A question was posted specifically about the meaning behind ‘smutty nosed cats’ and so I did a bit of research into that, following it up with cat superstitions in general, and here we are! I love cats and I especially love my two babies. They cause mountains of trouble but every time I find a whisker, I always think of good luck to follow. This is just one of the more popular superstitions related to kitties but there are many many more!
Depending on where you are from and what era you speak of, cats can be harbingers of coming prosperity and good fortune or very unlucky and misfortunate. Of all the domesticated animal companions of man, there is a strange air of mystery surrounding cats. There are many superstitions that accompany our feline friends doubtless due to the animal’s strange eyes, peculiar habits, stealthy movements, night prowling, and strange vocal accomplishments, ranging from soft musical “mewing” to the “wailing shriek” described by Poe. There lies a belief that the animal exercises a mysterious influence over the lives and destinies of human beings.
In ancient Egypt the cat was sacred to the Goddess Isis and Bastet and was held in the highest reverence. Temples were erected in their honor and sacrifices and devotions were offered. When the family cat of an Ancient Egyptian family died, the members of the household would shave off their eyebrows in mourning. In the Nordic countries, cats were sacred to Freya whose chariot was pulled by cats. It was considered good luck to give a bride a kitten on her wedding day as cats were a huge source of protection for food storage, killing the many mice, rats, and other creatures that might thieve the food that would get these hardy people through those long winters. These curious beliefs and superstitions attaching to the cat have existed for millennia. Cat superstitions from the not so distant past were somewhat gruesome and even weird. Many interesting superstitions, lore, and beliefs continue to this day.
Here are just a few:
According to Scott Cunningham, a smutty nosed cat will bring wealth to its companions. But what is a smutty nose? Historically, smut meant soot or a black mark and an even older meaning is a type of plant disease which turns the grain into black powder. It isn’t as common for a cat to have a white face and a black nose, so to have one could be considered as a lucky thing. There are many superstitions revolving around how it is good luck. Chimney Sweeps are considered good luck and it’s even more fortunate to shake the hand of a chimney sweep or for the bride to be kissed by a chimney sweep on her wedding day. A cat with a sooty nose could be interpreted through the same lens and this could be where this particular superstition comes from.
Stroking a cat’s tail nine times grants good luck at cards.
Just sharing your home with cats will bring you many blessings.
In Alabama the spirit of an old maid after death takes possession of a black cat.
Cat whiskers are lucky and finding a black one is extra lucky. Carry a whisker in a bottle or charm bag at all times to increase your luck. Use a cat whisker during astral travel for a safer journey and add to any spell for added protection. Burn the whisker with jasmine and Mugwort to aid in prophetic dreams. It is said that if you place a cat whisker under your bed, you can hide yourself from enemies. Add to spells for a magical boost and if you whisper your wish into a cat whisker, then burn it in the flame of a yellow candle, it will come true.
In Canada, Michigan, and Eastern Kansas, a cat of three colors brings luck, and in Kansas is regarded as a protection against fires and will keep a house from harm.
It is a general belief that a cat should never be left alone with a sleeping child, as the cat “may suck the child’s breath.” Never take a cat near a dead person lest the cat take the soul of the dead.
In Maine it is believed that in the tip of every cat’s tail are three hairs of the devil – which accounts for the cat’s disposition to prowl.
Also in Alabama, to cut off the end of a black cat’s tail and bury it under the doorstep is to keep sickness out of the family. In Maine, owning a white cat will bring poverty. The belief that it is bad luck to kill a cat is general, and in Pennsylvania and Iowa is found the superstition that if a farmer kills a cat, some of his stock will die. In Massachusetts it “brings good luck” to throw a dead cat over the left shoulder and turn around twice. In Labrador, Canada it means visitors when the cat scratches the door post. When the cat washes its face, it is a sign of visitors in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. In Ohio is found the belief that playing with a cat will make a child stupid. Grease a cat’s foot and it will stay at your house. In New England it is regarded as unsafe to have a cat in the room during a thunderstorm. It needs to be remembered that killing a cat was extremely bad luck.
The black cat also makes “good medicine and cures”. The blood of a cat will cure a spavined horse. Blood from the tip of the tail of a black cat without a single white hair will cure a sty. Apply the freshly removed skin of a cat as a remedy for shingles. The heart of a black cat, applied as soon as killed, will stop bleeding from a wound. The skin of a black cat worn in one’s clothing will cure rheumatism.
Here are a few of the omens which are associated with the feline: If you dream of a cat, it signifies that you have an enemy. A spotted cat coming to your house is a lucky omen. A double-pawed cat foretells good luck. The possession of a black cat or a black and white cat brings sickness to the family. If a cat runs across your path you will be disappointed if you do not immediately turn back. If a black cat crosses your path, it will bring bad luck.
You will break friendship with a person to whom you give a cat in New England. In Ohio, if a neighbor’s cat comes listening around you may know that the neighbors are gossiping about you. In Massachusetts a cat putting its paw over its head means company. And when the cat licks its paws that also means company, and the company will come from the direction to which its tail points. In Eastern Kansas it is a favorable omen when the cat sits before the fire and washes its face. After washing its face visitors will come from the direction in which the cat looks. If a cat washes its face in the presence of several persons the first it looks at will be the first to get married, and will be the first of those present to die. If a cat washing its face before a fire pause in its ablutions and looks directly at any one, that one will receive a letter, is a Kansas belief, as also is the superstition that if the cat follows one who is leaving home it presages harm.
Also, it is unlucky to move into a house where the former occupants have left their cats or dogs. In some localities it is bad luck not to move the cat when the family moves; in other localities it is an ill omen to move the cat. A cat yowling is a sign of rain in Newfoundland. A cat eating grass indicates rain in Maine, Michigan, and Massachusetts. If a cat’s fur shines and looks glossy, the next day will be pleasant. In Alabama, a cat washing its face means rain. In New England this statement is limited to ablutions on the part of the cat before breakfast or in the parlor. The direction from which the cat’s paw moves in washing indicates direction from which the storm will come. In Central Maine it will storm soon if you see the cat looking out of a window. In Kansas it means a change of weather when the cat plays and frisks about in the house. And in New York a storm is looked for when an old cat frisks through the house at night.
