Quote - Acadia,

How can you possibly mix up the creepy gnome with the lovable gummy bear ?

Wonderful! Now I have something to inflict on my officemates!!! Heh heh heh........

Like ima70 I am from Argentina too and we have looooads of legends and myths.

One of the most know is the "luz mala" which translates to bad light. It is also know as "el farol de mandinga" which is "the devils lantern". This legends is better known in Europe and the US as Will-o'-the-wisp.

The legend goes that where this light is seen where there is buried treasure and the light is the ghost of the owner thrying to keep away thieves. But anyone wating to unearth these treasures must beware as they are likely to be cursed.

Tradition states that on the 24th of August these lights are more visible because its St Bartholomew's day and the devil is free from the gaze of angels and can tempt greedy souls to these cursed treasures.

Now about the clip, I think is definitely staged, first of all the kids are filming themselves doing nothing, which is not uncommon with kids these days, but unlikely. Mobile phone contracts are  expensive in Argentina, more so outside the capital. So no one would waste it filming nothing. Second, the kids are not talking about anything in particular (though I am not an authority on country youth slang), and they do seem to be preparing for something. They are speaking almost on queue.

If you are interested on more argentine lore, I can tell you about the Yaciyarete and the Lobizon later.

Quote - I've never heard of achondroplasia.

I take it you don't watch "Little People, Big World?"

Achondroplasia is a type of dwarfism. Character traits are short stature, large head and disproportionately short legs and arms and a large prominent foreheard..

Quote - > Quote - I've never heard of achondroplasia.

I take it you don't watch "Little People, Big World?"

Achondroplasia is a type of dwarfism. Character traits are short stature, large head and disproportionately short legs and arms and a large prominent foreheard..

Yes, I gathered that it was a type of dwarfism -- as stated in the article.  ;-)  No, I don't watch "Little People, Big World", although my wife does sometimes.

The teenage girl in that article doesn't look like most of the dwarfs that I've seen.  Based upon the images in that article, her proportions seem to be no more than scaled-down from the proportions of an average person, with the head perhaps a bit bigger in proportion to the rest of her body.  She really is tiny, and in a way that I've never seen before.  If I were to meet her in person, then my first reaction would likely be to think that she was an infant, or else a small toddler.  Certainly not a teenage girl.

Quote - If you are interested on more argentine lore, I can tell you about the Yaciyarete and the Lobizon later.

Please do.  It's fascinating stuff.

If you are all siting comfortably, I will start....

In the North of Argentina, there is a place called El Chaco, near the border with Paraguay. This region suffers from extreme weather conditons, and can be a harsh environment to live in, the yaciyarete is a story from that region.

The yaciyatere is a small child aged 2 to 6 years, sometimes older. He has been seen with blonde hair, long and short, and bright blue eyes but has no ears, and smells terrible. Sometimes it is said he wears numerous keys around his neck, and uses a cane, that may be the source of his power. When he walks he only leaves a left footprint, you can't see the right. He lives deep in the jungle, lives on eggs, honey and fruit, and (as it is common with these creatures) he is known to guard a large treasure in his lair.

He likes to enchant and steal children who are left alone, mainly in the time of siesta. He plays with them and licks their forehead to take away the mark of the baptism. Once he is bored with them he would leave tied in vines around the forest, where the kids will stay silent, enchanted. The children that are found, every year on the anniversary of their kidnap, will suffer strange epileptic like convulsions. To cure this they must be baptized again. 

There is a bird, with the same name, that whistles at dawn and dusk a sound similar to the name. 

Sounds like a great storyline for a horror movie...

lol. That is great.

Every see this Disney horror trailer . It gives me the heebie jeebies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic

"Hide your children."

Just love it. The true Mary Poppins was a cannibalistic witch that liked feasting on small children LOL

I've often wondered when the producers of Mary Poppins would release the uncut R-rated horror version ....

Damn I miss the X-Files....

Quote - If you are all siting comfortably, I will start....

In the North of Argentina, there is a place called El Chaco, near the border with Paraguay. This region suffers from extreme weather conditons, and can be a harsh environment to live in, the yaciyarete is a story from that region.

The yaciyatere is a small child aged 2 to 6 years, sometimes older. He has been seen with blonde hair, long and short, and bright blue eyes but has no ears, and smells terrible. Sometimes it is said he wears numerous keys around his neck, and uses a cane, that may be the source of his power. When he walks he only leaves a left footprint, you can't see the right. He lives deep in the jungle, lives on eggs, honey and fruit, and (as it is common with these creatures) he is known to guard a large treasure in his lair.

