As a short holiday bonus, we’re offering this special episode examining some obscure aspects of Halloween as manifested in our lives today. Forgotten traditions associated with the holiday arise in surprising forms many of us may not initially recognize. Simple occurrences perceived as nothing more than an everyday nuisance come into focus during our holidays – if we are attentive – as something making sense only in the light of old folkways, superstitions, and beliefs. Many of us have had these experiences without considering such context and associated old calendrical celebrations. Halloween, in particular, has drifted far from its original cultural significance, but in recognizing patterns of repetition within history, we may recognize a surprising confluence with the old holidays known to our ancestors and thereby allow ourselves to experience the same, albeit in a modern idiom. Extreme care, however, must be exercised, in such pursuits, which can bring with them bitter lessons in the fragility of our existence.
Western tales of bottled spirits, imps, devils, and even ghosts are largely borrowed from the Islamic and Jewish legends of jinn captured by King Solomon. In this episode, we explore how this is expressed in folk tales, demonological treatises, and literary borrowings.
We begin with a nod to the Assyrian god Pazuzu (and a clip from Exorcist II, The Heretic.) Here, aconnection between feared Assyrian spirits such as the jinn is mentioned. Pazuzu’s identity as a spirit of ill winds, brings us to a wind-related track from the original Exorcist soundtrack (from 1972’s oddball album Songs from a Hill.) It’s a recording of a wind harp, or Aeolian harp. And this brings us to the Greek god of winds, Aeolus.
Pazuzu figurine in Louvre.
Aeolus features in the Odyssey in an episode that anticipates our bottled spirit motif. He presents Odysseus a bag of wind to speed him on his journey. The wind spirits contained in this bag then brings us to a story about King Solomon trapping a wind demon in Arabia to aid him his construction of the Jerusalem Temple. We hear this particulsar tale from the medieval text, The Testament of Solomon read by Mrs. Karswell.
We then look a bi from further medieval texts commenting on Solomon’s capture of demons in various vessels, and how thesee are later broken open by heedless conquerors of Jerusalem, releasing a Pandora-style plague of demons upon the world.
Our motif entered the literary world via 17th-century Spain, in Luis Velez de Guevara’s satirical novel El Diable Cojuelo, “the lame devil.” We also hear a bit about a French adaptation, Alain-René Lesage’s 1707 novel, Le Diable Boiteux. Both of these feature the demon Asmodeus, and referenced Asmodeus’s identity as demon of lust, a notion taken up in various demonological treatises.
Alain-René Lesage’ss 1707 as Le Diable Boiteux, The Lame Devil
Next we look at folk tales, beginning in County Cork, Ireland, with the “Legend of Bottle Hill,” which takes its name from a curious (and curiously inhabited) bottle obtained by one Mick Purcell on this particular Irish hill. Both good and rather surprising bad luck follow.
From Scotland, we hear the legend of the Wizard of Reay and of his efforts to evade Satan’s over-eager efforts to claim his soul, as well as his bottle-imp story, involving a cask in the Cave of Smoo, a reputedly haunted sea cave in Sutherland.
The Wizard of Rea’s tactic for controlling the demon he finds in the cask is the same as we find in the folk tale, “The Wizards of Westman Islands,” from Iceland (in which we learn what role the sinister “Sending” plays in Icelandic folklore.)
From The Brothers Grimm, we hear “The Spirit in the Glass Bottle,” involving another bottled imp discovered in the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, and of a similar tactic used to subdue his volatile nature.
Jumping ahead a bit, we look at Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1891 short story, “The Bottle Imp,” which likewise adapts themes from the previous folk tales, while adding further complications and convolutions. The story has served as basis for several films, an opera, a standard magician’s trick, and more than one radio adaptation. (We hear a bit of one from a 1974 production by CBS Radio Mystery Theater.)
Stevenson makes use of some elaborate caveats attached to his bottled spirit, conditions that will produce either good or very bad luck, involving among other things, the need to rid oneself of the infernal talisman before one’s death by selling it for less than one payed for it. This motif is also found in German Romantic writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s novel Galgenmännlein (“little gallows man”), a name taken from the German word for the mandrake plant, and here we dig a bit into the grim folklore of that plant. Fouqué’s story makes use of some nice, gothic elements in its resolution, a “Black Fountain,” ravening beast, and sinister black rider, among others.
Switching gears a bit, we have a look at the topic of witch bottles. It’s a perhaps questionable how well these fit our theme, but we dig up some interesting source texts describing their original use, unseemly as it is. And we hear of some startling, tragic accidents involved in their historical use.
