Caves are often associated with legends, sagas or rumours. Some of these stories have a true core, a historical origin. Others are fantastic stories that spring from superstition. But then there is a small set of extremely widespread stories that can be found in many countries of the world and in the most diverse cultures, The dark legends (urban legends) of the underground are more likely to be memes. First of all, a small list of such legends:
All these stories do not stand up to serious scrutiny. For example, how could a 15 km tunnel have been built? In the Middle Ages, miners needed a whole year to dig three to four metres of tunnels. A simple calculation shows that it took 40 men 100 years to dig this tunnel. In the case of lost natural caves, there is usually no sign to be found. There is no collapse, no sinkhole on the presumed course of the tunnel. Often the geology is such that a simple glance at a geological map disproves the legend.
As for the treasures, this kind of story is quite plausible, but the fact that the treasure has not been found in centuries strongly suggests that there is none at all. Much more likely, there never was any treasure, or the lucky finder kept quiet about the find. We think that in the vast majority of cases there never was a treasure, because treasures are not very common. It is much more likely that an embezzlement was covered up by the robbery, the missing money is simply added to the loot. If much less is then found, another mysterious treasure is born.
All these stories sound plausible at first glance. At second glance, it looks quite different, and they can usually be exposed as false with the simplest logic. Thus, the probability of such a story is very low. On the other hand, there are hundreds of such stories all over the world. This alone suggests that most of them are fabricated.
So how do you deal with such legends? We suggest: don't be fooled and just enjoy the nice entertainment.