Throughout history, many heinous crimes have been committed by many evil, troubled men and women. Some of the stories have survived through the centuries while others have been all but forgotten and left behind. The werewolf of Châlons, also known as the demon tailor, was a 16th century French serial killer, cannibal, and alleged werewolf responsible for the murder of around 50 children. The French werewolf epidemic, which between 1520 and 1630, resulted in the execution of more than 30,000 individuals was the result of a link forged between the werewolf and a new, more aggressive attitude toward witchcraft arising in ecclesiastic councils taking place in Basel Switzerland in the 1430s. The first regions in France to begin prosecutions were therefore naturally those adjacent to Switzerland. Many there were overseen by Henry Bouguet, a judge who tried approximately 600 witchcraft cases in the locality.
In 1598, children began to disappear at an unusual rate from the French town of Châlons, in the Champagne region of France. His real name is unknown, as almost no records of the case survive, but a few survive to this day. This is supposedly because a French court ordered all records of the case destroyed, although more likely is that they were simply lost to time.
At first it seemed as if these children were just vanishing off the face of the earth, but the disappearances were cast in a grim new light when there were scattered reports of a bestial “feral animal” creature, half animal and half man prowling the surrounding wilderness. Considering that this was an era in which myths, witches, and monsters were very much considered a real threat, it was not long at all before rumors spread that the town was being besieged by a loup garou, the French name for a werewolf. Some people claimed that they had seen the children’s corpses being eaten by a wolf, further fuelling speculation. Parties of men began going out into the night to hunt the wolf.
This changed when somebody reported they had heard screams coming from the local tailor’s shop, and that the tailor had run into the woods during the night. A group searched his shop and found an array of barrels, which when opened were found to contain the skeletons of children. Another room contained cuts of human flesh, some of which were half-eaten. Blood and gore was found all over the shop, and the graves of children were dug up in his yard. When confronted with the evidence, the tailor denied he had done anything wrong.
He was believed to lure children of both sexes into his shop, and having tortured and sexually abused them he would slice their throats and then powder and dress their bodies, disjointing them as a butcher cuts up meat, and had them for his dinner. This might sound like a simple case of cannibalism, except that he allegedly captured more children by prowling the nearby woods at night after taking the form of a wolf.
The tailor was arrested and placed on trial in Paris. He confessed to having killed and eaten 50 children, as well as others he found in the woods at night, but continued to deny the accusations that he was a werewolf. The total number of murders in this case is still unknown but he clearly was a serial killer in a time when such a term did not exist in common language yet. He would often fly into rages in custody and froth at the mouth (most likely psychotic episodes), which at the time was believed to be a symptom of lycanthropy.
He was convicted quickly and easily, likely because of the superstitious nature of the case and sentenced to be burned at the stake (the standard punishment for those accused of witchcraft or lycanthropy in France at the time). When the sentence was due to be carried out the tailor flew into another one of his rages as he was tied to the stake before being burned unrepentant and blaspheming, never showing a single ounce of remorse or asking for forgiveness.
One source reported that another thing working against him is the fact that his sister, brother, and two children all were tried the same year for murder, as supposed werewolves and witches that killed children. All of them were convicted and burned at the stake. The sister was the only one who’d committed any crimes but they were all executed because of their claims of supernatural abilities and the fear that such a claim inflicted on the general public but since documents were destroyed, this may be here say or a story embellishment.
Historically, people believed in a thing known as Damnatio memoriae, which is a Latin phrase that means “damnation of memory”. This was the ultimate dishonor to criminals, that they would essentially be erased from history. In ancient times, this was much easier because there was less documentation but as time went on, it became a much more complex process and by association, a much lesser used tool in convicting and sentencing criminals. It is said that the court felt that the acts of the Demon Tailor were so horrible and shocking that no one should ever dare read the accounts ever again. Just like the cannibalistic serial killer, the court documents were burned to ashes.
South Africa is a country of stark contrast, the beautiful modern cities shares its space with tribal societies that still practice rituals and believe in legends thousands of years old, and vampire creatures are one of the darker legends. The vampire creatures of Africa, and certainly strange but no less deadly than other vampire creatures. If you should find yourself in Africa, fear the night.
The obayifo is sometimes described as a creature in its own right, and yet more properly the word refers to a broader body of beliefs and practices, often called witchcraft.
Obayifo is a kind of human vampire whose chief delight is to suck the blood of children, whereby the latter pine and die. Men and women possessed of this power and credited with violent powers, being able to quit their bodies and travel great distances in the night to its victims in the form of a big ball of light. Others say that this creature stayed in human form, but that a bright green light emitted from its bottom and armpits. Besides sucking the blood of their victims, they are supposed to be able to extract the sap and juices of crops. Cases of coco blight are ascribed to the work of the obayifo.
An obayifo in everyday life is supposed to be known by having sharp, shifty eyes, that are never at rest, also by showing an undue interest in food, and always talking about it, especially meat, and hanging about when cooking is going on, all of which habits are therefore purposely avoided. These witches are supposed to be very common.
On the other hand, Modjaben Dowuona, a West African representative at the First International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in 1934 spoke more broadly on the subject of obayifo, and made it clear that obayifo represented a range of activities by certain people, not just a folk monster.
“There are in the main two forms in which witchcraft is practiced. The first takes the form of a power to do harm to other people, especially children, without any physical contact or concrete act of poisoning. Death due to poisoning is considered separate from that believed to be due to witchcraft, though in practice it is not always distinguished from it. The tendency is to ascribe to witchcraft any death which cannot be accounted for on other grounds. It seems that this non-physical way of killing was first directed against children, as is evidenced from the Twi word for witchcraft, ‘Bayi’ meaning literally ‘taking away or removing children.’ It is interesting to find that a corrupt form of the word, namely ‘obeah’ appears in the West Indies, though there it is associated with the worship of various cults.”
Quoted in Psychic Phenomena Of Jamaica by Joseph J. Williams, S.J. (1934)
So by this interpretation, it is ‘witch lore’ – the obayifo is a willing, living human being – and not vampire lore as Europeans would know it.
“In Africa there are any number of folkloric or legendary creatures that subsist on the blood of the living, but these are not truly the undead.”
John L. Vellutini, Editor of the Journal of Vampirology, Interview 2016
Africa is a country of stark contrast, the beautiful modern cities shares its space with tribal societies that still practice rituals and believe in legends thousands of years old, and vampire creatures are one of the darker legends. The adze is said to be a vampiric being from the folklore of the Ewe people, who are concentrated in the coastal areas of West Africa, especially Togo and Ghana. A Sub-Bloodline of the Sasabonsam, the Adze are similar in many ways, albeit considered to be rather more feral.
In the wild, the adze takes the form of a firefly, though it will transform into quasi-human shape upon capture– that of a human-like figure with a hunchback, sharp talons and jet-black skin. It was in this form that it was most dangerous, for it could then kill its victim, drink their blood and eat their heart and liver. It is said that children are the adze’s favorite food.
While Adze do need blood, and can destroy whole villages if left alone, they can also be sated with coconut milk or palm oil, though they require more of these than they would of blood. Nonetheless, this fact makes Adze Vampires the only truly vegetarian vampires, when they care to try.
When in human form, the adze has the power to possess humans. People, male or female, possessed by an adze are viewed as witches (“abasom” in the Ewe language). The adze’s influence would negatively affect the people who lived around their host.
A person is suspected of being possessed in a variety of situations, including: women with brothers (especially if their brother’s children fared better than their own), old people (if the young suddenly started dying and the old stayed alive) and the poor (if they envied the rich). The adze’s effects are generally felt by the possessed victim’s family or those of whom the victim is jealous.
In firefly form, the adze would pass through closed doors at night and suck blood from people as they slept. The victim would fall sick and die. Tales of the creature and its effects were probably an attempt to describe the potentially deadly effects of mosquitoes and malaria. There is no defense against an adze but on the plus side, there is no suggestion that the adze is undead or risen from the grave.
“In Africa there are any number of folkloric or legendary creatures that subsist on the blood of the living, but these are not truly the undead.”
John L. Vellutini, Editor of the Journal of Vampirology, Interview 2016
This one was tough to research and there wasn’t a whole lot of information on it but what I could find was extremely interesting! Africa is a land rich in beauty and history. This gorgeous continent isn’t only home to jaw-dropping scenery and ferocious wildlife, but also to some of the most unique vampire legends out there. It is not just the natural predator that hunts the deserts and jungles of darkest Africa. Some of these nocturnal creatures are anything but natural. Moldavian and Transylvanian villagers might have recognized aspects of African witch lore as related to their own striga.
The Betsileo tribe in Madagascar describes the legend of the ramanga. Whilst officially mostly Protestant or Catholic now, they still draw heavily on indigenous religious beliefs, including belief in the presence of witches and diviners among other things. The strange kind of living vampire is not that well recorded, but it is mentioned occasionally.
The Ramanga takes a purely human form and is closer to our idea of what a vampire looks like. Human in form but undead and deadly. The ramanga is a person that performs disgusting services for the chiefs of the tribe. Whenever a person of high standing had his or her nails clipped or endured a medical treatment in which blood was spilled, the ramanga was expected to eat the nail clippings and drink the blood in order to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands like those of a witch. If there wasn’t a ramanga nearby at the time, the clippings and blood were carefully preserved until the return of the ceremonial vampire.
Other legends say that when this deadly creature of the night attacks people, it drinks their blood and eats their finger nails rather than being at the side of nobles to take care of them.
“In Africa there are any number of folkloric or legendary creatures that subsist on the blood of the living, but these are not truly the undead.”
John L. Vellutini, Editor of the Journal of Vampirology, Interview 2016
1804 portrait of Shipton with a monkey or familiar, taken from an oil painting dating from at least a century earlier
In North Yorkshire, along the River Nidd, one can find the birthplace of Ursula Southeil, better known as the soothsayer Mother Shipton. Ursula Southheil, also spelt Southill, Soothtell, SOothtale or Ursula Sontheil, popularly known as Mother Shipton, is said to have been an English soothsayer and prophetess. Born in 1488, she has sometimes been described as a witch and is associated with folklore involving the origin of the Rollright Stones of Oxfordshire, reportedly a king and his men transformed to stone after failing her test.
Mother Shipton exhibited prophetic and psychic abilities from an early age, writing prophecies in the form of poems, not much different than the cryptic Quatrains of Nostradamus. Within her lifetime she had several premonitions about some of the largest historical events to take place in England, such as the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The first known edition of her prophecies was printed in 1641, 80 years after her reported death in 1561 at age 73. This timing suggests that what was published was a legendary or mythical account. It contained numerous, mainly regional, predictions and only two prophetic verses.
One of the most notable editions of her prophecies was published in 1684. The book reputed Shipton to be hideously ugly, and that she told fortunes and made predictions throughout her life. Mother Shipton was born Ursula Southeil, in 1488 to 15-year-old Agatha Southeil, in a cave in North Yorkshire outside of the town Knaresborough. The earliest sources of the legends of her birth and life were collected in 1667 by author and biographer Richard Head and later by J. Conyers in 1686.
Both sources state that Shipton was born during a violent thunderstorm, and was deformed and ugly, with a hunchback and bulging eyes. The woman who delivered Ursula’, spoke of a smell of sulfur. The sources also state that Shipton cackled instead of crying after having been born, and as she did so, the previously raging storms ceased.
The sources report Ursula’s mother Agatha as a poor and desolate 15-year-old orphan, left with no means to support herself; having fallen under the influences of the Devil, Agatha engaged in an affair, resulting in the birth of Ursula. Variations of this legend claim Agatha herself was a witch and summoned the Devil to conceive a child.
As soon as she was born, her life would be the subject of scrutiny and controversy, particularly when her mother refused to reveal the identity of Ursula’s father. The true origin of Ursula’s father is still unknown, with Agatha refusing to reveal him; at one point, Agatha was forcibly brought before the local magistrate, but still refused to disclose his identity. Within no time at all, speculation about this mysterious child began to circulate. The scandalous nature of Agatha’s life and Ursula’s birth meant the two were ostracized from society and forced to live alone, in the same cave Ursula was born, for the first two years of Ursula’s life.
Rumors that Agatha was a witch and Ursula the spawn of Satan were perpetuated, due to the cave’s well-known skull-shaped pool, which turned things to stone. Such accusations of witchcraft in early medieval Europe were not uncommon and often affected women, who for whatever reason, were living alone or were without family or friends. The cave, located on the banks of the river Nidd, is known today as Mother Shipton’s Cave; though the effects of the cave’s pool are not those of true petrification, they closely resemble the process by which stalactites are formed, coating objects left in the cave with layers of minerals, and in essence hardening porous objects until they become hard and stone-like.
According to 17th-century sources, after two years living alone in the Forest of Knaresborough, the abbot of Beverley intervened. The abbot removed them from the cave and secured Agatha a place in the Convent of the order of St. Bridget in Nottinghamshire, and Ursula a foster family in Knaresborough. Agatha and Ursula would never see each other again. Poor Agatha would die a few years later at the nunnery, never having been reunited with her daughter.
An engraving of Ursula Southheil (Mother Shipton) from the title page of 1686 book The Strange and Wonderful World of Mother Shipton
Developed from contemporary descriptions and depictions of her, it is likely Ursula had a large crooked nose and suffered from a hunchback and crooked legs, which led many people to openly tease her, even when she was just a child. Physical differences acted as a visual reminder of the secretive events of her birth and the townspeople never forgot.
Moreover, such public scorn naturally fuelled more outrageous stories of Ursula. It was claimed that when Ursula was two years old, she was left alone at home while her foster mother left to run errands. Her mother returned to find the front door wide open. Afraid of what might still be in the house, she called to her neighbors for assistance, and the group heard a loud wailing, like “a thousand cats in consort” throughout the house. Ursula’s cradle was found empty. After a frantic search throughout the house, her mother looked up to see Ursula naked and cackling, perched on top of the iron bar where the pot hooks were fastened above the fireplace.
Another much talked about incident included the time a parish meeting was disrupted when she played tricks on the local men who had been mocking her through the window. The talk of strange and unexplained phenomenon’s occurring in retaliation for ridiculing her quickly were interpreted as a sign by those wishing to demonize her: that if you dared to publicly mock Ursula, you could soon expect to be on the receiving end of her wrath.
She found acceptance with her foster family and a few friends, but Ursula was ultimately ostracized from the larger portion of people in town. Ursula dealt with the local community by keeping to herself and journeying off into the woodland and to the cave where she had been born. She found sanctuary in the woods like her mother had and spent most of her childhood learning of plants and herbs and the medicinal properties of them.
She studied the local woodland in great detail, enabling her to devise potions, remedies and concoctions made from the local flora. In no time at all, awareness of Ursula’s abilities and knowledge as an herbalist began to grow within the community and she soon became a very called-upon resource for those wishing for her to cure their ailments.
As Ursula grew so did her knowledge of plants and herbs and she became an invaluable resource for the townspeople as an herbalist. The respect she earned from her work gave her the opportunity to expand her social circle and it was then she met the local carpenter Toby Shipton.
When Ursula was 24 years old she and Toby Shipton were married. From this point on Ursula adopted her husband’s surname and became Mother Shipton. The people in town were shocked at their union and whispered of how he must have been bewitched to marry her.
About a month into her marriage a neighbor came to the door and asked for her help, saying she had left her door open and a thief had come in and stole a new smock and petticoat. Without hesitation Mother Shipton calmed her neighbor and said she knew exactly who stole the clothing and would retrieve it the next day. The next morning Mother Shipton and her neighbor went to the market cross.
The woman who had stolen the clothing couldn’t stop herself from putting the smock on over her clothes, the petticoat in her hand, and marching through town. When she arrived at the market cross she began dancing and danced straight for Mother Shipton and her neighbor all the while singing “I stole my Neighbor’s Smock and Coat, I am a Thief, and here I show’t.” When she reached Mother Shipton she took off the smock, handed it over, curtsied and left.
The source dating to 1686 tells of an event where the chief members of the parish were gathered together in a meeting. Ursula walked past the group running an errand for her mother, and the men stopped to mock her, calling out “hag face” and “The Devil’s bastard”. Ursula kept walking to continue her errands but as the men sat back down, the ruff on the neck of one of the principal yeomen transformed and a toilet seat clapped down around his neck. The man next to him began to laugh, and as he did the hat he was wearing was suddenly replaced with a chamber pot. The gathered members of the parish began to laugh loudly enough that the Master of the house came running to see what was happening; when he tried to run through the door, he found himself blocked by a large pair of horns that had grown suddenly from his head. The source reports that the strange occurrences reverted to normal shortly afterwards, and that the townspeople took them as a sign not to publicly mock Ursula.
Such tales would only add to the mystery and intrigue surrounding Ursula; however her life would be beset by personal tragedy leading to her estrangement from the community once again. Two years later, in 1514, Toby Shipton died, leaving her to become a social outcast once more as some cast aspersions as to the circumstances of his death. The grief of losing her husband and the harsh words of the town prompted Ursula Shipton to move into the woods, and the same cave she had been born in, for peace. Here she continued to create potions and herbal remedies for people. Mother Shipton’s name slowly became more and more well known, and people would travel far distances to see her and receive potions and spells.
Sculpture of Mother Shipton in the cave that is her alleged birthplace, Knaresborough.
As her popularity grew she grew bolder and revealed she could see the future. She started by making small prophecies involving her town and the people within, and as her prophecies came true she began telling prophecies of the monarchy and the future of the world. In 1537 King Henry VIII wrote a letter to the Duke of Norfolk where he mentions a “witch of York”, believed by some to be a reference to Shipton.
“Water shall come over Ouse Bridge, and a windmill shall be set upon a Tower, and a Elm Tree shall lie at every man’s door”.
The River Ouse was the river next to York, and Ouse Bridge was the bridge over the river. This prophecy meant nothing to the people of York until the town got a piped water system. The system brought water across Ouse Bridge in pipes to a windmill that drew up the water into the pipes. The pipes they used were made out of Elm trees and the pipes came to every man’s door delivering water throughout the town.
“Before Ouse Bridge and Trinity Church meet, what is built in the day shall fall in the night, till the highest stone in the church be the lowest stone of the bridge.”
