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

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

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

... 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

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

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In the early modern age, what we would now term vampires were virtually unknown. The pale, handsome, aristocrat with a hunger for human blood that exploded onto the archetypal playing field when Bram Stoker's Dracula made it big would have been completely foreign to those born prior to the Victorian era. Mention of that sparkly guy in that other book would probably have encouraged the same people to commit you.

What our ancestors may, or may not, have called vampires were far more akin to what we would now call ghouls or even zombies.They were usually envisioned as disheveled denizens of the churchyard who rose at night, hair flowing, breath foul and long, broken fingernails caked with mud. Unlike our later-day bloodsuckers, these original vampires usually had it in for their own families as well. Eschewing lovely, languid young women, they went for their mothers, wives, brothers and children. They weren't above disemboweling the family livestock, either.

An excellent example of this proto-vampire - the type that still roams the forests of the occasional rustic locale - can be found in this excerpt from Puritan Henry More's pamphlet An Antidote Against Atheism. Published in London in 1653, the pamphlet tells a series of grizzly, and allegedly true, tales of the supernatural that are quite literally meant to frighten the unbelieving back to church. Here, the story of a German man named Johannes Contius:

Immediately after the burial of this Contius, a citizen and alderman in Silesia near Poland, stories began to circulate of the appearance of a phantom which spoke to people in the voice of the man. Remarkable tales were told of the consumption of milk from jugs and bowls, of milk being turned to blood, of old men being strangled, children taken out of cradles, altar cloths being soiled with blood and poultry killed and eaten. 

Eventually it was decided to disinter the body of the alderman. It was found that all the bodies buried near that of Contius had become putrefied and rotten, but his skin was tender and florid, his joints by no means stiff and when a staff was put between his fingers, they closed around it and held it fast in their grip. He could open and shut his eyes, and when a vein in his leg was punctured the blood sprang out. This happened after the body had been in the grave for some six months.

Great difficulty was experienced when the body was cut up and dismembered by order of the authorities. But when the task was completed and the remains consigned to the flames, the specter ceased to molest the family or interfere with their slumbers or health.

Not only was this grandfather of the Dracula archetype more loathsome, but it took a good deal more effort to kill him as well. Vendredi heureux ~

Header: Death on a Pale Horse by Albert Pinkham Ryder via Wikimedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In a recent post, we discussed the eight forms of Satan as listed in Johan Weyer's Pseudographica Demoniaca. While all of them or curious to the student of historical demonology, there can be no arguing that the big dog among them must be the one known as Satan-el: Lucifer.

Lucifer is a far more ancient spirit than the Big Three patriarchal religions would have us believe. He seems to be part and parcel of almost all the first religions to emerge from the area now known as the Middle East and in almost all of these myths, he is the son/lover - by any other name - of a very powerful goddess.

Lucifer's name means Light Bearer and in this form he is syncratized with the Earth's sun.This makes sense when we look much further back into history than the Bible will generally allow. And certainly much earlier than any Hebrew writings on Lucifer can attest. In fact, we should be looking to his other, more populist, moniker: Son of the Morning Star.

In this, early Semitic peoples were not calling Lucifer the sun itself, but the son of She who escorts the sun. Thus Lucifer would be the offspring of the Sumerian Inanna who becomes the Babylonian and Persian Ishtar. She is personafied as both the morning and evening star. In the morning she is the warrior, ready for battle. In the evening, she is the temptress, perfumed and prepared for love, perhaps even with her son.

This pattern of a goddess represented by the morning and evening star continued in Ancient Egypt. There both Neith, the warrior and Isis (Au-Set), the mother, were linked to the star. Most notably, however, the dual goddess Hathor/Sekhmet took on the celestial persona. Sekhmet, the lion-headed warrior claimed the morning while Hathor, the gentle cow goddess, took over in the evening.

Other goddesses such as the Phrygian Cybele and the Arab Al-Uzza would be similarly personified in the star. Eventually in Hellenistic Greece the star was linked to Aphrodite and so to Venus in Rome. This is the name she still bears in modern times.

