Armenian zoo buys long-necked lizard as giraffe

A RECENT fable, passed around as true, had Japanese dog fanciers buying sheep, thinking they were expensive poodles.

The story leapt across the international news wires into world-wide newspaper and TV before it was exposed as an urban myth.

These creatures are the facts, stranger than fictions, which turn out to be fictional. I fancy their being erroneously called only ``urban'' myths could come from rural mythology: you know the yarns about travelling city slickers who imagine themselves as sophisticates only to turn out to be dumber than dog do.

The sheep-poodle myth was somewhat racist in that it had rich Japanese being stupid enough to be sold, not a pup, but a lamb.

As a practising journalist, I have come across these urban myths from time to time. I was working on a provincial paper which ran a staple: a family dog kills a deadly snake threatening a baby. The canine saves the infant's life but, unfortunately, dies in the process.

I did not tell the editor of my suspicions he had been conned because I had previously felt the wrath of people when I suggested they might be duped.

Urban myths have symptoms of untruth. These include imprecision of detail and the story being second or third hand: `my cousin's best friend saw it'.

I have always thought to expose urban myths is more laudable than to spread them but I may be responsible for creating one.

I have been writing a humorous column in our local newspaper for six years. When our State of Queensland was hunting down icons to venerate, I proposed two French poodles, Fi Fi and Fa Fa, which, in 1954, won the sheep dog trials at our annual show.

It was all a bit of fun, but months later, I found my brother, who also lives locally, read my yarn and actually believed it. What's more; my sibling, who is of above average intelligence, told others of the wondrous exploits of the fictional poodles Fi Fi and Fa Fa.

If any of you have been seduced by stories of French poodles winning your sheep dog trials in the dim past, you can probably trace them back to my article and I apologise.

What is your favourite urban myth and how was it exposed? In the meantime, have you heard how Armenian zoos having been buying long-necked lizards passed off as giraffes? You haven’t? Good, let's keep it to ourselves.

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Bernie