When a cat is sharpening its claws the way its tail points indicates the direction of the wind the next day, is a Maine superstition. When the cat turns its back to the stove it means cold weather. If the cat lies with the back of its head turned downward, it means a storm. When the cat holds its nose up in the air it signifies rain. That putting a coal black cat under a bushel measure when it is raining will make the rain stop is a belief entertained in Maryland.
Many of these superstitions came from The Lancaster news. (Lancaster, S.C.), 07 March 1908 and the writings of Scott Cunningham.
Do you know of any other superstitions about cats? I would love to hear them! Leave them in the comments below!
Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the irrational fear of Friday the 13th. For the Templars, that end began in the early morning hours of Friday, October 13, 1307. The Templars, founded in 1118 as a band of poor, pious knights, have been romantically reimagined in art, literature, film and folklore for centuries. The fact that they were shockingly villainized and disbanded in 1307—after a dizzying rise to wealth and power—only added to their legendary mystique.
Founded around 1118 as a monastic military order devoted to the protection of pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land following the Christian capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. Set up during the crusading period, they were named for their initial headquarters on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) in Jerusalem. They recruited western, Christian warriors who took an oath to live quasi-monastic lives devoted to the principles of chastity, poverty and obedience, and wore iconic uniforms of black or white robes emblazoned with a red cross.
Initially these men were tasked with defending pilgrims around Christian-occupied Jerusalem, but over time they expanded their role. These knights created a revolutionary banking system that protected pilgrims’ finances. This banking system was successful and eventually expanded throughout Europe. During the 12th and 13th centuries the Templars developed an elite military wing devoted to ferocious warfare against the Islamic rulers of Syria, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, supported by a vast, profitable business empire of land and property on which they paid very little or no tax.
The Knights Templar escort Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem in an illustration from around 1800.
he Knights Templar quickly became one of the richest and most influential groups of the Middle Ages, thanks to lavish donations from the crowned heads of Europe, eager to curry favor with the fierce Knights. By the turn of the 14th century, the Templars had established a system of castles, churches and banks throughout Western Europe. And it was this astonishing wealth that would lead to their downfall.
By 1307, however, the crusades were going badly. Calls for reform of the Templars were becoming commonplace. The order’s popularity was waning. And they had acquired a calculating political enemy in the form of King Philip IV of France, who owed a considerable debt and wished to roll up the Templars and appropriate their wealth as a means of balancing a troublesome budget deficit.
Prior to the Friday 13th arrests, the king’s ministers had spent more than a year interviewing disgruntled former Templars and compiling a small, questionable, sexed-up dossier of supposed misdeeds, including allegations that Templars had spat on the cross, denied Christ, kissed one another in homoerotic induction rituals and worshiped false idols.
These charges were written up in formal letters of condemnation. The Templars were condemned en masse as having disgraced the French flag and the country. Their crimes, wrote the king, were “horrible to contemplate, terrible to hear of.” His accusations were widely circulated, and his campaign to destroy the Templars rested on the relentless, repetitive dissemination of his baseless claims in every public arena he could find.
Secret documents had been sent by couriers throughout France. Philip sent his plan to all the King’s men and Bailiffs throughout France a month beforehand with orders not to read the plans until dawn on Friday the 13th. The papers included lurid details and whispers of black magic and scandalous sexual rituals. They were sent by King Philip IV of France, an avaricious monarch who in the preceding years had launched attacks on the Lombards (a powerful banking group) and France’s Jews (who he had expelled so he could confiscate their property for his depleted coffers).
In the days and weeks that followed that fateful Friday, more than 600 Templars were arrested on false charges, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay, and the Order’s treasurer. This began a process of interrogation, public examination and reputational demolition that ended four and a half years later with the order being dissolved. But while some of the highest-ranking members were caught up in Philip’s net, so too were hundreds of non-warriors; middle-aged men who managed the day-to-day banking and farming activities that kept the organization humming. The men were charged with a wide array of offenses including heresy, devil worship and spitting on the cross, homosexuality, fraud, and financial corruption.
The Templars were kept in isolation and fed meager rations that often amounted to just bread and water. Nearly all were brutally tortured. One common practice used by medieval inquisitors was the “strappdo,” in which the hands of the accused are tied behind their backs, and then suspended in the air by a rope around their wrists, intended to dislocate the shoulders. As Dan Jones notes in his book, The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of the Knights Templar, one of the accused’s hands were tied so tightly that blood pooled in his fingertips, and he was kept in a pit no wider than a single footstep. Many of the men were likely stretched on the infamous rack, or had their feet dipped in oil and held over a fire to burn. Given the extreme conditions, it’s not surprising that within weeks, hundreds of Templars confessed to false charges, including Jacques de Molay.
Pope Clement V was horrified. Despite the fact that he’d been elected almost solely because of Philip’s influence, he feared crossing the extremely popular Templars. The Knight’s coerced “confessions,” however, forced his hands. Philip, who had anticipated Clement’s reaction, made sure the allegations against the Templars included detailed descriptions of their supposed heresy, counting on the gossipy, salacious accounts to carry much weight with the Church.
Illustration depicting the Knights Templar in battle, based on a fresco in the Chapel of the Templars in Cressac sur Charente, France.
Over several years, this medieval “fake news” was repeated over and over again, its loudness and frequency making up for the fact that it was a lie, until in 1312 a council of the Church reached the conclusion that the Templars’ name had been so blackened the order’s members ought to be forcibly retired.
Clement issued a papal bull ordering the Western kings to arrest Templars living in their lands. Few followed the papal request, but the fate of the French Templars had already been sealed. Their lands and money were confiscated and officially dispersed to another religious order, the Hospitallers, although Philip did get his hands on some of the coveted funds.
Within weeks of their confessions, many of Templars recanted, and Clement shut down the inquisition trials in early 1308. The Templars lingered in their cells for two years before Philip had more than 50 of the them burned at the stake in 1310. Two years later, Clement formally dissolved the Order though he did so without saying they’d been guilty as charged. In the wake of that dissolution, some Templars again confessed to gain their freedom, while others died in captivity.
