There was this couple.

And they were very much in love.

But like many couples very much in love, they wanted desperately to share their happiness. Not with a child, yet, perhaps: but maybe the pitter patter of four paws.

They went on holiday to India, a country which, once they had met the requisite digestive challenges, delighted and enchanted them.

They stayed for a month. And just a few short days into their stay, they found that when they stepped out to take the hot Indian air, to smell the scents of another continent; when they walked out, a little dog would fall in step with them.

Companionably, and enchantingly, without strings or further expectation, he seemed purely to love the company of these two souls.

Every morning he would join them, bowing politely out when they reached their destination; and later, in the dry hustle of the great city, he seemed undaunted by the forest of feet which hurried this way and that, and could be found waiting for them when they had finished their business. By some sixth sense, he seemed to synchronise with their lives.

As the days wore on, he became part of their routine and trotted his way right into their hearts. They would feed him little scraps, fondle him and occasionally smuggle him into the hotel. He was a natural extension of their relationship: a third element.

In the final week, they began to dread the journey home. Not because they had not had their fill of the vivid Indian street life, or this complex and most beautiful of cultures; but rather, because they would have to part from the little spirit who went everywhere with them, trotting obediently at their heels.

Reader, they moved heaven and earth and they finally managed to cut red tape and get the little chap home to their spacious well equipped state-of-the-art, heart-of-the-Western-World house.

And all three were very happy.

Right up until the moment they needed to go away, with little notice, to the funeral of a relative. The dog went to stay with a doting neighbour for the duration.

On their return an unorthodox scenario awaited them.

It appeared the mild little terrier had eaten the neighbour’s cat. On his immediate and unceremonious removal to a local vet the neighbour was informed that this was not, as everyone had been led to believe, a dog, but an outsize Indian rat.

I know. Preposterous. It simply doesn’t hold water. But it did make its way into a national newspaper here in the UK under the banner of a hugely popular column: the Guardian’s Urban Myths series.

One of our friends told it to us over a pint at the pub. Phil wrote it for his Kent paper and sent it to the big guys; and they took it up.

Word of mouth. That most powerful of elements: the way story has been handed down since before writing was the done thing; and the prevailing wind even now among us Homo sapiens.

Today I walked through Windsor with members of my family. It has always been a bit of a stomping ground. I have been a part of that scene since I was in a pushchair myself.

As I walked I never stopped talking: “That,” I announced grandly, waving at a restaurant opposite the castle, “is the town hall about which Christopher Wren had an argument with the council ….and there ” – with fond tones – “is where I ate so much just after finishing my end-of-school exams that I was unable to move and had to sit and watch a game of bowls just to recover; and this fountain,” I added, ” was built for King George when he came to the throne…”

I went on, much in the same vein, uttering legend after legend, some well founded historical fact, some a dodgy mix of fact and fiction, some personal, some universal.

I was delving into my own personal collection of folklore: the traditional gossip which we all cultivate, urban myths enshrined in geological layers of time, some recent, some ancient.

Folklore: so seductive: no need for substantiation, just a huge measure of romanticism.

There are people out there famous for collecting folklore: they are called folklorists. I stumbled on the life of just such a gentleman the other day: a mild-mannered council man by day, daring lore-layer by night.

George lived in Stepney, London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. He started working at the age of 16 with the railways.

He progressed to the Metropolitan Board Of Works and thence to the London County Council. With a flare for statistics he was soon using his skills to show that the city must match its train services to the patterns of the workforce, thus deeply influencing the formation of the London suburbs.

Stirring stuff. But when George switched off the gaslights at the council and headed home, he was a magnet for the folklore of London: the tales that surrounded the old buildings which he had known all his life.

A founder member of Britain’s folklore society, he wrote fifteen books on stories and urban legends. He helped the council forge legislation which would allow them to buy threatened buildings, and involved it in the Survey of London.

He preferred not to be called George: like Lupin Pooter, he chose his second name, Lawrence, for public consumption, as befits a folkloric superhero. His name was Sir Lawrence Gomme.

We all have our personal treasure trove of story.

Some of us love to tell tall tales, some to colour the landscape with its history, and some to catalogue each snatch of story for posterity.

Listening and retelling: it’s in our bones. It’s how we make sense and nonsense out of our world. And founded or unfounded: the stories endure.