Monsters, Myths and Legends
Just a little fun thing. Tell us what your favorite monster, myth or legend is. Explain how it came to be your favorite, if it frightened you as a child, where you first heard of it - any kind of backstory.
It's all in fun so please do not disparage someone else monster, myth or legend.
I will go first:
Sasquatch - The first time I heard of him was when the Legend of Boggy Creek came out. Then I saw an episode about it on In Search of... with Leonard Nimoy. I grew up in rural southern tier NYS. Lots of hills and forest. I always watched the woods & thought there was always one looking out at me. I wasn't really frightened - more fascinated that maybe there was something in the world that we did not know about. As an adult I can go into how I believe these & other beings travel from one plane to another, but that is a topic for another day.
Have fun people....
Dear Friend Veronica: The legend of Der Dybbuk has held my attention since childhood.
A Dybbuk is a malicious possessing spirit of the dislocated soul of a deceased person ripped from this life before its time.
It is based on folk legends of central and eastern European Jewish people.
Following years of research of this legend, S. Ansky wrote a play in Yiddish in 1917.
He never got to see it produced.
The Russian revolution took his life.
Since that time, Der Dybbuk is the most produced play in Jewish theater, in Yiddish, Hebrew and English.
The formal title of the work is, "Der Dybbuk, Oder Zwishen Tzvey Velten". (The Dybbuk, Or Between Two Worlds)".
My favorite character in the play is Meshulim.
Meshulim is an agent of G-d, sent to insure the drama of the Dybbuk and the bride he never got to marry, whose soul he possesses plays out according to Divine plan.
Ultimately, the Rebbe (Grand Rabbi) performs an exorcism to drive out the Dybbuk, so the maiden if free to live her life normally.
My favorite scene in the movie is when the Meshulim confronts a miserly wealthy person who does not give charity to those less fortunate.
He asks the miser to look outside the window to the park across the street.
He asks him what he sees?
The man looks, and says, "People".
Then the Meshulim asks the fellow to look into a full length mirror.
He does.
The Meshulim asks what he sees now?
The man says, "Myself".
Says the Meshulim, "A window and a mirror are both made of glass. Though a window you can see others. Owing to the silver in back of a mirror, all you can see when gazing into it is yourself. You have too much silver, and not enough sight of others".
From that point onward, the man gives charity.
A great message outside the main plot of the play.
Great topic Veronica.
Thanks for posting.
P&AB.
Enoch.
I saw something once about a Dybbuk box. I cannot remember what it was (title or if it was movie or a tv show). But the whole thing scared me.
Thanks for being you, Enoch
I have to think on this one. I had a monster under my bed, does that count?
Dear Friend Trout Giggles: Charge it rent.
E.
LOL!
That would have made a nice addition to my allowance
I think we all had monsters under our bed.
I remember when I was a wee one (one of my first memories) my parents were renting a house. The upstairs couldn't be used (roof rotted - animals living in it) so we all lived downstairs. My sister and I had the bedroom at the back of the house, but to get to it we had to walk through our brothers' room. My parents were on the other side of the house. So one night (like I said I was a wee one - 2 going on 3) I woke up and looked into my brothers' pitch black room and saw a pair of floating hands - it was like they were wearing sparkling white gloves. They were gesturing to me & wanting me to come to them - I burrowed under the blankets and didn't come out until morning. Monster in bedroom
I got one. I always liked the Loch Ness monster and his cousin Champ (I think that's his name...he lives in Lake Champlain in upstate NY).
Never afraid of him, but always wanted to go to Scotland to try and find him
I love the lake monsters - Ogopogo is another one.
Cruised Loch Ness in 2015. Never saw Nessie. The skipper seemed to be pretty convinced that Nessie exists, but he also gets tips, so...
Nessie is shy
My sister and I really want to make a pilgrimage to the British Isles. Our grandparents came from England, Ireland & Scotland (with a dash of Poland on the side) I really want to see Scotland and Loch Ness.
I've been to Ireland and Scotland. It's gorgeous there. Dress warmly in Scotland, though. We were there in late June, and had to bundle up. There was still snow on some of the mountaintops, and they weren't especially tall mountains. It was a bit warmer in Ireland.
I haven't been to England - bucket list.
I will definitely keep all that in mind.
My favorite was Spook Hill in Burkittsville MD. Your car goes uphill in neutral on that hill. Supposedly it was because some Confederate soldiers were ambushed pulling their cannons up the hill during the Civil War (that's also where the Blair Witch Project was situated). I swear it is the best optical illusion I have ever seen, you really think you're going uphill.
Gravity Hill !!
I have seen a few shows about that and also about a place where if you park on the railroad tracks the children killed by a train on a school bus will push you across - of course the reenactment showed hand prints on the trunk of the car.