Witch bottle from Padstow England, 1800s.
We close our show with a look at near contemporary instances of those who claim to capture demons and ghosts in bottles. Apparently, bottled ghosts can be a big money maker. At least in New Zealand.
Toads have long been associated with magic, as witches’ familiars and as a source both of poison as folk healing.
We begin with a poison allegedly brewed from a toad by the “wise wife of Keith,” Agnes Sampson, one of the accused in Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials in 1591-2. The poison was to have been used against Scotland’s James VI before he ascended England’s throne as James I. At the center of the trial was the accusation that Sampson and others had raised a storm to sink the ship bearing James home from Oslo with his new wife Anne of Denmark.
Macbeth and the Witches (Thomas Barker, 1830)
Shakespeare seems to allude to elements from this trial in his play Macbeth, mentioning toads and frogs as elements of the concoctions brewed by his witches in Act IV and seemingly referencing the events in an aside uttered by a witch regarding sending a storm against an enemy’s ship. The Bard’s inclusion of “real” witchcraft in his play has long been said to be the reason for a “curse” upon productions of Macbeth. Included in our discussion is a particularly ugly (and lethal) 1848 incident in New York City attributed to this bit of lore.
A witch’s servant, or familiar, in the form of a toad is also alluded to as an offstage character in Macbeth. Mrs. Karswell reads for us a number of accounts from 16th and early 17th century England presenting toad familiars sent to torment the enemies of witches. We also hear of a toad exploding in a fire, and toads sustained on the blood of their witch mistresses, as well as a sad story from Newmarket, England, involving William Harvey, physician to Charles I, and an bruitish attempt to subject an alleged toad familiar to scientific scrutiny.
A woodcut illustration from a book published in 1579 of a witch feeding her ‘familiars’.
Next we discuss the fear of toad’s venom in the Middle Ages, hearing some comments on the subject from 12th-century German mystic and theologian Hildegard von Bingen and a tale associated with the English boy-saint William of Norwich involving some prisoners and an unfortunate attempt at the use of toad poison.
Toad’s venom, according to medieval folklore, could be neutralized by the toadstone, a particular mineral also assigned powers against stomach and kidney ailments. We hear of a peculiar method of obtaining this prized artifact and an obscure reference to the toadstone in the 1973 folk-horror classic The Wicker Man.
Toadstone lesson from “The Wicker Man” (1973)
We also hear a clip from The Wicker Manin which a toad or frog is used in folk medicine to cure a sore throat. Superstitions about toads and their magical efficacy against various ailments continued into the 19th century, resulting in the phenomena of traveling “toad doctors” and “toad fairs.” The use of toad bones in a midnight ritual performed by English “Toadmen” in order to gain mastery of horses to be trained is also discussed as is the discovery of miniature frog coffins, stashed in Finish churches, in a folk-magic practice similar to the British and American use of “witch bottles.”
We return to the continent and the discussion of toads’ association with witches (and heretics) as conceived by the Church in terms of service to Satan. This topic brings us a letter written by Pope Gregory IX to bishops of the German Rhineland involving Satan as a french-kissing toad, as well as a ritual attributed to French and Italian members of the Waldesenian sect allegedly consuming a ritual beverage brewed from toad excrement.
In Spain’s Basque province of Navarre, home to the “Cave of Witches” at Zugarramurdi, witchcraft trial testimonies demonstrate a particular emphasis on toads. We hear of them raised by novice witches in the fields, used to poison the land, and dancing at the witches’ sabbath.
Toads are sometimes mentioned as an ingredient of the “flying ointment” believed to have induced a visionary experience transporting witches to hilltop revels. However, this effect is more likely attributed to other ingredients in historical recipes (particularly plants of the nightshade family.)
While the venom produced by toads of the Old World doesn’t seem to contain the quality and quantity of bufotoxin necessary to produce such visions, this can’t be said for certain New World species.
One of these is the Cane toad (bufo rhinella) that invasive species best known for infesting Australia, Florida and other southern states and native to South and Central America. In the Caribbean, it’s been identified by Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis as a possible ingredient in a drug administered in Haiti to transform an enemy into a zombie, (i.e., to drug the individual into a deathlike state from which he is later “resurrected.”). Research into this subject was documented in Davis’ 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, later serving loosely as inspiration for Wes Craven’s 1988 film of the same name (from which we hear a clip).
The show ends with a quick look at the role of the Colorado River toad or Sonoran Desert toad, (bufo alvarius) as a source of psychedelic experience, particularly as its been reinvented with the last years as part of a life-changing “shamanic experience” for drug consumers already bored with ayahuasca.
