Samedi: Chthonian Histories

We were watching The Green Mile last night and I began thinking about the pros and cons, for lack of a better expression, of capital punishment. It has certainly been proven that certain types of offenders, child molesters as an example that fits the topic, are not likely to be "rehabbed". Their rate of re-offense is virtually 100% and considering the lives they destroy, the argument for destroying them holds weight. But, continuing on the theme of the movie, when one sees a death such as that of poor Eduard Delacroix one can easily make a case for deleting the institution all together. Then, too, when John Coffey tells Paul Edgecomb that he's "tired of the pain, boss" we understand. Who wouldn't rather be executed than caged?

All this brings me to the horrific yet curious story of Robert Francois Damiens. Born in a small hamlet in the northern French province of Arras circa 1715, Damiens quite literally never amounted to much. He was apparently dishonorably discharged from the army and then held a series of jobs as a servant or laborer from which he was usually dismissed as well. He was probably bipolar, but who knew of such things then?

Damiens claim to fame, or infamy as it may be, was a half-hearted attempt on the life of King Louis XV. Damiens stabbed the king as he was descending a carriage and then made no attempt to escape. The king was subjected to a mere flesh wound, and perhaps a bit of embarrassment, but Damiens would suffer far, far worse.

Hauled off to a hasty trial, Damiens ranted and raved so much that he was tied down to a mattress when brought before his judges (as shown in the engraving above via Wikimedia). He was quickly convicted of attempted regicide and sentenced to die quite literally by torture. The last days of Robert Francois Damiens and Agnes, the miller's daughter hold much in common.

Like Agnes, Damiens became curiously stoic as the hour - or hours - of his death drew near. In his book Death, A History of Man's Obsessions and Fears, Robert Wilkins quotes from a contemporary source which describes Damiens' honorable behavior in the face of unbearable misery. Damiens had his skin seared with hot sulphur and then the executioner took steel pincers "which had been especially made for the occasion,, and which were about a foot and a half long" and ripped chunks of flesh from Damiens' calves, thighs, arms and chest. The contemporary source goes on to tell us that "though a strong, sturdy fellow, this executioner found it so difficult to tear away the pieces of flesh that he set about the same spot two or three times, twisting the pincers as he did so..." After this, each wound was filled with molten lead.

Damiens cried out "Pardon my God! Pardon, Lord!" we are told. Wilkins also says that "from time to time he would raise his head and look over his tortured body." He was then harnessed to horses at each limb but to no avail. The horses pulled so hard for well over half an hour that one collapsed in his harness and yet poor Damiens' limbs would not be ripped from his torso. At this point, the prisoner - doubtless in unimaginable pain - asked calmly that the priest standing by say masses for his soul.

After fresh horses were brought in, Damiens' legs were finally torn off. The execution then chopped the prisoner's arms from his body, evidently with a sword or axe. At this point, the executioner pronounced the man dead. The pamphleteer, however, begged to differ:

... the truth was that I saw the man move, his lower jaw moving from side to side as if he were talking. One of the executioners said that he was still alive when his trunk was thrown on the stake.

All of Damiens' body parts were reduced to ash and scattered to the four winds.

Damiens remained something of a bogey man in French memory and, after the Terror, it was rumored that Maximilien Robespierre was related to him. There appears to be no validity to this and it seems to have sprung from their only connection: both men were from Arras.

The disgusting yet dignified death of Robert Francois Damiens remains an obvious case of justice gone berserk. Surely unfortunate Damiens could have agreed with John Coffey when he said he was tired of the pain.

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In the more florid days of anatomists and resurrectionists, people worried about their bodies being exhumed for medical research. Such horrors were only replaced in the Victorian mind when the likes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gave way to Bram Stoker's Dracula. A long interval of decades indeed and either way we're dealing with the resurrected dead, aren't we?

Today, for your enjoyment, a poem by Thomas Hood who died in 1845, fairly the height of the post Burke and Hare era of the late 1820s. The poem is told from the perspective of the ghost of a young woman who, dead before she could marry her dear William, returns to him one night to recount the ghastly dismemberment her corpse has suffered. Hood clearly has a wry sense of the issue as well as a dark sense of humor. One wonders what he might have to say about our current culture's zombie craze.

The arm that used to take your arm
Is took to Dr. Vyse
And both my legs are gone to walk
The Hospital at Guy's.

I vowed that you should have my hand,
But fate gives us denial;
You'll find it there at Dr. Bell's
In spirits and a phial.

I can't tell you where my head is gone
But Doctor Carpue can; 
As for my trunk, it's all packed up
To go by Pickford's van.

The cock it crows - I must be gone!
My William, we must part
But I'll be yours in death, altho'
Sir Astley has my heart.

Header: Pendumbra by Enjeong Noh via American Gallery

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

While enjoying a new book I received recently, The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love & Longing in the Ancient World by Vicki Leon - which I cannot recommend enough - I came across a nice little tidbit to round out the discussions of the last few Fridays. Evidently calling up the dark creatures of the underworld to inflame lust is a very ancient practice indeed.

In the chapter "Love Dilemmas & Lust at the Crossroads," Ms. Leon offers a few extant "love spells" that are intended either to draw in an unsuspecting individual or to do harm to a lost lover. In the case I've chosen today, Ms. Leon notes that a woman named Sophia had a mad lust for another woman, Gorgonia, and her remedy for satiation of that lust has survived into modern times.

Ms. Leon notes that an "elaborate erotic spell" was written down by Sophia, and quotes a portion of it in the book. As you'll note, the spell is full of netherworld imagery including reference to those untiring servants of fate, the Erinyes, and Cerberus, the three-headed bitch of Hades. I will use Ms. Leon's quote directly:

Fundament of the gloomy darkness, jagged-tooth dog, covered with coiling snakes, turning three heads, traveler in the recesses of the underworld, spirit-driver, with the Erinyes [the Furies] savage with their stinging whips, holy serpents, maenads, frightful maidens, come to my wroth incantations. Before I persuade by force this one and you, render him immediately a fire-breathing demon. Listen and do everything quickly, in no way opposing me in the performance of this action, for you are the governors of the earth. [Three lines of magical gibberish follow.] By means of the corpse-daemon inflame the heart, the liver, the spirit of Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, with love and affection for Sophia, whom Isara bore. Constrain Gorgonia to cast herself into the bath-house for the sake of Sophia; and you, become a bath-room. Burn, set on fire, inflame her soul, heart, liver, spirit with love for Sophia.

That's powerful stuff and sounds very much like a modern love song with a twist. Sophia is mad with love for Gorgonia and will call up the demons of Hades to achieve her fantasy. One wonders what outcome may have materialized from so much psychic melodrama.

