Frightful Folklore of North America: Illustrated Folk Horror from Greenland to the Panama Canal

by Mike Bass

Tapping into the resurgence of interest in horror and folklore and illustrated with 75 linocut-style artworks, this contemporary, cool and highly desirable collection of scary North American legends has standout visual appeal.

"The brilliance of Frightful Folklore of North America is how it captures the expansiveness of the land, the various cultures (Native and non-Native), the stories told over time ... This impressive collection will haunt your imagination." – V. Castro

This beautifully illustrated book offers scary legends and folklore from Canada to Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, including Native American tales, settlers’ stories and African-American legends, as well as ghost stories and modern tales of cryptids. Shake in your shoes as you read

Qallupilluit of the Inuit These green slimy web-handed creatures hunt along the ice floes in the water in the Arctic regions, kidnapping children that wander too close.La Corriveau of Quebec, a woman hanged for murder and witchcraft, runs through the night in her gibbet chasing her victims.Ghost Moose of Hunters pursue this spectral creature until they perish.Resurrection Mary of Illinois is the ghost of a woman killed in a hit-and-run accident outside a Chicago dancehall who asks drivers for a ride home.Goatman of Alton Bridge a goatherder murdered in the early 1900s has returned as a half-goat, half-man to exact revenge.La Diabless of Tobago Is a young woman who made a pact with the devil. When in human form, she entraps men with her beauty and leads them astray into dark places, where they meet an untimely end.The Camazotz of Mexico are large man-bats that lived in the forest and hunt humans in packs.
And many, many more! Great for campfire storytelling or as a chill-inducing gift, this is the most readable and attractive book of spooky folklore on the market.

Genres: Horror, Folklore, Nonfiction, History, Art, Mythology, Paranormal

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2024

Reviews

[Lisa Marie Walters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art and interesting stories, but I don’t love how it was edited. There were lots of grammatical and spelling errors, but I mostly struggled with some accounts diving a little deeper into the origin and feeling more like a folklore study on these beasts, and then the next one would be super short and basically just a campfire telling of how a creature attacks with very little other info on that particular folk tale. It felt lacking in that way, as maybe 50% or more of the book was written in that format. But I still learned some interesting things and can use this as a starting platform to dive in deeper to some of the folktales mentioned.

[Rin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for the art and it did not disappoint on that front. While there are an impressive number of stories that I hadn't heard of before and I quite enjoyed them, I found myself wishing that there had been more of a focus on delving more deeply into many of them instead of only giving them 1-2 pages each. That being said, it is definitely a good resource to use as a starting point to then do more research on individual stories.

[LaReesa Rubio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of very interesting stories. I have my favorites and my least favorites. Some were very intriguing while others were not. Very interesting art work - very fitting for the genre. On the technical side, there were some mistakes with grammar. Also, the writing style was not consistent - some were told as a story in first person, others from third, and the rest - "facts" were given without an origin story. Personally, the facts with a story would have been most interesting.

[Danie KM · Rating 3 out of 5]

more like a 3.5

idk why this took me three whole weeks to read bc it is actually enjoyable

i like that it’s kind of like a reference book inst of just an anthology of stories

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first picked this up, I hadn't noticed that this book was published by Watkins, the same publishing house that gave us the similarly spotty The Watkins Book of Urban Legends, but that explains a few things.

First, Frightful Folklore is positively riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. E.g. "He prays on those whose absence will neither be noticed nor mourned..." "...leathery wings unfold in the darkness as one of these massive batlike creature dives and snatches at the air around you." Or heck, sometimes Bass even misspells the name of the creature he's writing about, as when El Cadejo Negro is written as "Cadejo Nero."

But the problems go beyond spelling, considering we sometimes get wordy stories about what a creature does, but no actual descriptions of it. Take the Duppy. Duppies? From the story, it sounds like a type of creature, rather than an individual that hangs around houses. But are they ghosts? House spirits like Brownies? Something else? Impossible to say. The accompanying art suggests ghosts, but even that can't be trusted--see The Rolling Calf, which is described as "a white, hornless goat," while the art shows a gray/black animal with a white beard and a very prominent pair of horns.

Really, if Bass had spent more time on descriptions, or even the origins of these creatures, rather than sloppily-relayed storied, this book would have been much stronger. And this is demonstrated pretty starkly in the entry on El Cucuy, which spends two pages on a generic tale of a monster in the darkness that eventually carries off a disobedient little boy in a sack. But right after that, Bass decides to give us a more historical account of the creature, including its appearances in plays, and a possible origin story. Far more interesting than the throwaway bogeyman story leading up to it.

With all that criticism out of the way, there are an awful lot of entities featured in this collection, but the material pertaining to them frequently leaves much to be desired. It's a serviceable jumping off point to learn about new cryptids and spirits and such, but oftentimes the most frightful idea is that Watkins is a publisher without an editor or proofreader on staff. I'll be very hesitant about picking up anything else they put out in the future.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won't reiterate what other reviews have stated, but I do agree with them about the neat art and not-so-neat writing.

My biggest issue with the book is that there are no sources anywhere to be found. Where did Mike Bass get the information presented in the book? I can't imagine he carried out his own fieldwork and went to all these places, interviewing people about their folk horror and cryptids. If he did, why is there nothing to indicate such meticulous work?

I suspect he did office-based research on written versions of all of these creatures. However, it's really not good research practice to read outside sources, craft your own book, and completely fail to give credit to those who wrote the information down first. Citing where you got an idea is a wonderful way to avoid plagiarism.

As a fellow researcher, I'd love to consult the texts he looked at but, would you look at that, there are none listed.

