then her head fell off

[dd3953]

i can still remember my favorite book growing up & i wanna buy copies for my nieces and nephew.

thing is: i can't remember the name of the book, so i'm about to tell you about it, in hopes that you have not only read it, but you also remember the name of it.

it's about this girl who always has this scarf wrapped around her neck, since she was little. and she grows up and falls in love. but the dude is always asking her to take the scarf off and one day, after they were married for a while, she gives in and takes it off. then her head fell off.

i know it sounds like a messed up kids book, but me and my sisters loved it & i want a copy. for a while i thought i was making it up (what a strange imagination) but a friend of mine has read it too. sadly enough, she doesn't remember the name either.

have you read it? do you know the name of it?

[MexicanOnABike]

it's a short story found in many horror books. I have a copy here called MORE SCARY STORIES. Your best bet is to look for some horror stories compilations if you can't find that one. I mean the story can be told in a few paragraphs.

edit: NO. my bad. i was sure it was in this book. I guess not. I know i saw a french version of this tale once. Let's see if other forum members can help you out.

[Frosstbyte]

Yeah, as MOAB said, it's an iconic horror story that's been told and adjusted and retold a thousand times. I'm sure one version is in one of the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" compilations. Head to a bookstore and just peruse them until you find an adequate version. You might want to check through them fairly thoroughly though, since horror compilations tend to contain a WIDE variety of stories from the fairly mundane/comical to the extremely scary and violent. Depending on how old they are, you might adjust your choice accordingly.

[dd3953]

you know, checking a compilation would have never accorded to me. mainly, cuz the version of the story we had was a book, the only tale to be held in those pages

thanks, imma check it out, cuz it would be nice to know the name

[fresnelly]

Holy Crap! I remember that exact story. Just like Mexicana says, it was in a Horror Short Story complition aimed at young readers. It was a black paperback with blue lettering.

There were two other stories from that book that I remember:

In the first, a beautiful yet creepy woman knocks on peoples front doors and says: "Do you want to see what I can do with my long, long fingernails? She goes from door to door until someone says yes. In very suspensful fashion, she brings a fingernail to her ruby red lips and goes "pblpblpblplblb..."

The other was a babysitter vs serial killer story. At the end, She and the kids are trapped in a bedroom and there's a menacing scratching at the door. They hold the door shut and evenutally it's stops. The next day they open the door to find... the mutilated body of (I think) the babysitter's boyfriend. He had been scratching at the door as a plea for help.

What's weird is that I loved that book for it's graphic shocks and enjoy horror fiction, but I can't stand horror movies.

Edit: I just took a quick look at Amazon and it could very well be
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Collected from American Folklore by Alvin Ed. Schwartz

The cover is different, but it was originally published in 1986, which would be about right for me.

/me plans a trip to the library.

[dd3953]

that is GREAT. i'll check that out too (see if i got enough cash for it).

does it by any chance tell you the name to the stories in the book?

[Frosstbyte]

I don't know if this is THE version of the story, but here's A version of the story.

http://www.christendom.edu/life/stre...en_ribbon.html

The title I searched for was "The Green Ribbon" which is what it was called when I read it originally many long years ago.

EDIT: I found a book that has it with a few other classic scary stories. It's called "In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories" by Alvin Schwartz. Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Room-Othe.../dp/0064440907

If it is in one of the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books, it has been renamed to something not obviously about ribbons or strings so it might be there, but I can't figure out which one (if at all) just based on the story titles from Wikipedia.

[alicat]

I used to love that story when I was a kid, though I haven't thought about it in years. The name popped into my head, "The Velvet Ribbon" and a Google search found many references and versions of the story so I believe that is the correct title. However, it seems to be a folk tale that has been around a long time and may have alot of different titles atributed to it.