Header: A Greek Woman by Lawrence Alma-Tadema c 1869 via Wikimedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The slightly more creepy and definitely less written about sister of the incubus we discussed last week is, of course, the succubus. She is discussed in the largely Medieval literature as appearing to men in the guise of the most beautiful woman on earth. In fact, when the curtain is pulled back - or the exorcist has had his way - her true form materializes. She is either a grizzled hag in Satan's service or a corpse reanimated by the power of a demon.

According to Genevieve and Tom Morgan in their 1996 publication The Devil succubus means "to lie under" just as incubus means "to lie upon." One has to imagine that the reference is to the human attacked by the demon as succubi were said to straddle men in their sleep and ride them as if they were horses. The poor man would wake up, sweaty and exhausted, only to have to return to his bed and similar treatment the next night. Some authorities postulate that this is the origin of our modern "nightmare" but there is much to debate there.

In general, succubi are and were considered by demonologists to be the daughters of the first wife of Adam: Lilith. These bad girls, sometimes known as lilin, were difficult to exorcise but seemingly not quite as difficult as those nasty incubi for reasons we will discuss in a minute.

The succubi, hag or corpse, were intent on stealing the seed of human men and using it for nepharious, demonic intents. In fact, Francis Barrett, writing in his Celestial Intelligencer in 1801, posits the following origin of succubi:

... the nymphs of the wood were preferred before the others in beauty... and at length [they] began wedlocks with men, feigning that, by these copulations, they should obtain an immortal soul for them and their offspring.

In Barrett's supposition, the dryads of Greek mythology were nothing more than lovely demons who, in mating with mortal men hoped to gain everlasting life by almost literally sucking the soul from them.

Barrett's latter-day ideology aside, it probably comes as no surprise that monks and priests were favorite targets of these wood nymphs com demons. Hermits were particularly juicy prey and Saints Anthony, Hilary and Hippolytus all wrote of their encounters with the gorgeous flesh of tempting succubi. While Anthony and Hippolytus speak only of one succubus at a time, Hilary notes that he often found himself "encircled by naked women. Hippolytus' tormenter, when cloaked in the saint's chasuble, collapsed to the floor as old bones. In later writings, church fathers such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome wagged their fingers at hermits who welcomed the attentions of their demonic lovers. Augustine even mentions one monk who was so consumed with his succubus that he literally died of exhaustion due to his near perpetual fornication with her. Or it.

The overall tone of these writings, however, was that men were far more steadfast at rejecting the attention of succubi than women were with incubi. This was thought to be true to such a degree that St. Jerome claimed authoritatively that incubi outnumbered succubi 9 to 1. Quite a margin if you think about it.

Header: The Temptation of St. Anthony by Alexandre Louis Leloir via 1st Art Gallery

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The cousin or, perhaps more correctly evil step-brother, of the dream lover that we talked about last Friday is the incubus. Known of old as a demon to be feared and especially battled against, the incubus was envisioned as a sometimes handsome but in true form grotesque creature who either raped women or enticed them into sexual liaisons in the very dead of night. This demon is generally thought of in our modern, scientific world as a result of psychiatric disease brought on by the overly repressed cultures of Medieval Europe and Puritanical New England, to name two. In fact, the incubus may be a much older presence than a passing glance would have us believe.

Certain scholars, including those who study such diverse histories as Hebrew beliefs and Arthurian legends, access that the original incubus may have been one of that famous trio of Sumerian demons that included the previously discusses Ardat-Lili. The lili, a male demon, was said to trouble women's sleep, bring them erotic dreams and, in some cases, sire children of a changeling nature upon them. This would make the lili/human hybrid at least somewhat akin to a fairy child.

Fast forward to those days of Medieval tension and the stories of incubi accosting women - particularly innocent maidens and sequestered Brides of Christ - abound. In this period, incubi were said to be clever shapeshifters who could take on the appearance of anyone their chosen female prey might be attracted to. Demons, having no particular corporeal restraints, could pass as smoke or mist under a door or through the cracks in a wooden or stone wall and materialize on the other side. No woman, it seemed, was safe; but the incubi had their favorites.

Nuns were a decidedly popular conquest and, in the reverse, incubi were usually blamed for any convent indiscretions. Until well into the Gothic period, the accusation that an incubus, and not a human man, had gotten a nun pregnant was taken almost for granted.

When one Archbishop Sylvanus, who was the particular confessor of a large convent of Dominican nuns in what is now Bavaria, was accused of sexual assault by one of the good sisters - a particularly young and pretty good sister it is said - he simply turned up his silk-gloved hands. It could not be me, he protested; I would never break my vow of chastity. Surely Sister so-and-so (needless to say her name does not appear in the record) was visited by an incubus who had taken my form. What other explanation could their be? The 15th century inquisitors before whom Sylvanus appeared nodded thoughtful and then agreed with him. Case closed.

Telling an honest (or dishonest, in the case of the aforementioned Bishop) man from an incubus was surprisingly simple. When the list is ticked off, in fact, it is a little surprising that these demons troubled themselves with a disguise. The incubus had an unholy odor, either of sulfur, the barnyard or the rotting corpse that he had picked up as a skin. He had the power to paralyze anyone near his chosen victim, putting them into a trance-like sleep so that, even if the person in question lay right next to the woman, they would not be disturbed from their slumber. Worst of all, the incubus - regardless of what form he took - was said to be endowed with a huge, ice-cold member that was sometimes reported to be two or even three-pronged.

Anomolies of birth were often whispered to have been the result of rutting with an incubus. Woe to the woman who gave birth to an unfortunately harelipped, club-footed or otherwise "different" child; twins or children with red hair were also said to be the sons or daughters of incubi. The wizard Merlin is told to have been such a one and even in the Romantic era certain unkind types talked of George Gordon Byron, who had a club-foot, being the son of an incubus.

With all this, there were some ladies who willingly welcomed the incubus as a steady lover. Franciscan Ludovico Sinistrari, operating in the late 17th century and author of Demoniality, became somewhat of an expert on incubi and ways to exorcise them from the lives of such deluded women. He noted that these demons were particularly difficult to clear out as they "have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things [and]... sometimes even laugh at exorcists." He goes on to give the example of a wife and mother so infatuated with her demon lover that she hardly blinked when, in retaliation to Sinistrari's exorcism attempts, the incubus built a wall of roofing tiles around her bed so tall that she needed a ladder to climb in and out.

A troublesome situation indeed... Next Friday, the yang to the the incubus' ying: the succubus.