Was that in Texas? My friend moved to Texas as a teenager and one of her teachers was supposedly on That's Incredible or a show like that, talking about that.
After we heard about that, I put flour on the trunk of my car and we went back up Spook Hill. When we got back home, we looked and ... sure enough, there were fingerprints in the flour! We briefly freaked out and then I thought, hmm. I work on my car and get oil on my fingers, and then I close the trunk .... so I washed the car really well and tried it again. No fingerprints.
It might have been. I cannot remember where it was (hate getting old).
I think half the fun is scaring ourselves.
The Weendigo of the Ojibwe people is the most terrifying of all monsters. So frighting that there is a mental disease named after it...The Weendigo Syndrome....
The Weendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Weendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.
When the Weendigo was set to attack a human being, a dark snow cloud would shroud its upper body from the waist up. The air would turn cold, so the trees crackled. Then a wind would rise, no more than a breath at first, but in moments whining and driving, transformed into a blizzard.
Behind the odor and chill of death and the killing blizzard came the Weendigo hunting its human prey.
I was watching a show the other night about haunted places. One was a road where there was what they called a skin walker.
It was from Indian legend. I don't know much about it but supposedly a shaman or something goes to the dark side and can shape shift, wearing the skin of their victims.
Skin Walkers are know as Yee Naaldlooshii to the Navajo. They are shape shifters and can change into a number of creatures.
The author Tony Hillerman wrote about them in some of his mysteries.
I have seen many shows on the SkinWalkers. Interesting.
I'm late to this party, but here's a fun link to use of the legend in modern literature.
The author quite liberal about the use of artistic licence with all monsters and legends in his stories from Vampires to Big Foot. I do like the books though and Fox (now Disney) has optioned them as a TV series.
I have read the Dresden Files series. I enjoyed them. Of course I do like magick novels.
Reading and watching shows about that are very scary.
Saw that when I was a kid, living near the Kiamichi Mountains...not too far down the road from where the events allegedly took place. My parents let me watch it with them about the same time my dad started letting me deer hunt alone. I was 9. Bigfoot was top of the list of scary things in the woods, followed by wild hogs and bears. I saw the latter two several times, and was never molested. My dad was a fan of getting on stand, long before sunrise. So, he'd drop me off at my stand, and I'd sit, alone, cold and in the dark, waiting for bigfoot to sneak up on me. Thankfully, he never did.
I always wanted to see Bigfoot, but to no avail.
I really don't remember being afraid of any monsters, etc. throughout my life, but Hal's new avatar scares the shit out of me.
I guess I haven't noticed the new avatar.
Time travelers freak me out the most. If someone could prove somehow that they were here from either the past or the future I think I would psychologically lose it. It just seems so fantastic.
Since my belief system does not include a linear time table, I see time traveling more as a jump from one plane of existence to another. To see something from another plane would most likely freak me out, so I get where you are coming from.
When I was a youth I was forced to attend this cult and they would have these seminars I think you would call them. Anyhow we had this weekend, one that portrayed the "RAPTUE". Traumatized the hell out of me. For part of my life I lived in fear of this.
I've always wanted to leave an empty set of clothes by the side of the road whenever some cult is screeching about the rapture happening on a specific date.
That would be mean.
Yeah...but I would help katrix!
Wellll, considering how that stuff scared me as a kid - count me in.
From my Catholic days I remember the Rapture as being the end times. Is that the same as what you are speaking of? It used to scare me because I never thought I was good enough to "be taken up".
When I went thru RCIA and then became a full member of the Church, I never heard anyone talking about the Rapture and End Times. Thank gawd....
My mother-in-law (I am hoping she found her peace) was very much into the Rapture. She kept giving me books on it. I am not sure when that talk died down in the Church.
I worked with a guy who got into that whole Rapture thing several years ago with the fraud Harold Camping. We all made a point to NOT bring it up the following Monday when he showed up at work. He was even interviewed on national news; he wasn't quiet about it at all. I felt so bad for his kids.
Funny thing is that he is a really intelligent person, not at all the type I would have expected to believe that crap.
During my time as a Catholic and then an Episcopalian, the Rapture was never mentioned at all. Thank goodness!
Wonder how I got to be so lucky.
No it was Christians. If you didn't accept Jesus Christ....I always say that as a Hispanic name, You would be left on Earth while all those that accepted went to heaven. Kinda like the This is the End movie.
I think "It" from Steven King's book It would be the scariest monster I've heard/read about.
When I was a kid my brother placed a little speaker under my bed with a wire running out the door and down the hall to his room. Shortly after going to bed one night I heard these "wooooo woooo" sounds. I shot out of bed, ran downstairs to my parents room scared to death !
Did you beat the crap out of him?
Ahhhhh, IT. One of my favs. I thought Pennywise was scarier than the spider monster.
LOL! That spider monster was actually disappointing after the horrors of Pennywise....and those nasty teeth!
