Stephen Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "unexplained-mysteries"
What are some of the unique mythological creatures from your country's folk lore ?
Boggart: an evil or mischievous spirit in folklore.
Location: England, Scotland.
A ‘Boggart’ is the name given for either a household spirit or a malevolent genius loci, which inhabits the woods, fields and marshes.
Other names for this being include bugbear, bogeyman or, the bogle.
In Lore, in rural parts of Northern England and up into Scotland, the Bogart should never be named; for if it is, none would be able to reason with it and it would become uncontrollable, and vicious. It would reap a path of destruction.
If it came in your house, it would pull on your nose or ears. Your dogs would go lame. Often, horse-shoes could be found on the front door of homes, in the belief that this would shield their occupants from the invasion of a Bogart.
The Bogart’s own domain however lay on the Moors, under bridges, or in crags or caves. The boggarts inhabiting the marshes or holes in the ground were often attributed more serious evil deeds, such as the abduction of children. There are alleged disappearances of children and adults associated with the Bogart, in earlier centuries.
A contact of mine recently told me that in Ogden, in the South Pennines of Northern England, “All over is stories of the ‘Bogarts’ and all over is little green troll decorations in the trees that people have put up. They’re put up because there is a tradition that some creatures called the Bogarts live up there. Its always happened on a place called ‘Spice Cake Hills.’”
Boggarts are described in various form: Many are described as relatively human-like in form, though usually rough and coarse looking, uncouth, very ugly and even monstrous creatures, often with beast-like forms and behaviour. It was believed they could shift in size and shape and form.
Irish writer Eliot O’Donnell gives an account in Scottish Ghost Stories 1911 of ‘The death bogle.’ (abridged)
“Several years ago, wanting to re-visit the Scottish Highlands, in Perthshire; an area that had great attractions for me as a boy, I answered an advertisement in a magazine for a "Comfortable room offered" in an elderly lady’s house. The location was heavenly, and since there were no other adverts in that area I responded.’
‘On arrival my suitcases were taken upstairs by a boy in the MacDonal tartan, and I was given tea of scones and cream. My bedroom was dainty and clean. It turned out that both our ancestors had fought in battalions in Louis XIV's brigades. A week after I had arrived there, I acted upon the landlady’s suggestion to spend the day on the Loch. It was a welcome rest from my writing and it wasn't until evening time, around 7 o'clock, that I set out to return to the house. It was a brilliant moonlit night; there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the landscape around me was as clear as in the daytime; The far-off river, the long range of mountains silhouetted darkly against the silvery sky, the green thickness of the box trees.’
‘I mounted my bicycle and rode speedily along the high road, until eventually coming to a stop after a couple of miles. I didn't stop fatigued, but rather because I was entranced with the scenery. I had stopped on a triangular shaped junction where three roads met. I dismounted and leant against the signpost, remaining like that for probably 10 minutes until I was about to remount my bicycle, when suddenly I became icy cold and a hideous feeling of terror seized me. The terror gripped me so hard that my bicycle slipped from my grip to the ground, crashing.
‘The next instant something, and for the life of me I know not what; its blurred outline and indefined shape landed in front of me with a thud and remained there, bolt upright as a cylindrical pillar. Meanwhile in the distance came the sound of a low rumbling, which grew until into view thundered a wagon loaded with hay and on top of the wagon sat a man with a wide-brim hat, talking heatedly to a young boy who lay across the hay. The horse pulling the wagon caught sight of the "thing" that stood in front of me and stopped still, violently snorting. The man cried out to the horse, then in a hysterical screech, "My God! What's that figure boy?" The boy immediately rose up and then clutched the man's arm tight, screaming; "I don't know! I don't know! But it’s me it's come for! Don't let it touch me! Don't let it touch me!"
The moon was so bright that as the boy screamed I could see their faces so well, and their expressions were one of abject terror; even more horrifying than the unknown "thing." The gorse, the trees, the grotesque crags of granite, all were overwhelmed by this stillness; the stillness of shadowland. I could count the buttons on the man's coat, I could see the marks of sweat on the boy's shirt. I could see his black nails. I could see the man's chest as it rose and fell rapidly as he breathed fast with fear, and while these minute details were being driven into my soul, the cause of it all was the shock of this indefinable indistinguishable "thing" that stood as a column; silent and motionless, and behind it was a glow.’