Not long after Mother Shipton uttered this prophecy did a huge storm fall on York. During the storm the steeple on the top of Trinity Church fell and a portion of the Ouse Bridge was destroyed and swept away by the river. Later when making repairs to the bridge, pieces that had previously been the steeple of the church were used as the foundation of the new section of the bridge. Effectively making Trinity Church and the Ouse Bridge what was built in the day and fell in the night, and the steeple from Trinity Church, the highest stone, be the foundation of the bridge, the lowest stone of the bridge.
Moreover, in the famous diarist Samuel Pepys account of the Great Fire of London, he includes the details of hearing the Royal Family discuss Mother Shipton’s predictions of such an event. As her reputation grew, so too did belief in her abilities, enabling her to make a living out of her prophecies. Her predictions would extend to some of the most important people in the land including King Henry VIII himself and his right-hand man at the time, Thomas Wolsey.
“When the cow doth ride the bull, then, priest, beware the skull. And when the lower shrubs do fall, the great trees quickly follow shall. The mitered peacock’s lofty cry shall to his master be a guide. And one great court to pass shall bring what was never done by any king. The poor shall grieve to see that day and who did feast must fast and pray. Fate so decreed their overthrow, riches brought pride, and pride brought woe”.
“When the cow doth ride the bull, then, priest, beware the skull.”
Often when Mother Shipton would have visions of specific people she wouldn’t see faces or names, but their family heraldry. The cow mentioned represents the heraldry of Henry VIII, and the bull similarly represents Anne Boleyn. Mother Shipton is marking the beginning of her prophecy to the marriage of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Once they are wed the priests need to beware. This is because their marriage marks the beginning of the dissolution of the monasteries, where King Henry VIII demobilized all monasteries, priories and convents in England. Many priests, both religious and secular, lost their lives for pressing against the laws made to limit the Catholic Church’s power.
“The mitered peacock’s lofty cry shall to his master be a guide.”
In late-15th-century and early-16th-century England, King Henry VIII was not the controlling force behind all policies and matters of state. The man who was the controlling figure in matters of state was the King’s chief advisor Thomas Wolsey. Thomas Wolsey was the son of a butcher, who rose up and became Chancellor, and then a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the King’s chief advisor and a controlling figure in all matters of state, and Henry VIII’s policies. Wolsey was even often depicted as an alter rex (other king) because his influence was so absolute in both political and religious spheres. In her prophecy Mother Shipton refers to him as a “mitered peacock”. as he came from the lowly state of being the son of a butcher to controlling and guiding King Henry VII and all his policies for England.
“And one great court to pass shall bring what was never done by any king.”
This portion of the prophecy refers to King Henry VIII seizing power from the Catholic Church and his creation of the Church of England, which had never been done by any king before.
“The poor shall grieve to see that day and who did feast must fast and pray. Fate so decreed their overthrow, riches brought pride, and pride brought woe”.
King Henry VIII wanted to take control of all the land and property owned by the monasteries in order to enrich himself. He did this by forcing the monasteries to surrender all their property, and then he dissolved, or abolished the monasteries and expelled the monks. The poor were ultimately the ones that suffered, because the monasteries had been the source of most charity, and fed and gave alms to the poor. With the monasteries all abolished, all of the former funds used for charity went into the king’s treasury instead of being used to help the poor. Mother Shipton then says this fall of the church was inevitable; as the church became more wealthy, they became more prideful. Their lack of humility had ultimately led to their downfall.
Moreover, in a pamphlet dated 1641 which is one of the earliest surviving records of her predictions, she foresees Thomas Wolsey’s fate at the time of his demise, after he had fallen out of favour after failing to secure the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. On a journey between London and York he died from natural causes, a point which Mother Shipton had made when she claimed that Wolsey would never reach his destination.
Whilst her mysticism proved unnerving for some, in such a high-profile case such as predicting Cardinal Wolsey’s fate, or the ensuing dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, her status and fame reached dizzying new heights.
The earliest account of Mother Shipton’s prophecies published in 1641 goes that the document of Mother Shipton’s life was recorded by a woman named Joanne Walker who heard the story as a young girl and transcribed it as Mother Shipton spoke of her life. Mother Shipton never wrote anything down or published anything during her lifetime.
Most, if not all, of these stories are derived from a book published in 1684, 130 years after the reputed death of Mother Shipton, and it is uncertain how far they were the invention of the author, Richard Head.
The most famous claimed edition of Mother Shipton’s prophecies foretells many modern events and phenomena. Widely quoted today as if it were the original, it contains over a hundred prophetic rhymed couplets. But the language is notably non-16th century. This edition includes the now-famous lines:
The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.
This version was not published until 1862. Charles Hindley took an old Mother Shipton chapbook, edited it, and added some material, including the final couplet about the world ending in 1881. This was taken seriously enough that there was panic in that year. More than a decade later, its true author, Charles Hindley, admitted in print that he had created the manuscript.
This fictional prophecy was published over the years with different dates and in (or about) several countries. The booklet The Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil better known as Mother Shipton (1920s, and repeatedly reprinted) predicted the world would end in 1991. (In the late 1970s, many news articles were published about Mother Shipton and her prophecy that the world would end—these accounts said it would occur in 1981.)
Among other well-known lines from Hindley’s fictional version (often quoted as if they were original) are:
A Carriage without a horse shall go;
Disaster fill the world with woe…
Men in the air shall be seen
In blue and black and white and green
In water iron then shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat.
Under the water men shall walk
The world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred eighty-one
Mother Shipton is referred to in Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), referring to the year 1665, when the bubonic plague erupted in London:
“These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to: and this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and the like… And this trade grew so open and so generally practiced that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors: ‘Here lives a fortune-teller’, ‘Here lives an astrologer’, ‘Here you may have your nativity calculated’, and the like; and Friar Bacon’s brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these people’s dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton….”
Mother Shipton’s Cave
The cave where she lived is known as England’s oldest tourist attraction (since 1630) and for hundreds of years people have trekked to see the cave where she was born. This cave’s water has a mineral content so high anything placed in the pool will slowly be covered in layers of stone. Tourists will place items in the pool to later return and see it turned to stone.
Once thought to be the work of witchcraft, it’s now known that the water that can turn thing like teddy bears, hats and other random items into “stone” within 3 to 5 months is due to the natural process of evaporation and an unusually high mineral content.
Mother Shipton’s Cave and Petrifying Well now has a gift shop, a picnic area, a wishing well, and of course a walk along the river to see the items, consisting mostly of children’s toys, hung beneath the soothsayer’s petrifying waters.
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The figure of Mother Shipton accumulated considerable folklore and legendary status. Her name became associated with many tragic events and strange goings-on recorded in the UK, North America, and Australia throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Many fortune-tellers used her effigy and statue, presumably for purposes of association marketing. Many English pubs were named after her. Only two survive, one near her purported birthplace in Knaresborough and the other in Portsmouth. The latter has a statue of her above the door.
A fundraising campaign was started in 2013 to raise £35,000 to erect a statue of Shipton in Knaresborough. Completed in October 2017, the statue sits on a bench in the town’s Market Square close to a statue of John Metcalf, an 18th-century road engineer known as Blind Jack.
Statue of Mother Shipton in Knaresborough
There is a small moth native to Yorkshire named after her. The Mother Shipton moth (Callistege mi) is very unique and each wing’s pattern resembles a hag’s head in profile.
A Mother Shipton moth, with hag-like markings on its wings
The prophecies may not be all historically correct, and the stories may have been embellished slightly over the centuries, but she remains one of those legendary figures of romance and folklore entwined in our imaginations and the local surroundings.
Mother Shipton had lived a difficult life, dominated by ridicule and suspicion. However her mystical skills rescued her from her status as a social pariah and today has placed her firmly within the pages of English folklore and legend.
Woodcut showing the beheading of Peter Stumpp in Cologne in 1589
Werewolves: ancient legends, or real-life monsters? Whether you believe in these creatures or not, crimes committed by werewolves appear in the history books and on the Internet. A number of these supposed werewolf crimes originate from 16th century Europe, particularly France and Germany. This was the height of werewolf hysteria, when many men and women were burned at the stake or tortured after being accused of possessing dark powers. A few of these victims truly believed that they could turn into beasts.
The most comprehensive source on the case is a 16-page pamphlet published in London in 1590 called The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter, the translation of a German print of which no copies have survived. The English pamphlet, of which two copies exist (one in the British Museum and one in the Lambeth Library), was rediscovered by occultist Montague Summers in 1920.
It describes Stumpp’s life, alleged crimes and the trial, and includes many statements from neighbors and witnesses on the crimes. Summers reprints the entire pamphlet, including a woodcut, on pages 253 to 259 of his work The Werewolf. The original documents seem to have been lost during the wars of the centuries that followed. Some additional information also came from an account by Edward Fairfax in 1621, who referenced the case when writing of his daughters being accused of witchcraft in his famous Daemonologia.
A page from the pamphlet.
In the late 16th century, the town of Bedburg, Germany was terrorized by a diabolical creature that slaughtered its cattle and snatched away its women and children, killing them with unspeakable morbidity. The shocked and horrified townspeople feared that they were being victimized by a raving demon from Hell or, just as bad, a bloodthirsty werewolf who lived among them.
Peter Stumpp (c. 1535 – 1589), also spelled Peter Stube, Peeter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf, and other aliases include such names as Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold. The name “Stump” or “Stumpf” may have been given him as a reference to the fact that his left hand had been cut off, leaving only a stump. In Germanic mythological systems, which underpinned laws and court rulings, it was held that if a werewolf’s left forepaw was cut off, the same injury appeared on the man. Peter was a German farmer and alleged serial killer, accused of werewolfery, witchcraft and cannibalism. He was known as ‘the Werewolf of Bedburg’.
Stumpp was born at the village of Epprath near the country-town of Bedburg in the Electorate of Cologne, a small city in Germany’s Rhineland, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. The area where Stumpp lived had most recently been devastated due to the Cologne War, also known as the Sewer War (the name is apparently derived from a battle in which Catholic forces stormed a castle through its primitive sewer system).His actual date of birth is not known, as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648).
He was a wealthy farmer of his rural community. The community knew him as a pleasant enough widower and father of two adolescent children, whose wealth ensured him a measure of respect and influence. During the 1580s, he seems to have been a widower with two children; a girl called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been older than 15 years old, and a son of an unknown age born out of an incestuous relationship with his daughter.
Woodcut from 1590
At the time, Catholicism and Protestantism were at war for the hearts and minds of the populace, which brought invading armies from both faiths to Bedburg. There were also outbreaks of the dreaded Black Plague. For many years, farmers around Bedburg were mystified by the strange deaths of some of their cows. Day after day for many weeks, they would find cattle dead in the pastures, ripped open as if by some savage animal. The farmers naturally suspected wolves, but this was actually the beginning of Peter’s unnatural compulsion to mutilate and kill which would escalate into attacks on neighboring villagers.
Children began to disappear from their farms and homes. Young women vanished from the paths they traveled daily. Some were found dead, horribly mutilated. Others were never found. The community was thrown into a panic. Hungry wolves were again suspected and the villagers armed themselves against the animals. Some even feared a more devious creature—a werewolf, who could walk among them unsuspected as a man, then transform into a wolf to satisfy its hunger. Although he did not literally transform into a wolf, Peter would cloak himself with the skin of a wolf when seeking his victims.
During 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. After being stretched on a rack, and before further torture commenced, he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was 12 years old. he made a pact with the Devil, with the Prince of Lies getting his soul in exchange for numerous worldly pleasures. But this wasn’t enough to satisfy Stumpp, who was “a wicked fiend pleased with the desire of wrong and destruction” and “inclined to blood and cruelty.” He claimed that the Devil had forged and given him a magical belt or girdle of wolf fur, which enabled him to metamorphose into “the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” Removing the belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form. After the trial an extensive search was made at Peter’s farm for the magical werewolf-belt but nothing resembling it was ever recovered.
For 25 years, Stumpp had allegedly been an “insatiable bloodsucker” who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Lambs and calves were ripped apart and devoured raw. Small children were strangled, bludgeoned, and throats ripped open with his bare hands. Some were disemboweled and partially eaten. Being threatened with torture, he confessed to killing and eating 14 children, 2 pregnant women, whose fetuses he ripped from their wombs and “ate their hearts panting hot and raw,” which he later described as “dainty morsels.” One of the 14 children was his own son. Stumpp led the boy into the forest, killed him, and then ate his brains. The young women among his victims were sexually assaulted before he tore them apart.
Woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1512, of a werewolf ravaging a town and carrying off babies.
In one instance of a triple murder, Stumpp saw two men and a woman taking a walk just outside the city walls of Bedburg and he crouched hidden out of sight behind some brush. He called out to one of the men by name with the pretense that he needed help with some lumber. When the young man joined him out of sight of the others, Stumpp bashed his head in. When the man didn’t return, the second young man went looking for him and was likewise killed. Fearing danger, the woman began to flee, but Stumpp managed to catch her. The men’s battered bodies were later found, but the woman never was, and it was thought that Stumpp, after raping and killing her, might have eaten her completely.
Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter whom he had impregnated, and was sentenced to die with him, as well as his mistress. In addition to this, he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.
When the limbs of several missing people were found in a field, the villagers were further convinced that a ravenous wolf was responsible, and so several hunters set out with their dogs to pursue the predator. The men hunted the creature for days until at last, they saw him. But according to the account, they saw and chased down a wolf, not a man. The dogs chased the animal until they had it cornered. The hunters were sure that they were chasing a wolf, but when they came to the spot where the dogs had it cornered, there cowered Peter Stumpp. According to an eye witness account, being trapped with no room for escape, Stumpp removed his magic belt and transformed from the wolf to his human form. He was also accused on account of his missing left hand, for the werewolf in question was missing a left forepaw. This supposedly came about when the werewolf had been caught in a trap earlier and had to chew its paw off to escape. Stumpp was missing the corresponding hand, which was lost in an accident years before. However, the timing of the injury was conveniently ignored in an effort to find evidence against Stumpp.
The hunters saw no magic belt, as Stumpp later claimed he had, but only an ordinary walking stick in his hand. At first they disbelieved their own eyes; after all, Stumpp was a respected, long-time resident. How could he be a werewolf? Perhaps this wasn’t really Peter Stumpp at all, they reasoned, but a devilish trick. So they escorted Stumpp to his house and determined that he was indeed the Peter Stumpp they knew. Peter Stumpp was arrested and tried for the crimes.
The arrest, trial, and prolonged execution of Peter Stumpp, the sorcerer and werewolf, near Cologne in 1589 were recounted in pamphlets in the Netherlands, London (1590), and Copenhagen (1591). Cologne had recently become Catholic and the accused was Protestant, so the accounts of Stumpp’s sodomy, incest, rape, and cannibalism may have had a political element involved. The 1590’s pamphlet provides trial notes and witness statements which can be found recorded in other publications, indicating that the story of Peter Stumpp’s execution is true. The private diaries of Hermann von Weinsberg, a Cologne alderman, also covered this case and it was detailed in several broadsheets printed in southern Germany, which all convey identical versions this weird and gory tale.
Thought now to be a werewolf, Stumpp was brought to trial, and it was only under pain of torture on the rack that his confession to all of the heinous crimes came out, including sorcery, his consort with the Devil and the story of the magic belt.
woodcut print by Lukas Mayer of the execution of Peter Stumpp in 1589 at Bedburg near Cologne.
This fact has led some researchers to surmise that Stumpp was, in fact, innocent; that his wild confession was elicited by the torture. Perhaps Stumpp himself was a victim of the superstition and religious rivalry taking place at the time: the fear and conviction of a demon-inspired werewolf might lead people back to the “true Church.” Whether he was truly a serial killer or a political victim, Stumpp was found guilty on October 28, 1589.
The 16-page pamphlet and the German broadsheets all noted the attendance of “members of the aristocracy” at Stumpp’s execution “including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne”. This single fact suggests the presence of a hidden motive.
It might be relevant that the block of years in which Stumpp was said to have committed his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal spiritual and political warfare. The Electorate of Cologne was in upheaval upon the introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. Stumpp was an early convert to Protestantism and fought in a war which historians claim brought uncontrolled violence out of soldiers on both sides, resulting in an epidemic of the plague.
In 1587, the protestants were finally defeated and the new lord of Bedburg – Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck made Bedburg Castle the headquarters of his Catholic mercenaries who were determined to re-establish the Roman faith. Stumpp’s werewolf trial may have been performed to, a tad more than gently, persuade the remaining Protestants to sign up to Catholicism. It was unlikely that any of Germany’s elite would have attended a regular werewolf or witch trial – and they were regular. It is most likely the case that having drawn up Stumpp’s alleged, and truly outrageous crimes,
the elite constructed a popular public spectacle, and with assured visibility to the public at large, the nobility mounted their rides and attended the disembodiment of a werewolf – a protestant scoundrel – an archetype of anti-Catholic spiritual darkness.
The execution of Stumpp, on 31 October 1589, alongside his daughter Sybil and mistress, Katherine Trompin, is one of the most brutal on record: his body was strapped spread-eagle on large wheel; with red-hot pincers, where his executioners pulled the flesh from his body in ten places, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axehead to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and his body burned on a pyre.
His daughter and mistress (both of whom were convicted of abetting his crimes) had already been flayed and strangled, and were burned at the stake along with Stumpp’s body. By directive of the magistrate, a warning to other potential devil-worshipers was put in place for all to see: the wheel on which Stumpp was tortured was set high upon a pole from which hung 16 yard-long strips of wood, representing his 16 known victims. Atop that was the framed likeness of a wolf, and above on the sharpened point of the pole was placed Peter Stumpp’s severed head.
This execution of a werewolf takes place in a historical context where, in various parts of Germany, alleged witches or devil’s minions were hunted down and then condemned after torture sessions that led to extravagant confessions such as those of Peter Stumpp. About 250 werewolf trials from the period between 1423 and 1720 are documented in the literature. The files on this witch trial have not been preserved. It is therefore impossible to determine whether Stumpp actually committed the crimes for which he was convicted. There may be no way of knowing for certain whether Peter Stumpp was a convenient scapegoat for the authorities (which means a wolf or wolves really were responsible for the deaths), or he was a maniacal serial killer.