Explore the folklore of the Tooth Fairy and teeth, particularly dead teeth — those lost by children or adults, and those removed from skulls.
We open with a brief look at the Tooth Fairy as inspiration for horror films, hearing a bit about (and a montage of clips from) Darkness Falls (2003), The Tooth Fairy (2006), The Haunting of Helena(2013), and Tooth Fairy(2019). Though none of these films were particularly successful with critics or audiences, there would seem to be some worthwhile horror inherent in the childhood ritual — psychological vulnerabilities related to the child’s trust of parents, nighttime intruders, and the death of a body part. We also hear a bit about the SyFy Channel’s 2016 show Candle Cove (Season 1 of Channel Zero), which also featured a Tooth- Fairy-inspired monster. We hear a creepy snippet of a secret 1970s kid show featured in Candle Cove as a tool of and deadly mind manipulation.
Character from Channel Zero/Candle Cover
Surprisingly perhaps, the Tooth Fairy known by Americans has little in way of direct historical connection to older, European customs. It first appears in print no earlier than 1908. We have a look at some of these earliest references, including an article with an unusual connection to a sensational murder case as well as some references to curious also-ran fairy characters that were once used in American parenting. (At the top of this section we hear a clip from Tom Glazer’s 1953 song, “Willie Had a Little Tooth.”)
Often suggested as an ancient precedent for Tooth-Fairy customs is the Norse and Icelandic concept of the tannfé (“tooth gift” or “tooth-fee”) mentioned all the way back in the medieval Eddas. A quick look into the matter, however, reveals some major differences: there is no magical fairy or transformation of the lost tooth into money, nor was the gift given on the occasion of losing a tooth, but when the child cuts his first tooth.
A more direct precedent can be found in widespread customs that have a rat or mouse taking away the child’s lost tooth or that tooth being ritualistically offered to a mouse. The most prominent representation of this is probably in Spanish-speaking countries, where El Ratón Perez, Perez the Mouse, plays the role, but there are also rats and mice exchanging teeth in Italy, Germany, Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania and France, and Hungary. In many 0f these countries, it’s not money provided in exchange for the child’s tooth but the blessing of stronger adult tooth.
We then switch gears to look at some alternative customs for the disposition of the shed milk tooth (also those lost by adults). One particularly popular in Britain is to cast the tooth into a fire. One reason for doing this is to prevent the tooth from being used in witchcraft spells against the person whose it. Mrs. Karswell reads us some passages on this along with a couple on the teeth from graveyard skulls used by the merely superstitious who are not practitioners of the craft.
Not so dissimilar to witchcraft was medieval dentistry. We hear several horrifying treatments from historic texts along with a bit on the presumptive source of dental problems in this period: the dreaded tooth worm.
18th-century carving representing tooth worm, Southern France
If neither dentistry or witchcraft proved helpful there was always religion. The saint to whom prayers would be directed here would be St. Apollonia, one of group of virgins put to death during an anti-Christian uprising in 2nd-century Alexandria. Her connection to this concern arises from her teeth being knocked out during her martyrdom. We also hear a passage describing the mania for carrying alleged teeth of the saint in Britain during the time of Henry VI.
St Apollonia, 17th-cent, school of Francisco de Zur
Rounding out our exploration religion and human teeth is brief look at the discovery in Mexico City of human teeth discovered in an 18th-century life-size wooden sculpture dubbed “The Lord of Patience.”
We follow this with a look a more pragmatic use of human teeeth, namely “Waterloo Teeth,” or the teeth of fallen soldiers and others (including those obtained by grave-robbers) once used to make dentures.
Our episode closes with topic of teeth and the Final Judgement, namely, the pre-Reformation Christian teaching that held that lost teeth must be saved in order to accompany the body to its destiny after death. A bizarre news story from 2014 considers the horrifying consequences in which this superstition is mocked.
Frau Perchta, sometimes known as “the Belly-Slitter” for the trademark punishment she’s said to inflict on disobedient or lazy children, is figure of Alpine folklore of Austria and Germany in many ways similar to the Krampus.
“Perchta” is only one spelling or name for this figure, who may also go by Pehrta, Berchte, Berta, and a myriad of other names. A particularly good representation of the figure, a woodcut from 1750, identifies her as the “Butzen-Bercht,” with the word “Butzen” coming from a word for “bogeyman.” This word also appears in a classic 19th-century German children’s song and game “Es Tanzt Ein Bi-Ba Butzemann,” or “A Bogeyman is Dancing,” from which we hear a clip at the show’s start.