Desiring to humiliate the Templars further, Philip decided to have Jacques De Molay, the Grandmaster of the Templars, admit to heresy at a large public gathering. Jacques, instead, used the public forum to apologize to the people and explain what had happened to the Templars.
The Grandmaster’s final words before being burned at the stake were used to curse King Philip IV & Pope Clement V and state that they would both be dead by the end of the year. Both men did meet their demise before the year’s end, which adds even more clout to the powerful lore of Friday the 13th.
In the spring of 1314, Grand Master Molay and several other Templars were burned at the stake in Paris, bringing an end to their remarkable era, and launching an even longer-lasting theory about the evil possibilities of Friday the 13th.
Knights of the Templar being burned at the stake by the French on Friday the 13th, 1307.
Friday the 13th has long been associated with bad luck as seen by the plethora of literature and horror movies as well as historical and Biblical parallels. Friday the 13th happens when the Gregorian calendar’s 13th day of the month falls on a Friday, which happens at least once a year but up to three times in one year. Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th.
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear or avoidance of the number 13. According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17–21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day, making it the most feared day and date in history. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. It’s been estimated that US$800–900 million is lost in business on this day
While there is evidence of both Friday and the number 13 being considered unlucky, there is no record of the two items being referred to as especially unlucky in conjunction before the 19th century.
According to folklore historian Donald Dossey, the unlucky nature of the number “13” originated with a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party in Valhalla. The trickster god Loki, who was not invited, arrived as the 13th guest, and arranged for Höðr to shoot Balder with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Dossey: “Balder died, and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day.” This major event in Norse mythology caused the number 13 to be considered unlucky.
Pic from Google
The notion that Friday is unlucky seems to stem from the Christian belief that Jesus was killed on that day. According to the Bible, Eve gave Adam the poisoned fruit on a Friday, the same day that Cain killed his brother Abel. During the Middle Ages Christians connected the number of guests seated at the final supper, 13 individuals present in the Upper Room on the 13th of Nisan Maundy Thursday, the night before his death on ‘Good Friday’, and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In Western superstition, the phrase “unlucky 13” has been linked with bad luck.
In the United Kingdom, Friday was also known as Hangman’s Day since that was the day when prisoners were typically given hanging sentences.
In Finland, a consortium of governmental and nongovernmental organizations led by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health promotes the National Accident Day (kansallinen tapaturmapäivä) to raise awareness about automotive safety, which always falls on a Friday the 13th. The event is coordinated by the Finnish Red Cross and has been held since 1995.
Events related to “unlucky” 13:
Apollo 13 was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13:00 CST and suffered an oxygen tank explosion on April 13 at 21:07:53 CST. It returned safely to Earth on April 17.
In the case of the actual 13th flight, the crew was apparently not superstitious and made a humorous mission patch that had a black cat on it. Also, that mission re-entered and landed on Friday the 13th which one crew described as being “pretty cool”.
Pic from Wikipedia
On Friday, October 13, 1307, the arrest of the Knights Templar was ordered by Philip IV of France. While the number 13 was considered unlucky, Friday the 13th was not considered unlucky at the time. The incorrect idea that their arrest was related to the phobias surrounding Friday the 13th was invented early in the 21st century and popularized by the novel The Da Vinci Code.
1314, Jacques de Molay (c. 1244 – 1314), the 23rd and Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is lead to the stake to burn for heresy. He is shouting to Pope Clement and King Philip that they will face ‘a tribunal with God’ within a year. They both died soon (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
At dawn on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, in the kingdom of France, government agents swooped in on every property belonging to the world-famous Knights Templar, arrested their members on false charges and began a process of interrogation, public examination and reputational demolition that ended four and a half years later with the order being dissolved.
Friday the 13th mini-crash was a stock market crash that occurred on Friday, October 13, 1989.
Vehicle registration plates in Ireland are such that the first two digits represent the year of registration of the vehicle (i.e., 11 is a 2011 registered car, 12 is 2012, and so on). In 2012, there were concerns among members of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) that the prospect of having “13” registered vehicles might discourage motorists from buying new cars because of superstition surrounding the number thirteen, and that car sales and the motor industry (which was already doing badly) would suffer as a result. The government, in consultation with SIMI, introduced a system whereby 2013 registered vehicles would have their registration plates’ age identifier string modified to read “131” for vehicles registered in the first six months of 2013 and “132” for those registered in the latter six months of the year.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 suffered an uncontained engine failure due to the failure of the number 13 fan blade on the number 1 engine on April 17, 2018. A passenger who was partially sucked out of a window as a result of damage later died from her injuries.
Many ships, including cruise liners have omitted having a 13th deck due to triskaidekaphobia. Instead, the decks are numbered up to 12 and skip straight to number 14. Hotels, buildings and elevator manufacturers have also avoided using the number 13 for rooms and floors based on triskaidekaphobia.
In Spanish-speaking countries, instead of Friday, Tuesday the 13th (martes trece) is considered a day of bad luck. The Greeks also consider Tuesday (and especially the 13th) an unlucky day. Tuesday is considered dominated by the influence of Ares, the god of war (or Mars, the Roman equivalent). The fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade occurred on Tuesday 13 April 1204, and the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans happened on Tuesday 29 May 1453, events that strengthen the superstition about Tuesday. In addition, in Greek the name of the day is Triti (Τρίτη) meaning the third (day of the week), adding weight to the superstition, since bad luck is said to “come in threes”. Tuesday the 13th occurs in a month that begins on a Thursday.
In Italian popular culture, Friday the 17th (and not the 13th) is considered a bad luck day. The origin of this belief could be traced in the writing of the number 17, in Roman numerals: XVII. By shuffling the digits of the number one can easily get the word VIXI (“I have lived”, implying death at present), an omen of bad luck. In fact, in Italy, 13 is generally considered a lucky number. However, due to Americanization, young people consider Friday the 13th unlucky as well. Friday the 17th occurs on a month starting on Wednesday.