It was during Hellenistic times that Lucifer - or the spirit that would become Lucifer - was first written about by the Hebrew nations in exile. It was after the Maccabean revolt of 168 BCE, as Peter Stanford points out in The Devil: A Biography, that the apocrypha began to be written. In these books, Jewish philosophers tried to work out the idea of a good God allowing horrible things happening to his chosen people. In books like Wisdom, which made it into the modern Bible, and even more so in books like Enoch, which did not, the problem became identified as an "adversary" to God. Enter the newly made but already ancient Lucifer.

This is where Weyer's interpretation of Lucifer/Satan-el takes its sustenance. Lucifer, the Light Bearer, is the favorite of God's Archangels. When God determines to make man in his own image, Lucifer refuses to bow down before him. Angels take sides and a war ensues resulting in the casting out of the rebel angels. Lucifer and his band fall into hell where they will reside, working their mischief against God's creation until the End of Days. When he takes charge of Hell, Lucifer becomes Satan-el, the Adversary.

Curiously, another story exists in the Gnostic versions of the Gospels. This one is fed not only by the apocrypha but also by the teachings of Zoroaster. There is light and dark, good and evil and in the perception of the Gnostics, Lucifer was the twin brother of Christ and marched before him in defying the old - and Evil - God. This is a confusing scenario for modern Christians in particular. Having been taught from the get-go that Lucifer is the Devil and the Devil is bad, they pick and chose which of Christ's words to pay attention to. When Christ accuses the Jews of worshiping the "wrong God" in Yahweh, no one pays attention. No one, that is, but the Gnostics who, in teaching pure duality, embrace Lucifer and Christ while rejecting Yahweh who made the most evil of all things: the physical world.

Thus Lucifer is more than the sum of his parts. And certainly more than any of the almost geeky eight Satans. Weyer's depiction of Satan-el as a malevolent, angry monster who plots the destruction of God's most perfect creation, Man (and I mean Man to be gender-specific here), seems puny by comparison. Lucifer, the Son of the Morning Star, is a shining god by any comparison.

Header: Lucifer, Bearer of Light by William Blake via Public Domain Images

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In the ten to twenty years prior to the Protestant Reformation, artists were beginning to express the ever growing sense hostility toward the Catholic Church that would sweep through wide swaths of Europe. Through the use of humor, sometimes in the form of cartoons and on other occasions as mock expressions of religiously sanctioned art, these talented men would point up the issues surrounding such common practices as the selling of indulgences and the lack of celibacy among the clergy.

An example of this kind of non-verbal condemnation of the Church can be seen in the pen and ink piece shown above. Exquisitely executed by Urs Graf in 1512, it tells a story that would be instantly familiar to many of Europe's citizens in the year it was completed. Depicted is the stereotypical "lecherous monk", complete with demon or devil to inform his next act of sin.

While the monk is a standard religious, even recognizable to people in our modern age, the demon has some unique if not entirely original features. Most of these can easily be read as - you'll pardon the pun - pointing to the monk's favorite vice.

The demon's face seems permanently twisted into a lecherous leer complete with rolling eyes and grinning mouth. His head is full of jutting spikes that echo what's going on below his waist. There a one has to imagine permanently erect phallus is only partially concealed by a twining, prehensile tail that would likely scare off even some well seasoned professionals in debauchery. All that aside, my favorite little detail here is the devil's left leg. This tapers into a peg, shaped rather like an upside-down wine bottle, which will remind post-modern observers of nothing so much as a pirate's wooden leg.

As a precursor to the denunciations of men like Luther and Calvin, this picture really is worth a thousand words.

Header: Hermit and Devil by Urs Graf c 1512, pen and ink on paper. Copy from the book Damned by Robert Muchembled, Chronicle Books, 2002

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In 1521, Pierre Bourgot of Poligny, France confessed to being a werewolf. He further went on to tell, in grisly detail, of breaking the neck of a nine year old girl and eating her intestines. Though Bourgot's confession is often said to have been free of coercion, the fear of witches, werewolves and other dark denizens of the underworld was high in the area at the time. It is hard to imagine, given the climate, that Bourgot was not at least threatened with torture.