‘The horse suddenly broke free from the spell of this esoteric figure and it broke off at a gallop, tearing frantically past the phantasm and went helter-skelter along the road ahead, speeding recklessly. The silent and motionless entity now followed in their wake, with bounds, trying to get at them with its long spidery arms. If it succeeded I can't say, because I was uncontrollably frightened that it would return to come after me, and I rode as I have never ridden before to get away from there.’
‘I told my landlady about what had happened. She looked very serious. "I should have warned you," she said. "It has always been that way on that road. No-one who lives here will venture there after dark, and so it must have been strangers who you saw there. It's method never varies. It comes over the wall, remains still until someone approaches, and then it pursues them with monstrous speed. The person it touches will invariably die within 12 months. I remember when I was a child, a night such as you have described. I was coming home with my father from a party. When we reached that spot, our horse shied and we went racing off at terrific speed. I have never seen such fear in my father; his agitation alarmed me so, and my instinct told me this was not from the horse bolting but from something else. Soon I realized what it was; something overtook us and it thrust its long thin arms toward us and it reached my father, touching his hand and then, with a cry that was more animal than human, it disappeared. We could not speak until we reached home. My father was white as a sheet, and he took me aside and whispered to me, "Don't say a word; don't tell your mother what has happened. Never let her know. It was the death bogle and I shall die before the year is out." And he did die.'
She continued, "I can't describe it any better than you; whether man or beast, I do not know, but whatever it was I got the impression that it had no eyes.’
Eliot O’Donnell ‘Scottish Ghost Stories, 1911.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/...
Of course, the most famous boggarts feature in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series!
Location: England, Scotland.
A ‘Boggart’ is the name given for either a household spirit or a malevolent genius loci, which inhabits the woods, fields and marshes.
Other names for this being include bugbear, bogeyman or, the bogle.
In Lore, in rural parts of Northern England and up into Scotland, the Bogart should never be named; for if it is, none would be able to reason with it and it would become uncontrollable, and vicious. It would reap a path of destruction.
If it came in your house, it would pull on your nose or ears. Your dogs would go lame. Often, horse-shoes could be found on the front door of homes, in the belief that this would shield their occupants from the invasion of a Bogart.
The Bogart’s own domain however lay on the Moors, under bridges, or in crags or caves. The boggarts inhabiting the marshes or holes in the ground were often attributed more serious evil deeds, such as the abduction of children. There are alleged disappearances of children and adults associated with the Bogart, in earlier centuries.
A contact of mine recently told me that in Ogden, in the South Pennines of Northern England, “All over is stories of the ‘Bogarts’ and all over is little green troll decorations in the trees that people have put up. They’re put up because there is a tradition that some creatures called the Bogarts live up there. Its always happened on a place called ‘Spice Cake Hills.’”
Boggarts are described in various form: Many are described as relatively human-like in form, though usually rough and coarse looking, uncouth, very ugly and even monstrous creatures, often with beast-like forms and behaviour. It was believed they could shift in size and shape and form.
Irish writer Eliot O’Donnell gives an account in Scottish Ghost Stories 1911 of ‘The death bogle.’ (abridged)
“Several years ago, wanting to re-visit the Scottish Highlands, in Perthshire; an area that had great attractions for me as a boy, I answered an advertisement in a magazine for a "Comfortable room offered" in an elderly lady’s house. The location was heavenly, and since there were no other adverts in that area I responded.’
‘On arrival my suitcases were taken upstairs by a boy in the MacDonal tartan, and I was given tea of scones and cream. My bedroom was dainty and clean. It turned out that both our ancestors had fought in battalions in Louis XIV's brigades. A week after I had arrived there, I acted upon the landlady’s suggestion to spend the day on the Loch. It was a welcome rest from my writing and it wasn't until evening time, around 7 o'clock, that I set out to return to the house. It was a brilliant moonlit night; there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the landscape around me was as clear as in the daytime; The far-off river, the long range of mountains silhouetted darkly against the silvery sky, the green thickness of the box trees.’