In Stubbe’s case, it’s possible he was suffering from clinical lycanthropy. The diagnosis (recognized in the DSM-IV) is thought to be a cultural manifestation of schizophrenia, and associated with bouts of psychosis, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and “grossly disorganized behavior.” There was a documented case from the 1970s, in which a 49-year-old woman, after having sex with her husband “suffered a 2-hour episode, during which time she growled, scratched, and gnawed at the bed,”
according to Harvey Rostenstock, M.D. and Kenneth R. Vincent, Ed.D. in their article in The American Journal of Psychiatry. The woman later said the Devil came into her body and she became an animal. The article goes on to say that “there was no drug involvement or alcoholic intoxication.” This was just one of the instances in which the woman had a lycanthropic episode. The authors opined that people experience lycanthropy when their “internal fears exceed their coping mechanisms” and they externalize those fears “via projection” and can “constitute a serious threat to others.” While in many cases lycanthropy is associated with wolves, there have been cases where patients believed they were sharks, leopards, elephants or eagles, among other “feared” animals.
If you are interested in reading the full 16 page pamphlet of his trial and execution, click here. Definitely an fascinating read!
Familiar: No Spirit Animal: No Spirit Guide: No Totem: No Mythical: No Supernatural: Yes Cryptid: No Urban Legend: No Creepypasta: No
A jiāngshī, also known as a Chinese hopping vampire, is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore. The characters for ” jiāngshī ” are read goeng-si in Cantonese, cương thi in Vietnamese, kyonshī in Japanese, and gangsi in Korean. It is also known as phi dip chin in Thai, hantu pocong in Malay, and vampir cina in Indonesia. Although its Chinese name is often translated as ‘Chinese hopping vampire / zombie / ghost), its literal meaning is ‘stiff corpse’. It is typically depicted as an undead creature dressed in Chinese shroud which is sometimes mistaken as official garments from the Qing Dynasty, and it moves around by hopping with its arms outstretched. It kills living creatures to absorb their qi, or “life force”, usually at night. One could argue that they’re closer to zombies, particularly of the Haitian variety. During the day, it rests in a coffin or hides in dark places such as caves.
Official uniform of a mandarin from Qing Dynasty, which jiāngshī are usually portrayed wearing
They are said to be created when a person’s soul (魄 pò) fails to leave the deceased’s body. The causes for a corpse to be reanimated can be classified in either of two categories: a recently deceased person returning to life, or a corpse that has been buried for a long time but does not decompose.
jiāngshī may be the result of several misdeeds, including the use of necromancy to resurrect the dead; the spiritual possession of a corpse; a corpse who has absorbed enough qi to reanimate of its own volition; a corpse who has not received a proper or fast enough burial after its funeral; a corpse who has been struck by lightning or jumped over by a pregnant cat(or a black cat in some tales); and a person whose soul fails to leave their body for various reasons, including an improper death, suicide, violent death, hanging, drowning, or the simple desire to want to ruin other people’s lives for no reason.
if a burial was postponed after death, a dead body may become restless, and return to haunt the living. Another supposed way of a corpse turning into a jiāngshī is that it fails to decompose even after burial. Such deaths cause the soul to be unable to leave the body, thus resulting in a reanimated corpse.
Generally, a jiāngshī’s appearance can range from unremarkable (as in the case of a recently deceased person) to horrifying (rotting flesh, rigor mortis, as with corpses that have been in a state of decay over a period). Additionally, the jiāngshī is recognizable by its posture and movement. The arms of these creatures are permanently outstretched, due to rigor mortis, and they hop, rather than walk. The Chinese character for “jiang” literally means “hard” or “stiff”.
It is believed that the jiāngshī are so stiff that they cannot bend their limbs or body. jiāngshī are depicted in popular culture to have a paper talisman (with a sealing spell) attached onto and hanging off the forehead in portrait orientation, and wear a uniform coat-like robe and round-top tall rimmed hat characteristic of a mandarin (Chinese official from during the Qing dynasty). A peculiar feature is its greenish-white skin; one theory is that this is derived from fungus or mold growing on corpses.
The influence of western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in more modern times in combination with the concept of the hungry ghost, though traditionally when it comes across a victim it will suck the life force out of them, feeding solely on the qi for sustenance and in order to grow more powerful.
Some have disputed the comparison of jiāngshī with vampires, as jiāngshī are usually mindless creatures with no independent thought. One unusual feature of this monster is its greenish-white furry skin, perhaps derived from fungus or mold growing on corpses. They are said to have extremely long prehensile tongues and long black sharp claw-like fingernails. Also, they are blind, and if one holds their breath when it passes, they may remain unnoticed. They locate prey using their sense of smell or by listening out for their breathing. Like Slavic vampires and Anglo zombies, a person drained of Life Energy will become another of its kind — minus the robes, of course, unless they were actually wearing them at the time.
After one hundred years and stealing enough qi, the jiāngshī acquires the ability to fly and can also climb trees and high buildings. These flying jiāngshī stalk their prey with ease and can drain the life essence from any creature without even leaving a mark. After nearly a thousand years, the flying jiāngshī inherits demigod-like status and becomes a ba (魃) or Drought Demon. Ba can shape shift into any creature, cause droughts, and infect large groups of people with plague. It is thought they can even fly into the heavens to kill celestial dragons. Tens of thousands of years may pass before the ba makes its final transformation and becomes a Demon King.
If you know what movie this is from, I would love to know in the comments so I can watch it!
A potential source of the jiāngshī stories came from the folk practice of “transporting a corpse over a thousand li”. During the Qing Dynasty, efforts were made to return the bodies of Chinese workers who died far away from home back to their place of birth. This was done so that their spirits would not grow homesick. it was believed that their souls would long to return home if they were buried somewhere unfamiliar to them.
There were those who specialized in this trade and handled the transportation of the corpses back to their ancestral homes. These ‘corpse drivers’, as they are called, are said to have transported the dead at night. The corpses would be arranged upright in single file coffins which were attached to 2 bamboo rods that rested on the shoulders of two men. As they went on their journey, the bamboo poles would flex. Viewed from afar, this would look as is the dead were bouncing on their own accord.
It is from here that rumors about reanimated corpses began. Initially, it was speculated that the ‘corpse drivers’ were necromancers who were able to magically reanimate the corpses of the dead. Under the supervision of the ‘corpse drivers’, the dead would hop back home.
This was done overnight to minimize the decay of the body. Additionally, travelling at night meant that there would be a lower chance of encountering the living, and meeting the dead is considered bad luck. For added measure, a priest with a bell is said to lead the procession, thus warning people of their approach.
Two oral accounts of transporting corpses are included in Liao Yiwu’s The Corpse Walker. One account describes how corpses would be transported by a two-man team. One would carry the corpse on his back with a large robe covering both of them and a mourning mask on top. The other man would walk ahead with a lantern and warn his companion about obstacles ahead of him. The lantern was used as a visual guide for the corpse carrier to follow since they could not see with the robe covering them. It is speculated in the accounts in the book that corpses would be carried at night to avoid contact with people and the cooler air would be more suitable to transporting bodies.
Supposedly if someone died far away from home and their relatives could not afford a vehicle to carry their corpse back for burial, they could hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual that would reanimate the deceased and incite them to “hop” their way home. These priests would transport several corpses late at night and would ring bells to notify others of their approach, as it was considered bad luck for anyone to set eyes on a jiāngshī.
jiāngshī are also said to be terrified of their own reflections. A mirror is the essence of liquid metal. It is dark on the external but bright inside and thus can repel a jiāngshī. Another item is something made of wood from a peach tree. Peach is the essence of the Five Elements. It can subjugate evil auras and deter evil spirits. Another method would be to nail seven jujube seeds into the acupuncture points on the back of a corpse. Fire is also a great method to defeat the jiāngshī. It is said, that when set on fire, the sound of crackling flames, blood rushes forth and bones cry.
Thread stained with a concoction of black ink, chicken blood and burnt talisman or blood of a black dog will repel the jiāngshī. The Ba Gua sign or a Taoist talisman, stuck on the forehead can immobilize them whilst it is firmly stuck on. Dropping a bag of coins can cause the jiāngshī to count the coins much like in eastern European vampiric folklore.
It is said evil spirits withdraw when they hear a rooster’s call because the rooster’s call usually occurs with the rise of the sun however, it is unclear if it is the actual rooster’s voice that repels evil or if it is the sun that does it. The rooster merely heralding the rise of the sun. Another strange method is the urine of a virgin boy.
Witch Tip: To subdue a hopping vampire the person must take a thin yellow piece of paper and write out a distinct spell in chicken’s blood, which will then be attached to the vampire’s forehead. A person defending themselves against a hopping vampire/zombie can use an 8 sided mirror called Ba-qua mirror, which is often used in Feng Shui. The mirrors purpose is to reflect the light, which in turn scares the creature away. A sword charged under the light of the moon made of Chinese coins can be used in an attack against the vampire.
It is also the conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that a threshold, a piece of wood approximately 6 in high, be installed along the width of the door at the bottom to prevent a jiāngshī from entering the household
Hsien-Ko from Darkstalkers
Hsien-Ko, known in Japan as Lei-Lei, is a fictional character from the Darkstalkers fighting game franchise and that is the first place I ever encountered one of these creatures and I loved her immediately.
Familiar: No Spirit Animal: No Spirit Guide: No Totem: No Mythical: No Supernatural: No Cryptid: Yes Urban Legend: Yes Creepypasta: No
Image from Google
South Texas has el Chupacabras, the Hill Country has La Llorona, and East Texas has the wild man of the Big Thicket and the loup-garou. But perhaps none of these created more excitement than the Lake Worth Monster stirred up in the summer of 1969. Something strange, people said, was roaming the woods northwest of town on the shores of Lake Worth.
Something monstrous is lurking among the singing cicadas and rustling reeds on the shoreline of the West Fork of the Trinity River. In Texan folklore, the Lake Worth Monster is a legendary satyr-like creature said to inhabit Lake Worth at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, just outside Fort Worth that terrorized the people of the city in July of 1969. All the purported monster sightings took place in the vicinity of Greer Island and although it was called an island, it could be reached by car on a muddy dirt track, and its relative isolation made it a popular hangout for local teenagers.
The Lake Worth Monster lives on the shores of the West Fork of the Trinity River. It can swim, climb trees, and eats fish and chickens. It is seven feet tall and has inhuman strength. Some reports say it has horns sprouting from its head, giving the monster the moniker of Goatman. Also known as the goatman of the lake, in a nod to Scotland’s Nessie — the Loch Worth Monster, and the island monster, the creature is often described as a “part-man, part-goat” with scales and long clawed fingers, towering seven feet tall, and weighing 350 pounds. Hairy, horned and covered in scales, the beast was reportedly seen running across a cliff. Some described it as having a single horn in the middle of its head as well as long-necked, flop-eared, slope-shouldered, pot-bellied, covered in white hair or scaly.
Lake Worth, just west of Dallas and just east of Fort Worth. In the middle of the lake is a landmass known as Greer Island, where the monster was alleged to have roamed. The creature has also become known as “Fort Worth’s answer to Bigfoot.” Even today, stories of the monster, also known as “Goatman,” can be heard around campfires in North Texas. Researchers have made documentaries and written books. Lakewood Brewing Co. even decided to pay respect with a limited-release Goatman beer.
The summer of 1969 was hot and humid in Tarrant County. Back then, the area near Greer Island wasn’t gated off like it is now. Teenagers would go down Shoreline Road around the lake to be alone and enjoy the freedom of summer nights. On July 9, a group of three couples was parked by a clearing. Around midnight, a beast leapt onto their car from the trees above. The monster tried to grab one woman, but they sped off before it could take her away, the witnesses said. These couples were the first to do so and, soon on, it became a phenomenon. A story about the uproar appeared in the Star-Telegram in July 1969, and WFAA followed up with a report the next day.
“Just about the time man, in all his wisdom, decides that he has this world and everything in it all figured out, along comes something he can’t explain,” WFAA reporter Jerry Taff relayed from the scene, his tone wavering between tongue-in-cheek and grave concern.
Reporter Jim Marrs followed up on the story and wrote an article, which made front-page news. The headline was, “Fishy Man-Goat Terrifies Couples Parked at Lake Worth.” The couples described it as goat-and man-like with fur and scales. Reports circulated of sheep being ripped to pieces, of cattle and dogs killed and mutilated
Image from Google
Sightings by local citizens in July 1969 led to the belief that a mysterious creature lived in Lake Worth. According to Sallie Ann Clarke’s book The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island, Fort Worth, Texas, the monster jumped on the hood of a man’s car. Jim Stephens, claimed the monster, “real big and human like with burn scars all over its face arms and chest,” jumped on the hood of his Mustang one night, hanging on until Stephens crashed into a tree. The car was supposedly damaged by the Lake Worth Monster after it jumped out of a tree. He reported that he and two other men were out on the island looking for the creature.
When the creature landed on the hood, the man said that he swerved his car wildly about the road, and the monster did not let go until the man crashed into a nearby tree. As proof, he had a foot-and-a-half-long scar on it. The police finally decided to investigate, yet yielded no answers. Jim Stephens, reported that he himself was 6’4’’ and the creature was easily much taller than him. Stephens claimed the monster was at least 7-feet tall, maybe taller. Only one day after the incident, reports came in of a creature hurling a tire from a bluff at bystanders.
“We’ve had reports about this thing for about two months,” a police dispatcher told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “but we’ve always laughed them off as pranks.” But an 18-inch gash in the car’s side and the terrified nature of the witnesses led police to open a full investigation. It appeared in the newspapers the next day, and the area was immediately caught in monster-fever.
Truckloads of men with guns headed toward Greer Island to hunt the thing. Spectators came out in droves to try to catch a glimpse of it. Reporters swarmed in, and police tried to keep the peace.
Rick Pratt, director of the Greer Island Nature Center at the time, remembers folks coming out with wine, whiskey, and beer to have a good time and hunt for the creature.
Image from Google
“Here was a Sasquatch, our very own,” Pratt said. “It was a party, what the hell, let’s go.”
On the night of July 10, a few dozen people were at a clearing known for dumping near the lake when the monster made another appearance. It appeared on a cliff, looked angry, and threw a tire 500 feet. Everyone, including a group of sheriff’s deputies, ran away in fear. One witness said the monster gave off a “pitiful cry, like something was hurting him.”
Image from Google
In October of 1969, a man named Allen Plaster snapped a grainy picture of the Lake Worth Monster, which is the only photographic evidence of what appeared to be a beast or creature walking through high grass. The picture shows a large, white body. The image was then given to Sallie Ann Clarke. Newspapers published the photograph and locals began driving out to the lake at night to get a look at it. Allen Plaster of Fort Worth, then owner of the House of Allen women’s wear shop, said he was driving west on Shoreline Drive with a Weatherford couple at 1:35 a.m. when they saw the wooly Fur Monster stand up across the road.
The rumors were enough for police to fear that a mob of rifle-toting citizens would try to take the matters into their own hands. Local police investigated the claims, but found no evidence of the monster in the Lake Worth and Greer Island area.
Photograph by Allen Plaster. The only record we have is a blurry Nov. 19, 1969, Polaroid of a giant, white furball described by one online critic as “some sort of monstrous Bichon Frise.”
Stories and sightings of the creature had been common for a few years, attracting many young thrill seekers and skeptics. According to one reporter, the Goatman legend was spread via summer camp stories, where camp counselors told children to “listen carefully… and you’ll hear his cry on clear nights like tonight”.
Five people claimed they saw the monster break the limb of an oak tree. Clarke’s book had a picture for that, showing a thick limb snapped like a toothpick.
Image from Sallie Ann Clarke, self-published book on the FWG
Cryptozoologist-blogger Craig Woolheater said he believes the Lake Worth monster is an “undiscovered, uncatalogued primate species that walks on two legs”.
Since 2009 (the 40th anniversary of the sightings), the Nature Center, which sits on more than 3,000 acres of woods and prairie along the lake, has fun with it, holding a “Lake Worth Monster Bash” every four years each October. In 2019, the Fort Worth Water Department’s H2OMG Podcast released a four part audio series on the legend of the Lake Worth Monster.
Michelle Villafranca, Natural Resource Specialist, at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, photographed July 3, 2014 with the center’s Goatman costume. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News)
“The stories are enduring. The lore is enduring,” said Michelle Villafranca, a natural resource specialist at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.
Villafranca organizes a Lake Worth Monster Bash at the nature center in October to celebrate the monster (this year’s bash is scheduled for Oct. Along with being in charge of land management at the park, she’s become the go-to collector of all things monstrous.
On the windowsill of her office is an empty bottle of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale. She has a book written about the Lake Worth Monster filed on her bookshelf right next to her field guides of local mammals.
“We have alligator sighting report forms; we don’t have any Goatman sighting forms. Maybe we should start,” Villafranca said. “After all, he is North Central Texas fauna.”
Image from Sallie Ann Clarke, self-published book on the FWG
A Fort Worth woman, Sallie Ann Clarke, self-published a book based on newspaper accounts, interviews and personal experience. Some 30 years later Robert Hornsby, a New York artist who grew up in Fort Worth, put on an exhibition of pictures and sculptures based on the Lake Worth Monster mania. As references he used newspaper accounts and pictures of a Goat-Man statue sculpted by an Azle man and sold in a local gift shop during the uproar. Hornsby invited local art students to contribute their own works depicting the monster, and a new generation made the legend its own. One wrote a poem that said, “He creeps at night through brush and tree / Or scraggly grass to peek at me.”
Craig Woolheater was 9 that summer. He was fascinated with monsters, dinosaurs and UFOs. He clipped out the newspaper stories about the Lake Worth Monster scare and kept them in a scrapbook.
Years later, while driving through Louisiana, he saw something unexplainable. In his headlights, he said, he saw the gray body of a huge primate on two legs. He became a believer and started the Texas Bigfoot Research Center in 1999 to study and educate people about the elusive creature.
Today he lives in Mansfield and is a full-time cryptozoology blogger. He believes the Lake Worth Monster was a real creature, like ones that have been spotted all over the country, stopping in the area because of its viable habitat.
“I personally think it’s an undiscovered, uncatalogued primate species that walks on two legs,” he said.
