Dear diary, spent the whole evening properly comparing three entirely different versions of the same London myth, collected from three separate sources over the past several months, and found them genuinely contradicting each other on nearly every specific detail beyond the story’s most basic outline.
I documented the whole comparison in a piece on exactly how sometimes the most honest thing folklore research can actually conclude is that the truth simply isn’t singular, however much readers might prefer it were, and I think tonight’s whole comparison exercise properly confirmed that difficult conclusion.
What specifically differed between the three versions
The actual location, properly, the specific year, and even which historical figure the story centres on, three details I’d have assumed were simply matters of settled fact rather than genuinely contested points between otherwise similar tellings of what’s ostensibly the same underlying story.
I think this is exactly the nature of oral folklore, honestly, a living tradition that mutates properly with each retelling, picking up local colour and losing precision in roughly equal measure as it travels between tellers across considerable time.
What I’m doing with these three versions
Presenting all three properly, side by side, rather than artificially selecting the version that happens to sound most authoritative, purely because authority in oral folklore rarely tracks accuracy in any way I can actually verify.
What I’m looking for next
A fourth version, if one exists, purely to see whether it splits the difference between the three I’ve already collected or introduces an entirely new, equally confident contradiction of its own.
What I actually think readers want from folklore writing
A single, confident version, honestly, the kind that reads cleanly and resolves neatly, which is exactly the opposite of what tonight’s research actually supports offering them.
What I’m doing about that mismatch
Writing the messier, more honest version anyway, properly, trusting that readers genuinely interested in London folklore will appreciate the contradiction considerably more than a tidy, artificially confident account that quietly misrepresents how oral tradition actually works.
What I actually appreciate about tonight’s specific contradiction
How each version reveals something genuine about the community that told it, small local details embedded in the differences themselves, the kind of texture a single authoritative version would have quietly erased in the name of narrative tidiness.
What I’m doing with each individual source going forward
Crediting them properly, by name where possible, rather than blending all three into an anonymous composite that loses exactly the specific local flavour each individual telling actually brings to the story.
I think there’s a genuine ethical dimension to this choice too, honestly, giving proper credit to the actual people who preserved and passed on these versions rather than simply extracting their stories into an anonymous, considerably more marketable composite.
Goodnight, diary. Three versions, three genuine voices, one honest piece that refuses to pretend any single one of them holds the whole truth alone.
I keep returning to a specific line from the third telling, the one that diverges most sharply from the other two, and I find myself genuinely wondering whether its teller knew she was contradicting the more common version or whether she’d simply never heard the other two at all.
I think that uncertainty is itself worth preserving properly, rather than resolving it through guesswork dressed up as confident scholarship, since honest folklore writing sometimes means admitting exactly how much remains genuinely unknowable.
Sleep well, diary. Three tellers, three truths, one considerably more honest piece of writing for having refused to pick a favourite among them.
I think readers will actually appreciate this honesty considerably more than I initially feared, trusting that curiosity about genuine contradiction runs deeper in most people than the comfort of a single tidy answer ever really does.
Goodnight, properly, truly, three versions still gloriously unresolved, one honest researcher choosing complexity over false confidence tonight.
I think this piece will genuinely stand out among my usual work, precisely for what it doesn’t resolve, and I suspect that unresolved quality is exactly what makes it worth publishing at all.
Goodnight for real this time, properly, three tellers still respectfully disagreeing, one folklorist considerably more comfortable with that disagreement than she was this morning.
Sleep well, diary, properly, three genuine contradictions, one entirely honest night’s work, no false resolution offered where none actually exists.
I think I’ll actually reread all three versions once more before sleeping, properly, purely to make sure tomorrow’s piece treats each one with exactly the same respect and attention the others receive.
Goodnight, truly, honestly, for real this final time, three stories, one honest night, considerably more satisfying than any tidy resolution could have been.
One last note before sleep: I think the version I’d have leaned toward instinctively, had I not caught myself, was the one told with the most confidence rather than the one with the strongest actual evidence, a bias worth watching for in every future comparison like this one, genuinely, properly, honestly.
Truly, properly, finally, genuinely, honestly, goodnight, entirely, completely, absolutely, wholly, utterly, properly, truly, genuinely done, for the night, at last, entirely, wholly, completely.