‘I mounted my bicycle and rode speedily along the high road, until eventually coming to a stop after a couple of miles. I didn't stop fatigued, but rather because I was entranced with the scenery. I had stopped on a triangular shaped junction where three roads met. I dismounted and leant against the signpost, remaining like that for probably 10 minutes until I was about to remount my bicycle, when suddenly I became icy cold and a hideous feeling of terror seized me. The terror gripped me so hard that my bicycle slipped from my grip to the ground, crashing.
‘The next instant something, and for the life of me I know not what; its blurred outline and indefined shape landed in front of me with a thud and remained there, bolt upright as a cylindrical pillar. Meanwhile in the distance came the sound of a low rumbling, which grew until into view thundered a wagon loaded with hay and on top of the wagon sat a man with a wide-brim hat, talking heatedly to a young boy who lay across the hay. The horse pulling the wagon caught sight of the "thing" that stood in front of me and stopped still, violently snorting. The man cried out to the horse, then in a hysterical screech, "My God! What's that figure boy?" The boy immediately rose up and then clutched the man's arm tight, screaming; "I don't know! I don't know! But it’s me it's come for! Don't let it touch me! Don't let it touch me!"
The moon was so bright that as the boy screamed I could see their faces so well, and their expressions were one of abject terror; even more horrifying than the unknown "thing." The gorse, the trees, the grotesque crags of granite, all were overwhelmed by this stillness; the stillness of shadowland. I could count the buttons on the man's coat, I could see the marks of sweat on the boy's shirt. I could see his black nails. I could see the man's chest as it rose and fell rapidly as he breathed fast with fear, and while these minute details were being driven into my soul, the cause of it all was the shock of this indefinable indistinguishable "thing" that stood as a column; silent and motionless, and behind it was a glow.’
‘The horse suddenly broke free from the spell of this esoteric figure and it broke off at a gallop, tearing frantically past the phantasm and went helter-skelter along the road ahead, speeding recklessly. The silent and motionless entity now followed in their wake, with bounds, trying to get at them with its long spidery arms. If it succeeded I can't say, because I was uncontrollably frightened that it would return to come after me, and I rode as I have never ridden before to get away from there.’
‘I told my landlady about what had happened. She looked very serious. "I should have warned you," she said. "It has always been that way on that road. No-one who lives here will venture there after dark, and so it must have been strangers who you saw there. It's method never varies. It comes over the wall, remains still until someone approaches, and then it pursues them with monstrous speed. The person it touches will invariably die within 12 months. I remember when I was a child, a night such as you have described. I was coming home with my father from a party. When we reached that spot, our horse shied and we went racing off at terrific speed. I have never seen such fear in my father; his agitation alarmed me so, and my instinct told me this was not from the horse bolting but from something else. Soon I realized what it was; something overtook us and it thrust its long thin arms toward us and it reached my father, touching his hand and then, with a cry that was more animal than human, it disappeared. We could not speak until we reached home. My father was white as a sheet, and he took me aside and whispered to me, "Don't say a word; don't tell your mother what has happened. Never let her know. It was the death bogle and I shall die before the year is out." And he did die.'
She continued, "I can't describe it any better than you; whether man or beast, I do not know, but whatever it was I got the impression that it had no eyes.’
Eliot O’Donnell ‘Scottish Ghost Stories, 1911.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/...
Of course, the most famous boggarts feature in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series!
Creepy Clowns
Why do clowns scare some people?
Coulrophobia, or fear of clowns... Lore or real....
Their garish exaggerated facial features can transform them into the monster in the closet and other such archetypal creatures from our darkest nightmares, or even our reality, such as visitations from ghost-clowns.
Clowns, jesters, tricksters, jokers and harlequins have appeared for centuries throughout many cultures: the court jesters of medieval England, Pygmy clowns of ancient Egypt, and Ancient Rome’s the ‘stupidus’ figure.
The Smithsonian quotes French literary critic Edmond de Goncourt, who wrote in 1876, “The clown’s art is now rather terrifying and full of anxiety and apprehension. Their suicidal feats, their monstrous gesticulations and frenzied mimicry reminding one of a lunatic asylum.”
The less manic clowns, the staple troubled, sad, and tragic clown variety in the form of the tattered “hobo” homeless clowns were no less troubling to watch.
There are some horrifying claims, though not easily substantiated, that in the Middle Ages, jesters were mutilated if they failed to make the court laugh; their faces cut into a permanent smile by the removal of their muscles that would make frowns.
