The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands

Copyright © 2008 by Theo Meder

Around closing time, the quiet frequenters of a disco were being threatened by a mob of excited, partly or fully intoxlcated skinheads. One of the vistors just about managed to escape a guy who was chasing him with a chain. It was touch and go. When the man closed the door of his car in haste, the skinhead's chain hit the door and got stuck in it. The visitor rushed away at full speed. When he got home, he saw that the chain was connected to a ripped-off hand.

The story above was told as being true. Every time it was told, the storyteller had heard it from someone who knew someone who had heard it from someone (sometimes including this person's name), who had been there when it happened or who knew someone who was there at the time or knew the people it had happened to. This urban legend is a version of BRUN 01405, The Severed Fingers. The story was sent to the Meertens Institute in 1991 by teacher Jan Naaijkens from Hilvarenbeek (North Brabant). The translation is based on T. Meder, De magische vlucht (Amsterdam, 2000), pp. 167-168.