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Strange Illnesses and the Folklore Surrounding Them

As winter approaches every year, we are plagued with the flu and the common cold. However, we always know they are coming, and many of us try to prepare ourselves for them as much we as possibly can. No one could have ever prepared or expected some of the plagues and illnesses that have occurred that were much stranger than the flu or the common cold.   Imagine you have lost all control of your body and have found yourself dancing uncontrollably, unable to stop. That is what those affected by the dancing plague experienced. Some Christians believed Saint Vitus was the cause of this strange illness due to the folkloric belief that Saint Vitus would curse anyone that angered him with a dancing plague. Obviously, some kind of illness must have been the real cause. Many people believe starvation drove the dancing people insane, but how did starving people have the energy to dance for days? Would that be impossible without some kind of disease or chemical altering their body chemistry?
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Black Hooded Figures

In 2013 a couple saw two extremely thin, deathly pale white humanoids wearing black hooded cloaks walking down the road in front of their rural home in Enon Valley, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. They were about six feet tall, the same height as an average man. The first thing that the wife thought when she saw these strange black hooded figures was that they were unlike anything she had ever seen before and that they did not belong there. It was not Halloween, so they doubted that these were people walking to a costume party at someone’s house. The area is so rural and the houses are so far apart that the children in the area do not even walk house to house for trick or treating on this road. It was a very creepy, explainable experience for both of them.       About 23 years earlier, the couple's son-in-law spotted a black hooded figure in Enon Valley while driving home one night on route 551. It stood about five and a half feet tall and was extremely pale white with no visib
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Folklore of Santa Claus and His Connection to the Realm of the Fae

There have been many figures and customs throughout history that have contributed to the folklore of Santa Claus since ancient times. Santa Claus is known for wearing a red suit with white trim and a red and white hat. However, some say that in the original folkloric tales of Santa Claus, he is wearing a green suit and hat because one of the earliest versions of Santa Claus was the Celtic Holly King that wore green with red embellishments to represent holly leaves and berries. St. Nicolas, the Christian saint, which Santa Claus was also based on, was said to wear red and white like the modern-day version of Santa Claus. Santa Claus is often referred to as a jolly old elf. The connection between Santa Claus and the fae most likely originated from folklore from ancient pagan beliefs.  Denmark’s version of Santa Claus was a small elf-like or gnome-like creature called a Tomte in the 1840s, which wore a red hat and had a white beard. A Tomte was originally a gnome-like creature that l
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The Frightening Folklore of Trees

I had a very strange dream a few days ago about people being accused of being witches and being hanged from a tree.  Now, I’ve been thinking about the folklore that surrounds trees. There is a great deal of folklore about trees. Like the beast is tied to the rose in Beauty and the Beast, there is folklore of people’s lives being tied to trees. When the person dies, the tree dies at the same time. Sometimes people take something that belongs to a person suffering from an illness and puts it on a tree in hopes that the tree will take on the illness and the person will regain their health. In some cultures, certain trees are thought house djinn or other spirits. Thinking about trees has made me think about the Dwarf Black Elder tree I bought and planted in my yard after I sold my first few articles, seven years ago. I tied my writing career to it in my mind, thinking that my writing career will grow with the tree and that the tree will grow with my writing career. My Elder tree i
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Frightening Fields: The Folklore of Scarecrows, the Boogeyman, and Human Sacrifice

The rituals and beliefs that surrounded farming and harvesting crops in ancient times was strange and even frightening.  Scarecrows are now a common fall household decoration as well as a staple in many fields, but they have a very creepy side to them. Some people have even claimed to see scarecrows walking through the fields and peering in their windows at night.  In Polish folklore, there is a creature that looks like a scarecrow called Hastrman that lurks along riverbanks making the sound of a baby crying to lure people to it. It carries a large sack, which it uses to abduct its victims.  The very first scarecrows could have been actual humans who had been sacrificed to their gods for the fertility of the crops in ancient times.  Human sacrifice was a part of farming and harvesting crops in many ancient cultures all around the world. In some cultures, the heads of sacrificed humans were cut off and placed on pikes. Some ancient pagans placed humans in a wicker man and burne
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Boogeywomen in Folklore

When people think of a creature that snatches up little children in the night, they usually think of the boogieman, but there are many boogiewomen in folklore that are just as malevolent and frightening as the boogieman. Here are a few of the boogeywomen found in folklore around the world. The Banshee is one of the more popular boogiewomen. There is folklore of banshees being the spirits of deceased women, but there is also folklore of banshees being elemental spirits, such as a fairy. In some folklore, fairies are considered spirits of the dead. According to folklore, a banshee’s scream is heard before a death in a family. Black Annis or Black Agnes is a boogiewoman who resides in a cave in the English countryside of Leicestershire in the Dane Hills, which has a tunnel connected to Leicestershire castle according to folklore. She has iron talons, blue skin, and only one eye. She preys on little children, which she eats and decorates her cave with their skins. Baba Yaga is
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Magical Rituals Involving Food and Drink

There have been people that have admitted to cooking with breast milk, urine, semen, saliva, and menstrual blood for others to eat. Usually we only hear stories of restaurant workers adding bodily fluids to the food of their least favorite patrons, but sometimes it’s a friend or family member serving foods with these fluids. Many people have no idea they are consuming these things when a friend or family member gives them these strange meals to eat, and some knowingly choose to eat these foods. This is often done for magical purposes. There is lore that if a woman serves a man food that contains her menstrual blood and urine, he will stay faithful to her as long as he is regularly consuming meals with these bodily fluids. People who go to spirit cooking dinners are completely aware they are consuming bodily fluids in spirit cakes, which are cakes made with bodily fluids. Christian churches use a wafer and wine to represent Christ’s body and blood during holy communion. How
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Those Who Inhabit the Dead in Folklore

Anytime a person sees something that resembles a corpse, they usually experience a primal fear. They know on a deep subconscious level that there is something wrong with whatever they are seeing. There have been many accounts of sightings of thin ghastly white humanoids out in public places, showing up on doorsteps, and even in people bedrooms at night. They are so white that they look like a walking corpse. They often walk in a jerky manor, like they are not used to walking. Perhaps it is because they are not used to walking in the body they are inhabiting during the time of these strange sightings. Maybe the bodies they are inhabiting aren’t really their bodies but the bodies of a ghastly white corpse or its skin. In folklore, there are certain demonic entities, shamans, and creatures that can possess the bodies of the dead or the skin of the dead. Vetala are bodiless Hindu demons that can enter the bodies of the living and the dead. After they inhabit a body they are vampir
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Welcome to Frightening Folklore

Folklore is always with us hiding in the shadows of our everyday lives even if we don't realize it. It emerges in small ways such as when you sneeze and someone says " God bless you" without really knowing why other than that we are taught to say it out of politeness just like we are taught to say please and thank you. People began saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes because some of our ancestors believed that a person's soul could leave their body through their mouth when they sneezed. They believed that saying "God bless you" would stop the devil from taking a person's soul when they sneeze or release the soul if the devil had captured it. Some people believed that evil spirits were leaving the body when a person sneezed and that saying "God bless you" after the sneeze would keep the evil spirits from reentering the sneezing person's body. "God bless you" was also said after a sneeze because in some cases a
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