A/N: I referenced this "publication" in my fic "Find your way to it every time" when a werewolf thought that the Winchesters were the tall-tale. The idea amused me. You don't need to read anything first, this was written to completely stand alone. It was also written to mimic a "serious" research paper that a published, respected professional might create.

Modern American Folklore by Professor Delmonico

Chapter 3: Winchester; Just a Rifle...Right?

Intro

A great many urban legends surround the name of "Winchester;" most notably, around the superstitious nature of the 1800's gun manufacturer, William, and the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. According to historical fact, the late magnate's widow continued to add rooms and extensions to her home for nearly forty years. When asked why, she would say it was to confuse and disorient any spirits looking for revenge for having been killed by a Winchester rifle. The structure still stands today as a tourist attraction.

More recently, and much more elusively, another Winchester Family has begun to create their own urban legend.

Section 1: Something New

During hiatus from the university, I travel the United States and collect ghost stories and urban legends for research purposes. Though out my tenure as a professor, I have heard a cluster of urban legends that vary according to the location it is told in while retaining the same core details that classify them as the same legend. (see black dogs, women in white, Bloody Mary, and Hook Man in previous works.) I spend a great deal of time in small town libraries and truck stops, collecting and tracking the evolution of these legends. It is rare in Folklore to hear something newly created out of whole cloth.

Then, in the 1990's, rumors and whispers began to spread about a man named Winchester who, if you had a supernatural problem, could help put it to rest. At first, I didn't think much of it. Then over the next few years and decades, the rumor have spread like wildfire and the volume of the whispers grew into fully voiced speech. I became excited. Here I was, watching the birth of a new urban legend. Now, nearly 30 years later, the Winchester Family is so completely accepted as fact that believers of the supernatural have begun to threaten the monsters in the closet with the very name.

Case and Point:

During one of my research furloughs, I became caught in an intense storm. For safety, I and many other drivers pulled into a lonely truck stop to wait it out. It was one of those off the beaten path roadhouses, a favorite watering hole for those who live on the road and dislike "normal" people. At the apex of the storm, the wind blew hard enough to cause the building's lights to flicker. The motorcycle club and the semi drivers all looked at each other in concern. Then the biggest, burliest specimen among them hauled to his feet and threw open the front door. At his highest volume he bellowed into the storm: "Alright, you demonic ba****ds! Keep that up and I will call the Winchesters here to gank every single one of your sorry a***s!"

Every man there agreed, that the threat shouted into the night is what caused the storm to let up.

I was floored. The monster under the bed suddenly had a counter balance: The Winchesters. Intrigued, I asked for more. Why, I asked, does the name "Winchester" demand so much respect? Who are the Winchesters? As popular culture swells with vampire TV shows and zombie movies, I wondered if the Winchesters were the push back for the men who were most often away from safe environs; the men who occasionally actually worried over such things as the specter canine laying in wait for the unwary traveler while on an nearly empty back road in a bad storm.

When I asked out loud, I was rewarded with a wealth of stories and anecdotes: John rescued a trucker's town in New Mexico from the clutches of evil succubi back in '91. John and Dean laid to rest the chain-gang prisoners' ghosts that were moving roads to dump drivers off the cliffs in the mountains in '02. Dean shot the Black Dog scarring over-night drivers into wrecking in '03. Sam and Dean freed men and women from becoming some cannibals' main course when a storm had forced everybody into a forgotten hotel in 2010. (Lightening flashed ominously to punctuate this story.)

Not every one had a Winchester story. Most of them heard what they knew from a friend of a friend over a cold beer or a double shot. Interestingly, two, only two, claimed to have met the men personally. When asked to describe these "living legends," they both answered the same. John, the patriarch of the clan, was dark-haired and thickly built with a serious demeanor. Dean, the eldest son, was likewise thickly-built but lighter than his father, with a zest for life. Sam, the younger son, was tall and wiry with a quiet, competent demeanor.

Amazingly, as I asked about the family at other roadhouses and truck stops, I continuously received the same names and descriptions. Modern police will tell you how rare it is that witnesses all completely agree on descriptions; it is no different for folklore researchers. The bones of the narrative are the same, but the small details change. Except this one didn't.

Out of more curiosity than scientific approach, I began to ask for Winchester stories at locales other than the backroad rest stops. In every town, I asked the local historians, librarians, and the diner waitresses for their best known local legends like I always do. This is how I get much of the material for my previous works and later chapters in this one. Then I asked the same if they had ever heard of these Winchesters, or anyone who rode into town and vanquished the local legend.

Yes, indeed, they had.

There was a diner waitress in Jericho, CA who insisted that two brothers interviewed her a decade ago about her missing friend. After she told them about the local woman in white, no one ever went missing down that road again. In Toledo, OH a woman overheard me asking the librarian and told me of her encounter with Bloody Mary (also nearly a decade ago) and the brothers who showed up at her father's wake. They saved her life, the woman insisted, by shattering the original mirror this Mary died in front of. In Ankeny, IA the local pastor (who had the best kept town historical records in his parish) admitted to being attacked by a man with a large silver hook who seemed to vanish and appear out of thin air. He and his daughter were saved from this apparent apparition by the self-proclaimed brothers Winchester.

And the list went on. Since I started asking, a research trip has not gone by that I didn't encounter a Winchester story.