As for the release of the 2017 Stephen King movie ‘IT,’ his clown is now depicted in classic Harlequin quality, with elegance of costume. ‘Pennywise’ has been described by theatre critics as ‘a harlequin-from-hell.’ Of course, in the fore-front of people’s psyche will always be John Wayne Gacy’s clown Pogo. Between 1972 and 1978 he sexually assaulted and killed more than 35 adolescent boys. When he went to entertain children and adolescents, dressed in his clown costume, what no-one knew was that he had already been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.
In contemporary times, Stephen King’s demon clown ‘Pennywise,’ Heath Ledger’s ‘The Joker’ in Batman and also ‘Punch and Judy’ as the henchmen of the Joker, DC Comics’ cloddish supervillains ‘Punch and Jewellee,’ and perhaps even the Insane Clown Posse’s grease-paint and their Dark Carnival performances, have all only solidified the fear of the unpredictable often frenzied persona of the murderous Clown or any other similar trickster characters, and this abiding fear lies in the soul of not just children but us adults too.
In the ‘Clown sightings’ outbreak of 2016 throughout America and England, online magazine Mashable synchronistically remarked; ‘Since the late summer, there have been about a half-dozen reports of clown sightings. Alleged sightings mapped along the border between the Carolinas, form a sort of ‘harlequin triangle’ between Greenville, Greensboro and Winston – Salem, North Carolina.’
The Washington post pointed out: ‘The incident seems to follow a script that has repeated itself several times over in the area since late August: Witnesses phone local police to report a menacing clown or clowns, but officers cannot verify the sightings.’
Fortean Loren Coleman first used the term “Phantom Clowns” after researching a “clown flap” in the early 1980’s, of children possibly being bundled into run-down and archaic vans.
Patrick Harpur in Daimonic Reality wrote of a strange and troubling variation: heavily made up “Phantom Social Workers.” In the early months of 1990 across England a similar pattern to the “Phantom Clowns” played out. Instead of clown costumes, they came wearing suits and heavy make-up on their faces. The police dealt with an ever-growing number of reports from concerned and distressed parents who had received unexpected visits from social workers who had turned up on their doorsteps, asking to come in to see their children. When the parents became suspicious, they would retreat and leave. Mostly these visitors were women, wearing very heavy make-up that would have been wholly inappropriate for a social worker.
They carried identification and clip boards. Sometimes they did phone in advance. “Operation Childcare” was set up by combined police forces to track down these bogus authority figures. Sometimes they were reported to operate in groups but strangely the police felt it was several different groups. Were they real paedophile groups, phantoms, or like the so-called Men In Black visits?
Fear of clowns and similar such disturbing characters is attributed by some to the “uncanny valley effect.” This is said to be the phenomenon where things that look human but aren’t quite, are as a result, deeply unsettling to the human psyche. Our reaction upon seeing such grotesque monsters is a dip in emotional response that occurs as we are confronted by such.
The term “uncanny valley” derives from robot maker Masahiro Mori, in 1970, who hypothesised that as robots grew more human in appearance and character, people would grow to accept them as more familiar when compared to earlier more mechanical and rudimentary models. However, the closer they became to human-like, the more disconcerted and uncomfortable people became and their responses of unease heightened.
Exaggerated postures and exaggerated facial features on human-like faces unsettle our subconscious, unnerve us with their unpredictability, and threaten us.
Perhaps the greatest fear from all of these archetypes is that their unnaturally fixed exaggerated and grotesquely frozen expressions make them so surreal, so nightmarish, and that these faces seem to hide their real nature… When the grease-paint is wiped off, what is left….?
Here is one man’s very disturbing account of a clown-like Harlequin figure that has stalked him all his life: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Masquer...
Coulrophobia, or fear of clowns... Lore or real....
Their garish exaggerated facial features can transform them into the monster in the closet and other such archetypal creatures from our darkest nightmares, or even our reality, such as visitations from ghost-clowns.
Clowns, jesters, tricksters, jokers and harlequins have appeared for centuries throughout many cultures: the court jesters of medieval England, Pygmy clowns of ancient Egypt, and Ancient Rome’s the ‘stupidus’ figure.