My thoughts:
Personally, to me, I love Fridays and 13 has always been a lovely number for me. To me it isn’t unlucky at all. That day has never been particularly unlucky for me. It is easy to see why others would be worried or upset about the day. However, when I write, I always use 13 point font. I enjoy the 13th. I just giggle when I don’t see a 13th floor. When I finally build my forever home, I already plan to have the # 13 somewhere in the house number. To each their own!
How do YOU feel about Friday the 13th or the number 13?
Definitely a lot more sightings of Fluffy Frank in the last few months for sure! But there were also a myriad of other things happening as well.
June2022: I saw the little ghost kitty about twice a week every single week this month. I love that the little kitty seems more comfortable coming out and being seen!
July2022: I saw Frank in the kitchen while I was cooking. I actually saw him twice this month in the kitchen. The second time, my husband had just left the room and was headed down the hall when Frank kind of faded into and out of existence in the kitchen while I was doing dishes.
August2022: I saw both Frank and Fluffy Frank a few times throughout the house. My friend’s car windows dropped again when she got home from my place. This keeps happening while the car isn’t even running or anything. She was upset and thought Frank had followed her home. While I know that car windows can sometimes drop when the motors run out, I will say that it has only happened in her car these 2 times and both times have been when she has come to visit me which she does about once every month or 2. Gotta love being an adult! It is very suspicious that they only drop when she comes to me. To me, if the motor were failing, it would drop other times as well, right? The last time this happened was back in March. It happened as she was leaving my house.
September2022: This was quite a month! I saw the ghost kitty again which I always enjoy doing. My friend came over for some cooking lessons and while we were in the kitchen, a hand pressed into my bag and gently pressed me forward. My friend was in the dining room petting Niku and no one else was in the house. That one definitely startled me. A week later, my best friend of 24 years came to visit me in Texas with her 72 year old deaf Romanian mother who is an absolute savage joy to be around. She knows my house is haunted but we really weren’t going to tell her very religious mother about that. When they first came into the house, I introduced them to the 3 kitties and told them their names. Well, every day they were there, her mother kept trying to confirm with me that there were 4 kitties. I kept telling her no, there were only 3 and she kept giving us a look like she didn’t quite believe us. It was a bit hard to communicate with her but I believe she was seeing our little ghostly furball, Fluffy Frank.
September2022: Books were knocked off the shelf again. This time they were all romance novels which I can totally get on board with! I do love me some good historical smut! My husband was gaming with his friends and all 3 cats were chilling with me in the kitchen. We leave the guest bedroom door closed so that we can prevent kitty fur from building up where our guests sleep. It is a fact of life for us and we have accepted it. That doesn’t mean our guests need to! And yet4 books were knocked off the shelf.
Our home flooded on Samhain and 2/3 of the rooms had to be ripped out; walls, carpets, floors, everything had to be ripped out. We packed it all up and moved everything into 2 rooms of our home and the garage so if things were moving, we certainly didn’t notice. The renovation took quite a while since we had to fire our contractor and have a new contractor fix all the things he messed up. But once things calmed down again, the activity was easy to notice again.
February: I saw the little black ghost kitty 4 times this month and my friend who would come over for tea saw him twice in one visit and once during another. He even rubbed against her both visits with his cold wet nose and it freaked her out.. I saw the male ghost that lives in my home. Every time I see him, he is a white man of Latin decent with a slight tan. He is about 5’9” and wears jeans and a white shirt with an open button down. He is also VERY bald.
March: I saw the male ghost in my home three times this month in both my kitchen, dining room, and bedroom mirror. I saw flashes of the cat ghost once or twice too.
Despite it being almost a year since my last ghostly update post, I think it is safe to say I am still haunted.
If you’ve walked down to the corner of Sixth Street and Park Ave in Louisville, you’ve probably seen what can only be described as a natural monstrosity—a tree so knotted, tortured, and misshapen that it could easily serve as a portal to the underworld in a Tim Burton film. There stands the Witches’ Tree, a gnarled tree clad with trinkets and other offerings to the practitioners that brewed it up. Even if the tree didn’t resemble something from a nightmare landscape, all of the trinkets, baubles, and bead necklaces hanging from the branches would make it impossible to miss. They were placed there by locals to appease the vengeful witches.
During the famous Southern Exposition of the 1880s, a lovely garden near Central Park in today’s Old Louisville attracted throngs of visitors looking for respite from the summer heat. Although the famed botanical gardens have long since disappeared, cleared to make room for an expanding city, one tree from that time still remains.
Before the tree became the creepy wonder it is today, local lore says a majestic maple tree stood there once and was a popular midnight hangout for those practicing the dark arts. Locals know it as the Witches’ Tree. In the late 19th century, this tree was the gathering place for a coven of Kentucky witches. There they would meet under its majestic branches at midnight to cast their spells and brew their potions. They performed their ceremonies and generally didn’t create too much of a nuisance.
This all changed in 1889, however, when Mr. Mengel, the famous lumber merchant and head of a planning committee, announced the city’s plans to chop down this tree for the next year’s May Day festivities. (In Victorian times, this was a popular celebration, and the centerpiece of any May Day festivities was the tall, straight tree that was stripped of its bark and then festooned with garlands and greenery to create a maypole.)
Of course, when the witches found out what was in store for their beloved maple tree, they weren’t too pleased, and they warned the organizers not to take away their tree. They left a parchment warning on the trunk of their beloved maple:
This tree shall stand and not be cut, We’ve fed her with our laughter. Our leafy haven you’ll not gut. Or pay forever after.
But if you, Wooden King, prevail, And Mother Maple dies, The force of Fate shall strike this town And right between the eyes.
If our tree falls, yes, Fate will call To teach you, heartless Dunce, That all man’s work can disappear. BEWARE ELEVENTH MONTH!
But they did not take the witches very seriously back then because nobody paid attention to the admonition. When the grand maple came crashing to the ground, the witches left. West of town they found a new tree in the dark forest. Before leaving, though, the coven promised to have its revenge.
The May Day celebrations were held, the wood of the maypole later being burned in a great Whitsuntide bonfire, and everyone forgot about the witches — until 11 months later, that is. That’s when the coven exacted its revenge, which came in the form of a deadly tornado on March 27, 1890, one year to the day when the tree was cut down.