I know...Pennywise is one of the reasons my daughter hates clowns.
I don't like them, either. I was frightened by a clown when I was small and then Pennywise came along and didn't help
Clowns don't bother me - I do not think they are funny, but I do not find them scary.
I became afraid of the dark and all monsters due to my cousin who babysat me, my sister and brother. My sister and I shared the upstairs bedroom. We would all go up there, they would turn off the lights and scare me. You name the monster, I was scared of it. Also, the Legend of Boggy Creek scared the crap out of me.
Now I love the dark, love scary movies.
My brothers used to do that to me as well.
I love scary movies (preferably without the blood & brain matter).
Has anyone ever heard of Chestnut Ridge, PA? It's not very far from where I grew up. It's not a town, but more like an area.
Anyway, I was watching a documentary about it one night and a lot of things started coming back to me. Apparently a lot of weird things happen on Chestnut Ridge
I am going to have to check that out. My sister & I are plotting places to visit. This past August we went to Waverly Hills in Kentucky and this June are off to Salem, MA. I want to go to Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, but she is reluctant. On our trip to Kentucky I tried to get her to stop at the prison where they filmed Shawshank in Ohio, but she said no.
So Chestnut Ridge - it is like an omen - I live off of Chestnut Ridge in Chili, NY.
I want to go to Salem, MA some day
This is Chestnut Ridge
We have rented an apartment for the week and all set to go. I am getting excited even though it is still months away.
That is beautiful. I think I can talk her into that. HeeHee - what she doesn't know can't hurt her?????
Have a great trip!
Don't tell her about the UFOs I've seen there
She loves the alien stuff. If I mention that we will be on our way.
My sister and I went there a couple of years ago. It's a neat little town, and we both wished we'd had longer to explore. Some of the witch stuff is a bit over-commercialized, though.
If you go, there are some ghost tours that really tell you more about the history than you likely learned in school. Like the financial incentives to convict people of witchcraft.
I've been doing some reading on my own and finding documentaries about the Salem Witch trials. But that tour sounds interesting
I have actually connected with a local coven and they are willing to take us around.
That sounds like a great way to get to know Salem.
I grew up near Point Pleasant, WV, home of the Mothman. There are some pretty interesting stories about him.
I have read many books and watched many shows about the Mothman. I find it intriguing.
Have you seen any episodes of the Ghosts of Shepherdstown?
I have. I love that stuff. Watch as much as I can.
Well then, I won't burst your bubble
I remember going into Shepherdstown once and seeing the film crews interviewing the town drunk. That would have been an interesting episode!
Ah, that's ok - I know most of that stuff is bunk. I watch mainly to get spooked even if I know it is faked. Same reason I watch scary movies and ghosty YouTube videos.
I overheard the former Chief of Police telling a friend of mine how while he was driving past one of the cemeteries, big gashes appeared on his back, under his uniform. I almost died laughing. I mean, really - he would have gone straight back to the station, they would have photographed the gashes, he would have gone to the doctor, and he would be incredibly famous for being the first person in the world to have actual proof.
I do love ghost stories, too!
Just one. It seemed a bit staged to me.
It definitely is. Even my friends who claim to have seen ghosts there say the show has nothing to do with any "real" ghost stories. I tend to like written ghost stories best; although The Others was an awesome movie.
I had a friend's sister try to tell me that Psychic Detectives was a true show. Because, you know, it's on TV!
I remember when the writers' strike happened .. Hollywood freaked out because the reality TV show writers were going on strike, too, and they didn't want people to realize they even existed.
Was that the one with Nicole Kidman who was living alone in a house with her 2 children? If so, that was an awesome movie. It had a "Sixth Sense" kind of ending
I liked that one a lot.
When we saw "The Others" in the theater, there was a power outage halfway through. An usher came in and told us that it was just ambiance
Yes, wasn't that ending great? I sure didn't see that coming!
Haha!
Have to take most of these stories with a grain of salt, but I like to watch when they show shadow figures and that kind of stuff.
Me too. My imagination tends to be very good. I remember the first time I read Peter Straub's Ghost Story I was completely freaked out when the men were describing their nightmares. So much more scarier than the movie.
Grendel from the poem Beowulf, ate his victims.
Yea, Grendel makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
I used to post on another forum with a mathematician who called his ex-wife Grendel. He was very funny guy.
Perhaps she has since eaten him:)
Went here....the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, I felt something or someone with cold hands on my back.
That is really close to me. I will have to check it out.
The "Monster of Miami" was Great ! FRIGGIN WEIRD !
The Dogman.
It's a Northern Michigan thing.
The Legend of the Dogmen
So you ever come here, on the seventh year ....... don't go out at night ...............
I will keep that in mind. I have read about the Dogman. I admit it: I am a cryptonut.