The woodcut in question depicts a crone-like character with dripping, warty nose, who is carrying on her back a basket filled with screaming children, all girls. She stands before the open door of a house where more girls are screaming, and is holding a dangerous looking pronged staff as well as a distaff, the stick used to hold fibers that will be spun into wool or flax on a spinning wheel. The importance of the illustration is the way it emphasizes Perchta’s connection to spinning and to the females of the household responsible for this task. The woodcut also features some text delightfully detailing a series of horrid threats delivered by Perchta, dramatically read by Mrs. Karswell.
Perchta’s name it comes from her association with Epiphany or Twelfth Night, January 6, the last of the “Twelve Days” or nights of Christmas, the “Haunted Season,” we discussed last year in our episode of that name. “Perchta” is a corruption of the word giberahta inthe Old High German term for Epiphany, “giberahta naht,” meaning, the “night of shining forth or manifestation.
Now there’s another name many of you will have encountered if you’re read up on Perchta: Perchten, figures very similar to the Krampus. (Perchten is plural. The singular is Percht.)
“Berchtengehen” (“Going as Perchten”) from illustrierte Chronik der Zeit (1890)
While the first mention of Perchta appears around 1200, the word “Perchten” is not employed until centuries later. In 1468, there appears a reference to her retinue, but its members are not called Perchten, nor do they explicitly resemble Perchten as we think of them today. At this stage in Perchta’s mythology, the company she leads is most often understood as spirits of the departed. With time, and frequent attacks from the pulpit, Perchta’s pagan company came to be commonly feared not as ghosts but as demons, something presumably closer to the horned figures we now know. By the 15th century, a tradition involving costumed processions or appearances of these figures had evolved. The very first illustration we have of Perchta seems to show not the figure herself, but in fact a masker impersonating “Percht with the iron nose.” It appears in South Tyrolean poet Hans Vintler’s 1411 Die Pluemen der Tugent (“The Flowers of Virtue”).
Frau Perchta (right) from Hans Vintler’s Die Pluemen der Tugent
This beaklike nose of Perchta may be related the figure’s ancient connection to the classical strix (plural striges) which appears in both Greek and Latin texts. The strix is bird of ill omen, often thought of as an owl, one that visited at humans at night to feed on blood and flesh. Bird-like representations of Perchta or the Perchten appear in the Schnabelperchten (“beaked Perchten“) figures that appear in the town of Rauris, Austria.
In addtion to Perchta threatening to cut open the bellies of the disobedient, she’s sometimes said to stamp on those who offend her. In certain regions, it is the Stempe, or the Trempe (from the German words for “stamp” or “trample”) who appears to frighten the disobedient on Twelfth Night. A medieval poem, alluding to the terrible Stempe, one quoted in Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, is read by Mrs. Karswell.
One way to avoid Perctha’s wrath was to prepare certain foods, particularly a porridge called Perchtenmilch, which would be partially consumed by the family on Twelfth Night with a portion set aside as an offering to the Perchten. Certain signs, that the porridge had been enjoyed by the night-traveling spirits could provide omens for the coming year. Mrs. Karswell reads an Austrian account from 1900 detailing these.
This custom of leaving out offerings on this night was frequently condemned by the clergy in Austria and Germany, and we hear similar practice involving the Swiss “Blessed Ones” (sälïgen Lütt) derided in an 17th-century account by Renward Cysat, a city clerk of Lucerne.
The dead who accompany Perchta and consume these offerings are in many tales called the Heimchen, the spirits of children who have not received baptism. Several tales of Perchta and her Heimchen from Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie are recounted.
Our episode concludes examining a peculiar connection between Perchta and the beloved English and American figure of Mother Goose.
This Halloween we have five stories of witches from all the way back to around 1125AD to the 1960s. Some of them are actual historic personage, some seem more purely folkloric.
It’s a somewhat longer episode for which I”ll provide somewhat shorter show notes here. So, I won’t going into the details of each story, but just give a sketch of who we’ll be talking about. Aside from all being witches, you’ll see another common thread; four of the five kept avian familiars: roosters, blackbirds, and jackdaws.
The first a 19th-century witch who’s become a part of Connecticut folklore — Hannah Cranna. Though there are stories of her cursing neighbors from her life, the most interesting part of her tale begins with the details of her burial details, with which she was particularly obsessed. The segment begins with a snippet of Mark Fry’s bit of folk-psychedelia “The Witch” — only because it happens to dovetail nicely with a story of Hannah told on an urban legends web page.