Header: Incubus by Charles Walker c 1870 via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The realms of the underworld and sexuality intertwine and weave a tangled web that continues to burrow into our psyche like the persistent and arrogant roots of the weeping willow will do into the foundation of a home. It's a slow process that moves in mere fractions of an inch but, if left unchecked, it just may drive one mad.

And speaking of madness, let us take the next few weeks to discuss some strange, and very chthonian, bedfellows of old: the incubus, the succubus, and their cousin and today's topic, the dream lover.

One of the best illustrations of the dream lover - who is by no means a dream and is often a shape shifter or revenant in the literature - comes from that old '80s favorite, the movie Excalibur. Early on Queen Igraine, that Dark Ages sex kitten who flairs the passions of Uther Pendragon, believes she has been visited by her husband one night while he is supposed to be away fighting Uther's hordes. To Igraine's horror, she discovers that her husband was in fact killed in battle the very night he crawled into their bed. Who then made love to her? As we all know, Uther wearing a magickal skin placed over him by the wizard Merlin.

Such protestations of women - that their far away husband appeared to them in the flesh and impregnated them - pepper the history of the witch craze. Most of these unfortunates were accused of adultery or, worse still, welcoming a demon into their beds. But once in a while the tribunals were kind and the dream lover was awarded his do: the paternity of the woman's child.

This latter is the case in a curious story written in 1698 by Professor Johann Klein of the University of Rostock. The story centers around a gentlewoman named Lucile or Lucienne de Montleon. Madame de Montleon lived in the French speaking province of Switzerland and her husband, Seigneur Jerome Auguste de Montleon had been away at war for some four years when Madame suddenly turned up pregnant.

As Madame fretted over this situation, word came to her chateau that her husband was dead. Fainting away, Lucile spent the rest of her confinement in bed. She did manage to bring forth a strapping son within the year and, pulling herself up by her corsets straps, presented him to the city council as her husband's son and heir. Her claim as far as the unusual timing of the birth was simple: her husband had made her pregnant in a dream. When she received push-back on her claim - there were doubtless others who would have liked nothing better than to take over the Seigneur's land and income - Madame asked that the matter be heard in court.

The initial findings of the local judges did not go as Madame had hoped. Most called her an adulteress and two labeled her mad. Apparently unshakeable in her resolve, Madame de Montleon appealed her case to the Parlement of Grenoble. There not only two midwives but a doctor from the local University testified in Lucile's favor. They unanimously told the court that impregnations via dream were as common as flowers in spring among the peasant classes. Just because they were rarely heard of among the gentry, didn't mean that they weren't possible among the gentry.

The Parlement, taking all testimony into consideration, found in favor of Lucile de Montleon. Her son, whose name the good doctor does not share with us, was named so heir to the Seigneur.

What Johann Klein does share is a rather blue denouement to this already colorful story. According to Klein the case became something of an international sensation, to the point that the faculty of law at the Sorbonne in Paris looked over all the evidence and testimony reviewed by their colleagues in Grenoble. They concluded, as men often will, that the Parlement was simply helping a lady out of a difficult situation. After all, what educated man, or right thinking woman, could every believe in a dream lover...

Header: The Lunatic of Etretat by Hugues Merle c 1874 via Old Paint

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

When modern historians discuss or write about the witch craze in Europe and the Americas, very little thought - if any - is given to the people who looked after those unfortunates accused of communing with Satan. Many times, in fact to a surprising large degree, the jailors are painted as one dimensional thugs reveling in the cruel treatment of their pitiable charges. It is much easier to focus on the horrors of torture than on the inner lives of those who administered the torture.

In his brilliant analysis of the Pappenheimer family ordeal that played out in early 17th century Munich, Germany, Highroad to the Stake: A Tale of Witchcraft, Michael Kunze turns his attention to the keepers of the accused. With surprising empathy and clarity he documents what his research has shown him about ironmaster Georg, the unwitting keeper of the jail known as the Falcon Tower, and his nameless, unenviable wife. Even as he tortured the Pappenheimers as well as Agnes the miller's daughter and her family, Georg's wife kept each one in fresh straw, clean water and warm stew.

Certainly, not every inquisitorial dungeon was run like the Falcon Tower, but the little crack that Kunze opens onto the ironmaster's family's world is at the very least thought provoking. Here is an excerpt from the section entitled "A Day in the Life of a Jailor's Wife" (pp 291-292):

Very little has come down to us about the ironmaster's wife, who performed a range of lowly tasks in the Munich Falcon Tower. We do not even know her name. The prisoners, to whom she brought their meals and occasionally fresh straw for their cells, called her "the ironmaster's wife." We have to imagine a woman of about thirty, not ugly but not pretty either, not squeamish but not coarse. What with all the pain and squalor suffered by the inmates of the Falcon Tower, we are liable to forget that the jailor's wife did not have an easy life herself. The reason lay in her nature, which I believe I know something about, in spite of the meager information in our sources.

The ironmaster's wife was neither stupid nor dull nor harsh. She would have had to be all these things not to find life in the Falcon Tower hard. On the ground floor of the prison she acted as a housewife, looked after her husband and her children, cleaned and washed, placed a few flowers beneath the crucifix. On the northeast side of the building she had laid out a little garden in which a few vegetables and some wild flowers transplanted from the meadows struggled to exist, for very little sun found its way into the quadrangle between the high walls. In this way she tried to lead the life of simple, ordinary fold. But she knew that beneath her little domestic kitchen there lay a vault of horrors, while above it prisoners languished, chained to the walls of their evil-smelling hutches. She could hear the footsteps of these poor wretches on the wooden stairs as they were taken to the torture chamber for interrogation. She saw them in their pitiable condition following the torture. And when her scowling husband joined her and the children at their meagerly furnished table and said grace before the midday meal, she knew that the screams of his victims were still ringing in his ears. Was it possible to talk about the weather, the price of beef, or the Sunday picnic with the children that they had planned? Of course it was possible, and they did it, but they never ceased to be aware of the misery that surrounded them; conversation about everyday things always had an undertone of terror. The ironmaster's wife was unable to separate her official life from her private life as may have been possible in later ages, for the two were linked and interwoven. When she went shopping and did the cooking, she was doing it for the prisoners as well as her family. It was not uncommon for interrogations to take place in her living room. People in the street did not see her simply as a housewife; they avoided her as "dishonorable" on account of her husband's occupation.

He had not assumed office of his own free will. The record suggests often enough that he was no more coarse and violent of disposition than his wife was. He took no pleasure in the prisoners' suffering, but in all probability he was afraid of the power of the demons, whose presence he believed he could sense often enough as he practiced his cruel trade. What forced him to pursue his vocation? We do not know, we can only suppose that he himself had once been a prisoner and had been pardoned simply because there was need of a jailor. He was not permitted to "give notice," for, had he given up his office, he would once more have been treated as a prisoner, and possibly suffered punishment of death.

