Contemporary Legend about Farmers Committing Suicide

[ja...@kwasbeb.se]

Dear friends,

My names is Jack Werner and I am a freelance journalist in Swedish and an avid collector and writer on contemporary legends, with a book probably coming out this fall based on my collection of UL’s that with active circulation in Sweden and abroad.

I wanted to ask you all if you recognize, or know of research in your own countries, claims of excessive suicides, maybe even in a specific group, during or after a national crisis?

The background is that after 2005, when the cyclone Gudrun ravaged Sweden and Denmark, a story has circulated that it resulted in just – farmers and forest holders who saw their lives work or financial safety in ruins supposedly committed suicide in big numbers. 

This has been rejected by folklorist Eva Londos who saw no more suicides in the population than statistically normal, and when following up on media reports and interviewing farmers and forest holders found that all incidents were hearsay. 

Statistically higher suicide rates for farmers compared to non-farmers are established in many countries and may be true for Sweden as well, but this was in connection to one specific crisis and – even though it has been clearly disproven – the myth still lives on, having been mentioned as true by many people the last few years including a current government minister.

So my question is: do you know of any comparable example in your own country?

All the best,

Jack Werner

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[Bill Ellis]

Dear Jack Werner,

Likely the clearest and most studied parallel is the widespread belief that the October 1929 crash on the Wall Street Stock Market caused dozens (even hundreds) of stock brokers to commit suicide, often by leaping from the windows of their Manhattan skyscraper offices, holding the paper "ticker tape" in their hands showing that their investments were now worthless.  A number of historians have consulted death records and found that no such epidemic of suicides occurred, though of course some investors did kill themselves, but not at this precise time and not by jumping out of their offices.

I don't know a specific folkloristic reference for this, but a quick search turned this up by a well-known American dubunker of dubious information,  and it names some reputable academic sources on the topic: 

https://www.straightdope.com/21343548/after-the-1929-stock-market-crash-did-investors-really-jump-out-of-windows

Good luck  in your research.  I do know that there is a widespread perception that suicides have risen in the US of late, but the demographers are not convinced that there is an "epidemic of despair" in this country.  Certainly a drop in life expectancy, but the dysfunctional health system here could easily account for that.

Sincerely,

Bill Ellis

Professor Emeritus, English and American Studies

Penn State University

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[Scott Scribner]

Hi Bill & Jack,

This pattern is also intriguing from a cognitive perspective, because in addition to social transmission, it suggests an expectation of specific consequential behaviors that can both trigger and amplify a story's structure and telling. 

Such a process participates in what I call sociocognitive permeability, the mechanism by which elements of worldviews filter into and affect individual experience (Umwelt). For example, the idea that a devastating loss can lead to suicidal thoughts or actions might not have occurred to someone before hearing the story, but then does repeatedly from that point, potentiating other emotional reactions and associations.

Regards,

Scott Scribner

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[John J Laudun]

To build on what Bill and Scott have said, I will add that these kinds of texts enact semantically expectations that are already built into the current linguistic environment. E.g., in similar tales about trucks being purposefully driven into flood waters during a particular weather event in south Louisiana, the focus was on the drivers being behind on their payments — in American English this can be described as being "under water" — thus the legend enacts a an linguistic phenomenon. 

There are perhaps some useful sources in the essay, which also discusses a similar event, and folklore nexus, that happened on the Carolina coast after a hurricane. (Well, during and after, to be clear.)

https://johnlaudun.net/portfolio/publications/Laudun-2023-weathering.pdf

john

On Apr 1, 2026, at 11:05, Scott Scribner <scott.r....@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Greg Kelley]

One is reminded of those persistent, though largely unsubstantiated, stories about stock traders jumping from high rises after the market crash on Black Friday in 1929. That perception got enough traction, this piece from The Guardian says, that “clerks in downtown hotels started asking guests whether they wanted a room for sleeping or jumping.” There’s a redux in the opening lyrics of Steely Dan’s 1975 song “Black Friday”:

When Black Friday comes

I'll stand down by the door

And catch the gray men when they

Dive from the fourteenth floor

[John Laudun will not be surprised that I am invoking Steely Dan.]