The Smithsonian quotes French literary critic Edmond de Goncourt, who wrote in 1876, “The clown’s art is now rather terrifying and full of anxiety and apprehension. Their suicidal feats, their monstrous gesticulations and frenzied mimicry reminding one of a lunatic asylum.”
The less manic clowns, the staple troubled, sad, and tragic clown variety in the form of the tattered “hobo” homeless clowns were no less troubling to watch.
There are some horrifying claims, though not easily substantiated, that in the Middle Ages, jesters were mutilated if they failed to make the court laugh; their faces cut into a permanent smile by the removal of their muscles that would make frowns.
As for the release of the 2017 Stephen King movie ‘IT,’ his clown is now depicted in classic Harlequin quality, with elegance of costume. ‘Pennywise’ has been described by theatre critics as ‘a harlequin-from-hell.’ Of course, in the fore-front of people’s psyche will always be John Wayne Gacy’s clown Pogo. Between 1972 and 1978 he sexually assaulted and killed more than 35 adolescent boys. When he went to entertain children and adolescents, dressed in his clown costume, what no-one knew was that he had already been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.
In contemporary times, Stephen King’s demon clown ‘Pennywise,’ Heath Ledger’s ‘The Joker’ in Batman and also ‘Punch and Judy’ as the henchmen of the Joker, DC Comics’ cloddish supervillains ‘Punch and Jewellee,’ and perhaps even the Insane Clown Posse’s grease-paint and their Dark Carnival performances, have all only solidified the fear of the unpredictable often frenzied persona of the murderous Clown or any other similar trickster characters, and this abiding fear lies in the soul of not just children but us adults too.
In the ‘Clown sightings’ outbreak of 2016 throughout America and England, online magazine Mashable synchronistically remarked; ‘Since the late summer, there have been about a half-dozen reports of clown sightings. Alleged sightings mapped along the border between the Carolinas, form a sort of ‘harlequin triangle’ between Greenville, Greensboro and Winston – Salem, North Carolina.’
The Washington post pointed out: ‘The incident seems to follow a script that has repeated itself several times over in the area since late August: Witnesses phone local police to report a menacing clown or clowns, but officers cannot verify the sightings.’
Fortean Loren Coleman first used the term “Phantom Clowns” after researching a “clown flap” in the early 1980’s, of children possibly being bundled into run-down and archaic vans.
Patrick Harpur in Daimonic Reality wrote of a strange and troubling variation: heavily made up “Phantom Social Workers.” In the early months of 1990 across England a similar pattern to the “Phantom Clowns” played out. Instead of clown costumes, they came wearing suits and heavy make-up on their faces. The police dealt with an ever-growing number of reports from concerned and distressed parents who had received unexpected visits from social workers who had turned up on their doorsteps, asking to come in to see their children. When the parents became suspicious, they would retreat and leave. Mostly these visitors were women, wearing very heavy make-up that would have been wholly inappropriate for a social worker.
They carried identification and clip boards. Sometimes they did phone in advance. “Operation Childcare” was set up by combined police forces to track down these bogus authority figures. Sometimes they were reported to operate in groups but strangely the police felt it was several different groups. Were they real paedophile groups, phantoms, or like the so-called Men In Black visits?
Fear of clowns and similar such disturbing characters is attributed by some to the “uncanny valley effect.” This is said to be the phenomenon where things that look human but aren’t quite, are as a result, deeply unsettling to the human psyche. Our reaction upon seeing such grotesque monsters is a dip in emotional response that occurs as we are confronted by such.
The term “uncanny valley” derives from robot maker Masahiro Mori, in 1970, who hypothesised that as robots grew more human in appearance and character, people would grow to accept them as more familiar when compared to earlier more mechanical and rudimentary models. However, the closer they became to human-like, the more disconcerted and uncomfortable people became and their responses of unease heightened.
Exaggerated postures and exaggerated facial features on human-like faces unsettle our subconscious, unnerve us with their unpredictability, and threaten us.
Perhaps the greatest fear from all of these archetypes is that their unnaturally fixed exaggerated and grotesquely frozen expressions make them so surreal, so nightmarish, and that these faces seem to hide their real nature… When the grease-paint is wiped off, what is left….?
Here is one man’s very disturbing account of a clown-like Harlequin figure that has stalked him all his life: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Masquer...