And so the horrible machine ground down both accused and jailor. And the jailor's wife as well.

Header: Prisoner by Bessonov Nicolay c 1988 via InquisitionArt (please know that Nicolay's art, while brilliant, is very realistic and very graphic; viewer discretion is advised)

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The Mexican saint who is rejected by the Catholic Church and feared as a goddess of drug lords and sex traffickers is, in all fairness, vastly misunderstood by those outside the circle of her devoted followers. Santa Muerte, or Santisima Muerte, is the figure of saintly or sacred Death, and her cult is on the rise not just in Mexico.

It probably doesn't help her image that Santa Muerte is generally depicted much like the European figure of Death. As an example, she shares the dark robes and reaping scythe of the Breton Ankou. Her skeleton face and hands usually feature in her statues, pictures and prayer cards. Besides the scythe, Santa Muerte is often depicted holding the scales of judgment and accompanied by an owl. Her shrines, many of them incredibly elaborate like the one pictured above, can be found all over Mexico and the Mexico/U.S. boarder. Most are not readily bumped into by tourists, though. They are in out of the way places where her devotees can pray to their saint in peace.

While some stories of where Santa Muerte came from hark to her especial protection of women and children, giving her a back story as a jilted wife who killed her cheating husband, Santa Muerte's origins are probably far older. She appears to be firmly rooted in the soil of Mexico as an amalgam of both European folklore and pre-Columbian religion. Santa Muerte is generally thought to be the direct descendant of Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of the underworld. In her book Goddesses and Heroines, Patricia Monaghan describes the goddess as one who:

...ruled the nine rivers of the afterlife to which evil souls were condemned. There, however, they did not suffer torments or pain; instead, they led afterlives of boredom and monotony, while better souls enjoyed the colorful existence of heaven.

The underworld of Mictecacihuatl and her consort Mictlantecahtli resembled the Greek and Hebrew afterlife. It was a gray forever with nothing changing millennium after millennium.

Other sources claim the Mictecacihuatl and her husband were considered gateways to the ancestors through whom - if these dark gods were propitiated with blood sacrifice - the living could communicate with the dead. Thus it is believed that this goddess was the primary benefactor of what has become known as the Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Mexico. The modern Santa Muerte has the same connections as well, although her followers eschew any consideration of spilling blood in her name.

The devotion to Santa Muerte, which as I mentioned is on the rise, probably stems from the leveling nature of Death. We are all born to die. As more than one artist in more than one medium has reiterated: no one gets out of here alive. Thus it is thought that Santa Muerte hears the sincere prayer without prejudice. So she may bring back a wayward lover just as quickly as she might put up obstacles in the path of one of her devotee's enemies. Who is she to judge, after all? We will all come to her in time, prayers or no.

One of the most popular prayers to Santa Muerte links her to the Catholic Church, despite their desperate attempts to disown this other face of the Virgin Mary. The nine day novena to Santisima Muerte comes in many forms and one can adjust the wording to their needs. Find an excellent example of a novena to keep a man faithful here at Lucky Mojo as well as Cat Yronwode's amusing and fascinating tale of how she first met La Santisima.

Santa Muerte is not - necessarily - a particular guardian of those who do evil in our world. She is also not a spirit to be trifled with. Do your research before approaching La Santisima. That said, bonne chance ~

Header: Detail of an elaborate Santa Muerte shrine including a human skeleton from south of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In May of 2011 I put up this post regarding the so called demons Lamastu (or Lamashtu) and Pazuzu. Just as an aside, and in case you - like me - are a fan of the SyFy series "Face Off" the latter's name is pronounced PA-zoo-zoo; not pa-ZA-zoo which I imagine would make him some kind of jazz hands sporting, tap dancing demon.

Anyway, in that post I mentioned the Sumerian she-demon Ardat-Lili. This inscrutable character from folklore, who later morphed into not only the baby killer Lamastu but also informed the now famous Jewish monster Lilith, is one hard nut to crack. At least speaking in terms of research.

Unlike Lamastu, who as noted was the daughter of a god and therefore, at the very least, more akin to a demi-goddess than a demon, Ardat-Lili seems to have originated as a troubled spirit. According to the one sentence notation afforded her in Patricia Monaghan's book Goddesses and Heroines, Ardat-Lili was a storm demon not in Sumerian but in related Semitic tradition. Monaghan goes on to say:

... this ... demon caused nocturnal emissions, mounting sleeping men and capturing their ejaculations to form her demon children.

This form of Ardat-Lili is in contrast to the picture of her as "frustrated bride." In such role she is neither wife nor mother and, denied these most feminine of attributes, she seeks revenge for her bareness either on  women who are more fortunate that she or on men who represent those who have spurned her.

In their book Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, Jeremy Black and Anthony Green discuss this more ancient form of Ardat-Lili. In their entry, she is a member of a triumvirate of demons who prey on both women and men. Paraphrasing the doctors would be a bit silly, so here is the entry under "lilitu" in it's entirety (pg 118):

The male lili and the two females lilitu and ardat-lili are a sort of family group of demons. They are not gods. The lili haunts desert and open country and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and infants. The lilitu seems to be a female equivalent, while the ardat-lili (whose name means 'maiden lili') seems to have the character of a frustrated bride, incapable of normal sexual activity. As such, she compensates by aggressive behavior especially towards young men. The ardat-lili, who is often mentioned in magical texts, seems to have some affinities with the Jewish Lilith (e.g. Isaiah 34:14). 'She is not a wife, a mother; she has not known happiness, has not undressed in front of her husband, has no milk in her breasts.' She was believed to cause impotence in men and sterility in women.

A plaque thought possibly to depict her shows a scorpion-tailed  she-wolf about to devour a young girl.

Thus the evolution of one unsettled spirit into a frightening demon embodying frustration, malevolence and disappointment. How full of interesting characters the underworld, if it exists anywhere beyond our own minds, must be.

Header: Assyrian plaque of protection against Lamastu via Wikipedia (note that Lamastu, at the center bottom of the plaque, appears as a lion or wolf-headed woman; the creature holding the plaque, whose head appears at the top, is Pazuzu)

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife
At midnight drain the stream of life...
Wet with thine own best blood shall drip
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;
Then stalking to thy sullen grave
Go - and with the ghouls and afreets rave,
Till these in horror shrink away
From spectre more accursed than they!