The witches, they say, brewed up this tornado dubbed “the Storm Demon” in their new copse of trees and sent it — along Maple Street (for a bit of symbolism) — into downtown Louisville to do their bidding. The tornado was an EF4 level tornado that killed 76 and injured well over 200. A number of them were members of something known as the May Day Celebration Committee. Among the dead were two members of the Mengel family. It flattened more than half of the city, mansions, churches, bourbon and tobacco warehouses.
Eyewitnesses reported that, after wreaking its havoc downtown, the twister took a strange right-hand turn and roared south along Sixth Street into what is now Old Louisville. As it passed by the botanical gardens, a bolt of lightning shot out from the tornado and struck the stump of the maple tree that had stood there. There was a tremendous explosion and a new tree magically sprang up in its place — to replace the one taken from the witches. Not a healthy, happy tree, but rather the otherworldly thing that stands there now.
With its burls and gnarled trunk, and its thin and bony branches, they say it’s much more befitting of witches today. The witches returned to the tree and no one messed with them anymore. Since then, they come to the neighborhood and on many nights you will find them at the tree, brewing their potions and casting their spells once again. Now, as a peace offering, people bring trinkets to hang all over the tree so the witches will cast them good luck.
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. Among the people of the Eastern Cape region, the Xhosa, the Ponda (Pondo), and the Zulu believe the Impundulu is one of their most feared blood thirsty creatures. Sometimes it is called the impundulu, thewane, izulu, and also the inyoni yezulu. The Impundulu, or Lightning Bird, is a vampire creature that is created by a witch or witch doctor as a familiar to kill the witch’s enemies and is later passed on to the witch’s daughter.
Impundulu namely means Thunderbird. If he leaves the home of his mistress he will take the form of a human sized bird with an insatiable thirst for human blood and intercourse and would feed on not only humans, but on cattle as well. Not only does it feed on blood, it also feeds on their pain. It had the ability to call down thunder and lightning with its wings and talons. The witch that controlled an impundulu had to make sure that it was always well fed, otherwise it would turn on her.
The impundulu inflicts an insatiable blood-thirst upon its mistress’s enemies. To the witch, the impundulu will not disobey her. If the African vampire didn’t kill its victims, a wasting disease caused by the vampire still could finish his victim off. The feeding would leave you with a bad cough and infertility. In rare cases, the Impundulu may cause the victim a quick death, which was often called “being slain by the bird of heaven.” Victims will often experience a sharp unbearable pain in the chest or head. For all these reasons and because it is the servant of witches or witch doctors it is considered to be an evil creature.
Unlike other African vampires, which usually appeared in some monstrous form, the impundulu looked like a gorgeous young man, which is why some legends claim that the witch and her impundulu would become lovers. Whether in bird or human form the Impundulu, is a dangerous blood thirsty killer.
The hammerkop
Among certain African tribes the hammerkop is believed to be the lightning bird. Among others the lightning bird is believed to manifest itself only through lightning, except to women, to whom it reveals itself as a bird.
In one instance a village girl described a black rooster-like bird that ran up her hoe and left claw marks on her body before it flew back to the clouds. In other instances it is described as having iridescent feathers like a peacock’s or a fiery red tail, bill and legs. Most supposed sightings describe the lightning bird as a winged creature with the size of a person; when needed it can indeed masquerade as a human, but usually it’s a huge black and white bird of prey.
Some African people believe the hammerkop is the lightning bird and if someone destroys its nest it will sit on that person’s roof and call down lightning to destroy the house. Others say the lightning bird will only usually appear through lightning but will sometimes reveal itself to women as a bird. When this happens it is believed to appear in the mind perhaps as some kind of inner vision and sometimes comes in different forms.
In most instances the tribe’s witch doctor plays the essential role in dealing with the lightning bird. A supposed extract from the bird’s flesh may for instance be prepared into a remedy for tracing thieves. In this way the witch doctors may exert control over the minds of both law-abiding and criminal members of their society.
The impundulu is known to be a confidant of witches, it’s sometimes spotted riding on the back of a hyena, because witches can turn themselves into a hyena. The lightning bird is widely feared as a witch’s familiar. It is considered an evil creature because it does the bidding of witches; if a witch doctor dispatches an impundulu it can cause illness and bad luck to a person.
The fat of the bird is believed to be of significance either as the fuel that the bird sets on fire when it throws down a lightning strike or as a component in valuable traditional medicine. It is difficult to obtain the fat of the lightning bird for medicinal use as according to tradition the bird must be captured the instant the lightning it lets loose strikes the ground. Another way is to dig it from out of a hole underneath the ground at the exact spot where lightning strikes the earth.
The bird is furthermore believed to lay a large egg underground at the location of the lightning strike. This may be a good or bad omen that may require digging to procure or dispose of the eggs. This creature has another similarity to vampires, it is said that the lightning bird is immortal, because it outlives its masters. The lightning bird is impervious to gunshots or stabbing, it cannot be poisoned or drowned. Effectively immortal, there is not a lot you can do except set it on fire.
In 2005, a South African man was convicted of culpable homicide after killing a two-year-old child he believed to be an impundulu.
To the many Africans the Lightning bird was seen as a bird of power and magic and like thunder and lightning, something to be feared or at least respected.
An Ishologu is and African vampire that is essentially an Impundulu without an owner. Since Iimpundulu are servants of witches, one without a witch would cause pure chaos. Without an owner, an Ishologu has no boundaries and will become more merciless. A rooming monster feeding off chaos and pain.
“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
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 the 1521, Jean Boin, sometimes written Jean Bodin, Inquisitor of Besancon, brought three men to trial for murder, torture, having made a pact with the devil, and lycanthropy. These men became known as the werewolves of Poligny. One of these men was Michel Verdun, self-proclaimed werewolf.
These men came under suspicion when a traveler passing through the area was attacked by a wolf. While defending himself, he was able to wound the animal, forcing it to retreat to a thicket after he fought off. Following the trail of the injured creature, hoping to prevent the angry wolf surprising him again further along his route, the man came upon a hut where he found a local resident, Michel Verdun, under the care of his wife, who was washing a wound on his body.
