With great food, great friends, the campfire is a great place to spend a warm summer evening.
But the campfire stories are what transform it from a fun night to the stuff of legends.
Some of my fondest childhood memories involve nights around the dancing flames, listening eagerly while my dad wove tales of intrigue. His campfire stories ranged from terrifying to ridiculous, and he sometimes sprinkled in a bit of humor that only a child could appreciate.
The Best Campfire Stories
The campfire stories my dad told ranged from urban legends to well-known works, and I think he had a few of his own creations as well.
Here are my favorites.
Urban Legends Make the Best Campfire Stories
Even before I knew what urban legends were, they were my favorite stories. He told these three around the campfire every year, and I didn’t learn they were famous tales until much later.
Hook Man
I grew up in a small suburb just South of Chicago, just a few miles away from one of the most infamously haunted cemeteries in the country: Bachelor’s Grove.
My dad used the grove as the setting for the notorious Hook Man tale, helping it spring to life since it happened so close to home.
The tale follows a young couple who “park” under a giant oak tree near the abandoned graveyard. The wind howls as they start to get a bit frisky, then they hear the piercing sound of metal clashing on metal.
Despite the girl’s protests, the boy goes out to investigate. As she waits for him, the rain thunders louder and louder, falling so heavily it sounds like fingers tapping on the roof. She makes herself as small as possible, curling under the dashboard to escape the terrifying taps.
When dawn comes, the police approach the car. They find the petrified girl and try to get her to their car, but she can’t help but turn and face the terrifying scene. She screams as she sees her boyfriend, beheaded, dangling from the giant oak, with his fingers digging into the roof.
Resurrection Mary
My dad was able to connect another urban legend to Chicago, taking us to Resurrection Cemetery on the west side.
The still-active cemetery is home to one of the most famous ghosts in US myth: Resurrection Mary. Legend has it that Mary roams the streets near the cemetery, looking for a ride. However, whoever is brave enough to pick up the hitchhiker finds that she vanishes from the back seat of the car, never to be seen again -until, of course, another unsuspecting driver rides by.
There’s Someone in the Back Seat
There’s Someone in the Back Seat is one of the most famous urban legends, and it makes a wonderful tale for campfire storytelling.
It’s late at night, and a woman on a road trip stops for gas at an isolated station in the middle of nowhere. The creepy-looking attendant fills her tank, then tries to get her to come inside with him. He lies about the card not working, then tries her door to pull her out of the vehicle.
Terrified, the woman peels out of the station. The attendant runs after the car, shouting, “There’s someone in the back seat!” just as the murderer lifts his axe.
Literature Turned Campfire Story
Since we’ve already written an article featuring the best urban legends from around the country, we won’t share more (even though they make delicious campfire tales!).
Our next set of campfire stories comes from famous works written by the kings of the macabre. They’re perfect scary tales for dark evenings nestled around the fire.
If you’re telling stories to kids, they may not be familiar with the works yet, and you can pass them off as your own for a few years, like my dad did 😊.
The Tell-Tale Heart
America’s favorite poet wrote tons of short stories that would be perfect for an evening around the fire. But our family favorite was always The Tell-Tale Heart.
In this short story, the narrator commits an atrocious murder and hides the remains under the floor. But he’s driven mad by guilt, and hears the constant pounding of the heartbeat from under the floorboards
When officers arrive for questioning, his guilt overwhelms him, and he gives himself up by screaming, “It’s the beating of the hideous heart!”
The story basics are great in and of themselves, but printing it out and reading it in Poe’s chilling verse sets the mood better than reciting from memory.
Many of Poe’s short stories and poems would make great campfire stories. The Raven is perfect for setting a creepy tone, while The Cask of Amontillado is my favorite Poe story, though it may not translate as well over the campfire.
The Raft
Though The Mist may be Stephen King’s most popular short story, nothing filled me with more terror than The Raft, a story from his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.
The story follows four teenagers who go for a swim, only to be trapped on a small wooden float by something horrible beneath the surface. I’ll not spoil it for you, but it gave me nightmares for weeks. It’s the perfect story for vacations by lakeside cabins, especially if you want to prevent your kids from swimming 😉.
The Raft isn’t for everyone. The King of Terror filled seven volumes with short stories, so grab your favorite collection and take it with you on your next trip so you always have a great campfire story to share.
Popular Campfire Stories
My dad told tons of stories around the fire, and I have no idea where half of them came from. The urban legends and popular fiction stories were easy to identify, but a lot of stories I remember don’t fall neatly into either of these categories, though you can still find them floating around the internet.
Here are my favorites.
The Yellow Ribbon
A beautiful maiden wears a yellow ribbon around her neck. One day, a man asks her to be his wife. She agrees, but on one crucial condition: he may never remove the yellow ribbon.
The man shrugs it off and agrees. The two wed and enjoy years of married bliss.
But as the years go on, curiosity gets the best of him. Why does she always wear that ribbon? What is she hiding?
