Precursors to "The Girl With the Green Ribbon" featured necrophilia, adultery, demons, and (of course) the guillotine.https://t.co/VWkXDvnGTp
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) September 25, 2023
A spooky story called "the girl with the green ribbon" is today known as a Millennial thing, since many young folks were introduced to it through the 1984 book In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Stories by Alvin Schwartz. But it's actually much older. I was first told the tale in the 1960s, when it was a girl with a black velvet ribbon around her neck. It was presented as a long and involved, but spooky, shaggy dog story with a short and sudden punch line, making everyone laugh. Later, my friends and I referenced the story quite a bit when black velvet chokers became the style.
How old is the story, really? Tracing back its history, it became quite popular after the French Revolution, in which many people were executed by the ever-so-efficient guillotine. But even that wasn't the beginning! Although older stories are a bit different, you can see how the story has evolved, modernized, and simplified over several hundred years. Oh, and if you haven't heard the story, you'll get several versions, including videos, in the article at Mental Floss.