Explanations
The “creature” hurling a tire was found out to a man. “Vinzens”, as he was called, admitted in 2009 that he was involved with the tire-throwing. He claims that he was rolling a tire along with some friends that hit a bump and went into the air, eventually landing very close to the bystanders.
KDFW, a Fox-owned television station in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, did a lengthy report in November of 1999 about the Lake Worth Monster. It interviewed some of those who saw it, such as Reporter Jim Marrs and Sallie Ann Clarke. The report announced that some high school students admitted to the police that they had pranked people by dressing up in a gorilla suit and parading around the lake in 1969.
The boy confessed that one evening he and his brother put on a little show for people parked in a gravel pit on Greer Island. The area was home to a former junkyard and had also been a gravel pit at one time. There was a cliff wall about 30 feet high around the gravel pit, at the base of a hill. The Lake Worth Monster and his accomplice jumped around on top of the hill waving their arms, then rolled a tire and wheel from the junkyard down the incline. It flew off the cliff and landed near where the cars were parked. The total distance traveled was less than 500 feet, and the tire was not thrown, but that didn’t stop the press from reporting it.
In a later interview, Allen Plaster commented on the photo, described as a man-sized “white furball”, that he took while driving past the Nature Center in 1969. He thinks he himself was mistaken about what he saw all of those years ago. According to Plaster, he thinks that what he witnessed was a hoax and he was most likely the victim of someone playing a prank, saying, “whatever it was, it wanted to be seen”.
Since reports of the monster ceased when school resumed, many suspected the incidents were pranks carried out by high school students. In 2005, a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be one of three high school classmates who, in the summer of 1969, “decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people” using a tinfoil mask. In 2009, Fort Worth, Texas magazine published a report about an unidentified man who said that he had been a perpetrator of the tire-throwing incident.
Picture from Google
My conclusion on the matter:
It is hard to tell if the goatman is real or not based on all these many different accounts. These incidents happened over many years and had many witnesses. Some witness descriptions matched while others did not. Some incidents were inhuman and others not so much. Breaking it down is not as helpful as one would think. Looking at the evidence does not clear the muddy waters any better.
I feel that the first 3 couples that witnessed the monster, one of which was grabbed by it, even startled, would be able to tell if it was a costume or not. Costumes were not that great of quality back in ’69. 6 people looking at something and not one of them thought it was a costume. Even if it you assume it is a costume, the couples all described it as having fur and scales. While costumes today can be anything you want, back in ’69, this was not the case and that would have been a very unique thing to see, let alone think up doing and carry out. The thing not only grabbed one woman but made an 18 inch gash in the vehicle which would have been unheard of from a human doing so without a weapon. Most people enjoy pranking but don’t usually go so far as to cause expensive damage to property.
Another person reported the creature landing on the roof of his car and didn’t let go until he crashed into a tree. Most humans cannot gracefully land on a car without making a sound that gives them away as human, nor can we hold onto a moving car (in a costume no less) and walk away from a car wreck after hitting a tree. Following that, a man sleeping in the bed of his truck is hoisted bodily into the air and dropped. The creature grabbed an entire chicken from him in its mouth and took out 4inch thick saplings as it ran away. The man described the creature as 700- 1,000 lbs which no human is going to achieve and run away successfully. Just watching one episode of My 600 lb Life will let you know that dashing through the forest and escaping is not an option for something that large.
There are at least 2 different tire incidents. The creature threw a tire 500ft at a few folks from atop a ridge and at another time in front of a few dozen people which included sheriff deputies, threw another tire at them from atop the ridge and screamed. A few dozen people were terrified and believed it to be real enough to run. A few dozen people did not say it was a costume. A few dozen people were unable to track it down later and something weighing between 350 and 1,000 lbs should be decently easy to track, even for a novice, but they couldn’t. My suspicion is that if the creature exists, the incident with the deputies may have been the real creature while the second one was a copy cat move by someone having fun like those 2 teenagers who confessed later on.
I could not find the dates these incidents happened specifically and in what order they happened. That seems an awful lot of tires at their disposal to hurl at random passers by. However, a man later confessed in 2009 that he was with friends rolling a tire along and the story was embellished seems a little odd if deputies were freaking out. A man and his friend rolling tires isn’t going to terrify a few dozen people. The Lake Worth Monster and his accomplice jumped around on top of the hill waving their arms, then rolled a tire from the junkyard down the incline. Police especially are trained to handle high stress situations and are likely hunters themselves being in that area. Seeing someone throwing their arms in the air, suit or no suit, and a tire apparently merely rolling towards them as they latter confessed isn’t going to terrify law enforcement and lead them to no conclusion on the investigation. This is why I believe that one of these incidents was a copy cat incident. However, a naturalist said this might be a bobcat. Honestly I have to wonder if the naturalist was tripping on LSD since this was right around that time period.
5 people claimed they saw the monster break the limb of an oak tree. Oak is a very hard wood and this would have been quite an impressive display. No matter how strong or heavy a person you are, breaking the limb of a tree is going to require effort and time. Likely enough time to figure out the person doing it was in a costume, especially with 5 witnesses. The only known image of the creature does not help one way or another.
Some high school students admitted to the police that they had pranked people by dressing up in a gorilla suit and parading around the lake in 1969 but that does not explain the years and years of sightings and violent encounters with inhuman strength. High school students, no matter how fit, are not going to be able to gash cars and grab people, lifting fully grown men into the air and knocking down trees. So while maybe they did dress up for fun, that does not mean that every sighting of the monster was them. The inhuman strength sittings could very well be something much more cryptid.
The gentleman who took the photo and later thought it a hoax may have been mocked and made fun of for what he saw and eventually convinced himself it was fake. This has happened many times during police interrogations and people who are actually innocent confess to the crime because they have convinced themselves it was them or have been considered a bad witness because their memory recall of the incident was not like a perfectly played out video rerun. A lot of people come under fire and are laughed at by skeptics when it comes to cryptids especially. It is easy to convince someone they have or have not done something, especially over the course of many years. He was very sure of himself in the beginning and only years later said he believed it was a hoax. That makes me wonder on the psychology of how he was treated in the town after the incident and over long periods of time.
Since reports of the monster ceased when school resumed, many suspected the incidents were pranks carried out by high school students but you also have to consider that many of the folks who saw the monster were young people who likely wouldn’t have time to go out that way when school was back in session. It is hard to have witnesses to a monster when the witnesses are otherwise occupied for 8-10 hours a day and going to a middle of nowhere make out spot/ camping spot isn’t as convenient or easy.
Three high school classmates confessed that in the summer of 1969, “decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people” using a tinfoil mask. That is absolutely illogical as what people are seeing is a giant ape monster that breaks trees and throws people around. How is a tinfoil mask going to explain even half the incidents that happened? And finally, an old man who used a tire, twine, and shiny green buttons tried to scare fishermen away and that is a monster? I don’t think so.
My opinion is that there may very well be something out there reminiscent of Big Foot but there are also a lot of storytellers out there looking for their 15minutes of fame.
Familiar: No Spirit Animal: No Spirit Guide: No Totem: No Mythical: No Supernatural: No Cryptid: Yes Urban Legend: Yes Creepypasta:No
Recently, the land surrounding Pope Lick Trestle has been acquired by The Parklands of Floyds Fork and now features a walking path that goes under the trestle, connecting Pope Lick Park to other parks and areas along the loop. The site is also home to Legend at Pope Lick, a haunted hike through a trail which we highly recommend.
The Bluegrass State is big on history, with plenty of local lore and legends mixed in for good measure. One of the most infamous and chilling legends in Kentucky that’s been passed down in hushed whispers around campfires is that of the Pope Lick Monster. The Pope Lick Monster is a legendary part-man, part-goat and part-sheep creature reported to live beneath a railroad trestle bridge over Pope Lick Creek, in the Fisherville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, United States, a location that’s seen more than its fair share of tragedy and sorrow throughout the years. The reports began pre 1980s and continue until present day.
In most accounts, the Pope Lick Monster (named after the Pope Lick Creek below the Pope Lick Train Trestle) appears as a human-goat hybrid with a grotesquely deformed body of a man. It has powerful, fur-covered goat legs, an alabaster-skinned face with an aquiline nose and wide set eyes. Short, sharp horns protrude from the forehead, nestled in long greasy hair that matched the color of the fur on the legs.
Its identity has shifted throughout generations, and the birth of the Internet caused a revival of this particular tale over the past 20 years. Part man, part goat, and part sheep, or a hybrid that is also headless, rumors of a hideous beast roaming around the Pope Lick Trestle have been swirling for quite some time. Numerous urban legends exist about the creature’s origins and the methods it employs to claim its victims. According to some accounts, the creature uses either hypnosis or voice mimicry to lure trespassers onto the trestle to meet their death before an oncoming train.
Other stories claim the monster jumps down from the trestle onto the roofs of cars passing beneath it. Yet other legends tell that it attacks its victims with a blood-stained axe and that the very sight of the creature is so unsettling that those who see it while walking across the high trestle are driven to leap off the 100-foot trestle… to their deaths.
Other legends hold that the monster is a human-goat hybrid, and that it was a circus freak who vowed revenge after being mistreated. In one version, it is said the monster escaped after a train derailed on the trestle which actually links the Pope Lick Monster to the legend of the “Ghost Train” which is also sighted on the trestle. Another version commonly told by locals of the area claims that the monster is really the twisted reincarnated form of a farmer who sacrificed goats in exchange for Satanic powers. He is also known to be a Native American skinwalker seeking vengeance against new settlers in the region
Newspaper clipping from The Louisville Times, courtesy of Ron Schildknecht
The Pope Lick Monster, having no actual reported sightings, most likely exists only in the realm of myth and legend. The infamous Pope Lick Train Trestle has become a favorite spot for kids, especially ones conducting lighthearted “bravery tests”, daring someone to climb the trestle. This has not always been fun-and-games, however. There have been a number of deaths and accidents at the trestle since its construction, despite the presence of an 8-foot fence to keep thrill-seekers out.
There is a common misconception that the trestle is abandoned and no longer used; in reality, the bridge carries a major rail artery into Louisville. Heavy freight trains cross the bridge several times daily, so it is easy for someone to get caught atop it while an oncoming train barrels down on them. Norfolk Southern Railway urged intrepid citizens not to climb the trestle, saying if caught they would be arrested.
The deadly-ness of the Pope Lick Trestle is no myth. Since its construction in the late 1800s, the trestle has been responsible for dozens of deaths and countless injuries, and has been a source of trauma for many victims, families, and railroad employees. Several people have died on or near the train trestle at Pope Creek specifically in pursuit of the Pope Lick Monster legend.
Many people are fooled by the rusty and rickety appearance of the trestle, and think that the tracks are out of service. This has proved a deadly assumption for many, as the tracks are still very active and carry a major rail artery into Louisville. As many as twenty five heavy freight trains cross the bridge daily. The surrounding hills and woodland dampen light and sound from oncoming trains, and it could be too late to escape once you become aware. The wooden tracks are spaced in a way that make it impossible to run over, and few people possess the strength and endurance to hang on to the side for the five to seven minutes it would take the train to pass, all the while generating vibrations strong enough to shake the entire ground one hundred feet below.
A Small List of Deaths and Injuries at Pope Lick Trestle:
Sean Fleischman (20) – 1984 – survived injuries sustained from a fall from the span of elevated track.
John K. List – 1985 – John K. List was killed on June 1, 1985, when he was struck by a Southern Railroad Company train. List was on the trestle with friend, Randall Graves, and had been on the trestle shooting crows. Graves was able to hang on a cross tie while the train passed, saving his life, List was within 30 feet of the end of the trestle when he was struck and killed.
David Wayne Bryant (19) – 1986 – sustained injuries in 1986 when he jumped from the trestle to dodge an oncoming train, passed away from those injuries in May 1987.
Jack “J.C.” Charles Bahm II (17) – 1987 – struck and killed by a train February 18, 1987 while crossing the trestle.
Grady (19) – 1992 – Grady, a student at Miami University, was on the trestle at about 1:45 am when he saw a train coming. He held onto a railroad tie but lost his grip, falling about 100 feet
Christina Butts (19) – 1993 – Christina along with two other young women and three young men were almost across the trestle when they saw the light from the oncoming train. All managed to survive with minor injuries by climbing down onto the metal parts of the trestle. Christina, too frightened to move, was rescued by firefighters, the ladder almost not being tall enough to reach.
Michael Wells (14) – 1994 – managed to tuck his body under the track to avoid being hit by an oncoming train.
James Ratterman (35) – 1994 man trapped underneath an overturned ATV stuck on the trestle died after being struck by train.
Nicholas Jewell (19) – 2000 – 19 year old falls to death after encountering train.
Roquel Bain (26) – 2016 – tourist, Roquel Bain, from Ohio died after being hit by a train while searching for the monster. Her boyfriend survived by hanging on the side of the trestle.
Savanna Bright (15) – 2019 – Savanna was pronounced dead at the scene after she and another teenage girl were on the train tracks near the Pope Lick trestle. Bright’s unidentified companion was taken to University of Louisville Hospital.
These are just a few examples of the very real tragedies that have taken place at the Pope Lick Trestle.
The monster was the subject of a 1988 film by Louisville filmmaker Ron Schildknecht called The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster. The 16-minute, $6,000 film premiered on December 29, 1988 at the Uptown Theater. Most of the film was shot at the Pope Lick Trestle, but scenes showing the characters up on the trestle were shot at another, safer location.
Norfolk Southern Railway officials were very upset about the film, as they thought it would encourage teenagers to visit the trestles. They found one scene in particular dangerously misleading. In the scene, the main character, a high school student, narrowly escapes an approaching train by hanging off the side of the trestle. In reality, few people would have the strength to hang on for the 5 to 7 minutes it takes for a long train to clear the 772-foot trestle; in addition, the vibrations from the train are so strong that the ground beneath the trestle shakes as the train passes.
Because railroad officials were worried that the film would add to the death toll, Norfolk Southern issued a statement, read at the premiere, which warned of the trestle’s dangers and informed the audience again that anyone caught on the trestle would be prosecuted for trespassing.
At one point, there were platforms along either side of the bridge. However, at some point they were removed by the railway company to dissuade people from attempting to cross the tracks. Residents are questioning if this is still a valid solution. Should the railroad company be responsible for re-installing platforms to potentially save lives, or would this just be promoting more people to trespass and put even more lives in danger?
While it’s fascinating to talk about, we absolutely do not recommend putting yourself in danger to see for yourself if this legend is true
and remember – resist the monster’s telepathic powers and STAY OFF THE TRESTLE!
Familiar: No Spirit Animal: No Spirit Guide: No Totem: No Mythical: No Supernatural: Yes Cryptid: Yes Urban Legend: Yes Creepypasta: No
The Maryland goatman is exactly what it sounds like. It is a satyr-like creature or manmade hybrid that appears to be half man, half goat. It is known for terrorizing lovers, chasing down teens with an axe, and decapitating dogs, as well as squealing and making goat noises. it has been known to wield an ax and attack both animals and humans.
There are many variations of how the Goatman came to be, including an angry goat herder gone mad and seeking revenge on teens who killed his goats, something resembling a Bigfoot creature, the result of a genetic experiment, or even simply an old hermit who lives in the woods and wanders Fletchertown Road at night.
According to urban legend, Goatman is a creature resembling a goat-human hybrid often credited with canine deaths and purported to take refuge in the woods of Prince George’s County, Maryland, United States.
The creature was commonly claimed to have a human face but with a body covered in hair. However, descriptions differed on whether Goatman greater resembled a hairy humanoid or a human with the lower portion of a goat similar to the fauns of Greek mythology.
The experiment myth is the most pervasive of them all, and it involves the nearby Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Dr. Stephen Fletcher supposedly confessed to crossing the DNA of a goat and that of his assistant William Lottsford, which naturally went terribly wrong. The newly created Goatman then escaped and began attacking cars with an axe and roaming the back roads of Beltsville. Of course, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center has outright denied any of this is true.
The first reported sighting of the Goatman was in the early 1900s. A family by the last name of Sullivan were some of the first to encounter the beast in the 1930s and not live to tell the tale. Mary Sullivan and her infant child went missing. Their bodies were never found. Soon after that, the father and young son also went missing. The area around their house is where many goatman sightings have taken place.
In the early 1950s was a family called the Glasses who had a little boy named Bobby who was playing in the back yard. His father saw a tall strange figure in the darkness. That night, when Bobby was sleeping in his bed, he was awoken by a quiet scratching sound. He could see something clawing against the glass and called for his dad. His dad ran into the room and the figure runs away but the creature was already gone. The next day they go outside to find what attacked them last night. There entire front yard was covered in hoof prints. Years later, Elliot Forbes, a social anthropologist realized that the land the Glasses’ house was built on was the same property that the Sullivan home had been on in the 1930s.
In 1957, eyewitnesses reported seeing it in Forestville and Upper Marlboro in Prince George’s County. The story goes that a young couple went to Fletchertown Road and were suddenly startled by something in the woods. The young man got out of the car to investigate, but he never came back. When an investigation occurred the next day, his severed head was found hanging in a tree above where the car had been parked. His body was never found.
Another violent encounter supposedly took place in 1962. The Goatman was accused of killing 14 people, 12 of whom were children, with the other two being adult chaperones. The group was evidently hiking too close to the Goatman’s home. Unidentified survivors claimed that the Goatman hacked the victims to pieces with an axe, making noises “only the devil himself” would make. When police arrived, they found half-eaten limbs and a bloody trail leading to a cave.
Pic from Google Images
The most famous incident involving the Maryland Goatman occurred in 1971. It was at this point that the article “Residents Fear Goatman Lives: Dog Found Decapitated in Old Bowie” written by Karen Hosler appeared in Prince George’s County News. In this article, Hosler described how a family by the name of Edwards had lost their dog, Ginger. Ginger was found by Ray Hayden, John Hayden, and Willie Gheen a few days after going missing. She was found headless near Fletchertown Road. A later article connected the death of Ginger to the Maryland Goatman because a group of teenage girls, which included 16-year-old April Edwards, had heard strange noises and saw a large creature the night the dog had disappeared.
Stories of the Goatman had been around in the ’50s and ’60s, but the incident with Ginger in the ’70s caused heightened interest in the creature. During this time, searching for the Goatman was a local teen obsession, and “Goatman parties” were even held. It was also during this time that there were increased sightings of an “animal-like creature that walks on its hind legs” along Fletchertown Road.