He asks, but she refuses to answer. It gnaws at him. One night, he can’t handle it anymore, so after she falls asleep, he quietly unties the ribbon, and her head falls off.
When I got older, I joined the army, and we sang a marching song about a woman who wore a yellow ribbon. In this version, it was in honor of her Soldier who died in the war. I wonder if there is a connection.
The Hairy Toe
An old woman lived alone in a little cabin in the woods. One day, while out scavenging, she came across a giant hairy toe.
“My oh my,” said the woman. “This toe is awfully meaty. I can turn it into delicious toe stew!”
She took it home and got to work, enjoying a savory meal that evening.
The next day, a giant came knocking on the door. “Have you seen my toe?” he asked.
Terrified, the woman said no. He left, but it wasn’t over. Every night, he returned, asking her if she had seen his toe.
Finally, she had had enough, and she screamed, “I found it and I ate it up!”
“I know,” said the giant, and he ate her up.
Prom Night
The prom night is a campfire story based on the famous Resurrection Mary urban legend from earlier, but it has far more details, making it a better fit for a night around the flames.
In this version, a boy heading to the prom picks up a hitchhiking teenage girl wearing a prom dress. It’s a rainy night, and she’s shivering, so he offers his suit coat to keep her warm.
The girl insists he take her home, but when he stops, she gets out of the car and vanishes into thin air. The boy needs his coat for the prom, so he goes to the door, thinking she ran inside.
When he knocks, an older woman appears. He asks if a teenage girl lives there, as they’re heading to prom and he needs his coat back. The woman starts weeping, and shares that her daughter died in a car crash 20 years ago on her way to the prom.
Original Campfire Stories?
My dad told some campfire stories that I didn’t find in any other collection of stories on the internet. Maybe they’re his original tales, or perhaps they’ve been forgotten over time. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough.
But I enjoyed them, and I hope you do too!
One for Me…One for You
Two slackers came across a giant pecan tree in a gated cemetery. It was harvest season, and the delicious nuts were scattered across the lawn.
“We could make good money selling pecans,” said one. “Let’s come back at night, gather them all, then sell them!”
When evening fell, they crept through the graveyard, gathering the pecans. After a while, they sat next to a headstone and began dividing their bounty.
“A one for me, and a one for you,” they counted.
It so happened that a man was walking along the fence, and he heard the counting
“A one for me, and a one for you,” the voices whispered. Terrified, he ran to the church, grabbing the priest.
“Father, Father!” he exclaimed. “God and the Devil are dividing up souls in the graveyard!”
The priest, wanting to see what the fuss was about, accompanied the man to the graveyard.
He heard it too…“a one for me, and a one for you…now let’s go grab those two on the other side of the fence!”
It’s a Com’in
Our last campfire story is ridiculous, but if you have kids under 10, trust me, they will love it!
A little girl finally gets permission to walk home from school by herself. But her parents warn her to never ever take the shortcut down the alley.
She listens for a while, but then wonders why she can’t cut through the alley and save some time. So the next day, she does. As she walks down the alley, she passes a desolate home surrounded by a giant wooden fence.
While near the house, she hears a faint voice whisper “it’s a com’in, it’s a com’in” over and over again. She shrugs and continues on her way.
As she makes it home without any issues, she decides to take the shortcut every day, but each time as she walks past the house, she hears the same voice whispering “it’s a com’in, it’s a com’in.”
One day, she lets her curiosity get the better of her, so she approaches the house.
She hears “it’s a com’in, it’s a com’in,” and it grows louder the closer she gets to the fence. She spots a small hole, perfect for a peephole, and just as she stands on her tiptoes to put her eye to the hole, she hears
“THRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP” then with a relieved sigh, “it came.”
You’ll have to make the loudest, grossest sounding farting sound you can, but trust me the kids will burst into laughter from the surprise.
The Group Story
When we were kids, we often helped craft the stories. My dad would set the scene, then we’d take turns filling in what happens next by handing the flashlight off to the next person.
I don’t remember any of the stories we created (well, except a weird one with a fox who wore a fanny pack that got torn up, so he needed to go to Walmart to get a new one, what were we thinking??) but we had a blast trying to come up with scary or ridiculous plot points for our own campfire tales.
Find More Campfire Stories
If these ten campfire stories aren’t enough for you, you can find tons of creepy and delightful stories all over the internet.
The Reddit forum NoSleep is a great resource for scary stories, but in recent years, it’s been inundated with AI slop, so it’s harder and harder to find creepy stories.
You could lean on old classics like fairy tales, more urban legends, or short stories from your favorite authors to tell chilling tales around the fire.
How to Tell a Campfire Story
Much of the intrigue in campfire stories is lost when translated to writing. These tales are made for narration, not the written word.
My dad was an amazing storyteller who brought the tales to life with voices, tone changes, and arm gestures. Do the same, and folks will flock to your campfire to hear your stories.