Our second witch was also very particular about her burial, but with a more clear-cut rationale: she wanted to prevent the Devil from claiming her soul (and body, it seems) upon her death. This is the so-called “Witch of Berkeley,” who story was first told by English chronicler William of Malmesbury all the way back in 1125. It’s in his Chronicle of the Kings of England (as a sort of digression).
Our third witch, Molly Leigh, is also from England — North Staffordshire, where she died in 1746. Though she fit the witchy archetype of having both a quarrelsome personality and undesirable physiognomy, she was never tried or executed for witchcraft, despite some rumors of minor mischief, such as bewitching beers down at the pub. Her story, like Hannah Cranna’s, focuses more on her afterlife exploits. We play a snippet of a recent horror movie Molly Crows, which uses Leigh’s story as a springboard.
The fourth witch is our most modern: Sibyl Leek, who appeared on the scene in the 1960s during a wave of pop-culture. While she claimed to be a descendant of Molly Leigh, her life seems to have been much more pleasant, centering primarily upon how to best position herself in the media spotlight.
Our final story is is quite an oddity. The story of the self-confessed 17th-century witch, Major Thomas Weir, who became a fixture in legends of old Edinburgh. This is our longest segment, and I’ll leave the rest for you to enjoy as Mrs. Karswell’s reads from our sources, ad the details as are suitably shocking.
From: A compendium about demons and magic. 1766. (Wellcome LIbrary)
This episode explores the Russian witch, the Baba Yaga, tales in which she appears, possible origins, and regional variations on the character.
We begin by retelling one of the skazi (folk tales) in which she’s particularly well-definined, “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” a version recorded in the mid-1800s by the folklorist Alexander Afanasyev, Russia’s answer to the Brothers Grimm, .
Vasilisa, illustration by Ivan Bilibin, 1899
Without spoiling the story, I can say that it bears some parallels to “Cinderella,” with a wicked stepmother and step-sisters grievously imposing on the young Vasilisa and sending her into an encounter with the Baba Yaga. She is aided in the tale by a magic doll bequeathed her by her dying mother.
Like nearly all Baba Yaga stories, this tale features the witch’s famous house perched atop two immense chicken legs on which it turns to reveal it’s entrance if the proper spell is spoken. Around the house, in this story as in most others, is a fence made of human bones and topped by skulls.
Child slaves of the witch and bone fence, illustration, 1916
The witch herself is not much described in the text of “Vasilisa,” but in the folklore of the Eastern Slavs, she is generally imagined as an hunchbacked old crone, usually large, and with a large nose, sometimes said to be of iron, as are her teeth sometimes. She’s also occasionally described as an ogress because of her nasty habit of eating visitors, especially children, or those who fail her when she puts them to work (what she often does with visitors).
Illustration by Ivan Bilibin, 1911
“Vasilisa” like nearly every other tale featuring the character, describes the witch flying through the skies in mortar, which she steers with the pestle, an instrument sometimes also used as a club or magic wand. Like western witches, she is often depicted with a cat, but the Baba Yaga may also command a pack of dogs, flock of geese or swans, or even be served by pairs of disembodied hands.
“Baba Yaga” is not quite a proper noun, i.e., her “name,” at least not quite. It’s a class or type of character, and certain stories feature multiple Baba Yagas. For this reason too, she may be killed off in a particular story — and often is — only to reappear as presumably different witch in another.
Though she’s most often portrayed as malevolent and dangerous, some tales make her more ambivalent, or occasionally even helpful. We have a look at the best known examples of this, “The Frog Tzarina” (a story offering a sort of reversal on the “Frog Prince” theme) .
“Baba Yaga” book, 1915
Of the tales that feature the Baba Yaga in a more menacing role, one of the better known is called “Princess Marya” or “The Death of Koschei the Deathless,” and it features the witch as a character somewhat peripheral to another important character of Russian folklore, Koschei. He’s a sorcerer, usually represented as a crowned skeletal figure and known for hiding his soul in the form of a needle within an egg within a duck. We also hear a bit of another tale featuring a malevolent Baba Yaga, “Little Bear’s-Son,” in which the witch lives in an underworld and battles the titlular character and a trio of giants.
Our quick look at a few examples of the Baba Yaga in music and films includes a piece from Modest Mussorgsky’s 1874 suite Pictures at an Exhibition called “The Baba yaga” or “The Hut on Fowl’s Legs” (Here is the Baba Yaga inspired clock design by Victor Hartmann that inspired the piece.) We hear a bit from that and a snippet of “Baba Yaga,” a 1965 garage-rock number by a Minnesota band called The Pagans. Speaking of music, our show, opened with a clip from a 1997 track “Baba Yaga” by the Australian singer, Judy Small. Also used in this episode are two other traditional pieces of music, “Doina Oltului” (instrumental) and “Khorovod,” an example of ancient pagan round dance music of the Slavs.