But the writings of the judge who tried Bourgot and two compatriot werewolves, might lead to the conclusion that these people were affected by some sort of delusion that actually made them think they were wolves in the flesh. Here is the most compelling passage of Judge Jean Boin's notes:

I have seen the accused go on all fours in their cells just as they did when they were in the fields; but they said that it was impossible for them to turn themselves into wolves, since they had no more ointment and they had lost the power of doing it by being imprisoned. I have further noticed that they were all scratched on the face, hands and legs as if by bush or bramble, and that one of them bore hardly any resemblance to a man and struck with horror those who looked upon him.

The judge was quick to adjure that Bourgot and his fellows in transformation were none other than true werewolves. The men were sentenced to death and burned at the stake.

Header: The Werewolf by Lucas Cranach c 1521 via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The "witch craze", as a certain particularly horrific part of European/North American history is often referred to, allegedly lasted from some time around the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th.  In fact, hunting "witches", particularly those of the female variety, goes back to the Dark Ages.  In those times, Christianity's desperation to convert any human it ran into often translated into violent acts that had a battle cry of "join or die."  Charlemagne's mass beheading of Teutonic tribes-people who refused to "turn" is one of the most bloody examples of such policies.

But even in the very early years of accusation, torture and death, there were men who not only disbelieved, but were willing to speak up.  From Peter Stanford's definitive biography of the Dark Lord, The Devil, I offer just two examples.

In 1233, the Archbishop of Mayence spoke out against the policies of Pope Gregory IX's lap-dog, Conrad of Marburg.  Marburg was systematically subjecting people he imagined were in league with the Devil to ordeal, including but not limited to trial by water and tortures such as the ladder and the boot.  Mayence, clearly nauseated by these goings-on, wrote to the Pope:

Whoever fell into his hands had only the choice between ready confession for the sake of saving his life and a denial whereupon he was speedily burnt.  Every false witness was accepted, but no just defense granted - not even to people of prominence.  The person arraigned had to confess that he was a heretic, that he had touched a toad, that he had kissed a pale man or some monster.  Many Catholics suffered themselves to be burned rather than confess to such vicious crimes of which they were not guilty.  The weak ones, in order to save their lives, lied about themselves and other people,, especially about such prominent ones whose names were suggested to them by Conrad.  Thus brothers accused their brothers, wives their husbands, servants their masters.  Many gave money to the clergy for good advice as to how to protect themselves and the greatest confusion originated.

How the Pope reacted has not come down to us.  It is telling however, as Stanford notes, that St. Conrad of Marburg is still on the roll of the Catholic beatified.

Much later, in 1631 when the Reformation was whipping up the mania to find, torture and destroy witches to a fever pitch, another German priest saw through the insanity.  Father Friedrich von Langenfeld, who by his own admission escorted 200 people to death by fire, wrote of the guilt he felt:

I swear solemnly that of the many persons whom I have accompanied to the stake, there was not one who could be said to have been duly convicted; and two other pastors made me the same confession from their experience.  Treat the heads of the Church, the judges, myself, in the same way as those unfortunate ones, make us undergo the same tortures, and you will convict us all as witches.

The horror and contrition that these men felt fairly jumps off the page.  Their voices, along with those of a few other brave souls, could not drown out the din of madness.  A witch hunt will always be a witch hunt.

If, like me, you are a lover of true history, I cannot recommend Mr. Stanford's book enough.  Though currently out of print, and unfortunately unavailable online, it is well worth hunting for.  As an example, one last quote from Mr. Stanford himself:

The Bible is a collection of writings by people who use history not simply to report events, but to put over a particular slant.  Without some knowledge of the background and of the politics of the time, a straight reading of the Bible is akin to a Martian reading a biography of George Bush by Bill Clinton without knowing any of the context and believing it to be gospel.