~ from "The Giaour" by George Gordon Lord Byron, first published in The Unbeliever, London, 1813

Header: A ring with a quote from this poem from Mostly Making Memories on Etsy

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

We have discussed Inanna, one of the most influential divinities of the Sumerians who took it upon herself to raid the underworld realm of her sister, Ereshkigal. The underworld queen, in her turn, exacted a terrible price for Inanna's presumption. Worshiped for at least a millennium in one form or another, Inanna has become a symbol of the goddess energy in all human beings for a new age of pagans.

In her wonderful book of the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna's poems Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart, Jungian psychoanalyst Betty De Shong Meador makes some very insightful - and, as it turns out, surprisingly timely - comments on the vast chasm that has grown between human perception of the origins of evil in the days of Inanna's worship and now. Meador's comments on the out-sourcing of evil under the modern "big three" religions should read as an indictment of our willingness to follow unthinkingly along the path of least resistance. Instead - and to her credit - Meador's writing is thoughtful, and thought provoking, and very much worth sharing.

Enheduanna's poetry can be seen as a reassertion of the religion of "the old, old gods." Her Inanna combats any attempt to call into question the primacy of nature as the body of the goddess. In the poem "Inanna and Ebih" this conflict is explicit. An Edenic paradise on the slopes of the mountain Ebih threatens to defeat Inanna. The god of heaven, An, Inanna's great supporter, bends toward Ebih's unnatural, idealized, conflict-free world. An's seduction by Ebih anticipates Yahweh's persuasion of Adam and Eve that his garden paradise could be theirs for the price of their obedience. This garden is not the nature Inanna rules at all...

At the beginning of a new millennium, humanity still suffers as a result of the separation of spirit from matter that took place in antiquity. Yahweh's split and Greek-influenced Christianity's additions to the separation of good and evil provide divine sanction for the dark/light oppositional mentality that pervades our psychology. Dominant monotheistic religions effectively taught generations that evil is outside ourselves, with Satan over there, in others. We learned to deny our own potential for evil.

In Enheduanna's time, the evil was within us all and each individual was obliged to keep that portion of him or herself in check for the good not only of his own psyche but of the civilization around him. Now the chthonian, the dark, the evil is out there somewhere else and therefor our responsibility is absolved. Or is it?

Do read Enheduanna's poems, and Meador's book, if you have a chance. You won't be disappointed.

Header: Cover of the 2000 publication of Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart from University of Texas, Austin; find the old fashioned book version here

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

On January 11, 1696, a group of the jurors who sat on the Salem witch trials four years earlier signed a "Confession of Error" meant to relieve those tried and executed of the taint of witchcraft. Curiously these jurors, trying so hard to wipe the blood of innocent men and women from their hands, turned around and blamed Satan. Again.

We whose names are under written, being in the year 1692 called to serve as jurors in Court at Salem, on trial of many who were by some suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons, We confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the Powers of Darkness and prince of Air *; bu t were, for want of knowledge in ourselves and better information from others prevailed with to take up such evidence against the accused as on further consideration and better information we justly fear was insufficient for the touching ** of lives of any.

Whereby we fear we have been instrumental with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood... We do therefore hereby signify to all in general, and to the surviving sufferers in especial, our deep sense of, and sorrow for our errors in acting on such evidence to condemnation of any person. And we do hereby declare that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which we are much disquieted and distressed in our minds, and do humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ's sake for this error...

* Satan
** some scholars translate this word as taking, although that opinion of etymology remains in question

You can read the Confession of Error in its entirety here

Header: Arresting a Witch by Howard Pyle from Harper's volume 67 1883 via Wikimedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

... he above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent
Stood like a Tow'r; his form had not yet lost
All her Original brightness; nor appear'd
Less than Arch Angel ruin'd and th'excess
Of glory obscured: As when the Sun new-ris'n
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all th' Arch Angel: but his face
Deep scars of Thunder had intrencht; and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under Brows
Of dauntless courage and considerable Pride
Waiting revenge...

~ John Milton Paradise Lost, 1:589-604

Header: Paradise Lost by Terrance Lindall via Deities and Demons (see sidebar)

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

Today of all days, with Krampus behind us, Yule upon us and Frau Holda just about to come in for supper, seems the best choice for a discussion of The Wild Hunt. This mythology spreads from Eastern Europe, down through the Mediterranean, up to Celtic and Nordic lands and clear across the Atlantic to North America. If you've ever heard the famous Stan Jones country hit "Ghost Riders in the Sky," you know how the legend has been kept alive to this day.

The Wild Hunt is a tricky myth to pin down. Because there are legends about swift riding, death-dealing hunts blackening night skies all over Europe and Russia, it is hard to say where exactly the story originated. Most anthropologists now settle on a Teuton/Viking origin, probably due to the fact that the Vikings took their mythology over almost half the earth. Here the leaders of The Wild Hunt are usually Woden/Odin and/or his wife Frigg.

In the stories, which are uncannily similar, a maelstrom of hunters straddling ghostly horses and accompanied by baying hounds rides either across land or, more often, sky at a pace that proves they have no human origin. Sometimes the Hunt was actually seen by humans, sometimes witnessed only as a violent storm and on other occasions never seen but only heard. Almost always, people were advised to hurry for shelter or at least avert their eyes when the Hunt approached. One story tells of a Briton father, caught in an open field with his daughter when the Hunt swooped down, telling his little girl to lift her apron up over her face. By this gesture, the girl was unknowingly giving respect to the Old Gods and - more importantly - avoiding their deadly gaze.

As Christianity infiltrated the pagan nooks and crannies of the North, Woden and Frigg were replaced by  Satan as the leader of the Hunt. It was said that those in the open without proper protection - consecrated medals, crucifixes, or recent communion - would be swept up by the Hunt, carried away breathlessly through the air and dumped in a strange place with no way of knowing how to find home. The Hunt was also a collector of souls; those who saw it sweep over graveyards swore they saw some of the recently dead pulled up and along by the riders. No doubt these were the evil doers, on their way to their just punishments in Hell.

This remaking of godly hunt into a carrion collection party may stem more from Celtic than Teuton myth. It was the Morrigan, that beautiful, blood soaked goddess of sex and death, who collected the fallen souls in the aftermath of battle. She may have been confused with Hel, the Teutonic queen of the Underworld, in the post-Christian mind and the idea of a hunt that featured spectral Amazons may have been thought to include a sort of reaping of souls.

In later centuries, when the fear of Hell was overtaken by more scientific anxieties, the Wild Hunt became something of a children's story that came out particularly around the end of the year holidays. By the 19th century the leader of the Hunt was not the Devil but the devil-esque figure known as Krampus. Krampus was the helper of Saint Nicholas who brought switches to parents to punish their less-than-good children while the good kids got gifts from the saint. In cases of unrepentant bad behavior, Krampus would bundle up the child in his black bag and drag the mischief maker back his cave.