Probably the greatest modern popularizer of the figure and huge influence upon how the Baba Yaga is imagined in Russia today is work of filmmaker, Alexander Rou featuring the actor Georgy Millyar. Beginning in 1939, with a version of “The Frog Tsarina,” and running up to 1972, the year before he died, Rou made over a dozen film inspired by Russian fairy tales.The Baba Yaga appearing in many of these was always portrayed by the cross-dressed Millyar, whose comic performances are one of many reasons to seek out Rou’s films on YouTube.
Millyar as the Baba Yaga
While the first mention of the Baba Yaga in print only appears in a 1755 book called Russian Grammar, it’s presumed the figure comes from much older mythology. In fact, while the reference in question, though vague, includes her in a list of Slavic deities. References to the witch’s control over horsemen representing the sun in “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” for instance, have suggested a possible origin in a solar deity. More likely, given her association with bones and her menacing nature, would be a connection with Marena, the Eastern Slavic goddess of death and winter. The witch’s flights in her mortar, always accompanied by terrible winds, have also suggested connections to the aerial phantoms of what’s called The Wild Hunt in Europe. Similarly her presence in the sky has suggested a connections with the Fiery Serpent, a figure of Eastern Slavic folklore, often represented by aerial phenomena such as lightning or meteors. All ideas to chew on. Nothing definitive, though the strongest association would seem to be with Marena.
We close the show with two tales from our own times, in which the Baba Yaga’s namesake or likeness is responsible for some dreadful deeds.
Elevated mortuary huts, an inspiration for the witch’s hut?
Bone and Sickle is happy to welcome Sarah Chavez as a new voice in the show this week.
The werewolf (Fr: loup-garou) epidemic of 16th-century France forms the core of our show, but we also include some medieval French werewolf tales as well as the legend of a figure connected to both werewolves and Bluebeard.
In our last episode on Bluebeard, I promised to recount a legend that may have inspired Charles Perrault’s story. This would be the story of Count Conomor, or “Conomor the Accursed,” a 6th-century ruler of Brittany. Here the role of Bluebeard’s new wife is played by Trephine, the daughter of a rival count. Through her forbearance, she came to be regarded in local traditions as a saint (therefore the chapel depiction below). Her adventures include interaction with the helpful ghosts of Conomor’s slain wives, decapitation by Conomor (with miraculous cure) and a magic ring The curse upon this wicked count continues into the afterlife, during which he is condemned to roam the countryside in the form of a werewolf.
The decapitated but ambulatory St. Trephine. Statue in chapel of St Trémeur (her son), near Carhaix, Brittany
Our next segment looks at some medieval werewolf stories, including the 12-century poem by a Marie de France, “Bisclavret,” in which the werewolf plays a surprisingly sympathetic role, the tale of Sir Hugues de Camp-d’Avesnes, condemned to an afterlife as a werewolf for burning a town in the 1131, and that of the knight Raimbaud de Pulet, who in a fit of despondent madness becomes a werewolf.
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. Most of the stories recounted in this episode come from his writings on the subject, while others come from the The Werewolf by highly eccentric English scholar Montague Summers, who was discussed in Episode 1.
Montague Summers and his classic volume on werewolves
The first of Bouget’s cases examined is that of Michel Verdun, who shortly after a wolf attack in which the beast is wounded is discovered treating a matching wound on his arm. Verdun’s testimony implicated two other men likewise said to transform themselves into wolves, Philibert Montot, and Pierre Bourgot, who provides a lurid testimony including accounts of bloody crimes committed in wolf form, attendance at a witches’ sabbath and being initiated into his wicked ways by a black rider he meets in the forest.
The Beast of Gevaudan. Outside the witchcraft paradigm discussed in the episode, but a nice image.
The next case discussed (and judged by Bouget) is that of Gilles Garnier, who also spoke of a forest meeting with a diabolical figure who presented him the magic ointment necessary for transformation. Garnier’s case is interesting in that he brought home human flesh from his werewolf attacks for his wife to enjoy.
