new short story to tell for the bus ride at least three times a week.
Then some other little kid got legit freaked out and told his mom, and I had to stop. 😑 Wuss.
Heaven forbid scary stories actually do their job.
I used to do this at recess and got in trouble because a kid got too scared also!! Haha thats so funny the same thing happened to you also.
The big toe story was one of my favorites 😂😂
Heard/read several variants as a child. Love the fact that in "Teeny tiny woman" the woman just...throws the bone she found to the ghost who demads it back and goes back to bed. 😂
I’ll be honest, none of these stories scared me that much as a kid, when I read the books in my school library. Instead, I found them fascinating.
Especially interesting to me were the appendices after the stories, telling the lore, history, and origins of all the stories. Pretty much like what you do with every video you make.
Love that your covering these books!! I read all of them back in elementary school ❤❤❤
My grandpa tells a story about a boy who spends his grocery money on candy instead of meat for his mother. He sees a freshly filled grave and digs it up to find a man and decides to cut out his liver and pass it off as an animal's. After his mother prepares it for dinner he refuses to eat it. Later that night he hears a voice saying 'i want my liver back'. At the end he would always yell 'gotcha!' Instead of 'You've got it'
There are at least three other stories like this in the series: Cemetery Soup, Clinkity-Clink, and Just Delicious. Clinkity-Clink follows the formula to a tee, but Cemetery Soup differs in that the old woman throws the "soup" bone out of the window and the corpse skiddadles, while "Just Delicious" differs in that the victim of the ghost's revenge isn't the woman who stole and cooked its liver, but the woman's abusive husband who ate it.
3:50 Tailepo's brother? One lost his tail and had to get it from the stomach from the three that ate it and the other his toe in the same manner? Neat
My mom used to tell us “Teeny Tiny” as a bedtime story, which is a very similar formula, but was more spooky than jump-scary
yeaaaahhhh buddy, i was hoping this would be the next scary story video. The toe was always my favorite!! lol much love and Happy Spoopy Season Jon!!
It was the scary stories series that got me into reading as a kid. Had a hard time keeping the teachers from taking the books away because they felt it was too gruesome and more something that’s only okey on Halloween.
So this is what he based his own horror story on. "wheres my tailipo"
I most definitely loved those stories as a kid
this and the jangly man scared me the most as a kid, and now
jon thank you again for making me remember the things i wish i could forever bury in my memory ❤❤❤
Before we ever got the scary stories book. My father would tell us "The Golden arm" story. One afternoon, he was telling it to us because we all begged. We didn't know my mother had ordered pizza. The doorbell rang as the jump scare ending was reached. We all just started screaming. Lol, that pizza guy was really confused.
I had heard several variants before the age of ten. One of them is the English tale "Teeny Tiny Woman", where the stolen thing is a bone the teeny tiny woman decidesto use for bone broth. When the dead guy comes back to reclaim his bone, the woman simply yells at him to take the bone back.
I absolutely love this series! One thing I keep encountering in the comments though is why would someone so readily engage in cannibalism?! The reason is that the time these tales were created occurred during periods of great famine and plague in most of Europe, the result of which was massive economic downfall which in turn caused devastating poverty and starvation. Due to this desperate people turned to desperate measures which included abandoning their children and/or dependant relatives, stealing from both the living and the dead, and in extreme cases cannibalism! That is why so many folktales and fairy stories are filled with such morbid and macabre subject matter. This was really happening! These tales were used as both warnings and moral lessons and as a lover of all things spooky and a little dark I find this both horrifying and fascinating! Keep shooting first Jon, your videos are amazing! 😍🤩
Thank you for all the great videos I love them so much ❤
I would love to see you cover "Maybe You Will Remember". Ever since I first read the Scary Stories collection, that particular story has lived rent free in my head, specifically because it was the sort of horror you didn't quite get as a young child, but once you're a bit older it hits you full force. It's perfect Fridge Horror.
I love this series thanks for doing more ❤
Jon: And instead of yeeting himself out the nearest window like he should have
Me: You mean, instead of yeeting the big toe down the hallway at the monster like he should have? (For real though, Auggie didn't actually eat the toe! He still had it. Just give it back FFS!)
This one was the one that stuck with me my whole life. The thought of being so hungry you're willing to eat rotting human flesh, bone, and nail 🤮 was incredibly gut-wrenching when I was in elementary school. Thank you for deep diving into this one! It was intriguing to hear the background to this story!
The big toe was one of my favorite stories from the book, i think i checked that book out of the school library more times than I can count 😊
The new merch looks dope! Jon ain’t wrong when he said it looks metal af.
Also- this oddly sounds very similar to Taily Po. Kinda fascinating how many cultures and regions have a story and/or myth letting people know not to eat unknown substances that don’t belong to you and to leave dead corpses alone if you aren’t going to help bury them respectfully with the proper burial rights 🫠
All of the creatures in the scary stories to tell in the dark are very incredible.
I love this series!
There's one story in the series about a girl who always wears a ribbon tied around her neck. She never takes it off. The girls grows up and gets married. She still is wearing the ribbon. She makes her husband promise to never remove the ribbon around her neck.
Years go by and eventually the girl, now an old woman is on her death bed. Again she tells her husband to not remove her ribbon. She has never explained why she's worn the ribbon all of her life.
When the old woman passes away, her husband's curiosity gets the best of him. He decides to gently untie the ribbon, which provides him that solves the mystery of the ribbon.
This was the single most terrifying story that kept me up at night as a kid.
The Big Two is my six years old favorite scary story. She loves the big scare at the end and the build up to the thing coming to get the boy.
It really is a great story to start with with younger ones.
When you mentioned at the beginning that they were cautionary tales, it reminded me of "Jenny Greenteeth"! I forgot where I had read this as a child, but children living near some pond or lake were told not to go near it since the corpse of a girl who had drowned would pull them under.
I was obsessed with these books as a kid but I had no clue that Stephen Gammell was an illustrator of other children's books, like totally normal ones. Then a couple years ago I found a book and the illustrations looked oddly familiar. I knew I'd seen that style before and kept getting flashes of really creepy ones. I had a suspicion and googled his name and yep, Scary Stories popped up. I can't imagine how weird it would be as a kid to read some silly little story from him right after reading Scary Stories. The tonal whiplash would leave you not trusting the rest of the cute little story and each page you'd expect something creepy to jump out.