The Hunt is also loosely associated with Frau Holda, a Baba-Yaga type figure who will put children who fall into her magickal well to hard work in her home. Capable children will be sent home with gold; lazy monsters will return to their parents covered in pitch. Holda is often compared to the Italian whitch-lady La Befana who, something like Santa Claus, brings presents to the children of families who feed her when she shows up for supper on Christmas Eve.

As to that American Wild Hunt mentioned earlier, click over and listen to the immortal Man in Black sing it as only he can. Here's Johnny Cash with "Ghost Riders in the Sky" live. Enjoy! And a Happy Yule/Solstice to you all.

Header: Asgardsreien by Peter Nicolai Arbo 1872 via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

After a bit of thought, I've decided to continue the Friday harbingers of death theme right through to the New Year. Winter, after all, tended to be a time when our ancestors in northern climes would dwell on the passing of life. No wonder, either; when it is dark and cold and there is very little to do outside the home (in agrarian societies at least) one's thoughts naturally turn inward. And sometimes those thoughts included mortality.

Will-o-the-wisps, corpse candles and elf lights are not a phenomena, scientifically speaking, that occur only in the far north. It is there, though, that they seem to have been most often seen and discussed. The scientific explanation for hovering lights that float over the ground in particular areas is methane gas leaking up from under soggy, marshy or even corpse-strewn ground. In specific conditions, this gas will ignite creating glowing orbs of phosphorescent light.

Such explanations meant nothing to our ancestors. In fact, they're rather boring, comparatively.

In France, Germany, Scandinavian countries and the British Isles, these blue-green flickers were thought to be the spirits of the dead. What kind of dead - sad, lonely or vengeful - depended on where the lights were seen and what they did.

Corpse candles appeared most often in graveyards and were thought to be the spirits of the dead either warning the living of coming doom or simply retracing their final path: from their home to their grave. It was said that corpse candles were sometimes seen wandering the path to the graveyard from a house that had not lost a soul. This was a sign that there would soon be a death in that family.

In wilder areas, such as lonely bogs, Will-o-the-wisps were seen bobbing above the soggy ground. These sad, lost souls were said to try to bring themselves company by luring the wayward traveler into the muck. There he or she would be lost to drowning or exposure and the Will-o-the-wisp would not be alone anymore.

In other instances, the lights were lost children. Killed by a parent, stillborn or unbaptized, these little lights which were often said to be white rather than blue, also tried to draw the observer into a deadly situation. They preyed, it was whispered, only on adults and thereby exacted their revenge on the people who had condemned them to everlasting limbo.

In Celtic countries, the Jack-o-lantern was not included among these harbingers of death. Originally carved from turnips, pumpkins being a New World fruit, the effigies of Jack were said to recall a man who made a deal with the Devil and then tricked Old Scratch into letting him keep his soul. Denied both Heaven and Hell at his death, Jack was said to guard humans against his fate by scaring away the Devil's minions. In the New World, though, Jack has joined the army of Will-o-the-wisps looking to take human lives.

In the American south, we're told that wearing your clothes inside out or - more practically - carrying a new, steel-blade knife, will keep Jack from tricking you into following him into the bayou where you might be lost forever.

The Scottish and Irish did not imagine these spooky lights as only male. There they were sometimes known as Joan of the Wad or Kitty-o-wisp. Lost souls came from both genders, after all.

Some literary historians opine that Shakespeare's character Puck, the elfin narrator of his most psychedelic play A Midsummer Night's Dream, was the Bard's attempt at personifying the fabled elf light. They point to one of Puck's soliloquies which begins:

Now is the time of night,
That the graves all gape wide.
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide. 

It seems a thin thread to cling to, at least to my mind, but it also seems hard to know what old Will was about with that play.

On a final, and completely unrelated note, my thanks go out to Undine of The World of Poe blog for her generous nomination of both Triple P and HQ for a Lovely Blog Award. More on that here but, most importantly, thank you dear Undine. You are far too kind.

Header: Danse Macabre from the church of La Ferte-Loupiere via Wikipedia Francais

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The idea of the return of the dead has always gripped the imagination of human beings. We're afraid of the dead and dead bodies, even in 1st world countries where death and dying are separated and sanitized. Movies about sparkly vampires aside, the popularity of shows like "The Walking Dead" prove that something in us, something primal and outside our technological cage, still understands that those things, those rotting reflections of our own mortality, could rise up and kill us all.

It seems that these kind of thoughts and the stories of ghosts and ghouls that they breed, are more prevalent - or at least more interesting - in the cold, dark climates of the far north. No one tells scary dead stories quite like the descendants of the Norsemen. Here are just two...

In Iceland, where the combination of Viking and Native cultures has spawned some of the scariest monsters imaginable, whispers still flow through communities of things known only as Sendings. These creatures, which are more puppets than self-propelled dead bodies, are made from the bones of the dead. They are put together piecemeal, like Frankenstein's monster, and then sent out to do the bidding of their master. More often than not, that bidding is to kill.

The most famous story of a malicious Sending revolves around a handsome widow who lived comfortably on the sheep ranch left to her by her late husband. Though courted quite seriously by several men in her village, the widow had no interest in remarrying. Time and again she tactfully, but firmly, said no. Then one day she said no to the wrong man.

The notorious wizard of the area set his cap for the widow and, receiving the same answer as every other suitor, he went home to brew up revenge.

One afternoon in autumn the widow was preparing dinner for her ranch hands. Stepping into the dark dampness of her cold room to retrieve some butter, she suddenly felt the hair on her arms stand straight up. The widow turned, and there on the fieldstone wall was a large, black shadow that looked eerily like a spider whose legs were made of human arms. In the very center of the shadowy abomination was a white spot. The thing hissed at the widow but, undaunted despite the racing of her heart, the good woman knew what to do. She pulled out the knife she kept in her apron pocket and stabbed the thing directly in the white spot at its core. The monster squealed out an ear-piercing scream and then scurried through the open door.

An hour later, when she had finally calmed her jangled nerves with a cup of mead, the widow rang the dinner bell and her hands hurried in to their meal. One of them stopped before sitting down at the long table and spoke directly to his employer: "Isn't this your knife, ma'am?" He pulled something from his pocket and it took a moment for the widow to realize what it was. There was her knife indeed, plunged deep into the arm bone of a human being.

These stories have a curious connection with the Scandinavian tales of the ghost in the ground. Unlike the Sending, these creatures are staked down in lonesome areas that people rarely pass. The long wooden poles that hold them to the ground are sometimes encountered by wayward travelers. Thinking the stick might help their walking or serve as a fishing pole, the unsuspecting man or woman will try to pull the pole from the ground. When they do, they invariably hear a quiet voice encouraging them in their chore, although no one is nearby. Listening to the voice is at the very least foolhardy; pulling the pole out of the ground releases the vengeful, hungry ghost, who will of course take the unsuspecting traveler as its first victim.