Another case in this same area mentioned by Boguet is that of the Gandillons, a whole family of alleged werewolves. It begins with a female werewolf, Perrenette Gandillon, who attacks a brother and sister and is then killed by a mob. Her sister, Antoinette confesses to also being a werewolf and attending a witches sabbath, as do her father and brother. Wilkinson reads for us a colorful description of the wolf-like behavior of the male Gandillons in their prison cells.
Outside of Bouget’s jurisdiction, we find the case of the Werewolf of Chalons, a tailor discovered abducting children and butchering them in his shop. We also hear the story of Jean Grenier from Bordeaux (see the comic below).
The show closes with an account of 20th-century lycanthropy from Grenier’s home town of Bordeaux. When an unnamed assailant confesses to murdering a stranger invited into his home for a meal in 1989, he is examined by prison psychiatrist Michel Bénézech, who makes the diagnosis of “pathological lycanthropy.” The quotes we hear from Bénézech are from the BBC show “The Secret Life of Ghosts & Werewolves.”
Story of Jean Grenier from “The Usborne Guide To The Supernatural World” (1979)
This episode examines the terrors that come by night, not-so-soothing lullabies, prayers and charms against the nightmare.
We open with the grim Icelandic lulluby “Móðir mín í kví kví,” which tells the story of a newborn’s ghost haunting the mother who abandoned it. Another lovely, yet menacing Icelandic lullaby follows. “Bíum, bíum, Bambaló” alludes to an unnamed horror drawing nearer and nearer.
We learn that our word “nightmare,” originally designated a nighttime visit by a supernatural creature that pinned down and menaced the sleeper, ie, the “mare,” a word that arrived in English via the Saxons, and was derived from the Germanic “mara.” Recently, we’ve seen versions of this creature popping up in a number of horror films, snippets of which appear in a montage. These are: the 2018 film Mara and the 2011 Swedish film Marianne, both of which allude to the creature in their titles, and 2016’s Dead Awake and Before I Wake, as well as 2017’s Slumberand Don’t Sleep. And of course we include a nod to Nightmare on Elm Street, the film that started it all.
Still from the film “Mara”
Stripped of its supernatural interpretation, the sleeper’s sensation of being pinned down and experiencing the sense of a malevolent presence is recognized by medical community as “sleep paralysis.” But researches of the last century are not the first to attempt to describe the phenomenon in physiological terms. We hear such a physiological take on the subject from 1584, drawn from The Discoverie of Witchcraft, a somewhat skeptical book on witchcraft.
The equation of the mare and the witch in English and Germanic culture is longstanding. The other term sometimes used by the scientific community to describe this phenomenon, “Night Hag Syndrome,” points to this, as the word “hag” is traceable to an ancient German term for witches, “Hagazussa,” which also happens to be the title of an excellent new folk-horror film from Germany. A snippet of the dark and droney soundtrack from that film is included.
Digging in a bit more on the topic of the mare, we learn that how the creature assumed a number of nocturnal forms while appearing in the day as either a witch or an unwitting human cursed by a witch, and hear a 13th-century account of an attack by a mare from the old Norse Norse Ynglinga Saga read by Wilkinson.
Next, we listen to a bit of another lullaby, this one from Russia, “Bayu Bayushki Bayu,” which tells of wolves ready to drag the sleeping child into the forest.
Whereas the “mara” (mare) is the preferred term for this creature in Great Britain (and English-speaking countries), Scandinavia, and northern Germany, further south in Germany, we hear of the “Alp,” a largely identical creature, with an etymological tie to our English word “elf.” The Alp exhibits a wider range of mischievous, elfin traits not common to the mare.
19th-century illustration of the nightmare, artist unknown
This same region is also haunted by the nocturnal “Drude” or “Trute,” which likewise presses and torments sleepers, but is more strongly connected to witches than elves. The word “Drude” is often combined with other words in German to describe witchy concepts, like the “Drudenfuss,” a word for “pentagram.” In the sometimes confusing world of folk-magic, the five-pointed star can be used as a form of white magic to combat darker magic and for this reason was often used on infants’ cradles to repel the Drude as in the illustration here. We also hear of a connection of the Drude to the recently released folk-horror anthology film A Field Guide to Evil.
Austrian cradle with pentagram against the Drude
There follows perhaps the most explicitly terrifying lullaby in tonight’s collection, the Russian song “Tili-tili-bom.”
A number of folk practices against the nightmare are described including methods of trapping the creature. Wilkinson reads us a story from Germany’s Black Forest in which the creature is trapped in a particularly peculiar way. Counting charms, such as those used against vampires are also discussed.