He likes to enchant and steal children who are left alone, mainly in the time of siesta. He plays with them and licks their forehead to take away the mark of the baptism. Once he is bored with them he would leave tied in vines around the forest, where the kids will stay silent, enchanted. The children that are found, every year on the anniversary of their kidnap, will suffer strange epileptic like convulsions. To cure this they must be baptized again. 

There is a bird, with the same name, that whistles at dawn and dusk a sound similar to the name. 

Interesting.  I'm always curious about local mythology and folk tales.

As for primal childhood fears -- many children are afraid of clowns.....and of dolls.

Quote - .....and of dolls.

I believe that's a part of the reason why some people don't like 3D.  It's artificial enough not to be real: and yet it can be "real" enough to be creepy to them.  Images of humans that are on the edge of real bother some people.

I personally don't mind clowns...altho some of the more real looking dolls do bother me to this day.

When I was a kid, my brother took my lifesize walking doll {the ones that actually took walking steps when you held her hands and pulled her along} and scared the crap out of me with it.

Anyone remember the movie "GARGOYLES" from 1972?

Yea,....... where the creature comes up at the end of the bed?...guess what my brother did to my doll :glare:

Clowns are creepy, dolls are evil. No dolls allowed in my house. No Chucky things, no puppet things. :scared:

Hate to spoil anyones fun, but I found this today : http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/gnome.asp incase anyone was wondering.

Quote - Hate to spoil anyones fun, but I found this today : http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/gnome.asp incase anyone was wondering.

I'm still sticking with my 'Misplaced African Pygmy' theory. ;=D
Drooley Porn Hooley

OK -- who'd believe anything published on a website called "snopes", anyway?  Sounds a lot like "snipe".  Anyone ever heard of "snipe hunting"?  So you've got to question anything that they say.

I bet that the part about the locals being amused over the publicity that this prank has received is a myth.........more likely, all of this is a government cover-up to keep us from learning the real truth.  Just like the government's covering up of what everyone knows actually happened at Area 51.

Without a doubt, the Illuminati are behind this conspiracy.  And they'll get away with it, just like they always do.

sigh

Gnomes are real, I tell ya.  And they are going to take over the world.

I've taken a few people out Snipe hunting....oddly they never caught a thing. They probably weren't holding the bag properly or something...:laugh:

When I was in scouts we took some of the younger girls out on one. We had some of them convinced that we had captured one.

Later when I was in high school we took friends camping with us and actually convinced a junior and senior in high school to do this (for those in other countries they were about 17 and 18) That was a blast

One of the best pranks I've ever witnessed was pulled on a class I was teaching, about a dozen years ago. As was customary then the senior year students went on a week long foreign trip accompanied by a couple of teachers. That year, it was a survival week in the hills of the Ardennes (Belgium).
First night we organized a night dropping. The students had to find their way back to the camping site in the dark, using flashlights, compasses and a detailed map. The teachers (I was one of them) went along with them, just in case.
At one point, the group had to cross a creek. As we were wading through the (cold!) water, one of the girls started screaming and pointed at something in the water.
A shark dorsal fin, moving towards us. A fairly big one too.

Of course, it was a scuba diver who had strapped a fake dorsal fin to his back. But none of the students realised that sharks don't live in freshwater creeks...

I almost busted my gut laughing.

It was the last gnome not hired by Travelocity. He hoped the video would get him a job, LOL!

:lol:

svdl, that's hilarious :lol:

Hello NukedBug!! your english is way better than mine to tell about our best creatures, one thing to note, if the person that did the video wanted to add realism he should have used a Yaciyateré or Pombero (another local gnome) like creature, not an imported Irish-stolen-from-a-bad-movie-garden-gnome like dwarf LOL , my father in law is from Paraguay and he allways tell me about Taciyateré, about El Pombero, an small ugly very hairy man that come at evening, and he better find Caña (an strong drink) and cigars, specially if there are young beautiful ladies specially the single ones, if he feel unsatisfy by the offer of the drink and cigars he could impregnate the lady (hummm!!, what a convenient excuse), El Pombero must never be named after the sun is gone, this creature live in Paraguay and in the norther states of my country.
We have El Lobizón (our werewolf) El Yaguarete aba (a weretiger),  La Mulánima (a woman-mule) and the popular Solapa, that come at siesta time after the song of an small dove with a charateristic and (for us used be scared for our mothers) ugly song. And a lot more, but too much english for me.**
**

Its the travelosity gnome - he's moonlighting to save up for a trip.

Ed

Has anyone seen the horror movie "Don't Look Now" (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) ? .....If you have, and you saw the chilling final moments of the film, it will remind you of the weird gnome in the Youtube video ...

Crap, i'm so desensitized that it didn't phase me one bit. However I can show you a video about 600 times more terrifying that will guarantee you a panic attack LAWL.