Sunday, November 22, 2009

Have A Seat

Wiki:
There are at least three Devil's Chairs located in cemeteries in the United States, associated with urban legends.

The Devil's Chair in Cassadaga, Florida is a graveside bench in the cemetery that borders Cassadaga and Lake Helen. Cassadaga has a reputation as a haven for occultists, mediums and other spiritualist sorts. Local legend perpetuates the Devil-as-good-ol'-boy image: one of the stories insists that if you leave an unopened can of beer on the chair, it will be empty by morning. Accounts vary; in some of them, the can's opened, in others, the beer is simply gone, like magic, through the unopened top. Furthermore, if you yourself sit in the chair, you run the chance of having a heart-to-heart with the Lord of Darkness, who is rumoured to show up anyone who dares to wait for him there.

The Devil's Chair in Guthrie Center, Iowa, is a cement-cast chair located in Union Cemetery. It's situated between two graves and is unmarked as belonging to either. Local legend attaches bad luck to it, intimating that to sit in the chair courts that bad luck for oneself. While the cemetery itself was established as a private burial ground in 1885, the legend of the chair only goes back for approximately thirty years.

The Devil's Chair in the Mary Immaculate Cemetery of Kirksville, Missouri is the work of a marble cutter, John C. Baird, and is involved in "numerous legends of a type widely replicated across the U.S., especially in rural and small-town communities, and beloved of young people.... Some versions say that something dreadful will happen to the person so bold as to be seated in it at midnight (or on a particular evening, such as Halloween) -- a hand will emerge from the grave and drag the impious one down to the underworld."

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