Myths, Legends, Folklore… all of it makes up a large part of the world we live in, they are part of traditions both old and new, they are part of oral stories past on through generations serving entertainment, humor, horror and sometimes guidance. Some choose to take folklore and legends seriously, such as that of many Native American Tribes where you often hear stories of many types of beasts and entities, such as that of Skin-walkers, Wendigos and Thunderbirds. Other folklore and legend serve as just a fun story to keep others amused and it is not necessarily believed in, for example Fearsome Critters, an old Lumberjack folklore originating from North America, about different types of often dangerous creatures that one may encounter in the woods and forests.
Our world is full of these interesting accounts that end up becoming infamous or well-known, but since much of it is old, a lot of it ends up becoming tweaked or changed up as it gets passed down, something that is unavoidable and so each story of folklore you hear now a days is very much likely to be quite different from the original telling, whenever that would have been.
But nonetheless it can be found all very interesting as well as captivating and helps keep our imaginations active and wild, thinking about if it could be true, at least partly or in some form, or if it was just made up as a form of entertainment as well as to make mischievous children behave or perhaps some of these many tales could have spawned from hoaxes played by ancient tricksters, one thing for sure is we will likely never know the origins or veracity of most legendary folklore.
Legends, Myths and Folklore have also had a massive effect on pop culture in various medias such as books, TV shows and movies, serving as the inspiration for many plots and created monsters.
Today I am going to go over some hand-picked legends and folklore, some you may well have heard of and others you may never knew had existed until now, there is so many of these tales out there that even if I covered folklore exclusively throughout this blog’s lifetime, I would still never get around to all of it. Each of the five will be from different countries.
Number 1 – The Jersey Devil
Our first stop is in the USA, which is absolutely stockpiled in myths, legends, folklore and the unexplained, much of it to do with Native Americans and others coming from more recent urban legends, since the US is still a fairly young country in terms of country age, much of US folklore is that of more modern urban legends.
This particular legend I am going to go into is very well known and is also often referred to as a cryptid, any being that has not been verified officially is known as a cryptid tale, much of which isn’t thought to be real. The Jersey Devil gets its name from where it is said to inhabit, the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, New Jersey being a state within the US.
The Jersey Devil often has a very strange and garbled up description, being that of a fusion of different animals and not all descriptions are exactly alike, it can vary, but the common description of the creature is that it has a horse or goat-like head, either with or without horns, an abnormally long neck reminiscent of a giraffe, large webbed wings, very small clawed arms, long skinny legs with hooves and a long, skinny forked tail such as is often depicted on the Devil, the creature is also said to have an ear-piercing screech. Yes, it sounds like quite the terrifying sight if you were ever to come across such an abomination.
A big part of the folklore is the supposed origin of the Jersey Devil, it is claimed that it came from a mother known as “Mother Leeds” from the Leeds family who lived in the area, which is why sometimes you may have heard the Jersey Devil referred to as the Leeds Devil as well. Mother Leeds already had 12 children at the time she became pregnant with the 13th child, of which it is said she cursed the baby to be the devil in frustration. The child was born on a stormy night in 1735 as the mother was surrounded by friends, the child was born seemingly normal but eventually morphed into a terrifying creature that then killed the midwife, flew up the chimney and escaped into the Pine Barrens where it now apparently resides. Another rendition of the tale claims Mother Leeds was actually a witch and that the child was the son of the Devil.
There have been numerous sightings of the Jersey Devil over the years, even one high-profile sighting by Napoleon Bonaparte’s elder brother.
Number 2 – The Beast of Bodmin Moor and Other Phantom Wild Cats
Next, we head over to the United Kingdom, my home country and a country that is rich in historical folklore. One such urban legend is that of an apparent wild cat known as The Beast of Bodmin Moor, an apparent black panther that roams in Cornwall, Bodmin Moor is where the majority of its sightings have occurred as to where its name originated from.
Sightings of exotic animals in places that they should not be is actually a fairly common occurrence and is something that has been going on since pretty much the beginning of time. Seeing wild exotic cats in places they are not known to reside are known as Phantom Wild Cats. the United Kingdom alone has a number of Phantom Wild Cat locations, but the Beast of Bodmin Moor is one of the most iconic, another well-known one is the Beast of Dartmoor.
As well as sightings there have also been mutilation of animals found, with claims that such mutilation of livestock could not have simply been done by foxes or other small mammalians that the UK countryside is known for. There have also been a number of alleged attacks on humans, with some showing claw mark proof, but none of them have been officially confirmed as big cat attacks and a number of them have also scarily remained inconclusive. Even some footage of apparent Phantom Cats in the UK can be found on places like Youtube.
One interesting video features the famous UK chef Gordan Ramsay, where he is told one of his sheep had been mysteriously killed, with much of its meat having been stripped off. Gordan Ramsay, gutted with the news called in a veterinarian to do a post-mortem on the sheep to determine what could have killed it, what further deepened the mystery was a recent newspaper article telling about a police hunt of a possible big cat in the area, the vet could also not rule out a big cat attack, a later pathology report was also unable to rule out a big cat attack due to the nature of the killing, its neck having been dislocated and the meat easily torn from the body.
It is quite frightening to think that taking a nice long stroll in the UK’s beautiful and famous countryside’s could be dangerous, just think of any times you yourself have walked out in large open fields, woods, forests without a care in the world, with possibly one of these things hiding… and watching, from only a few feet away.
Explanations of these incidents have ranged from mis-identification of larger than normal native animals or just animals in general or even the possibility of circuses having released animals into the wild they no longer wanted, or others that had illegally owned these exotic animals and no longer wanted to. As always, hoaxes and pranks can also not be ruled out.