Mark Opsasnick, who grew up during this period, wrote an article for Strange Magazine titled “On the Trail of the Goatman.” For this article, he interviewed the Edwards family and the three men who found Ginger. John Hayden told Opsasnick that they’d seen an animal that night, and he described it as about six feet tall, hairy, and walking on two feet. He also mentioned that it made a “high-pitched sound, like a squeal.”
A middle school called St. Mark the Evangelist has had an unknown house behind it for 30 years. Rumors have spread all that time that the Goatman has been seen in and around the house. Some people have even claimed to have found bones, knives, saws, and leftover food inside the house. The Governor Bridge, otherwise known as the “Cry Baby” Bridge, is also known as a place for the Goatman. If one parks under the bridge at night, they’ll supposedly hear a crying baby or a goat braying, or they’ll even see the Goatman himself. bored teenagers keep the Goatman legend alive by repeating the story and Teens and young adults alike are said to still go “Goatman hunting.” A common sighting of Goatman has been reported on a bridge, known to locals as “Crybaby Bridge.”
Governor’s Bridge Road
And as far as more recent claimed sightings, the station WBAL-TV received two separate emails about an animal at Montpelier Park in Laurel, Maryland. One woman described it as looking like a “sasquatch with horns.” Another man said he thought he saw a bear, “except it doesn’t look like a bear.” The article described the photo as looking like a goat standing on two legs.
In the last 10 years there was a more recent sighting by teenagers in an area called Lover’s Lane. Brandon Johnson is with his girlfriend and one other couple in their vehicles spending time together. During their activities, he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye. It was a tall strange hunched over human with an axe walking towards the other car. He began honking his horn and flashing his car lights to warn the other car. The other car took off speeding and the creature began coming towards Brandon and his girlfriend now. Brandon starts his vehicle and as he pulls away, the creature takes a wild swing towards the truck. The next morning, Brandon cannot believe if those events actually took place but the front of the truck was a giant dent where the axe had hit the front of his bumper.
Despite evidence to the contrary, stories of Goatman’s existence continue to circulate, especially among local students. Graffiti reading, “Goatman was here,” was not uncommon, and law enforcement would habitually receive calls of reported sightings, albeit with a number being pranks.
As far as taking the Goatman legend into the modern day, two movies have been made starring the creature, 2011’s Deadly Detour: The Goat Man Murders and 2013’s Legend of the Goatman.
One explanation for why a goat is at the center of this scary legend as the history of goats in myths is very prevalent. The Satyr in Greco-Roman times was the kind of keeper of the woodlands, drunk all the time and known mainly for being lustful. a cult that worshipped Dionysus that was led by a man dressed as a goat. The cult was rumored to get drunk and eat animals raw, though this probably never happened. Goats were also thought of as “being exceptionally lascivious” in medieval times.
Good Morning Witches! As one who does a lot of driving and enjoys awesome stories told by amusing women, I wanted to recommend the Witches, Magic, Murder, & Mystery podcast. I am about 50 episodes in and I realized that if I enjoy it this much, I really ought to recommend it to others who enjoy some of the same things as myself. They don’t do just true crime which I am, of course, a huge fan of. They talk about stories of witches throughout history, mythical creatures, true crime, and strange disappearances. Everything from the usual popular serial killers, less known killers, strange diseases, curses, Cryptids, aliens, historical legends, and Pagan customs. As of my writing this, there are over 170+ episodes to access.
You can listen to them through all types of media as well. It can be enjoyed on all platforms that support podcasts, YouTube, Instagram, and even Facebook:
Stories of ghost hauntings popularized by the Warrens have been adapted as or have indirectly inspired dozens of films, television series, and documentaries, including several films in the Amityville Horror series and the films in The Conjuring Universe. Over the years, several films and series have been released that are based in part or in full on the paranormal investigations or events that the Warrens are said to have witnessed and described. I absolutely love spooky movies and The Nun and Annabelle: Creation are 2 of my favorite white noise movies to play while I am cleaning the house. This does not sit too well with my husband who is terrified of these kinds of movies (why did he marry a witch then?!) but the influences from the Warrens’ original stories and the way the movies were portrayed was fantastic and I very much enjoyed them. Do I believe that these movies is exactly how it went down for the Warrens? Absolutely not. Hollywood tends to embellish some things. The more I researched though, the more it seemed that others do not believe the Warrens’ accounts either and find it to be merely a great story to tell for entertainment purposes.
The Perron Family Haunting
Their work also inspired horror movies like “The Conjuring” (2013). They investigated paranormal activity within the Perron family house in Rhode Island. The Warrens came in to conduct a séance to get rid of the spirits.
Amityville House
Another of the most famous cases investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren was the Amityville House haunting. The owners of the house, the Lutz family, left the house after only 28 days and called in the Warrens. Ed and Lorraine explained that this house was one of the most terrifying places they had ever visited. They later learned about the very dark history of the land and concluded that demonic forces felt an attraction to the place. The photographs of their experience are in the Warren Occult Museum. (This story also became a popular film in 1979 called “The Amityville Horror.”)
The Warrens are best known for their involvement in the 1975 Amityville Horror in which New York couple George and Kathy Lutz claimed that their house was haunted by a violent, demonic presence so intense that it eventually drove them out of their home. The Amityville Horror Conspiracy authors Stephen and Roxanne Kaplan characterized the case as a “hoax”. Lorraine Warren told a reporter for The Express-Times newspaper that the Amityville Horror was not a hoax. The reported haunting was the basis for the 1977 book The Amityville Horror and adapted into the 1979 and 2005 films of the same name, while also serving as inspiration for the film series that followed. The Warrens’ version of events is partially adapted and portrayed in the opening sequence of The Conjuring 2 (2016). According to Benjamin Radford, the story was “refuted by eyewitnesses, investigations, and forensic evidence”. In 1979, lawyer William Weber stated that he, Jay Anson, and the occupants “invented” the horror story “over many bottles of wine”.
Annabelle
Annabelle, the Raggedy Ann doll, inspired the trilogy “Annabelle” (2014), “Annabelle: Creation” (2017), and “Annabelle Comes Home” (2019). The Amityville haunted house investigation inspired the horror film “The Amityville Horror” (1979). Finally, “The Conjuring” (2013) was based on the real-life house haunting experienced by the Perron family in Rhode Island. Additional films have since come out in the “Conjuring” series.
Enfield poltergeist
In 1977, the Warrens investigated claims that a family in the North London suburb of Enfield was haunted by poltergeist activity. While a number of independent observers dismissed the incident as a hoax carried out by “attention-hungry” children, the Warrens were convinced that it was a case of “demonic possession”. The story was the inspiration for The Conjuring 2, although critics say the Warrens were involved “to a far lesser degree than portrayed in the movie” and in fact had shown up to the scene uninvited and been refused admittance to the home.
Guy Lyon Playfair, a parapsychologist who investigated the Enfield case alongside Maurice Grosse, also says the film greatly exaggerated the Warrens’ role in the investigation. He stated in 2016 that they “turned up once” and that Ed Warren told Playfair “[the Warrens] could make a lot of money […] out of [the case].” He corroborated the claim that the Warrens were “not invited” to the Enfield house and that “Nobody […] in the family had ever heard of him until [Ed Warren] turned up”.
Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson
In 1981, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was accused of killing his landlord, Alan Bono. Ed and Lorraine Warren had been called prior to the killing to deal with the alleged demonic possession of the younger brother of Johnson’s fiancée. The Warrens subsequently claimed that Johnson was also possessed. At trial, Johnson attempted to plead Not Guilty by Reason of Demonic Possession, but was unsuccessful with his plea. This story serves as the inspiration for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). The case was described in the 1983 book The Devil in Connecticut by Gerald Brittle.
Snedeker house
In 1986, Ed and Lorraine Warren arrived and proclaimed the Snedeker house, a former funeral home, to be infested with demons. The case was featured in the 1993 book In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. A TV film that later became part of the Discovery Channel series A Haunting was produced in 2002. The Haunting in Connecticut, a film very loosely based on the Warrens’ version of events and directed by Peter Cornwell, was released in 2009. Horror author Ray Garton, who wrote an account of the alleged haunting of the Snedeker family in Southington, Connecticut, later called into question the veracity of the accounts contained in his book, saying, “The family involved, which was going through some serious problems like alcoholism and drug addiction, could not keep their story straight, and I became very frustrated; it’s hard writing a non-fiction book when all the people involved are telling you different stories”. To paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford, Garton said of Lorraine, “‘If she told me the sun would come up tomorrow morning, I’d get a second opinion'”.
Smurl family
Pennsylvania residents Jack and Janet Smurl reported their home was disturbed by numerous supernatural phenomena, including sounds, smells and apparitions. The Warrens became involved and claimed that the Smurl home was occupied by four spirits and also a demon that allegedly sexually assaulted Jack and Janet. The Smurls’ version of their story was the subject of a 1986 paperback titled The Haunted and television film of the same name directed by Robert Mandel.
Union Cemetery (Easton, Connecticut)
Ed Warren’s book Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery (St Martins Press, 1992) features a “White Lady” ghost which haunts Union Cemetery. He claimed to have “captured her essence” on film.
According to a 1997 interview with the Connecticut Post, Steve Novella and Perry DeAngelis investigated the Warrens for the New England Skeptical Society (NESS). They found the couple to be pleasant people, but their claims of demons and ghosts to be “at best, as tellers of meaningless ghost stories, and at worst, dangerous frauds.” They took the $13 tour and looked at all the evidence the Warrens had for spirits and ghosts. They watched the videos and looked at the best evidence the Warrens had. Their conclusion was that “It’s all blarney.” They found common errors with flash photography and nothing evil in the artifacts the Warrens had collected. “They have… a ton of fish stories about evidence that got away… They’re not doing good scientific investigation; they have a predetermined conclusion which they adhere to, literally and religiously,” according to Novella. Lorraine Warren said that the problem with Perry and Steve is that “they don’t base anything on a God”. Novella responded, “It takes work to do solid, critical thinking, to actually employ your intellectual faculties and come to a conclusion that actually reflects reality … That’s what scientists do every day, and that’s what skeptics advocate”.
In an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that examined whether supernatural films are really based on true events, that investigation was used as evidence to the contrary. As Novella is quoted, “They [the Warrens] claim to have scientific evidence which does indeed prove the existence of ghosts, which sounds like a testable claim into which we can sink our investigative teeth. What we found was a very nice couple, some genuinely sincere people, but absolutely no compelling evidence…” While it was made clear that neither DeAngelis nor Novella thought the Warrens would intentionally cause harm to anyone, they did caution that claims like the Warrens’ served to reinforce delusions and confuse the public about legitimate scientific methodology.
Do I believe it happened the way they say it did? No. Do I enjoy the movies despite that? Absolutely!
August 17th is National Black Cat Appreciation Day.
They are not a superstition and do not bring bad luck! They are beautiful, loving, and intelligent creatures who should never be passed up for adoption because of the color of their fur. Black cats steal hearts, not souls.
Unfortunately, black cats really do have bad luck when it comes to getting adopted. 13% of Americans are superstitious of black cats crossing their path. 26.1% said color was important when adopting a new cat. In an effort to get people to adopt black cats, one Nevada shelter put on an “Adopt your own Mini Panther” campaign. All 18 black cats they had were adopted. Some organizations do not allow adoptions of black cats during the month of September and October for fear of animal cruelty which then lessens their chances of being adopted.
I have never once regretted adopting my little mini panther. He is such an absolutely precious member of our family. I used to work in a shelter years ago in North Carolina and black cats always took the longest to adopt. It may have had something to do with being in the south and silly superstitions. When I finally had my own place years later, I knew for a fact that no matter what, I wanted to adopt an adult black cat. I did and he has been an amazing addition to our home ever since.
There were a couple of other supposedly haunted objects in the Warren’s museum but I really could not find much information about them other than movie references. Regardless of actually being haunted or not, I really feel like the stories behind them are pretty cool and wanted to share them.
Haunted Piano
The Warren Occult Museum houses a haunted piano that Ed Warren would hear playing on its own but immediately stop playing whenever he would go to the room to see what was happening. The Warrens allegedly got the piano from a Priest after his death. The piano makes a brief appearance in The Conjuring universe in Annabelle Comes Home when the babysitter goes into the room at the Warren’s house and plays a few keys.
Children’s Tombstones
Aside from the usual cursed and haunted objects in the museum, the Warrens also collected some objects that were used in Satanic rituals that they investigated and combatted during their careers as paranormal experts. One of the more unnerving of these artifacts are the tombstones of children that were allegedly used in these dark occult rituals by those who dabble into the darker side of the paranormal.
Vampire Coffins
The Warren Occult Museum claims to have vampire coffins, but there isn’t much information about them beyond that. Although there are no clear details behind the discovery or specific story to the vampire coffins, they’re still creepy artifacts available for viewing in the museum.
Demon Masks
Another general item said to be in the Warren Occult Museum are demon masks. The museum has various demon masks that don’t seem to have specific lore around them. Even if there isn’t a specific story attached to the demon masks, the thought of them is still creepy and fits the haunted and cursed aesthetic of the entire museum.
The Samurai Suit
The cursed Samurai Suit has appeared in several movies in The Conjuring universe but was prominently displayed in Annabelle Comes Home when the teens are checking out the Warrens’ room of haunted artifacts. In the movie, the two young girls are mesmerized by the armor and as they continue to stare at it they begin to hear distant screams of the victims of the Samurai who wore the armor.
The Witch of Monroe
I am unsure of why this one is in the museum. Merely a mask, it is a representation of Hannah Cranna who was a local Connecticut legend. This mask is extremely typical of the fairy tale representation of a witch but had nothing to do with the Warrens minus being buried in the same city the museum is located.
From the stories recorded about her, it seems as though she was a strong-willed woman who was not to be trifled with, and apparently that went for her husband as well. When she was alive, Hannah Cranna was known as “The Wicked Witch of Monroe,” a reputation that continued to follow her over 150 years after her death.
Unlike other supposed witches, the story of Hannah Hovey — who apparently picked up the nickname Hannah Cranna while she was still alive — doesn’t culminate at the end of a hangman’s noose or in ashes around a stake. She lived a fairly comfortable life on her property near Cutler’s Farm Road in Monroe, dying of natural causes at the age of 77.
According to most accounts, her reputation as a witch didn’t begin until the demise of her husband, Captain Joseph Hovey, an event with which Hannah was rumored to have somehow been involved. The tale goes that one night, Captain Hovey went out for a simple walk and somehow toppled over a cliff, resulting in his untimely demise. Not believing that Captain Hovey could have been the victim of an unfortunate accident, whispers started that Hannah had somehow bewitched him, causing him to become so dazed and confused he inadvertently fell to his death.
Hannah — whose shrewish behavior apparently had not endeared her to others while the Captain was alive — became even more loathsome after she became a widow. She often insisted that her neighbors give her free food and firewood, and if they didn’t immediately comply, she relied on her witchy reputation to threaten them. When one local farmer’s wife allegedly tried to deny her a fresh-baked pie, Hannah “cursed” her, so the story goes, and the poor woman was never able to bake again.
Over the years, other such incidents demonstrating her otherworldly prowess supposedly occurred, solidifying her infamy with — and power over — the locals. From her house on Craig Hill (allegedly guarded by snakes), she helped those who venerated her and poured down misery on those who crossed her.
Ultimately, it was her demise — and the odd events surrounding her burial — that truly cemented her legend. Hannah kept a rooster named “Old Boreas,” which some suspected later was her “familiar.” Shortly after he crowed his last, Hannah told a neighbor that her end was also near. “My coffin must be carried by hand to the graveyard,” she instructed. “And I must not be buried before sundown.”
As it was a snowing heavily, the locals decided that rather than follow her instructions, it would be easier to pull her casket across the snow on a sled. But as the procession started toward the cemetery, the coffin came off the sled and slid all the way back to her front door. They tried again, but met with more trouble. Rather than further incur the supernatural wrath of Hannah, they decided to just carry her to the graveyard. After much struggling, they eventually got the old witch into her grave, just after sunset. Happy to finally be rid of her, they returned to Hannah’s home, only to discover it completely engulfed in flames.
Obviously, that only served to burn Hannah Cranna, “The Wicked Witch of Monroe,” into their minds forever.
Witch Tip: Gregory’s Four Corners Burial Ground is located on Spring Hill Road in Trumbull, right on the border with Monroe. It is near the junction of routes 111 and 25. Hannah Cranna’s white gravestone is right at the front of the cemetery, very close to the street. It is open to the public but there is no formal entrance or parking area. The road is a bit busy, so be careful where you leave your vehicle.
Sources:
Official Ed and Lorraine Warren Channel Via youtube.com Roadtrippers.com Atlas Obscura.com https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/haunted/articles/haunted-easton-cemetery https://screenrant.com/the-conjuring-creepiest-items-occult-museum/ https://mundoseriex.com/paranormal/story-shadow-doll-warrens-occult-museum/
Familiar: No Spirit Animal: No Spirit Guide: No Totem: No Mythical: Yes Supernatural: No
Apsara, also spelled apsarasa, are celestial singers and dancers from Indian religion and mythology that inhabit the heaven of the God Indra, Lord of the heavens. Sage Kashyapa, who has many wives, is considered as father of many celestial races. The demi-gods are born from his wife Aditi and demons come from his other wife Diti. While the Bhagavata Purana states that apsaras were born from Kashyapa and Muni, it is in the Mahabharata, Pradha is mentioned as apsara’s mother. In other ancient legends, it is said that the apsaras came out during the churning of the sea.
The Rigveda mentions these apsaras as aquatic water nymphs. Atharvaveda introduces apsaras as the inhabitants of the waters. It discusses their heavenly association with the stars, clouds and rain. The Satapatha Brahmana Samhita often describes apsaras as transforming themselves into a kind of a marine bird. The apsaras are seen in close contact with the woods and the wet. Apsara are said to be able to change their shape at will and rule over the fortunes of gaming and gambling. The Atharvaveda puts forward that the apsaras are fond of the dice game and create the basis to bring in fortune at the dice play. There are two types of apsaras: laukika (worldly) and daivika (divine). English translations of the word “apsara” include “nymph”, “fairy”, “celestial nymph”, and “celestial maiden”. Apsaras are associated with water; thus, they may be compared to the nymphs, dryads, and naiads of ancient Greece. They are also associated with fertility rites. In Hinduism, the lower apsaras are sometimes regarded as nature spirits who may lure men to their deaths; in this respect they may be compared to the Slavic Rusalki or the Greek sirens.