Such tales in turn bring to mind the mysteries of the so called Bog People. These highly preserved bodies from the far north of Europe almost always appear to have been ritually sacrificed and then dumped in peat bogs or marshes. Many, however, were not just allowed to sink. They were staked down with long poles. One has to imagine to keep them from coming back to prey on their executioners.

Header: Hel's Embrace by Sash-Kash via Deities and Demons

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

On a list of harbingers of death, the doppelganger seems an oddity. Meaning "double walker" in German, meeting one's doppelganger is said to be a sure omen of imminent demise. On the other hand, there have been enough verified accounts of doppelgangers in relatively modern times - with no death in sight - that one has to list the doppelganger as a kind of paranormal activity.

Since ancient times, seeing yourself "in the flesh" so to say was considered a sign that your death was just around the corner. Often the person seeing themselves saw their own corpse rather than a "walker". Pliny the Younger, the Roman historian and pundit, wrote of seeing his body on its funeral pyre not long before his death, one hopes prior to the lighting of the flame. Elizabeth I of England told of seeing herself laid in state not long before she died and almost every American child has been told the story of Abraham Lincoln seeing himself in the same condition before his assassination. But there are other, perhaps even more chilling stories of people actually meeting themselves much like the couple in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting above.

Over at About's Paranormal Page, Stephen Wagner gives a nice list of some of these. Percy Bysshe Shelley claimed to have seen himself in Italy just prior to his death in a boating accident. Guy de Maupassant claimed to have not only seen but heard from his doppelganger, who, the writer said, dictated one of his last short stories: "Him." When Catherine the Great saw her double walking toward her, she was so distressed that she ordered her guards to shoot at it. She died within the month; there is no record of any injury to that other Catherine.

Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe saw his double while out riding one afternoon. A number of years later, while riding the same road but in the other direction, Goethe realized that he was wearing the same gray suit his double had been wearing when he say it. For some, including Wagner, this points to doppelgangers effectively stemming from a rift in the time continuum. This, logically, leads to Einstein's theory of relativity and the fact that linear time is a veil over truth and all things throughout history are happening right now. Perhaps we are allowed a glimpse of truth only once in a great while, or perhaps our minds are playing tricks on us.

One of the most famous doppelganger stories - and the one that must be put down to mass hysteria of some kind should we chose to disbelieve it - is that of the girls' school teacher Emilie Sagee. At the age of 32, Mademoiselle Sagee was teaching at an exclusive boarding school in modern Latvia. The year was 1845 and Sagee's students were uniformly pubescent girls between the ages of 9 and 16. The students all claimed to have seen Mademoiselle's doppelganger silently hovering near her on more that one occasion. At one point, the doppelganger stood next to Sagee, mimicking her movements as she wrote on a chalkboard in front of a class of 13 students. On another, the double stood behind Sagee while she ate, again mimicking her movements silently. The occurrences seem to have been relentless although Mademoiselle swore she never saw her double, Sagee did say she felt tired and listless at the exact times that people claimed to have seen her doppelganger. The unfortunate Mademoiselle Sagee, who was always given sterling references for her poise, virtue and teaching ability, went through jobs like socks due to her recalcitrant double.

Doppelgangers are also compared to "sendings," in which a person - a witch for instance - sends out an astral projection of themselves to do some type of errand. As Robert Masello notes in Fallen Angels, this was a handy trick for condemnation in witch trials. No matter how many people had seen the witch elsewhere when the milk overturned or the plague descended, the misfortune could be blamed on her sending out a doppelganger to cause trouble.

In the end, the doppelganger seems far more than a simple harbinger or portend. Outstripping the banshee and the apparition in versatility at least, the "double walker" seems something far beyond our ability to understand even in this most scientific of times.

Header: How They Met Themselves by Dante Gabriel Rossetti c 1864 via Rossetti Archives (where you can purchase various prints of the painting)

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

Over at Triple P today, I did a post involved the good doctor Stephen Maturin from Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. Being half Irish, Dr. Maturin was very familiar with today's harbinger of untimely death, the Celtic specter known as the Ban-Sidhe: the banshee.

The Sidhe were, in original Celtic tradition, the "old gods." Diminished by Christianity to "fairy folk", the strongest of them road out on dark, stormy nights bringing a bit of the Teutonic Wild Hunt - another foreteller of doom - into their legend. Originally, families had personal Sidhe as well, ancestors who watched over the clan century after century. These too withered away under the Christian yoke, becoming no more than ghosts akin to last week's Shivering Boy. But in Ireland, where Roman Christianity never took a full hold, the Sidhe in general and the familial Ban-Sidhe continued to hold sway.

To this day the banshee is known among Irish families. Certain of the Kennedy clan, for instance, claimed to hear her voice before the deaths of John and Robert. She is imagined as a woman dressed in gray and green with long hair undone and eyes perpetually streaming with tears. Often she is said to be corpse-like and skeletal, her eyes glowing red when she finds the family member whose time has come. In these cases, her churchyard face will appear at each window of a house in turn until she locates her target, then she will beckon with a boney finger and the victim will have no choice but to follow.

This may be the experience only of the one about to die, however.

Most of the living hear rather than see the banshee. In such cases she is heard to keen in a wild, high-pitched voice just outside or near the family home. Her voice is cold and unearthly and once heard, can never be forgotten. Sometimes more than one voice calls out - as was the case with the President and his brother - indicating that a very important individual will meet their end.

As noted too, moving away from Erin did not displace the family banshee by any means. In her book Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland, Jane Francesca Elgee Lady Wilde, the mother of Oscar Wilde, wrote of a well-to-do Irish family in Canada. When an otherworldly voice was heard near their estate one night, no one could find the source. The next day, however, the family found they had indeed experienced a close encounter with their own Ban-Sidhe:

... several persons distinctly heard the weird, unearthly cry, and a terror fell upon the household, as if some supernatural influence had overshadowed them.

Next day it so happened that the gentleman and his eldest son went out boating. As they did not return, however, at the usual time for dinner, some alarm was excited, and messengers were sent down to the shore to look for them. But no tidings came until, precisely at the exact hour of the night when the spirit-cry had been heard the previous evening, a crowd of men were seen approaching the house, bearing with them the dead bodies of the father and the son, who had both been drown by the accidental upsetting of the boat, within sight of land, but not near enough for any help to reach them in time.