The man became convinced that Verdun was able to transform himself from human to wolf, and something in between. Believing Verdun’s injury to be a sympathetic wound, the man notified the authorities. The story spread like wildfire, and Verdun was charged with lycanthropy. Arrested and tortured, Verdun admitted that he was a shape-shifter; he also revealed the names of his two werewolf accomplices, as well as confessing to hideous crimes: diabolism, murder, and eating human flesh.
Their trial by the Inquisition drew throngs of people. During Verdun’s trial, Verdun confessed to having renounced God and swore to serve the devil. He named two accomplices to his horrific deeds–Philibert Montot (who never confessed to lycanthropy) and Pierre Bourgot alias ‘Gros [fat] Pierre’. Bourgot also claimed to be a werewolf.
Bourgot said that one night in 1502 he was struggling to herd his flock of sheep during a thunderstorm when three riders dressed in black approached. Bourgot told them that he was fearful that his sheep would be taken by predators. One of the riders said that if Bourgot would acknowledge him as his lord and master, none of the sheep would be lost. This he did, renouncing God and kissing the rider’s corpse-cold hand.
Bourgot corroborated the account involving Verdun, and said at trial that Verdun had taken him to Sabbat where They each had a candle of green wax which gave off a dark blue flame; they would go to the edge of the woods, light the candles, and perform dances and sacrifices to the devil after which they spread an “ointment” on themselves which turned them into bloodthirsty werewolves. the two werewolves together waged a campaign of bloody violence against unwary travelers and children in the district.
In that form, Bourgot confessed to killing a seven-year old boy tearing him to pieces before the alarm was raised. Verdun admitted that he had killed a young girl who was picking peas in a garden as well as eaten four other girls. They also ate a little girl whole, save only an arm, and killed agricultural workers indiscriminately. Bourgot also confessed to tearing out a 9-year-old boy’s throat with his teeth.
Their chief motivation in procuring only free-range meat was the taste of warm blood, which they would lap up like a kitten with a saucer of milk. Shockingly, they also confessed to bestiality: Bourgot and Verdun would seek out she-wolves and stated that they preferred fornicating with the beasts than human women.
Convicted of lycanthropy and murder–all three men were burned at stake. Verdun’s wife was also convicted, although there was never any evidence provided that she could shape-shift like Verdun and the others. But the high court wanted to be sure.
Sources: Summers, Montague. The Werewolf. London, 1933. Reprint, New York: University Books, 1966. Michael R. Lynn, The Sublime Invention: Ballooning in Europe, 1783‐1820, https://thrillvania.com/haunted-house-stories/legend-werewolf-michel-verdun/, http://www.werewolfpage.com/myths/verdun.htm, Jay M. Smith, Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011).
I found an article from Lawnlove.com that made my heart happy! 300 years ago, you could be executed for being assumed to be a witch and today, we have a ranking of the best places in the US to be a witch. The best part? I live an hour away from #9 and 4 hours away from #3! Turns out, I live in #13! Ironically, Texas is very open to the Pagan religion despite its heavy Republican influence. This is just my experience mind you, it likely depends on what city you are in. Because just like 2 of the top 10 best are in Texas, the #1 worst is also in Texas. Lawnlove included a pretty cool image with some best and worsts as well!
Below are the TOP 100 BEST CITIES FOR WITCHES of 2022:
1 New York, NY 2 Los Angeles, CA 3 Houston, TX 4 Chicago, IL 5 Las Vegas, NV 6 San Diego, CA 7 Portland, OR 8 Seattle, WA 9 Austin, TX 10 San Francisco, CA 11 Phoenix, AZ 12 Dallas, TX 13 San Antonio, TX 14 Philadelphia, PA 15 Atlanta, GA 16 New Orleans, LA 17 Denver, CO 18 Orlando, FL 19 Pittsburgh, PA 20 Colorado Springs, CO 21 Miami, FL 22 Tucson, AZ 23 Louisville, KY 24 Albuquerque, NM 25 Jacksonville, FL 26 Nashville, TN 27 Raleigh, NC 28 Tampa, FL 29 San Jose, CA 30 Washington, DC 31 Charlotte, NC 32 Oakland, CA 33 Indianapolis, IN 34 Cincinnati, OH 35 Sacramento, CA 36 Salt Lake City, UT 37 Columbus, OH 38 Charleston, SC 39 Minneapolis, MN 40 Richmond, VA 41 Baltimore, MD 42 Kansas City, MO 43 Virginia Beach, VA 44 Reno, NV 45 Boston, MA 46 Oklahoma City, OK 47 Fort Worth, TX 48 St. Louis, MO 49 Knoxville, TN 50 Lexington, KY 51 Tacoma, WA 52 Santa Rosa, CA 53 Omaha, NE 54 Scottsdale, AZ 55 Long Beach, CA 56 Salem, OR 57 Spokane, WA 58 Dayton, OH 59 St. Petersburg, FL 60 Memphis, TN 61 Mesa, AZ 62 Milwaukee, WI 63 Tulsa, OK 64 Fort Lauderdale, FL 65 Arlington, TX 66 Rochester, NY 67 Cleveland, OH 68 Syracuse, NY 69 Fort Collins, CO 70 Wichita, KS 71 Durham, NC 72 Tempe, AZ 73 Savannah, GA 74 Des Moines, IA 75 Vancouver, WA 76 Aurora, CO 77 Eugene, OR 78 Grand Rapids, MI 79 Rockford, IL 80 Fresno, CA 81 Sioux Falls, SD 82 Greensboro, NC 83 Buffalo, NY 84 Denton, TX 85 Henderson, NV 86 El Paso, TX 87 Chattanooga, TN 87 Hollywood, FL 89 Boise City, ID 90 Bakersfield, CA 91 Plano, TX 92 Huntsville, AL 93 Birmingham, AL 94 Chandler, AZ 95 Tallahassee, FL 96 Riverside, CA 97 Huntington Beach, CA 98 Anchorage, AK 99 Winston-Salem, NC 100 St. Paul, MN
To check out the full list, read the full article. They even include the criteria for which they grade each city on: Overall Score, Covens Rank, Health Rank, Spirituality Rank, and Supplies Rank and where they rank on each of those items. The full article had a ton more information than what I included here. There was no way I could include it all without straight copying the entire page but they did a great job in compiling everything together! I just wanted to summarize a it to show that we, as a religion, are making leaps and bounds of progress despite how we have been portrayed for millennia.