It's a great idea but not a great book.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun collection. As with any book of this type, there are a bunch of short chapters, so you can dip in and out. The stories were well told, and the illustrations were superb. I liked the inserts of bits and bobs of lore from various regions, too.

There is a pretty good mix of stories from across North America. They were not overtly separated into regions, though. As a folklore fan I would have loved some discussion about how the stories compared and contrasted both within and between regions, but I concede that would have been beyond the scope.

Overall, a good and varied collection with great illustration would make this lovely for any folklore fan.

[Jonathan Bartholomew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t just a book about folklore – it goes in deep on a number of tales that get skipped over by most books like this. Sure, you get sasquatch, and everything else we have all come to expect, but you also get the stories of The Skull Faced Bishop, The Black Hound of the Great Lakes, The Gray Man, El Conquistador Fantasma, and The Isle of Demons. Plus, the art – completely amazing.

I can honestly recommend this for anyone who is either peripherally into folklore, or love it enough to have made it part of their personality.

[Sirish · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the library new release section, this book is simply written mostly one page stories with an imagining of that story illustrated on its opposite page. Many of the scary thing's names are not that memorable, compared to like chupacabra, but their stories are more so. As described, the stories go from Canada down through Mexico and include some of the islands too with the most notable regional gap being seemingly nothing from the American south west, which, for purposes of frightful folklore storytelling, may be Mexico.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would've preferred more information about what the various creatures actually are instead of a story about what happens to you if you encounter them.

It's weird to me that the same guy wrote the stories and did the illustrations, but the didn't draw the creatures to match the descriptions that he wrote. One thing is described as white and hornless, but is drawn as brown with large horns. Other than that, I liked the art style.

[cre8tive_reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

📖

Frightful Folklore of North America by Mike Bass

😶😶

I was super excited for this. However I was so disappointed. I thought this would tell you about the thing, have some back story, and then maybe a couple tales about each. Nope some stories just start of telling me about people being scared of it and it taking people. Like tell me what it is please...
Honestly almost didn't finish it, but I'm not that type of person. So I slowly got though it. Wish I could say it was worth it.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love love LOVE the illustrations. The only thing that kept this from being a 5 star book was the few misspelled words and the inconsistencies in telling the stories (the point of view bounced around, and sometimes too much time was spent on the atmosphere and not the creatures themselves). Still, one I can't wait to add to my collection.

[Megan Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was STUNNING. I loved the short snippets about various cryptids, legends, and folklore featured in various cultures of North America. The illustrations were stunning, and I was a big fan of the color palette.

10/10 recommend if you want a gorgeous illustrated compendium of the most iconic folkloric creatures in the greater North American region.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderfully diverse and numerous collection of creepy stories. But maybe too numerous. Most of them were woefully short and I find myself struggling to remember anything about them. Definitely wish more detail or more accounts had been included, though I understand research in this department can be difficult to conduct due to scarcity

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art—even on an e-reader—in this collection of lore was stunning, but the tales themselves didn’t quite measure up to the vitality and intricacy of the images. I admire the author for taking on such a vast written project, but wish he’d teamed up with someone who could breathe a little life into the storytelling.

[Rosa Menendez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can not begin to express just how gorgeous this book is!
The illustrations are stunning, the lore and superstitions well researched and told!
I’m Guatemalan American and have variations of the the Mexican tales told in this book it was refreshing to see our stories told beyond just La Llorona!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorgeous art and a wide range of monsters, creatures, ghosts, etc that I hadn’t heard of.

The writing was a bit florid for my tastes and I wanted greater depth on many of these tales. I couldn’t get a feel for how widespread they are—are they tales everyone in an area knows?

[Elizabeth Judd Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting folklore, both ancient and more modern, from Native cultures and non-Natives ranging from Canada to the States to Mexico, the Caribbean and Greenland, all accompanied by engaging illustrations.

[M. Imig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is tough to read front-to-back. The art is gorgeous, and the prose itself is well written, but the stories are surface level. It gets repetitive, or at least, it did for me. I think I’d treat it more as a reference book than a cover-to-cover reader.

[Aranka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book is very visually appealing but the stories are missing something. The ones that go into some depth are great providing some history. But most are about a page and don’t really hook you in. It also jumps around geographically, it would have been better if more organized.

[Elizabeth Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I liked the illustrations and variety of folklore included. I did end up DNF'ing this book just because the copy I got had an odor that was making me sick. I do plan to get a digital copy to finish it.

[Tim Shepard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent

There is an obvious difference in writing styles throughout the book. Sometimes the author lists only the facts about the creatures. Others he tells a story. Personally, I prefer the stories. There are a lot of cryptically in here I've never heard of. Not a bad read.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

really awesome stories and even more awesome art. this book is absolutely gorgeous. some of the stories are more intriguing than others, but they each are so short that it’s totally doable. literally the most beautiful book i own and i love it

[Jacob Dean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very boring! The author provided no references or citations for where the information came from, and entries are so brief they feel perfunctory. This is like a book for older children, or an AI summary of folklore.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t great. It struggled going between a short story about one creature and then friend to give a history of another. Pick a lane and stay in it. The folk lore was interesting though. A lot of folklore in Mexico. Also WAY too many stories about wronged women. Fucking men.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it - great illustrations too

[Billie Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting collection of folklore

[Haley Orsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very engaging and a fascinating spread of folklore

[Alex Goldenhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a lot of typos in this book. Some neat entries and cool illustrations, but I'm not sure it added much more than a scroll through Wikipedia would

[Scott Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully creepy! And beautifully designed with wonderful illustrations. I look forward to what Bass does next.