Thus the Ban~Sidhe had fulfilled her mission of doom, after which she disappeared, and the cry of the spirit of death was hear no more.

No more, one must imagine, until the next time one of the family faced the arms of our final companion...

Header: The Banshee (La Belle Dame sans Merci) by Henry Meynell Rheam c 1901 via Wikimedia 

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

It seems that in colder climates such as the far north of Europe, Slavic lands and Native high points on our modern maps like Canada and my stomping ground, Alaska, concern for children lost or abandon to the elements is particularly high. In Alaska, for instance, there is a mythology surrounding people - and children in particular - lost in snow storms. They are reported to be seen again and again, calling silently for help. But when the observer looks away, they disappear into the dark, or the endless white of snow. A chilling experience for loved ones still searching for their lost family member.

These visions often hold a sinister promise as well: many of them are consider harbingers of the observer's own demise.

In Siberia, for instance, the legend continues of snow children known as the navky. These are the spirits of children who, under the cover of darkness provided by the dead of winter, were killed by their own mothers, often by starvation or exposure. These stories tell of travelers on cold roads seeing spectral and skeletal children dangling from the branches of leafless trees. They extend their bony fingers to the living and cry out for justice, squealing their mother's name over and over in a deafening, otherworldly voice. The traveler, should he chose not to take up the navky's request and kill the woman named, is doomed to die himself. After Christianity took a firm hold in the area, unbaptized infants were added to the ranks of the navky. In this case, their mothers are just as much at fault and their miserable wailing is just as deadly.

To the west, in the land of the Vikings, stories are told of the utburd. These children were also the victims of infanticide, having been exposed to the winter elements due to deformity, illness or simple lack of care. Utburd, according to Fallen Angels by Robert Masello, actually means "a child carried out" in the ancient Norse language. These dead creatures, like the navky, turned vengeful. But unlike the navky, the utburd are prepared to take action themselves.

Stories tell of an utburd entering its family's dwelling at night. Locks have no meaning for them as they can shape shift to carry out their deadly mission. As smoke or mist they enter through cracks, chimneys or pipes. Once inside, their first order of business is to kill their mother. The utburd is often envisioned as a blue, frozen replica of the child it was. Its strength and ability to do harm is more akin to that of an adult, however.

Once the creature has dispatched its mother, it would return to the place where it had died. There, it would attack any passer-by with speed and terrifying strength. The utburd was said to first call out, like a child in distress, to attract attention. Then, when the curious traveler came near, the spirit would encircle him or her, pulling the unfortunate down into the earth with it. The only hope for those who heard the call of the utburd was to cross running water before it could touch them, or produce a piece of iron. Otherwise, one was doomed just like the vengeful "child carried out."

Child ghosts who have been killed by evil and/or greedy adults can also become a form of psychopomp. The little princes of Tower of London fame, who were said to have been dispatched there so that another could sit on England's throne, are one example. Another less well known but equally dreaded vision is the so called Shivering Boy of Triermain Castle. Located in Northumberland, England, the castle is now mostly a ruin. In earlier times, however, families who inhabited it feared the touch of a child's hand or the sound of a shaky little voice saying: "Cold, cold, forever more." The experience was thought to be a sure sign of imminent death.

A terrible story hid behind the legend of the Shivering Boy. He was said to be a six or seven-year-old orphan set to inherit the castle and its lands some time in the Middle Ages. His father's brother was made ward to the young heir and, wanting the lucrative estate for himself, he locked the boy up and starved him. When the poor thing was too weak to move, his uncle carried him out to the village commons on a stormy winter night. Leaving the child in the blizzard to die, the uncle later told those who found the body that the boy had run away. Thereafter, the Shivering Boy either appeared to those about to die, whispered his complaint to them, or touched them with his icy fingers. Until the castle was abandon, he became its own personal banshee of sorts; an unwelcome portend shunned both in life and death.

Header: The ruins of Harbettle Castle in Northumberland from geograph.org.uk via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

All cultures have folklore that tells of the psychopomp. This figure is the guide to the dead who, often quite literally, harvests souls and takes them to the next world. Sometimes the psychopomp is no more than a harbinger, like the willow-the-wisp that floats above the swamp and, when seen, foretells death. More often, though, the psychopomp has a personality of his or her own. He or she not only takes the soul to its perdition or reward, but it chooses who shall die and who shall live. Sometimes, too, the psychopomp has a bit of a temper.

All this is the case in Celtic legend. Many of the psychopomps of the Celts, who covered territory from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles, remain in various forms. One such is the Ankou, a Death figure who is best known in the French province of Brittany.

The Bretons, much like the Irish and Welsh in Great Britain, held on to their Celtic culture well into the 19th century. Even their language was colored by ancient Celtic. So much so that Paul Gauguin, who painted in the region for a short time, complained that he could hardly understand the local farmers at all. And it was among those locals that the legends of the Ankou were whispered, and are still considered to this day.

The Ankou, or rightly Ankous, of Brittany are generally imagined as tall, skeletal men who are seen only at night. They wear either a long, monkish robe or old work clothes and often the wide-brimmed hat curious to the Breton regions. The Ankou plods along next to a rickety cart pulled by one or three skinny and invariably black horses. More often than not, the Ankou carries a scythe. In most of the mythology, each cemetery in Brittany has its own Ankou.

It is not hard to imagine that the scythe is for reaping the dead, and the cart is for hauling the souls off to eternity.

The Ankou, it is important to note, is never thought of as Death in the flesh - or lack thereof. He - and the Ankou is always male - is considered to be only Death's assistant. In almost all stories he is sent to collect the dead soul, not angered or displeased to the point of killing someone outright as some psychopomps can be.

Various origin stories surround the Ankou but the two most prominent are that he is Cain, the fratricidal son of Adam and Eve who was, according to mythology, doomed to walk the Earth for eternity. More commonly though, the Ankou is said to be either the last or first to die in any given year, returned in a new form to collect the souls of his friends, family and neighbors.

The Ankou can also be a harbinger of death to come. When he is seen on the road, the person who sights him is considered a lost soul. Time and place are important to these sightings. The closer the Ankou is to the cemetery when seen, the sooner the seer will die. Those who see the Ankou at dusk or dawn may have years yet to live. But woe to those who are out late at night; in the blackness of midnight, the Ankou is an omen of sudden and virtually immediate death.

Legend has it that the creaking of the Ankou's ungreased cart wheels, though not necessarily foretelling death, is a sure portent of ill luck. And not a soul in Brittany would peak past the curtains once the sun had set. Why, after all, tempt the Ankou and fate?

Header: Medieval carving from La Roche-Maurice in Brittany thought to be a depiction of the Ankou via Wikipedia