Art by SARYTH on DeviantArt
They are youthful and elegant, and superb in the art of dancing. . Most of the Puranas indicate that they were born during the Samudra Manthan (the churning of the sea). They selected Gandharvas as their consorts, the court musicians of Indra. Gandharva, a class of celestial beings, among Males are divine singers, and females are divine dancers. They are also messengers between Gods and Humans. Gandharva generally dwells in the Sky and their city is often referred to as being Marvelous.
Often looked upon as the choristers in Indra’s heaven, the Gandharvas were the descendants of Kashyapa and his wife Arishta. According to the Vishnu Purāna, they were sons of Lord Brahma. The Gandharvas are often seen as companions to the apsaras. They are handsome, possess brilliant weapons, and wear fragrant clothes.
They guard the Soma but do not have the right to drink it. How they lost this right has a story: in one version, the Gandharvas failed to guard the Soma properly, resulting in it being stolen. Indra brought back the Soma and, as a punishment for their dereliction of duty, the Gandharvas were excluded from the Soma-draught. In another version, the Gandharvas were the original owners of the Soma. They sold it to the gods in exchange for a goddess – the goddess Vach (speech) – because they are very fond of female company. Soma was perceived to be the drink of the gods, an elixir consumed by the Hindu gods and their ancient priests, the Brahmanas, during rituals. Its properties included an ability to heal illness but it was also thought to have brought great riches. Soma is personified by the god of the same name who is also the god of sacrifices and who may, in some texts, be associated with the Moon. The drink is famously described and praised in a Mandala of the sacred Vedic text, the Rigveda.
In Hindu scripts, the gods gained their immortality by drinking Soma and it was the favorite tipple of the great god Indra. They then gave the drink to the archer-god Gandharva for safe-keeping but one day Agni, the fire-god, stole it and gave it to the human race. Not only drunk by priests for its sacred nature it was also credited with uplifting qualities, giving the drinker a boost in energy and alertness. These effects meant that the drink has been considered divine since ancient times; a beverage which brought humans closer to divinity. The theft of the Soma infuriated all the gods yet they couldn’t do anything as the Gandharvas were their allies. All the Gods turned to Goddess Saraswati for her wisdom. Saraswati promised to recover the soma plant.
Picture from Pinterest
The goddess disguised herself as a young maiden. She carried with her only one weapon — her veena. She then set off for the land where the Gandharvas lived. Upon reaching there, she found a spot in a beautiful garden, where she sat and began playing lovely music on her veena creating enchanting tunes: the Ragas and the Raginis. Melodious notes filled the air. It was unlike anything the Gandharvas had heard. They were drawn to the place as if in a trance. Soon, all the Gandharvas surrounded her while she continued playing. Then suddenly, she stopped playing. The Gandharvas felt disappointed that the music had stopped. Vishvavasu looked in distress at the beautiful girl and said, “Why did you stop? “Give us this music,”. “Only if you give back the Soma plant to the devas,” said the goddess Saraswati. The Gandharvas then ashamed of their actions returned the Soma plant and learned how to play music from Saraswati. In time they became celestial musicians whose melodies had more power to rouse the mind than any intoxicant.
They dance to the music made by the Gandharvas, usually in the palaces of the gods, entertain, and sometimes provide sensual pleasure and seduce gods and men. They are also seen to sing and dance on other happy occasions such as births and weddings of the gods and also of humans particularly favored by the gods. They are somewhat semi-divine; we do not see them as being able to curse humans (except on one occasion) or grant them boons as gods can, but we do see them as adept in magic and knowledgeable in all of the 64 performing arts; additionally, we see many gandharvas skilled in warfare. They are handsome, possess brilliant weapons, and wear fragrant clothes. As ethereal beings who inhabit the skies, and are often depicted taking flight, or at service of a god, they may be compared to angels. They have been beautifully depicted in sculpture and painting in India and throughout areas of South and Southeast Asia influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism.
They figure prominently in the sculpture, dance, literature and painting of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures. The apsara celestial maidens might be found as decorative motifs or also as integral parts of a story in bas-relief. Notable examples are the 5th–6th-century frescoes at Ajanta in India and at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka and the sculptures and bas-reliefs decorating the temples of Angkor, Cambodia.
At Borobudur, apsaras are depicted as divinely beautiful celestial maidens, pictured either in standing or in flying positions, usually holding lotus blossoms, spreading flower petals, or waving celestial clothes as if they were wings enabling them to fly. The temple of Mendut near Borobudur depicted groups of devatas, divine beings flying in heaven, which included apsaras. In the Prambanan temple compound, especially in Vishnu temple, along with the gallery, some images of male devata are found flanked by two apsaras.
Angkor Wat, the largest Angkor temple (built-in 1113-1150 AD), features both Apsaras and Devata, however, the devata type are the most numerous with more than 1,796 in the present research inventory. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.
Image from page 154 of “Indian myth and legend” (1913)
Apsara are sometimes compared to the Muses of ancient Greece, with each of the 26 apsara at Indra’s court representing a distinct aspect of the performing arts. They are associated with fertility rites. In many of the stories related in the Mahabharata, apsara appear in important supporting roles. The aspara “possessed of eyes like lotus leaves, who were employed in enticing the hearts of persons practicing rigid austerities, danced there. And possessing slim waists and fair large hips, they began to perform various evolutions, shaking their deep bosoms, and casting their glances around, and exhibiting other attractive attitudes capable of stealing the hearts and resolutions and minds of the spectators.” However, when brave warriors fall in battle they may rise to the heavens carried by the celestial apsaras, which reminds of Valkyries from Norse mythology.
10th century Cham “Dancers’ Pedestal” belonging to the Tra Kieu Style of Cham art. The figures are an apsara dancer and a gandharva musician
There are numerous stories where the Gods have, with the help of these women and their beauty, turned critical situations into their own favor. Apsara have been a consistent part of Hinduism, having an insightful presence in Vedic literature. The commonality lies in the fact that these beautiful creations were females with captivating powers and immense dedication to their creators. The semiotics of the apsara are interesting — forever young, forever beautiful, never attached, always willing to seduce, even willing to bear children, if she must. She is the ultimate male fantasy, a sexually idealised woman whose promiscuity has no consequences. A variant of this fantasy are the women who constantly get their virginity back — their male partners can take pleasure in both their social and sexual restoration.
Additionally, the apsara are frequently employed by Indra to distract kings and sages who Indra fears to be progressing along the path of divinity (and hence capable of depriving Indra of his throne). Perhaps because of their somewhat frivolous nature, both apsaras and gandharvas frequently run afoul of the more staid sages and are cursed by them to be born on earth as trees, animals, or deformed beings, redeemable after thousands of years by the touch or grace of an incarnate god or a human hero.
A story type or theme appearing over and over again in the Mahabharata is that of an apsara sent to distract a sage or spiritual master from his ascetic practices. One story embodying this theme is that recounted by the epic heroine Shakuntala to explain her own parentage. Once upon a time, the sage Viswamitra generated such intense energy by means of his asceticism that Indra himself became fearful. Vishwamitra was one of the most respected and revered sages in ancient India and even tried to create another heaven.
Deciding that the sage would have to be distracted from his penances, he sent the apsara Menaka to work her charms. Menaka trembled at the thought of angering such a powerful ascetic, but she obeyed the god’s order. As she approached Viswamitra, the wind god Vayu tore away her garments. Seeing her thus disrobed, the sage abandoned himself to lust. Nymph and sage engaged in sex for some time, during which Viswamitra’s asceticism was put on hold. However, she fell in genuine love with him and a baby was born to them. Vishwamitra abandons the child in a patch of reeds where she is cared for by birds. The sage Kanva finds her and takes her home, naming her Shakuntala after the birds that had looked after her. Later Shakuntala falls in love with King Dushyanta and gives birth to a child called Bharata after whom India was first named. When Vishwamitra realized that he had been tricked by Indra, he was enraged. But he merely cursed Menaka to be separated from him forever, for he loved her as well and knew that she had lost all devious intentions towards him long ago.
Rambha is equally popular in mythology of apsaras. Rambha is said to have originated during the churning of the ocean of milk. She was regarded to be the Queen of Apsaras. Vishwamitra once engaged in Tapasya for a thousand years, after which Lord Brahma granted him the title of ‘Maharishi’. But Vishwamitra was not satisfied by this, as he wanted to be a ‘Brahmarishi’ so that he would be Vasishtha’s equal. So, he engaged in another thousand years of Tapasya, which was so intense that it caused disruption in the three worlds. So, Indra told the Apsara Rambha to tempt Vishwamitra away from his Tapasya. Vishwamitra was indeed distracted by Rambha, but then he cursed her to turn to stone for thousand years.
Early 12th century Sandstone
The Javanese Hindu-Buddhist tradition also influenced Bali. In Balinese dance, the theme of celestial maidens often occurred. In the court of Mataram Sultanate the tradition of depicting heavenly maidens in dances still alive and well. The Javanese court dances of Bedhaya portray apsaras.
Khmer classical dance, the indigenous ballet-like performance art of Cambodia, is frequently called “apsara dance.” This appellation reflects the belief that the Khmer classical dance of today is connected by an unbroken tradition to the dance practiced in the courts of the Angkorian monarchs, which in turn drew its inspiration from the mythological court of the gods and from its celestial dancers, the Apsaras.
The term ‘Bidadari’ (from sanskrit vidhya dharya; ‘the bearer of knowledge’) is a Malay-Indonesian word that equates refer Indian concept; as heavenly maidens living in the svargaloka or in celestial palace of Indra, described in Balinese dedari (Bidadari or Apsara) dance. However, after the adoption of Islam, aspara is equated with houri or Bidadari, the heavenly maiden mentioned in the Quran, in which God stated that the ‘forbidden pearls’ of heaven are for those men who have resisted temptation and borne life’s trials. Islam spread in the Malay archipelago when Arabic traders came to trade spices with the Malays; at that time, Hinduism formed the basis of the Malay culture, but syncretism with the Islamic religion and culture spawned the idea of a Bidadari. It is usually seen as a prized offer to those who lived a lifestyle in service to and pleasing to God; after death, the Bidadari was the man’s wife or wives, depending on what type of person he was. The worthiness of a man who was offered Bidadari depended upon his holiness: how often he prayed, how much he turned away from the ‘outside world’, and how little he heeded worldly desires.
Figure of flying apsara from Yulin cave, China. Scanned from Fan Jinshi (2008) The Caves of Dunhuang
Apsaras are often depicted in East Asia Buddhist art. They are referred to as feitian in Chinese. They are depicted as flying figures in the mural paintings and sculptures of Buddhist cave sites in China such as in the Mogao Caves, Yulin Caves, Tianlongshan grottoes, the Yungang, and Longmen Grottoes. They are also depicted on tiles of pagoda, such as Xiuding-si pagoda. They may also be depicted as dancers or musicians who are holding musical instruments, such as flute, pipa, or sheng. Generally, they are depicted with a long skirt fluttering in the wind.
Nestled in Monroe, Connecticut, you’ll find the Warren Occult Museum. It’s an intriguing attraction for horror movie fans and those obsessed with the paranormal. The Warrens Occult Museum is one of the oldest museums of its kind. The Warrens collected memorabilia throughout their investigations. They wanted to lock away these items that contained evil spirits to protect the public. This world-renowned museum has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the world. The museum is actually in the basement of their residence in Monroe, Conn., and not a separate building in town. Inch for inch, their museum houses the largest array of obscure and haunted artifacts. Items used in extremely dangerous occult activities and diabolical practices around the world. To touch one of these items would be the opposite of touching something holy, something blessed. Both have since passed away, Ed in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019, but their memories live on in the Warren Occult Museum.
The Original Annabelle Doll
However, the most prevalent item in the museum is One of the most famous haunted dolls of all time, the cursed Raggedy Ann doll by the name of Annabelle, which was said to have killed a man. Annabelle is imprisoned in a holy box at the Warrens’ museum, keeping the evil doll from wreaking havoc, backlit by a haunting red light. While the real doll (a Raggedy Ann doll) doesn’t look as terrifying as the doll from the movie, it still has an unnerving presence about it.
Admittedly, the doll did not do everything it was shown to do in the movies. But the fact that the Warrens thought it prudent to keep the doll locked away in a holy box shows just how much they feared whatever’s lying inside it.
As the Warrens tell it, the antique doll was purchased from a hobby shop in the 1968 as a birthday gift to a girl named Donna. Donna was in college, and shared a small apartment with her roommate, and Annabelle quickly became a beloved piece of decoration…. until the two girls began to notice the doll moving on its own. Often times Donna would come to find the doll had moved from its spot in the living room to her bedroom, other times it would seem to cross its legs when people weren’t looking, and sometimes the doll was even blamed for writing messages like “help us” in a child-like scrawl. Eventually, Donna and her roommate called in the help of a medium who told them the doll was possessed by the spirit of a woman named Annabelle Higgins. According to the medium, Annabelle really liked the girls, and wanted to remain in their care.
It was at this point that the Warrens got involved, and they had a feeling that Annabelle was a wee bit of a liar. Their case files tell of the doll attacking the girls’ friend Lou. Looking down toward his feet he saw the doll, Annabelle. It began to slowly glide up his leg, moved over his chest and then stopped. Within seconds the doll was strangling him. Paralyzed and gasping for breath Lou, at the point of asphyxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn’t a dream, Lou was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possessed it.
Ed and Lorraine agreed to take the rag doll back home with them. Upon leaving, Ed placed the doll in the back seat and agreed he would not take the interstate in the event the inhuman spirit still resided with the doll. His suspicions were all too correct and in no time the Warrens felt themselves as a the object of a vicious hatred. Then at each dangerous curve the car swerved and stalled with every corner causing the power steering and brakes to fail. Repeatedly the car verged on collision. Ed reached into the back seat into his black bag and took out a vial of holy water and doused the doll making the sign of the cross over it. The disturbances stopped immediately and the Warren’s arrived safely home.
After the Warrens arrived home, Ed sat the doll in a chair next to his desk. The doll levitated a number of times in the beginning, and then it seemed to fall inert. During the ensuing weeks, however, it began showing up in various rooms of the house. When the Warrens were away and had the doll locked up in the outer office building, they would often return to find it sitting comfortably upstairs in Ed’s easy chair when they opened the main front door.
The doll also showed a hatred for clergymen who came to the house. The Warrens built a glass case for the doll, and after having it blessed by a priest, placed Annabelle inside. Today, visitors to the Warren Occult Museum can see Annabelle in her glass case with a giant handwritten sign warning visitors not to touch. According to the Warrens, the last person to break that rule was promptly killed in an automobile accident. This doll also reportedly slashed a grown man several times across the chest. Although Annabelle has been exorcised several times it is believed that some energy is still attached to this doll.
The Warrens locked up Annabelle doll is kept in their Occult Museum. There was also a tarot card on the glass door as a form of protection, though the artwork of both the card and the sign, differ in real life.
The Warrens Occult Museum is a place that any seasoned paranormal investigator or enthusiast in the world would agree, is a must see of over 50 years of occult items. Unfortunately, as of right now, the Warren’s Occult Museum is closed due to zoning regulations since it’s located on their private property in the basement. The local police chief explained that this is a residential area, and there’s no room for traffic and parking. Tony Spera, Ed and Lorraine’s son-in-law, has tried to comply with regulations and keep unwanted visitors away, but up to this point, the Warren Occult Museum has remained closed. The Warrens Occult Museum is currently only viewable via Warrenology events.
Although Tony Spera and others would like to reopen the Warren Occult Museum, it doesn’t look like that will happen. It’s listed as “permanently closed” on Atlas Obscura. Since the Warrens emphasized the importance of not touching anything in the museum, there doesn’t appear to be any conversation about moving the items to another location either. Maybe one day it will reopen for visitors.
Sources:
Official Ed and Lorraine Warren Channel Via youtube.com Roadtrippers.com Atlas Obscura.com https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/haunted/articles/haunted-easton-cemetery https://screenrant.com/the-conjuring-creepiest-items-occult-museum/ https://mundoseriex.com/paranormal/story-shadow-doll-warrens-occult-museum/
Nestled in Monroe, Connecticut, you’ll find the Warren Occult Museum. It’s an intriguing attraction for horror movie fans and those obsessed with the paranormal. The Warrens Occult Museum is one of the oldest museums of its kind. The Warrens collected memorabilia throughout their investigations. They wanted to lock away these items that contained evil spirits to protect the public. This world-renowned museum has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the world. The museum is actually in the basement of their residence in Monroe, Conn., and not a separate building in town. Inch for inch, their museum houses the largest array of obscure and haunted artifacts. Items used in extremely dangerous occult activities and diabolical practices around the world. To touch one of these items would be the opposite of touching something holy, something blessed. Both have since passed away, Ed in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019, but their memories live on in the Warren Occult Museum.
The Shadow Doll
Unlike other dolls whose appearance is innocent and beautiful, the Shadow doll has a gloomy and unpleasant look, as the purpose of its existence, since it was created during a ritual for diabolical purposes. The Shadow Doll is a nightmarish object that makes even Chucky look like something you’d want to cuddle. The shadow doll is made up of human bones and the teeth and nails are from animals. The creators didn’t make her as a gift but to take her photographs and send them to the people they wanted to harm.
According to the victims, anyone who could see shadow doll’s picture, a curse would soon fall on them. At first, when people used to receive the photo, they would laugh it off thinking it was a joke, but once it was night, they wished to never have slept on. The doll would appear into the victim’s dreams. The nightmare would be so terrifying that the person’s heart would stop forever or other harm would come to them.
It is not known how Shadow doll came into their hands, but a seller of ancient things sold the doll to some collectors who were affected from the first day they walked through the door of their house with her.
That day, the couple had nightmares where the doll appeared and once they woke up, they were full of scratches. The second night the same thing happened again, but this time, there weren’t just scratches, but some marks like claws. After that, they decided to call the Warrens to take over the doll.