Number 3 – The Rusalka
Next, we head on over to Eastern Europe where Slavic Folklore tells us of the Rusalka, female entities that are reminiscent of mermaids, the behavior and description of the entity varies from region to region but it is commonly accepted that they have a hatred for men and/or mankind. The Rusalka is a big part of pop culture in Slavic countries.
A widely accepted description of the creatures is that they were young and beautiful looking, often having red hair (with some lore claiming they could change their appearance to suit a man’s lust) and they would attempt to lure men either by their looks or their mesmerizing voice into a body of water where they would then drown them, using their hair. Rusalka are said to originate from a tragic death of a young woman, either through suicide or murder involving water and related to an unhappy marriage, even more so if the woman was pregnant with child, although some of the lore claims that a Rusalka is not always the result of a water-related suicide or murder.
The original origins of the Rusalka though, before the 19th century, was that of a peaceful entity that would provide nourishment and fertility, rather than be malevolent, the peaceful Rusalka coming from Slavic Paganism and so the Rusalka more common now a days are a spring off from that.
A time of year they are meant to be at their most active and dangerous is early June, known as Rusalka Week, where some who are paranoid or highly superstitious may avoid swimming or forbid others from doing so.
Number 4 – The Slit-Mouthed Woman
And now we head to Japan, a place in my humble opinion, that has some of the scariest urban legends around, the creatures from such folklore and legends are terrifying in description and behavior. Very freakish and unnatural, it is no wonder that a country as creative as Japan would have such colourful monstrosities.
One such legend is that of the Slit-mouthed Woman, also called Kuchisake-onna. She is a malicious and extremely terrifying entity, at first, she seems like that of a beautiful woman, but she hides horrible gore behind a piece of cloth mask or a fan in the older version of the myth, but in the more modern version she is said to cover her mouth with a surgical mask. She approaches her victims to initiate a conversation that can lead down several routes, all likely ending in either brutal death or disfigurement of the victim’s mouth.
The conversation begins by her asking “Am I pretty?”, if you say “No” she kills you with a pair of scissors in her pocket in the more modern version of the tale, previously in older versions she would instead stalk you back to your house and brutally murder you. Instead if you answer “Yes” the conversation will instead progress with her taking off her mouth cover, revealing her horrible mouth slits and saying “How about now?”, if you reply with “No” she will again murder you, apparently by chopping you in half, if you say “Yes” then she will give you a disfigured mouth like her own. The exact conversation varies from tale to tale, but that is the general gist of the legend.
There are apparently ways to escape her so you do not have to play her little game, avoiding death or brutal disfigurement altogether, answers such as “You are average” or “so-so” are said to confuse her and give you time to get away, trying to run away without distracting or confusing her is apparently impossible as she will simply teleport in front of you. Throwing boiled sweets or coins at her is said to also be another trick to get away.
The legend has been in existence for a very long time, going back as far as the Edo period, the legend had a modern resurgence in the late 1970s and since then has remained a popular urban legend. The origins of the slit-mouthed woman are said to have come from some village in Japan where she lived, wife to a Samurai, she would walk the village asking people if she was pretty, with them always saying yes, this is said to have given her great confidence, more so enough to think that she could get away with an affair with a noble soldier, though the Samurai found out and after confronting and forgiving the soldier for his mis-deeds he went after his wife and slit her mouth as punishment, so that she was no longer the most beautiful woman, the woman later committed suicide.
The slit-mouthed woman has made a number of appearances in pop culture such as manga, anime and even movies.
Number 5 – Middle-Eastern Ghouls
Ghouls are horrible savage humanoid creatures that come from Arabic folklore, the stories and tales of such things going back for thousands of years, even before Islam had become prevalent in the region. Basically, they are said to be a type of demon or undead monster, that look retched, ugly and very frightening with their behavior being of a vicious nature.
They are said to reside in graveyards, desert plains and other uninhabited places where they attempt to lure humans into their grasps, to brutally devour them, some tales have them eating dead flesh as well, but this is apparently an adaptation of when the Ghoul Folklore was introduced to Europe. Ghouls are said to be known for their trickery in luring humans to them, such as the ability to change their form into that of an attractive woman or a hyena, to lure in men or other people for example. Folktales often told of them going after children as well, the boogeyman of the Middle East.
Some tales also talk of ghouls stealing coins and dates and so it appears that not only are they terrifying, brutal, man-eating fiends, but also mischievous buggers as well. Ghouls also exist in parts of Asian folklore as well and the ghoul adaptation into Europe also has its differences from the Middle-East version, so not each in all of them are the same and some ghouls in the Middle East were also infamous enough to get their own names and unique myth and folklore.
The general look of a ghoul is that they are often skinny and skeletal, often with disfigured features, such as torn skin, visible bone but possess unusual strength for their stature, often able to over-power any person they come across, their skin is rotted and dark-grey or green and they often have grotesque long razor-sharp teeth and claws, their face having skeletal or goblin-like features. They often move around utilizing both hands and legs interchangeably or all at once, such as on all fours… yup, I would not want to run into one of these late at night.
For me out of this list, the Slit-Mouthed Woman was definitely the most unsettling tale, I find most of Japanese myths, legends and folklore to be both thrilling and scary, but all of these are very interesting to learn about and much more can be dug into them. In my next blog post on the mysterious, I am going to go through 5 different legendary folklore characters, that can include heroes, people of legend, villains and others that have interesting folkloric stories from centuries ago.
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