Laura Wright 
Urban Legends
Today, a crossroads is usually nothing more mysterious than a place where one road meets another.
For centuries, however, intersections possessed a much darker reputation.
Across Britain and Europe, and in traditions found much farther away, crossroads were regarded as supernatural places. They were associated with divination, witchcraft, restless spirits, executions, vampires, demons, and the dead.
Some believed supernatural beings could be summoned there.
Others believed the crossroads could be used to trap them.
And for the unfortunate traveler passing through after dark, the intersection could be a dangerous place indeed.
Where the Roads Meet
There was something inherently mysterious about a crossroads.
A traveler arriving there was forced to make a choice.
One road became several.
Each led in a different direction.
Folklore transformed that simple geographical feature into a place existing almost between worlds.
In many parts of Britain and Europe, people practiced what became known as crossroad divination. According to the belief, an individual could visit a crossroads and summon the Devil or persuade infernal forces to perform some desired task.
But crossroads weren’t merely places where supernatural beings could be summoned.
They were also places where dangerous spirits could supposedly be imprisoned.
Trapping the Dead at the Crossroads
One belief held that the spirits of evil people could be isolated at an intersection.
The reasoning was peculiar but wonderfully simple.
A spirit reaching a crossroads would encounter too many possible directions.
Which road should it take?
Unable to decide, the confused spirit would remain trapped at the intersection.
This may help explain why crossroads became associated with the burial of people whom society particularly feared.
Those regarded as witches or vampires were sometimes buried there.
So were other people whose spirits were considered dangerous.
The crossroads became both grave and supernatural prison.
When the Spirit Followed You Home
There was one serious flaw in this supernatural security system.
A traveler might release the spirit.
According to the folklore, a ghost trapped at an intersection could remain there until some unsuspecting person happened to pass.
The spirit could then attach itself to the traveler and follow them away from the crossroads.
A person walking alone at night therefore had more to fear than choosing the wrong road.
Something waiting there might choose them.
Gallows at the Crossroads
Crossroads were also closely associated with execution.
For many years, gallows and gibbets were erected near intersections.
This created an especially grim landscape.
A traveler approaching a crossroads might encounter not only several diverging roads, but the bodies of executed criminals displayed nearby.
It isn’t difficult to understand how such places accumulated supernatural reputations.
The crossroads already represented uncertainty.
Now they also contained the dead.
Suicide Burials
One of the darkest traditions concerned people who died by suicide.
Until changes made during the reign of King George IV, suicides in England could be buried at crossroads.
A stake was driven through the body.
According to the folklore surrounding the practice, the stake prevented the dead person from returning as a vampire.
Eventually, the law changed.
Suicides could receive burial in a graveyard, although restrictions remained. Burial could take place only between 9 p.m. and midnight, and there could be no ceremony.
The crossroads gradually lost one of their grimmer functions.
Their supernatural reputation remained.
The She-Devil at the Crossroads
Crossroad traditions were hardly limited to Europe.
In the mythology of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, a she-devil was said to inhabit every crossroads.
People could approach her with requests, but supernatural assistance wasn’t free.
An appropriate offering was required.
Encountering her accidentally could be considerably more dangerous.
The she-devil supposedly possessed the ability to make travelers sick simply by looking at them.
She was not alone.
Oddy, the Mischievous Devil
Another supernatural being called Oddy inhabited the crossroads with her.
Oddy’s specialty was mischief.
The intersection therefore became a place occupied by supernatural personalities with different powers and intentions.
But another figure from Sri Lankan tradition was considerably more frightening.
Maha-Sohon, Demon of the Tombs
During the nineteenth century, accounts from Sri Lanka described Maha-Sohon as another supernatural inhabitant of the crossroads.
Maha-Sohon was a demon of the tombs.
Like the she-devil, the creature possessed a dangerous gaze.
Merely being looked upon by Maha-Sohon could supposedly produce disease.
Two illnesses were particularly associated with the demon:
Dysentery and cholera.
The crossroads therefore became associated not only with death, but with the mysterious arrival of disease.
Animated Corpses in Russian Folklore
Russian folklore regarded both crossroads and the areas surrounding cemeteries with similar apprehension.
These were places where the dead might not remain dead.
According to the tradition, animated corpses inhabited such locations.
They waited for exhausted travelers to approach.
Then they attacked.
The wandering corpses supposedly strangled and devoured their victims.
Once again, the crossroads represented a boundary between the ordinary world of the living and something considerably darker.
The Witches of Cornwall
In Cornwall, England, the crossroads acquired another supernatural purpose.
They became gathering places for witches.
According to local tradition, witches assembled at crossroads to celebrate their Sabbat.
The association made perfect folkloric sense.
If crossroads were places where the Devil could be summoned, spirits trapped, and the restless dead buried, they were equally appropriate meeting places for witches.
The Ciuapipiltin
Mexican tradition provided another variation.
The Ciuapipiltin, noble women who became vampire-like beings after death, were also said to haunt crossroads.
There, they waited for victims.
Like the supernatural inhabitants of crossroads found in traditions thousands of miles away, the Ciuapipiltin transformed an ordinary intersection into a place of danger.
The road itself wasn’t frightening.
It was what might be waiting where the roads met.
The Crossroads and the Dead
Different cultures developed remarkably different beings to inhabit their crossroads.
England had restless spirits and vampire burials.
Cornwall had witches.
Russia had animated corpses.
Sri Lanka had demons capable of spreading disease.
Mexico had the Ciuapipiltin.
Yet beneath the differences was a remarkably similar idea.
The crossroads was not an ordinary place.
It represented uncertainty.
Several paths met there, but none truly belonged to it.
Perhaps that was why crossroads became natural homes for things that didn’t quite belong anywhere else either.
Criminals.
Suicides.
Witches.
Vampires.
Demons.
Restless corpses.
And spirits unable to decide which road would carry them away.
For the traveler approaching a lonely crossroads after dark, the safest course was simple.
Choose your road carefully.
And hope that nothing chooses to follow you home.
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