# Green ribbon story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2001, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-ribbon-story/50205 "2001-01-15T20:48:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JeremyCB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb9ed0/32.png) [@JeremyCB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeremyCB)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2001, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-ribbon-story/50205/1 "2001-01-15T20:48:40Z")
My friends and I were talking about a story that we remember from childhood. It involved an old woman who always wore a green ribbon around her neck, yet refused to say why. On her deathbed, she gave permission to remove it…and her head fell off. Does anyone know the author/name of this story? Where to get the text? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2001, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-ribbon-story/50205/2 "2001-01-15T22:15:00Z")
[In a Dark, Dark Room : And Other Scary Stories (An I Can Read Book)](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0064440907/o/qid=979596733/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/107-8614703-3410158). BTW, this took about 6 seconds to find with a search engine 🙂 I used alta-vista, and searched for [“green ribbon” near head], and found the book on the second hit. Arjuna34 ---
**Author:** ![robinh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@robinh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinh)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2001, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-ribbon-story/50205/3 "2001-01-16T02:15:15Z")
We have the book that **Arjuna34** found and it is, as you might guess from the subtitle, a children’s book. The stories in it are all mild variations of scary, “campfire” tales. I would assume that the original versions are oral and are much older.