It is said that the magic in the doll is so powerful that if she is destroyed, the spirits that were summoned during her creation will follow after those who did it, bringing misfortune and fear.
A Real Human Skull used for Black Magic
There are multiple real human skulls, said to be 8 in all, that make up part of the Warren Museum collection. Used in various rituals and rites, each skull has its own story of which I could not find details of.
The Haunted Pearl Necklace of Death
The Pearls of Death are notoriously one of the most dangerous items in the Warrens’ museum. The Pearls of Death are a cursed necklace that is said to strangle those who wear them, with their former owner complaining of being choked while wearing them, they had to be torn off a woman’s neck to save her. The pearls currently rest in the Warrens’ shelves. I could not find much more information on them than that.
The Conjuring Mirror
Despite being called the Conjuring Mirror, the artifact actually has nothing to do with The Conjuring movies. Instead, the mirror gets its name from the fact that it was used to summon, or conjure, spirits. This form of wizardry is called ‘crystalmancy’ and there is a long history of mirrors being used as gateways for the dead to return to the world of the living. Mirrors are not the only thing that can be used for this type of work. Stones, crystals, and metals are all able to be used in crystalmancy. This is also deemed a “dangerous object”.
A Brick from Borley Rectory
The Warrens’ Occult Museum holds some of the utmost haunted and cursed objects in the world, many of which were commandeered by the Warrens from their travels to haunted locations from across the globe.
This location is considered the ‘most haunted’ houses in the UK. Built in 1862, it was the house of the rector for Borley, but it was damaged by fire in 1939 and then demolished in 1944. In 1929, the Daily Mirror printed a report by Harry Price, a paranormal researcher. Reported sightings mentioned the sound of footsteps, seeing a ghostly nun and a phantom coach driving by.
Cursed Photographs
The Warren Museum also claims to have several cursed photographs in their possession among the other accursed objects in the museum. There aren’t specific stories available behind these photos as they’re not featured items and makes fans wonder if digital versions of these photos can be cursed as well.
The Toy Monkey
This toy monkey actually appeared in The Conjuring Universe, with the toy getting its biggest appearance to date in the spin-off movie Annabelle Comes Home. It is said that the monkey is possessed by a demon and enjoys stalking its victims before eventually murdering them. It’s a cute, novel concept, but it evokes a scary figure with its facial expression upon closer inspection, making a case for it being the scariest in the bunch.
Ed Warren tells the reporter he shows the room in The Conjuring: “Everything you see in here is either haunted, cursed, or been used in some kind of ritualistic practice. Nothing is a toy. Not even the toy monkey. Don’t touch it!”
The Toy Monkey is a minor antagonist in The Conjuring franchise, first appearing as a supporting antagonist in the 2019 film Annabelle Comes Home. It is a musical toy monkey that holds an accordion possessed by a demon, ghost, or dark spirit.
The White Lady of Union Cemetery
This is just a representation of the actual white lady but still a spooky image that resembles a global belief of a weeping woman or woman in white. Union Cemetery is a cemetery located near Stepney Road in Easton, Connecticut. The site dates back to the 1700s. According to ghost hunters, it is one of the “most haunted” cemeteries in the entire United States. Ed and Lorraine Warren have written a book about the cemetery entitled Graveyard. There are believed to be many spirits in the graveyard—including soldiers and giggling children—but the most famous haunts at Union Cemetery are the “White Lady” and “Red Eyes.”
Like other White Lady ghost stories, Union Cemetery’s ghost is described as wearing a white “diaphanous white nightgown or a wedding dress and has her head and face concealed with a white bonnet”. The haunting of Union Cemetery drew the attention of famed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren who visited the cemetery on several occasions and compiled their findings into a 1992 book, Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery. Ed Warren, who also investigated the Amityville Horror House, reportedly caught the White Lady in photographs and videos. Lorraine Warren told NBC Connecticut in 2008 that the video evidence is so valuable she kept it locked away at their Occult Museum in Monroe.
Nobody is quite sure who the White Lady is. According to Damned Connecticut, some think she could be the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth and is still searching for her baby. Others speculate it’s the ghost of a woman who murdered her husband. The White Lady could also be the ghost of a murder victim who was dumped in a sinkhole near the cemetery. No matter her origin, she is often sighted on Route 59, which runs along the cemetery’s eastern boundary.
The Perron Family Music Box
The first Conjuring film, which kicked off the franchise and was released back in 2013, introduced audiences to the Warrens, a couple who are hired by the Perron family to look into assorted creepy happenings at their new farmhouse in Rhode Island.
Of course, what follows in the film – hauntings, exorcisms and all the rest of it – seems far-fetched, to say the least, but the Warrens would probably tell you that barely a detail is inaccurate. Lorraine (who acted as a consultant on the film and passed away aged 92 in 2019) did exactly that, telling USA Today that “The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening. It still affects me to talk about it today.”
In The Conjuring as the investigators, they tried to help them rid their home of a demon called Bathsheba Sherman, a witch, and Satanist, who hung herself on a tree on the estate in the 19th century. In the real-life case, the Warrens were unable to help, in the film they were successful.
The real Perron family did (and still do) believe that their house was haunted, and they did call in the Warrens to make things better. In the days after moving to the house in 1971, the family said they immediately noticed something was wrong – although it was mainly small things to begin with, and there is no suggestion that their dog really was killed in the early days after the move, as the film suggests.
Bathsheba, the evil spirit that the Perrons and the Warrens insisted had set up residence in the house. Bathsheba Sherman was a real woman, born in Rhode Island in 1812, but of course there is no evidence that suggests she actually was a real witch – aside from various references in local legends. Apparently, an infant had once died in her care, and many villagers believed that Bathsheba had sacrificed the child as an offering to the devil – although she was officially cleared of any wrongdoing. The real Bathsheba passed away in 1885 at the age of 73, according to official records – and her buried body still lies at the Harrisville Cemetery in Rhode Island.
One other aspect of the film that we know to definitely be fiction is the exorcism that Ed Warren carries out on his daughter after she allegedly becomes possessed by Bathsheba – the real-life Warrens were very clear that they did not carry out any exorcisms as they were not catholic priests and therefore did not have the authority to do so.
In real life, the Perrons actually kicked the Warrens out of their house after one of the daughters had secretly watched a seance and the father Roger became increasingly concerned for the welfare of the family. According to Andrea, the daughter in question, “I thought I was going to pass out. My mother began to speak a language not of this world in a voice not her own. Her chair levitated and she was thrown across the room.” After this incident, the family continued to live in the farmhouse for a further nine years – apparently continuing to come across paranormal activity until they eventually moved out.
to this day the Perrons are convinced that the house was haunted. Andrea is quoted as saying about Bathsheba, “Whoever the spirit was, she perceived herself to be mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position.” Lorraine said “The Perron house was an extremely old house. Now certain families can move into these houses where phenomena have taken place and it doesn’t affect them, other families can move in and hell breaks loose there are laws of attraction and that family could move out, another family could move in and nothing happens.”
One of the spookiest elements of the movie was the music box, which was always threatening a scare whenever it appeared onscreen. The box itself is safely tucked away in the Warrens’ museum and has since become synonymous with the films.
Sources:
Official Ed and Lorraine Warren Channel Via youtube.com Roadtrippers.com Atlas Obscura.com https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/haunted/articles/haunted-easton-cemetery https://screenrant.com/the-conjuring-creepiest-items-occult-museum/ https://mundoseriex.com/paranormal/story-shadow-doll-warrens-occult-museum/
Edward Warren Miney (September 7, 1926 – August 23, 2006) and Lorraine Rita Warren (January 31, 1927 – April 18, 2019) were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a self-taught and self-professed demonologist, author, and lecturer. Lorraine professed to be clairvoyant and a light trance medium who worked closely with her husband.
In 1952, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), the oldest ghost hunting group in New England. NESPR uses a variety of individuals, including medical doctors, researchers, police officers, nurses, college students, and members of the clergy in its investigations. This is a much more scientific based approach to the paranormal that just going into a facility with an EMP and a camera to see if anything moves, especially for the time.
Ed and Lorraine image from Pinterest
They authored many books about the paranormal and about their private investigations into various reports of paranormal activity. They claimed to have investigated well over 10,000 cases during their career.
These two paranormal investigators became famous for their discoveries over the years. Ed and Lorraine Warren worked on hundreds of cases using Lorraine’s gift of clairvoyance to drive out demons and spirits and who rose to prominence in the 1970s, largely as a result of their involvement in the investigations into the legendary Amityville House – which itself inspired a separate successful franchise of horror films.
As they traveled all over the world to perform various rituals, the Warrens brought back evil objects. There are artifacts from Asia, Canada, Europe, and Mexico, as well as the U.S. In the following years, they struck up quite the reputation, working on a number of supposedly supernatural cases and even creating an Occult museum in which they would store mementos and oddities from their various investigations – including the real-life Annabelle doll, and artifacts that had been touched by evil is kept in the basement of their own home.
The Conjuring
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren; Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren
(C) 2013 Warnet Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved (The Conjuring
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren; Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren
(C) 2013 Warnet Bros. Entertainment I
When they weren’t delving into high profile cases of demonic mischief as the Amityville haunting (the murderer who claimed demonic possession as his defense) and the exorcism of the witch Bathsheba (a case which was most recently portrayed in the film, “The Conjuring,” which also featured a version of the museum), the Warrens were popular lecturers in their day. Throughout these cases, the Warrens collected trinkets and totems they claim were defiled by evil, locking them in the museum to keep them safe from the public.
The eccentric collection contains everything from an alleged vampire’s coffin to a child’s tombstone used as a satanic altar. Some objects are just oddities that are there from the Warrens’ decades of investigating the paranormal such as Death curses, demon masks, and psychic photographs line the museum’s walls, while others come from the Conjuring franchise itself, accented by a Halloween store’s bounty of plastic props (assumedly for mood). Looking at the Warrens’ collection, one might begin to think that Hell has a thing for dolls. the museum also holds several human skulls that were used in occult rituals and witchcraft to communicate with demons, opening gateways between hell and Earth.
The items in the Warren Occult Museum have been used in satanic rituals. The Warrens disclosed that some still have demonic forces attached to them. This explains why no visitor is allowed to touch any item in the museum. According to an interview with the Warrens, these items maimed or killed people or even drove them into mental hospitals. You’ll also find shadow dolls, voodoo dolls, Satanic idols and tools, various demon masks, possessed toys, death curses, psychic photographs, and other cursed items at the Warren Occult Museum. The basement contains objects from exorcisms and other supernatural practices.
Whether or not one believes in the paranormal, the Warrens’ Occult Museum may be one of the preeminent chronicles of modern culture’s obsession with the supernatural. Of course, it could also be just a spooky collection of stuff in an older woman’s basement.
Naturally, not everyone believed that the work they were doing was rooted in anything approaching the truth. Neurologist Steven Novella expressed his major skepticism, explaining, “The Warrens are good at telling ghost stories, you could do a lot of movies based on the stories they have spun. But there’s absolutely no reason to believe there is any legitimacy to them.”
Image from Roadtrippers
Skeptics Perry DeAngelis and Steven Novella investigated the Warrens’ evidence and described it as “blarney”. Skeptical investigators Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford concluded that the better known hauntings, Amityville and the Snedeker family haunting, did not happen and had been invented. The Warrens’ have handed over much of their video and audio proof to the Vatican where it cannot be accessed by public means.
Just showing one or two of these would lend legitimacy to their reputation and everything they have worked for but instead of making copies, they have given away all of the originals and keep only the artifacts which does not make sense to me. One would think that a demon possessed doll would be better off in the Vatican surrounded by priests and the Pope who could regularly stand guard, bless, and/ or dispel a demon. But instead it is kept in a museum along with 100s of other artifacts that are considered dangerous so that you can pay a large sum of money (especially for a haunted basement museum) to see them.
Image from Atlas Obscura
While this is a lovely and spooky display for a haunted museum, all Ouija board users know not to leave the planchette on the board for any reason. Some of the rules involved in the use of the board consist of:
If the planchette goes to the four corners of the board, it supposedly means that you have contacted an evil spirit.
If the planchette falls from a Ouija board, a spirit will get loose.
If the planchette repeatedly makes a figure eight, it means that an evil spirit is in control of the board.
Never use the Ouija board in a graveyard or place where a terrible death has occurred or you will bring forth malevolent entities.
Sometimes an evil spirit can permanently “inhabit” a board. When this happens, no other spirits will be able to use it.
NEVER leave the planchette on the board if you aren’t using it.
For a paranormal researcher that has been doing this for decades to break one of the most emphasized rules of the Ouija board seems a little off to me. I believe it is just there to add to the décor.
Do I believe that Ed and Lorraine Warren have encountered ghosts, demons, and the paranormal?
My personal Opinion: Yes I think it is highly plausible because they had made it their life’s work during a time when that type of a career choice would not have been taken serious by any means. However, I also believe that things have been embellished or even made up because they began to really make a living off of people’s love of the genre and all that it encompasses. Especially with a book deals and eventually movies, their career choice has set them up well both in popularity and in a monetary sense. Despite that, the vibe their museum gives off is awesome and I would love to visit it someday. Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed with no current plans to reopen.
Below is a quick summary of the amazing story of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Again, I highly recommend this read to anyone who enjoyed Beowulf, Greek Mythology, or even Biblical stories
City State or Uruk from Pinterest
Contents of the Standard Babylonian version tablets
This summary is based on Andrew George’s translation.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is written in cuneiform on Assyrian and Babylonian clay tablets. 3 tablets are written in Semitic or Akkadian, which cannot be much later than 2,000 BC. In the seventh century edition which forms the main base of our knowledge of the poem, it was divided into Twelve Tablets, each containing about 300 lines.
Tablet one
The story introduces Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third man, is oppressing his people, who cry out to the gods for help. For the young women of Uruk this oppression takes the form of a droit du seigneur, or “lord’s right”, to sleep with brides on their wedding night. For the young men (the tablet is damaged at this point) it is conjectured that Gilgamesh exhausts them through games, tests of strength, or perhaps forced labor on building projects.
The gods respond to the people’s pleas by creating an equal to Gilgamesh who will be able to stop his oppression. This is the primitive man, Enkidu, who is covered in hair and lives in the wild with the animals. He is spotted by a trapper, whose livelihood is being ruined because Enkidu is uprooting his traps. The trapper tells the sun-god Shamash about the man, and it is arranged for Enkidu to be seduced by Shamhat, a temple prostitute, his first step towards being tamed. After six days and seven nights (or two weeks, according to more recent scholarship) of lovemaking and teaching Enkidu about the ways of civilization, she takes Enkidu to a shepherd’s camp to learn how to be civilized.
Gilgamesh, meanwhile, has been having dreams about the imminent arrival of a beloved new companion. Gilgamesh arose from his slumber and went to seek his mother, Ninsun, the great wild cow goddess, to relate dreams to her and to help interpret these dreams.
Tablet two
Shamhat brings Enkidu to the shepherds’ camp, where he is introduced to a human diet and becomes the night watchman. Enkidu helps the shepherds by guarding the sheep. Learning from a passing stranger about Gilgamesh’s treatment of new brides, Enkidu is incensed and travels to Uruk to intervene at a wedding. When Gilgamesh attempts to visit the wedding chamber, Enkidu blocks his way, and they battle. Enkidu was a wild man with long hair, great strength, and one who was equal to Gilgamesh. After a fierce battle, Enkidu acknowledges and praises Gilgamesh’s superior strength and they become friends.
Not far from the city of Uruk lay the Forest of Cedars and a monstrous giant who dwells within. The forest was 10000 leagues. The monster was Humbaba. The great God Enlil appointed him to guard the Forest of Cedars and to strike terror in the hearts of men. His roar was like unto the great deluge. From his mouth spewed forth flames of fire and his breath is death. He hears every rustle of grass in the forest though it be a thousand Leagues distant. For reasons unknown (the tablet is partially broken) Enkidu is in a sad mood. In order to cheer him up Gilgamesh Gilgamesh proposes a journey to the Forest of Cedars to slay the monstrous demi-god Humbaba in order to gain fame and renown. Enkidu protests, as he knows Humbaba and is aware of his power. Gilgamesh talks Enkidu into it with some words of encouragement, but Enkidu remains reluctant. They prepare, and call for the elders. The elders also protest, but after Gilgamesh talks to them, they agree to let him go. Despite warnings from Enkidu and the council of elders, Gilgamesh is not deterred.
Tablet three
The Elders of Uruk sat at the feet of Gilgamesh as he was seated upon his throne. The elders give Gilgamesh advice for his journey. Gilgamesh commanded the smiths to craft weapons for him. They ceded themselves and crafted Mighty weapons, great axes weighing 180 lbs. Also great swords did they cast. Each blade had the weight of 120 lbs. The hilt weighed 30 lbs and each sword was inlaid with 30 lbs of gold. Gilgamesh visits his mother, the goddess Ninsun, who seeks the support and protection of the sun-god Shamash for their adventure. Ninsun adopts Enkidu as her son, and Gilgamesh leaves instructions for the governance of Uruk in his absence. Gilgamesh did command his vassals to bolt shut the Sevenfold Gates of high-walled Uruk. Gilgamesh paid tribute to Shamash the sun god for a successful return. Gilgamesh carried a great bow and fletched arrows in their quiver. In his hand a great sword and in his belt a great Axe. After both he and Enkidu equip themselves for the journey, they leave with the elders’ blessing and counsel.
Tablet four
In the space of three days did Gilgamesh and Enkidu traverse a journey of 7 weeks. Gilgamesh and Enkidu journey to the Cedar Forest. Every day they camp on a mountain, and perform a dream ritual. “And it befell that Enkidu built for Gilgamesh a dwelling for the god of Dreams. Unto this dwelling did he a fix a door, that the wind might not enter therein. Then did Gilgamesh to lie upon the ground, so he could poor about him an enchanted circle of milled flour to cause Gilgamesh to dream.” Enkidu, who was begotten in the wilderness, knew how to interpret dreams. He spoke to Gilgamesh, his friend, and explained the meaning of his dreams.
