Folklore of the Night

     Something hungry lurks nearby in the darkness.  All is silent.  There is no breath or even the sound of a heat beat, yet you can feel its presence, its desire.  The terror of waiting is the worst.  Please, no matter how this will end, let it end now.      Life flows through the blood stream, so it is natural that the unnatural dead require a consistent supply to continue dwelling in the mortal world.  The modern image of the blood drinker has roots as ancient as human existence.  The Egyptians, the Greeks, Chinese, and Romans all shared similar fears of the returning dead.  In nearly all cultures, until the present time, vampires have been vulgar creatures, hardly the aristocratic or romantic figure.  In parts of Mexico, the vampire has a fleshed-out human body but the head is a bare skull.  In Brazil the vampire has thick hair on the bottoms of its feet to walk stealthy.  In Eastern Europe and ...

             The creak of the hollow staircase; each step echoing down into the unknown, hated chamber beneath.  In those days when all stairs left the vertical space between each step empty, children, and many honest adults, knew the dread of what might dwell just below the feet, poised to reach out of the void to grip an ankle in an icy grip.  Modern children still know the horror underneath the bed, but that situation at least retains the blessing of magical blankets for protection.  In classic folklore, however, there were many more perils reserved for children.      Perhaps it was natural that folklore would live among the children, who saw terror in every dark space.  In different regions, the children had name for the creature that would reach out of the darkness such as Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones, Sackman, or Gurumapa.  Sometimes the folklore was encouraged by parents, who used fear to motiva...

         There is a long tradition among many warrior societies that place a high value on the practice of cannibalism.  In some of the cultures, the warrior believed that he might absorb his enemy's strength by consuming a portion of the flesh.  The Aztec knights of the Jaguar and Eagle may have approached this a little differently by wearing the enemy's skin for a duration of time, perhaps for a similar effect. Aztec Wearing Human Skin      In the area of folklore, cannibalism has a frequent sinister connection to the legend of the Wendigo.  This tradition, mostly centered on Native American tribes of Canada and the North East portion of what would be the United States.  In some versions of the lore, an evil spirit can take claim of an individual that indulges in characteristics of extreme greed and cruelty.  As the spirit takes control, the person hungers for human flesh, often taking on an inhuman aspect of its ...

    In many respects, marriage might be seen as the antithesis of death.  It is perhaps founded on this assumption that there are a number of historical accounts of weddings being used to curb the power of death.  One of the Romanian traditions used to prevent the rise of potential Strigoi Morte (vampires) is to perform a marriage between the deceased and an eligible young person of the community.  In Marcus Sedgwick's eerie novel, My Swordhand is Singing , the oldest unmarried girl of the village is married off to a potential vampire and is required to remain isolated in a hut at the edge of the forest for forty days to mourn her husband's death.  I address the concept as well in my novel Carpathian Nights , with a young man who is to marry two dead sisters to keep them in their graves.      With the advent of our own COVID-19 plague, it is interesting to note that during former plagues, such as the frequent waves of cholera of the 19th ...