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1589,00.html

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From: list...@contemporarylegend.org <list...@contemporarylegend.org> on behalf of John J Laudun <lau...@louisiana.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2026 12:24 PM
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Cc: ja...@kwasbeb.se <ja...@kwasbeb.se>
Subject: Re: [ISCLR listserv] Contemporary Legend about Farmers Committing Suicide

 

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[Anne Patricia Lafferty]

I wonder if we might see rumors of increased farmer suicides in the near
future in the States, since our farmers are currently undergoing
multiple stresses (the impact of the tariffs on sales of their crops
_and_ the cost of imported equipment, rising gas and fertilizer prices,
plus all the stresses that the rest of us are feeling right now)?

Anne Lafferty

On 2026-04-01 05:59, ja...@kwasbeb.se wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> My names is Jack Werner and I am a freelance journalist in Swedish and
> an avid collector and writer on contemporary legends, with a book
> probably coming out this fall based on my collection of UL’s that
> with active circulation in Sweden and abroad.
>
> I wanted to ask you all if you recognize, or know of research in your

> own countries, CLAIMS OF EXCESSIVE SUICIDES, MAYBE EVEN IN A SPECIFIC
> GROUP, DURING OR AFTER A NATIONAL CRISIS?

>
> The background is that after 2005, when the cyclone Gudrun ravaged
> Sweden and Denmark, a story has circulated that it resulted in just
> – farmers and forest holders who saw their lives work or financial
> safety in ruins supposedly committed suicide in big numbers.
>
> This has been rejected by folklorist Eva Londos who saw no more
> suicides in the population than statistically normal, and when
> following up on media reports and interviewing farmers and forest
> holders found that all incidents were hearsay.
>
> Statistically higher suicide rates for farmers compared to non-farmers
> are established in many countries and may be true for Sweden as well,
> but this was in connection to one specific crisis and – even though
> it has been clearly disproven – the myth still lives on, having been
> mentioned as true by many people the last few years including a
> current government minister.
>
> So my question is: do you know of any comparable example in your own
> country?
>
> All the best,
>
> Jack Werner
> ––––––––––

> * Följ mig på I [1]nstagram [1]
> * [2]Prenumerera på mitt n [2]yhetsbrev [2] om vandringssägner

>
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> individual sender, make sure to reply-all to ensure that
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> questions about the listserv, email secr...@contemporarylegend.org.
> This listserv is maintained by ad...@contemporarylegend.org.
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> Groups "ISCLR Listserv" group.
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> To view this discussion visit

> https://groups.google.com/a/contemporarylegend.org/d/msgid/listserv/8CFE2415-D81F-491E-B03B-7B34170EFC78%40kwasbeb.se
> [3].
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[xflowers]

Jack Warner, Bill Ellis and others,

It looks to me that what is being amplified in these stories is a desire to make causal sense out of acts of suicide that otherwise often seem senseless.  The assumption is that economic loss or perhaps other kinds of loss is an explanation for high rates of suicide.  But if the facts don't match the assumptions, it leads me to believe that these stories might function to explain what for many cannot be easily explained, which in itself causes a great deal of anxiety.  If this is the case, this sort of causal explanation helps give sense to senseless acts, which may reduce stress.

Another possible way to look at these stories is that they add heightened drama to stories about loss if the magnitude of the loss is being highlighted.  Certainly that has been the case with stories about investors leaping out of windows at the beginning of the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.  In which case, these stories serve artistic purposes rather than factual reporting.  But serving artistic purposes may be another means of making sense of the world around us, as these narratives are located in common artistic structures that are also a means to that end. 

Sincerly,

Linda Oxley Milligan

academia.edu

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[Eda Kalmre]

Dear colleagues, 

Thank you, it was very interesting to read your opinions and comments! In my opinion, this is a rumor-legend, which in its nature, frequency and repetition is very similar to the stories that many children are born after the screening of the movie 50 Shades of Grey, or that many children are born when the electricity goes out in big city, just like when a train passes through the city in the early morning.

All of these stories require a community of millions of people to spread. That's why they never spread in small Estonia.

Eexciting legends for everyone!

Eda Kalmre, sen. researcher

Folklore Department of Estonian Literary Museum

[Jan Brunvand]

And the one about the train, of course, is the title story of my book The Baby Train and other Lusty Urban Legends (1993). 

—Jan Brunvand

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