Gilgamesh has five terrifying dreams about falling mountains, thunderstorms, wild bulls, and a thunderbird that breathes fire. Despite similarities between his dream figures and earlier descriptions of Humbaba, Enkidu interprets these dreams as good omens, and denies that the frightening images represent the forest guardian. As they approach the cedar mountain, they hear Humbaba bellowing, and have to encourage each other not to be afraid.
Tablet five
The heroes enter the cedar forest. Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest, insults and threatens them. He accuses Enkidu of betrayal, and vows to disembowel Gilgamesh and feed his flesh to the birds. Gilgamesh is afraid, but with some encouraging words from Enkidu the battle commences. The mountains quake with the tumult and the sky turns black. The god Shamash sends 13 winds to bind Humbaba, and he is captured. Humbaba pleads for his life, and Gilgamesh pities him. Gilgamesh refrains from slaying him, and urges Enkidu to hunt Humbaba’s “seven auras” (sons). Humbaba offers to make Gilgamesh king of the forest, to cut the trees for him, and to be his slave.
Enkidu, however, argues that Gilgamesh should kill Humbaba to establish his reputation forever. Humbaba curses them both and Gilgamesh dispatches him with a blow to the neck, as well as killing his seven sons. The two heroes cut down many cedars, including a gigantic tree that Enkidu plans to fashion into a gate for the temple of Enlil. The two heros discover the gods’ secret abode. Much of the rest of the tablet is broken at this point. They build a raft and return home along the Euphrates with the giant tree and (possibly) the head of Humbaba. The auras are not referred to in the Standard Babylonian version, but are in one of the Sumerian poems.
Tablet six
Gilgamesh rejects the advances of the goddess Ishtar because of her mistreatment of previous lovers like Dumuzi. Ishtar asks her father Anu to send the Bull of Heaven to avenge her. When Anu rejects her complaints, Ishtar threatens to raise the dead who will “outnumber the living” and “devour them”. Anu states that if he gives her the Bull of Heaven, Uruk will face 7 years of famine. Ishtar provides him with provisions for 7 years in exchange for the bull. Ishtar leads the Bull of Heaven to Uruk, and it causes widespread devastation. It lowers the level of the Euphrates river, and dries up the marshes. It opens up huge pits that swallow 300 men. Without any divine assistance, Enkidu and Gilgamesh attack and slay it, and offer up its heart to Shamash. Unto his Guardian God and Father Lugalbanda, did Gilgamesh offer the horns of the bull of Heaven, to hold holy ointments for his devotional anointment. Each horn was fashioned from 30 lb of lapis lazuli and the wall of each horn was the width of two thumbs in thickness. And Gilgamesh placed the horns of the bull of Heaven upon the shrine of his forebears. When Ishtar cries out, Enkidu hurls one of the hindquarters of the bull at her. The city of Uruk celebrates, but Enkidu has an ominous dream about his future failure.
Tablet seven
In Enkidu’s dream, the gods decide that one of the heroes must die because they killed Humbaba and Gugalanna. Despite the protestations of Shamash, Enkidu is marked for death. Enkidu curses the great door he has fashioned for Enlil’s temple. He also curses the trapper and Shamhat for removing him from the wild. Shamash reminds Enkidu of how Shamhat fed and clothed him, and introduced him to Gilgamesh. Shamash tells him that Gilgamesh will bestow great honors upon him at his funeral, and will wander into the wild consumed with grief.
Enkidu regrets his curses and blesses Shamhat instead. In a second dream, however, he sees himself being taken captive to the Netherworld by a terrifying Angel of Death. The underworld was called the house of Darkness and the queen was Ereshkigal. The underworld is a “house of dust” and darkness whose inhabitants eat clay, and are clothed in bird feathers, supervised by terrifying beings. For 12 days, Enkidu’s condition worsens. Finally, after a lament that he could not meet a heroic death in battle, he dies. In a famous line from the epic, Gilgamesh clings to Enkidu’s body and denies that he has died until a maggot drops from the corpse’s nose.
Tablet eight
Gilgamesh delivers a lament for Enkidu, in which he calls upon mountains, forests, fields, rivers, wild animals, and all of Uruk to mourn for his friend. Recalling their adventures together, Gilgamesh tears at his hair and clothes in grief. He commissions a funerary statue, and provides grave gifts from his treasury to ensure that Enkidu has a favorable reception in the realm of the dead. At the first light of dawn, did Gilgamesh arise and enter into the storehouse of treasures. He broke the seal and assayed his riches.
Gold, silver, carnelian, obsidian, lapis lazuli, and alabaster did he own. All manner of precious gems fully worked did Gilgamesh inspect. And then did Gilgamesh provide for his friend, Enkidu, for his journey unto the Netherworld, 30 weights of gold. Also did he provide for his friend 30 weights of ivory. He also provided 30 weights of silver, 30 weights of iron, a sword, the handle of which was inlaid with a thickness of gold, a longbow, which was inlaid with a thickness of gold, and a quiver with fletched arrows of ivory. He provided for his friend a battle axe, the handle of which held 40 weights of gold, and 3 cubits was its length.
“Unto Ishtar the great Queen, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a javelin of sacred wood. Unto Sin, god of the Moon, did Gilgamesh make an offering of an urn of alabaster. Unto Ereshkigal, queen of the Netherworld, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a flagon of lapis lazuli. Unto Tammuz, the shepherd, beloved consort of Ishtar, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a flute of carnelian. Unto Namtar, chief minister of the Netherworld, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a scepter of lapis lazuli and a seat of lapis lazuli. Unto Hushbisha, overseer of another world, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a neck collar of gold and silver, inlaid with carnelian. Unto Qassatabat, servant of Ereshkegal, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a bracelet of Silver and a ring of gold. Unto Ninshuluhha, custodian of the Netherworld, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a vessel of alabaster, the inside of which was inlaid with lapis lazuli and carnelian, and which displayed an image of the Forest of Cedars. Unto Bibbu, meat carver of the Netherworld, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a double-edged blade of obsidian with a shaft of lapis lazuli bearing an image of the pure Euphrates. Unto Dumuziabzu, scapegoat of the Netherworld, did Gilgamesh make an offering of a copper of alabaster, inlaid with carnelian, the lid of which was lapis lazuli. And it did come to pass that Gilgamesh ordained a great table of sacred wood be brought forth. Upon this table did he fill a carnelian bowl with honey. Upon this table did he fill a Lapis Lazuli bowl with cream. Then did Gilgamesh adorned and display these precious bowls and did offer them up to Shamash, the sun god.”
A great banquet is held where the treasures are offered to the gods of the Netherworld. Just before a break in the text there is a suggestion that a river is being dammed, indicating a burial in a river bed, as in the corresponding Sumerian poem, The Death of Gilgamesh.
Tablet nine
Tablet nine opens with Gilgamesh roaming the wild wearing animal skins, grieving for Enkidu. Having now become fearful of his own death, he decides to seek Utnapishtim (“the Faraway”), and learn the secret of eternal life. Among the few survivors of the Great Flood, Utnapishtim and his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods. Of death and eternal life he wished to learn the secret. Gilgamesh argues with Shamash about the futility of his quest. Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god Sin. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing.
After a long and perilous journey, Gilgamesh arrives at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. He comes across a tunnel, which no man has ever entered, guarded by two scorpion monsters, who appear to be a married couple. The husband tries to dissuade Gilgamesh from passing, but the wife intervenes, expresses sympathy for Gilgamesh, and allows his passage. He passes under the mountains along the Road of the Sun. In complete darkness he follows the road for 12 “double hours”, managing to complete the trip before the Sun catches up with him. And then did Gilgamesh behold the Brilliance of Shamash, the sun god in all his glory.
He arrives at the Garden of the gods, a paradise full of jewel-laden trees. Precious gems hung from the branches of the trees in the garden. One tree bore fruit of carnelian, hanging there for like bunches of grapes. This tree was pleasing to the site. Another tree bore leaves of a Lapis Lazuli in full bloom. There were Trees Bejeweled with fruit of Ruby, Diamond, Emerald, Agate, Sapphire, citrine, hematite, and also pearls and coral from the sea. And Gilgamesh gazed in awe at the beauty and magnificence of The Garden of the Gods.
Tablet ten
Gilgamesh meets alewife Siduri, who assumes that he is a murderer or thief because of his disheveled appearance. Gilgamesh tells her about the purpose of his journey. She attempts to dissuade him from his quest for immortality, urging him to be content with the simple pleasures of life, but sends him to Urshanabi the ferryman, who will help him cross the sea to Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh, out of spontaneous rage, destroys the stone charms that Urshanabi keeps with him. He tells him his story, but when he asks for his help, Urshanabi informs him that he has just destroyed the objects that can help them cross the Waters of Death, which are deadly to the touch. Urshanabi instructs Gilgamesh to cut down 120 trees and carve them into 300 oars so that they may cross the waters of death without needing the “stone ones”. When they reach the island where Utnapishtim lives, Gilgamesh recounts his story, asking him for his help. Utnapishtim reprimands him, declaring that fighting the common fate of humans is futile and diminishes life’s joys.
“The life of a man is as easily broken as a reed in a Thicket of pain. Death All Too Soon cuts down, in their Prime, the handsome Youth and the comely Maiden. No one beholds the face of death. No one hears the voice of death. But pitiless and unyielding death cuts down all. Everything is impermanent. No distinction is there between master and servant when both have reached the end of their allotted lifespan and breathed their last.”
Tablet eleven
Gilgamesh observes that Utnapishtim seems no different from himself, and asks him how he obtained his immortality. Utnapishtim explains that the gods decided to send a great flood. The city of Shuruppak is set upon the banks of the river Euphrates. The city is ancient and gods once dwell therein. But the multitude upon the face of the Earth and the unceasing clamour and wickedness of the people aroused the Wrath of the Gods. And thus the great God’s method to tame it was to send a deluge to rain down in order to wipe out mankind.
Ea, god of wisdom, the cunning one, (in some versions it is the God Enki) warned Utanapishtim of the coming flood and told him to pull down his house and fashion a vessel there from. it was sealed with pitch and bitumen. Aboard this vessel shall he take the seed of every creature that lives upon the Earth. This boat, which he is to build, the measurement should be equal for the width and length thereof. One acre was the expanse of her deck. 120 cubits was the height of her sides. I gave her six decks, thus making seven levels and all. The inside of the ship was divided into nine parts.
His entire family went aboard together with his craftsmen and “all the animals of the field”. A violent storm then arose which caused the terrified gods to retreat to the heavens. Ishtar lamented the wholesale destruction of humanity, and the other gods wept beside her. For six days and seven nights, did the storm winds blow, the Tempest Roar, and Deluge rain down. But upon the seventh day, the winds did grow calm and the flood waters did subside. All of humanity was returned to clay.
Utnapishtim weeps when he sees the destruction. His boat lodges on a mountain, and he releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. When the raven fails to return, he opens the ark and frees its inhabitants. Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell the sweet savor and gather around. Ishtar vows that just as she will never forget the brilliant necklace that hangs around her neck, she will always remember this time. When Enlil arrives, angry that there are survivors, she condemns him for instigating the flood. Enki also castigates him for sending a disproportionate punishment. Enlil blesses Utnapishtim and his wife, and rewards them with eternal life. This account largely matches the flood story that concludes the Epic of Atra-Hasis.
The main point seems to be that when Enlil granted eternal life. it was a unique gift. As if to demonstrate this point, Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh falls asleep, and Utnapishtim instructs his wife to bake a loaf of bread on each of the days he is asleep, so that he cannot deny his failure to keep awake. Gilgamesh, who is seeking to overcome death, cannot even conquer sleep.
After instructing Urshanabi, the ferryman, to wash Gilgamesh and clothe him in royal robes, they depart for Uruk. As they are leaving, Utnapishtim’s wife asks her husband to offer a parting gift. Utanapishtim took pity on Gilgamesh and revealed a secret. It is a hidden Mystery of the Gods. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that at the bottom of the sea there lives a boxthorn-like plant that will make him young again. “There is a plant very much like a thorn bush which grows deep under the ocean. Like a rose this plant has sharp thorns which will pick you. Yet, if your hand can procure this plant, you shall surely attain life everlasting.”
Upon hearing this, Gilgamesh dug a shaft deep into the ground until the abyss he did reach. He bound heavy stones to his feet and the stones dragged him down unto the depths of the sea bed. There he did a spy the plant. He seized the plant and its thorns did scratch him. Then he did Cut Loose the heavy stones from his feet and the Sea carried him upward and cast him upon the shore.
Gilgamesh proposes to investigate if the plant has the hypothesized rejuvenation ability by testing it on an old man once he returns to Uruk. With the ability to rise above the “death” that had taken even Enkidu, the voices and acclaim of the people of Uruk would have reached unprecedented level upon returning with immortality. Describing himself as being in the “rashness of youth”, vanity soon followed and he became bothered by his ragged state to which he had not spared a single thought until that moment. He wished to cleanse himself before returning to Uruk to test the fruits of his labor in perfect condition, so he rested at a spring close by to recover from the fatigue accumulated over his long journey.
While Gilgamesh rested and bathed in the cool Pond of water, a serpent smelled the fragrance of the plant, and although a panicked Gilgamesh emerged from the spring, it was too late. The serpent slithered forward silently and snatched the plant. The snake gained the property of shedding, having been the restoration of youth instead of immortality, and all that was left was its shed skin.
It is said that the snake begins its life again in a new body after shedding its skin because it stole Gilgamesh’s medicine and took it. The way snakes went about their life appeared to the ancient people as a kind of perpetual youth and eternal life that was not available to humans.
Gilgamesh weeps at the futility of his efforts, because he has now lost all chance of immortality. He returns to Uruk, where the sight of its massive walls prompts him to praise this enduring work to Urshanabi. Marking the end of his adventures, he governed Uruk as the ruler of heroes and brought it to completion. Though he was still severe, he ruled Uruk quietly, entrusting it to the next king before going to his eternal rest without telling the whereabouts of the herb. He became humanity’s most ancient hero and the illustrious king who was the first in this world to have “become a story.”
This post is a way to allow me to nerd out. I am a huge fan of history and its influence on religion both modern and ancient. Ancient texts have been used for thousands of years as both religious scripture as well as a way for archaeologists to understand the peoples and their way of life and thinking. The Epic of Gilgamesh is probably one of my favorite ancient stories which has both religious significance for the time it was written, as well as significance in politics and daily life. Not only that, it is a really good story! I understand that it can be a difficult read and not everyone enjoys translations of wordy ancient texts as much as I so I will provide a quick synopsis of the 12 tablets in another post for others to enjoy. However, if you do not mind reading texts such as Homer’s Odyssey, the Nibelungenlied, or Beowulf, then you will absolutely enjoy this one.
Why discuss an ancient epic poem on a site about witchcraft? An excellent question! Many witches today take great influence from the old religions such as Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Celts, Vikings, and many others. Mesopotamian deities may not be as common as others, however, I am a huge fan of studying all religions and noting some of their historical significance, as well as common themes with other religions. Christianity particularly has quite a few commonalities with The Epic of Gilgamesh and it is very interesting to see the different takes on the quite similar stories.
I am a huge fan of reading and learning for the sake of learning. The more I learn, the more I am able to tweak my craft or am inspired to make some kind of creative addition to my home or even add a new concept to my story writing and/or sketch book. The epic was found in an ancient library and is one of the oldest stories in the world. And it is a phenomenal one too that I highly recommend.
Pic from Public Domain
Carved on the Stone Cliff side on Mount Behistun is an inscription 15 Meters tall by 25 Meters wide depicting events that occurred before and during the reign of Darius the Great from 522 BC to 486 BC. This inscription is a trilingual cuneiform Monument written in Akkadian, Elamite, and old Persian. Thus it is comparable to the Rosetta Stone in that it enabled Scholars to decipher a previously undecipherable ancient script.
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, located in modern day Mosul Iraq and named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC, including texts in various languages. Among its holdings was the famous Epic of Gilgamesh
Pic from Google Images
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts or coffin texts of Ancient Egypt. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh (Sumerian for “Gilgamesh”), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BC). These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian.
The ancient city of Uruk was discovered in the early 20th century some 200 miles south of present day Baghdad. More than any other large town of antiquity, Uruk has shaped our understanding of the beginnings of city life. It was the main force for urbanization in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, when small agricultural villages gradually evolved into a large urban center with a stratified society, complex governmental bureaucracy, and monumental architecture and art. Uruk is known for the development of cuneiform script- the earliest form of writing- as well as for the epic tale of the Hero King Gilgamesh.
Pic from Wikipedia
The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the “Old Babylonian” version, dates back to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī (“Surpassing All Other Kings”). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru (“He who Saw the Abyss”, in unmetaphoric terms: “He who Sees the Unknown”). Approximately two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After Enkidu becomes civilized through sexual initiation with Shamhat, he travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. Gilgamesh wins the contest; nonetheless, the two become friends. Together, they make a six-day journey to the legendary Cedar Forest, where they plan to slay the Guardian, Humbaba the Terrible, and cut down the sacred Cedar. The goddess Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven after which the gods decide to sentence Enkidu to death and kill him.
In the second half of the epic, distress over Enkidu’s death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that “Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands”. Nevertheless, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduri’s advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgamesh’s fame survived well after his death with expanding interest in the Gilgamesh story which has been translated into many languages and is featured in works of popular fiction.
The epic is regarded as a foundational work in religion and the tradition of heroic sagas, with Gilgamesh forming the prototype for later heroes like Heracles (Hercules), and the epic itself serving as an influence for the Old Testament and Homeric epics. The Old Babylonian tablets (c. 1800 BC), are the earliest surviving tablets for a single Epic of Gilgamesh narrative. The older Old Babylonian tablets and later Akkadian version are important sources for modern translations, with the earlier texts mainly used to fill in gaps in the later texts.
Although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete. The most recent Akkadian version, also referred to as the Standard Babylonian version, consists of twelve tablets and was edited by Sîn-lēqi-unninni, who is thought to have lived sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC.
In 1998, American Assyriologist Theodore Kwasman discovered a piece believed to have contained the first lines of the epic in the storeroom of the British Museum; the fragment, found in 1878 and dated to between 600 BC and 100 BC, had remained unexamined by experts for more than a century since its recovery. The fragment read “He who saw all, who was the foundation of the land, who knew (everything), was wise in all matters: Gilgamesh.”