TO VIEW THE FULL ARTICLE BY LAWN LOVE, CLICK HERE.
There are mysteries and legends everywhere in the world. Many have tried to uncover the legend of a library with metal books so large, one man cannot life one alone.
Milan, Italy was the birthplace of Father Carlos Crespi Croci. Born in 1891 and dying in 1982, he was a Salesian monk that he was, he dedicated his life to saying prayers and pursuing charity work. He resided in a small town of Cuenca in Ecuador. The native inhabitants and the tribes of the region as a gesture of thanks gave him ancient artifacts, depictions of amazing figures which associate America to Sumeria, loads of gold, symbols which hint to an unknown language, and more than 50,000 other objects.
They gave him so many artifacts throughout his 60 years of being a missionary in Ecuador that he displayed them and opened a local museum for all to see. Father Crespi opened the museum in association with the Vatican and the Salesian School in Cuenca, which became one of the largest museums in Ecuador.
Some of the artifacts show pyramids similar to the pyramids found in Egypt. Some also show possible god-like figures made of gold and silver, along with other materials that suggest mix of cultures or an ancient people that history does not talk about. Many of these artifacts suggest that they are Babylonian or Egyptian in heritage. Some disagree and call them something else even going so far as to insinuate possible alien technology.
After some time, however, the museum was burnt down. There have been rumors both that the artifacts were destroyed and after the passing of Father Crespi, they were shipped to the Vatican. He was able to save most of his artifacts and for the next 15 or so years, he stored them in rooms and the hallway of his living quarters. He kept all of his artifacts safe until he died in 1982. The village people were very broken hearted that he died and they left his things the way he did. Many of the pieces were robbed from his home over the next 30 years.
However, much of the collection is still stored at the Central Bank of Ecuador. The collection holds authentic and precious artifacts: weapons, ceramic jewelry, religious icons, oversized tablets, plates, doors, decorations, statues, pottery, and the like. However, there are no golden metal plates.
In the mid 1960s a prospector named Juan Moricz was trekking into the dangerous jungle of the Andes Mountains and made a discovery that caught the world’s attention. He found an entrance to a massive cave. The words he used were “An endless cave” to describe what he explored. After some length of time, he found a section of the cave that had man-made structures, carved into the walls. While admiring this section of the cave he found a collection of gold and silver tablets, panels, books, and more. He believed that this was a priceless treasure, or some will say a library made of gold, with all the knowledge of the past. He mentioned that the symbols on these artifacts and books had pictures and symbols of pyramids and more.
The researchers, historians and the analysts have been working for years to find out the age and origin of the items gifted to the humble priest. Erich von Däniken wrote in his 1973 book The Gold of the Gods that János Juan Móricz (1923–1991) had claimed to have explored Cueva de los Tayos in 1969 and discovered mounds of gold, unusual sculptures and a metallic library. It was also said in the book that the Metal library has thousands of books, with metallic pages and inscriptions, symbols and designs.
These items were said to be in artificial tunnels that had been created by a lost civilization with help from extraterrestrial beings. Von Däniken had previously claimed in his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods, that extraterrestrials were involved in ancient civilizations
Father Crespi had his collection around the same time that Juan found the cave. The people that now know both stories, believed that Juan found the cave that the local tribe was guarding, and offered gifts to their friend, Father Crespi.
Neil Armstrong (the astronaut) heard about Father’s Crespi‘s collection and he traveled down to see them. It wasn’t long until people came to the realization that points to one fact; these artifacts must have come from a nearby area, and the local tribes know of their whereabouts.
People started to research and even though the village people were closed-mouthed of the location of more artifacts and where they came from, people learned of a great mystery. The local tribespeople knew of an ancient site that they deemed spiritual and secret. People started to learn that these modern day village people knew of a great underground city that they have been protecting for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
After further inquiring, people learned that the local people were not as friendly about this story and inquiries as they thought. These village people gave the gifts to Father Crepsi out of love and respect but these local tribes didn’t want outsiders to learn about the ancient site.
As a result of the claims published in von Däniken’s book, an investigation of Cueva de los Tayos was organized by Stan Hall of Scotland, in 1976. One of the largest and most expensive cave explorations ever undertaken, the expedition involved over a hundred people, including experts in a variety of fields, British and Ecuadorian military personnel, a film crew, and former American astronaut Neil Armstrong.
The team also included eight experienced British cavers who thoroughly explored the cave and conducted an accurate survey to produce a detailed map of it. There was no evidence of Von Däniken’s more exotic claims, although some physical features of the cave did approximate his descriptions and some items of zoological, botanical, and archaeological interest were found.
In this cave system, they did find man-made structures, carved tunnels, rooms, and more. It was an exciting find. Newspapers and magazines wrote about the discoveries and the world thought that the collection of artifacts from this lost civilization would be found. The hunt wasn’t unsuccessful but Neil and his group didn’t find the lost treasure that they were hoping to find. The lead researcher met with an indigenous source, who claimed that they had investigated the wrong cave, and that the real cave was secret.
The cave system of Cueva de los Tayos (Spanish, “Cave of the Oilbirds”) is a cave located on the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains in the Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador. . It is large but many think that the cave has been explored fairly well in the last decade. Some believe that the cave is much larger than many have explored.
The cave is used by the native Shuar people who descend into the cave each spring using vine ladders and bamboo torches to collect fledgling oilbirds (“guácharos” or “tayos” in Spanish). Written references to the cave go back as far as 1860 and it was visited by gold-seekers and military personnel in the 1960s.
Many reports have talked about the cave going for miles and miles vs what people are saying is only 2.5 miles long. If this is true then perhaps many explorers including Neil Armstrong, did find the correct cave system but didn’t find the right passageway to the artifacts. Many caves have several different entrances, chambers, tunnels, and passages.