And there, but for the Bon Dieu's grace, go I.  Vendredi heureux ~

Header: Witch Hill by Thomas S. Noble via Wikimedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In Hebrew folklore, Lilith is the demon most likely to attack women and children.  We've talked about Lilith and her history before, so I won't go into her alleged evil deeds so old as to predate most of mankind.  For this post, we will focus on the many names of the night-demon who takes the lives of fetuses and infants and the mothers who would give them birth.

Lilith is a jealous demon.  Her vengeful nature stems from her envy of human women who can give birth to beautiful, human children.  Lilith, on the other hand, has only spawned hideous, deformed demons and she seeks at every turn to make the descendants of her first husband, Adam, pay for her misfortune.  The best defense against Lilith's killing hand, again according to Hebrew folklore, is the very name of the demon herself.  But this can be tricky too; she has many names and one cannot be sure which she will wear at any given time.

According to T. Schrire's Hebrew Magic Amulets, seven names of Lilith printed or embossed on an amulet will keep the demoness at bay.  The trick is to know the names and, perhaps, know the subtle differences between each one.

The name Lilith, of course, tops the list.  This is followed by a name which identifies one of the only other distinct personalities in the group: Obizuth.  Over time, Obizuth has become her own form of demon.  She is an ugly, slithering torso devoid of legs and arms who can be heard dragging herself across the floor of a home.  Her particular interest is women in childbirth and, if she cannot kill the newborn outright, she will maim it in some way.  Her victims can be born blind or deaf; they may have deformed limbs, or none at all much like the demon herself, and many die not long after being born.  Though her vicious chores seem the same, in her physical ugliness Obizuth is something of an anti-Lilith, who is often said to be dazzlingly beautiful.

The other names, though equally exotic, do not seem to carry the distinct personality that Obizuth does.  They are simply alternative names for the all encompassing she-demon Lilith.  In alphabetical order, Schrire lists them as Amitzrapava, Kawteeah, Khailaw, Khavaw Reshvunaw, Mitruteeah and Paritesheha.

If knowledge is power, than the idea inherent in these ancient amulets is obvious.  Knowing the name of the enemy will help to empower the human against the demon's evil.

Header: La Lune by Jacques Prevert via Old Paint

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

On Tuesday, I mentioned that the plant calamus can be used to ward off poltergeists.  These "noisy ghosts" have troubled human beings at least since the dawn of civilization.  There are written records from ancient Sumer and Egypt that hint at people being burdened by the loud, boisterous activities of what we now call poltergeists.  It is popular to imagine now that all this bizarre rapping, tapping, poking and throwing of objects is kindled by psychological rage.  Usually, I hasten to add, that of an adolescent girl. 

Just as many of us scoff at our ancestors' opinions on things like this, I feel it is important to realize that they would dismiss our opinions in turn.  In many cases, our ancestors didn't try to define what the cause of the trouble was, they just reported what occurred. 

That is the case in this interesting passage from the writings of the right Reverend Joseph Glanvill.  Writing in 1662, the Reverend describes an incidence of poltergeist activity in the town of Tedworth, England.  None of it, I will say, sounds very pleasant:

Having one night played some little tricks at the master's bed, [the poltergeist] went into another bed, where one of the daughters lay.  There it passed from side to side, lifting her up as it passed.  At that time there were three kinds of noises in the bed.  They endeavored to thrust at it with a sword, but it still shifted and avoided the thrusts still getting under the child when they offered at it.  

The night after, it came panting like a dog out of breath.  Upon which, one took a bedstaff to knock it, but it was caught out of her hand and thrown away.  The room was presently filled with a bloomy noisome smell, and was very hot, though without a fire, in a very sharp and severe winter.  It continued in the bed panting and scratching an hour and a half, and then went into the next room, where it knocked a little and seemed to rattle a chain.  

At no point does Reverend Glanvill refer to the cause of this dreadful disturbance as anything but "it".  Though he does call upon God's mercy to request relief for the troubled family, he is not pinning the poltergeist activity on the Devil, the dead or even the girl who is most troubled by the problem.

What the poltergeist might be remains an unspoken mystery.  It is certainly one we can delve into in the future, as well.

Header: Untitled painting of a ghoulish entity by Jeffrey C. Jones via American Gallery