Our show ends with a discussion of traditional bedtime prayers, including “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” which we learn can be traced to prayers used in 16th-century witchcraft, ancient Jewish “devil trap bowls,” Babylonian incantations, and a rite created by the 19th-century British occult gropu, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Along the way, we also hear a traditional southern-German nighttime prayer (Abendsegen) as featured in the 1893 opera Hansel and Gretel.
For Mother’s Day this year we examine murderous mothers and maternal instincts gone very, very wrong in folklore, legends, and ballads.
We begin with a look at the Latin American legend of La Llorona (“the weeping woman”). We begin with a snippet of the trailer from the recently released film The Curse of La Llorona and also hear a clip from a 1961 Mexican film released in the US as The Curse of the Crying Woman. We also here an alleged recording of La Llorona herself captured in one of many such user videos uploaded to YouTube.
Still from “The Curse of the Crying Woman, 1961
La Llorona’s story is that of a mortal woman who drowns her two children to avenge herself on faithless husband. In the afterlife she becomes a remorseful ghost and fearsome child-snatching bugaboo. We learn that this form of the legend is relatively modern, with the name “La Llorona” earlier attaching itself to a variety of tales that ascribe rather different motives and actions to the figure. Wilkinson reads for us a few of these earlier descriptions.
Next we have a look at some possible antecedents to the figure including the Aztec Cihuateteo (deified women who die during childbirth later becoming child-snatching spirits) as well as a water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, a figure sometimes associated with drownings. Somewhat less credibly, a connection to tales brought by 19th-century German settlers in Mexico has even been suggested, namely that of the Weisse Frau (“White Lady”) who haunts the Hohenzollern Castle of Baden-Württemberg. She also does away with children in the context of a thwarted love relationship (in a particularly gruesome way).
Cihuateteo sculpture
Whatever the source of the Llorana legend, it is not difficult to find parallels. Our next example is the Greek myth of Medea, who kills the children she’s had with Jason to punish him for taking a new lover. Her revenge on her rival, Princess Glauke of Corinth, is also dreadful, and dreadfully interesting in the description Euripides provides in his play. We hear Wilkinson read this passage and also hear a snippet of dialogue and the startlingly original soundtrack from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea.
“Medea” by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, 17th century.
Our next segment looks at some legends and songs about unwed mothers who kill their unwanted newborns. We hear a bit about the numerous “Cry Baby Bridges” of North America. This modern urban legend associates certain bridges, usually in rural areas, with the ghosts of infants drowned in the rivers the bridges span. Often, particularly in older stories, the infants are illegitimate newborns.
In the Scottish or English ballad “The Cruel Mother” (also known as “The Greenwood Side”), we encounter a mother who has murdered her illegitimate children and later meets their spirits, learning from them the fate that awaits her on the other side. We hear a mix of various renderings of this folk song including: The Owl Service, Anna & Elizabeth, Fiona Hunter, Rubus, 10,000 Maniacs,Lothlórien, and Addie Graham. We also hear a bit from the nearly identical song “The Lady Dressed in Green” which serves as the basis of a macabre childrens’ song-game.
In the song, “The Well Below the Valley” (also known as ‘The Maid and the Palmer”) describes a meeting between a mother who has given birth to and killed a number of illegitimate babies and a mysterious holy man who visits her at the well and displays supernatural knowledge of her deeds. The song seems to originate with the biblical story of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at a well and likewise displaying supernatural knowledge of her checkered past. This story is also the basis of the gospel song “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well,” from which we hear brief snippets by The Fairfield Four and Nick Cave. The version of “The Well Below the Valley” we hear is by Shanachie.
La Llorona’s child-snatching aspect is anticipated by the Greek myth of Lamia, a woman with whom Zeus was said to have fallen in love, who was then punished by Zeus’ wife Hera. who either kills Lamia’s children or causes her to do so. Thereafter Lamia becomes a monstrous creature devoted to stealing or killing the children of mothers everywhere. We hear how this story later merges with medieval witchcraft beliefs.
The show ends with two stories involving cannibalism and murderous mothers. The first is that of Gudrun (or Kriemhild) from the Germanic Völsung saga upon which Wagner based his Ring Cycle (we hear a bit of Wagner here, music from The Twilight of the Gods. The second story is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, involving a grisly vengeance exacted by Procne on the Thracian king Terseus, an act of vengeance for the rape of her sister Philomela. Wilkinson here again provides a dramatic reading from Ovid.
Peter Paul Rubens “Tereus Confronted with the Head of his Son Itys,” 1637
The show also includes a short bit from Henry Burr’s 1916 song “M-O-T-H-E-R (A Word That Means the World to Me)”