A Google search for Cueva de los Tayos takes you to a cave entrance and what appears to be a tour that you can go on. This cave is likely to be the one that Neil Armstrong explored. It does have manmade structures inside but it has a big descent at the beginning of the entrance. Neither Jaun nor any prospectors from the 60s mentioned that advanced climbing gear is needed to find the Metal Library so this is quite likely the wrong entrance if this is the correct cave.
Access to the cave is restricted. It is necessary to obtain permission (access and temporary visit) and pay a tax (designated to improve the communities) in Sucúa, Ecuador, at the Shuar Center Federation.
At the Maria Auxiliadora Church, where Father Crespi spent most of his time, you can view parts of the collection. Dr. Luis Alvarez curates the collection and when asked about the golden plates, he has said that those were just pieces of junk. The metallic plate is indeed not made of gold. They resembled modern day carvings on a metal sheet and so today the metallic library is suspected to be a hoax.
Werewolves are rampant throughout folklore – insatiable, uncontrollable beasts doomed to bear their ugly mugs and terrorize humanity, even if the human inside didn’t consent to what was happening. Belief and stories of werewolves are common across all corners of the globe, from the Turkish Kurtadam to the Mexican Nahaul.
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. Today is the anniversary of the death of one such werewolf
One case judged by Bouguet is that of Gilles Garnier. Gilles Garnier (executed 18 January 1573) was a French serial killer, cannibal, and hermit convicted of being a werewolf. He was alternately known as “The Hermit of St. Bonnot” and “The Werewolf of Dole”. Our source for his life and crimes is another contemporary pamphlet, printed at Sens in 1574. Garnier’s case is interesting in that he brought home human flesh from his werewolf attacks for his wife to enjoy.
Garnier was known as an ugly reclusive hermit shunned by others living outside the town of Dole in the Franche-Comté Province in France. He had recently been married and moved his new wife out to his isolated home, an inaccessible, turf-roofed, and rudely constructed hovel near Amanges, France. Being unaccustomed to feeding more than just himself, he found it difficult to provide for his wife, causing discontent between them.
During this period several children went missing or were found dead, mutilated, and even torn apart. Rumors began to bubble up and, when enough children went missing, it wasn’t believed to be bad luck – these disastrous deaths had to come from a werewolf. In fact, sightings of a strange wolf-like creature lurking around farms were reported.
The authorities of the Franche-Comté province issued an edict encouraging and allowing the people to apprehend and kill the werewolf responsible. One evening, a group of workers travelling from a neighboring town came upon what they thought in the dim light to be a wolf but what some recognized as the hermit with the body of a dead child.
According to his testimony at trial, while Garnier was in the forest hunting one night, trying to find food for himself and his wife, a spectre appeared to him, offering to ease his troubles and gave him an ointment that would allow him to change into the form of a wolf, making it easier to hunt.
Garnier confessed to having stalked and murdered at least four children between the ages of 9 and 12. In October 1572, his first victim was a 10-year-old girl whom he dragged into a vineyard outside of Dole into the adjoining Bois de la Serre. There he stripped her naked, strangled her, and ate the flesh from her thighs and arms. He then removed some more of her flesh and took it home to his wife, Apolline, to eat.
Weeks later, Garnier savagely attacked another girl in more or less the same place, biting and clawing her wounding her in 5 places, but was interrupted by passersby and fled. The girl succumbed to her injuries a few days later. In November, Garnier killed a 10-year-old boy, again cannibalizing him by eating from his thighs and belly and tearing off a leg to save for later. He strangled another boy but was interrupted for the second time by a group of passersby. He had to abandon his prey before he could eat from it.
In 1572, he brutally attacked an unknown boy who was passing by and tore him in half by biting and tearing at his belly. In 1573, he strangled a girl, ate her flesh, and tore away her left leg and took it to his wife. His next crime proved his eventual undoing: having killed another young boy and dragged him to the woods, Garnier was surprised at his intended meal, and after retreating a distance resumed his human form, leading to his identification.
Disgusted by the remains of half-eaten children in the district, the Parliament of Franche-Comté issued a decree in 1573 which demanded that werewolves be hunted down by locals and brought to trial. However, it was not these huntsmen who caught Garnier but a group of workers who incidentally came across the hermit crouched over a dead child one night after returning from work. They initially thought the figure in the shadows was a werewolf, but as the light from their torches illuminated it, they identified Garnier. Acting quickly, the men caught Garnier and took him to the magistrates at Dole.
Garnier was tortured to extract a confession. He explained that he had spent much of his life as a hermit in the St Bonnot woods. He married in 1572, and fathered children, but struggled with the new task of feeding more than one mouth. Desperately foraging one night in the woods, a specter appeared to him and gave him a special ointment that would transform him into a wolf. Gilles accepted this strange gift from a stranger being because Gilles was often starving. He was growing older and without stable employment, he found it harder and harder to provide enough food for him and his wife.
However, when he applied the ointment and became a werewolf he lost his faculties and could not control his rage and hunger. He confessed to killing two girls and two boys and eating their flesh. He even claimed he brought some of their remains home with him to feed his wife. Some claim these confessions were to stop the torture being enacted upon him, other tellings of the tale say the man willingly confessed to his purported crimes.
Gilles was found guilty of both witchcraft, since he utilized magical ointment, and lycanthropy, since he had turned into a werewolf (willingly). The court, hearing his confession, sentenced him to be burned at the stake. On January 18, 1573, Garnier was burned at the stake.
his trial was done by the secular authorities and not by the Inquisition, as superstition was not judged by the Inquisition. More than 50 witnesses deposed that he had attacked and killed children in the fields and vineyards, devouring their raw flesh. He was sometimes seen in human shape, sometimes as a “loup-garou”.
openlibrary.org is a phenomenal resource for books, some of which can be downloaded. This was written in 1621 by a man who had been witness to the Werewolf of Bedburg and some of his observations of the trial are in documented. If you are interested in downloading this book, click here.
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.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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!
openlibrary.org is a phenomenal resource for books, some of which can be downloaded. I recently found this book and it is quite thorough. If you are interested in downloading it, go here!
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!
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/
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.
