Cornflower Wraith

This is a monster in Slavic folklore. There are many varieties of this female spirit found who appears in the field. There is a similar entity called Lady Midday who appears during the day when the weather is fine. Sometimes from a small whirling wind she manifests in a field of ripe crops for harvest. Her appearance varies, as she can look like a beautiful woman, an old crone or a small girl child. Travelling via a dust devil, Lady Midday carries a sharp weapon, usually holding a scythe or sickle but sometimes shears. She's associated with heat strokes, the midday star, illness and ruining crops. She uses a frying pan to damage growing rye. She's believed to attack people whoever crosses her path. 

Then the Cornflower Wraith is probably related to Lady Midday or even the same spirit? Often the Cornflower Wraith looks like a beautiful woman wearing an azure dress and a crown of cornflowers in her hair. Her other name is Chaburnica, which is a Polish name and also Habernitsa, a Russian name for her. Nicknames in English is Cornflower Wraith mostly, and also Cornflower Witch and Lady Cornflower. She could punish people by inflicting headaches, back pains and broken bones even. Workers in the field suffered by the Cornflower Wraith so to avoid her, they would take a midday rest.   

It's believed that she's Lady Midday, the sister of Zorya, a Slavic dawn goddess. In many Slavic legends, she's a figure of corn, plants and rye. The Lady Midday is found in the folklore of some parts of Germany, as a female field demon like Roggenmuhme or "rye aunt", a hideous looking entity that takes children who visit a field to pick flowers and replaces them with changelings. Sometimes she's in the form of a wolf, and the mother of the rye wolves. She devours the grain, and believed to be blamed for failed harvests.  

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Beast of Brass-knocker Hill

Originally witnessed in the late 1970's, there was a mysterious creature responsible for stripping trees of their barks, frightening away wildlife and scaring residents. No one ever caught it. What was more interesting is the description, as it varies from person to person. 

Jim Mead was driving to work along a road near Brass-knocker Hill when he saw a weird looking creature. He described it as two feet long, similar to a polecat but with a straight tail, crossing the middle of the road, stopped and continued ahead. He was certain it was a large feline. The Mysterious Big Cat is a frequent visitor across the British Isles, but this particular beast has the ability to shapeshift or is so unrecognisable to people that their views conflict on what is is.

In July 1979, Jon and Betty Harper were worried about the damaged trees caused by an animal with teeth 20 times larger than a squirrel. Another witness was driving along a quiet road of Monkton Combe at night when he spotted an animal looking like a bear, with white rings around its eyes. Reports of a local paper mentioned that an animal damaging woodlands has big vampire-like teeth. Many more people came forward to describe the beast as looking like a baboon and chimpanzee.

There hasn't been anymore reports but its been assumed that whatever it was has gone away. It's never been certain what the beast actually looked like! I wonder if there was more than one unknown creature? Perhaps some exotic animals escaped there but it remains a mystery to this day.  

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(The picture above is not a photo of the Beast of Brass-knocker Hill).

Marjorie McCall

A strange tale of a zombie woman in Lurgan, Ireland, is the subject that many still wonder about today. In the early 1700's, a young woman named Marjorie McCall died of a fever and was buried in the Shankill Church of Ireland Cemetery. Her funeral was swift and it was agreed that she should be quickly buried so that the fever doesn't spread. Marjorie's grieving widower, Doctor John McCall, felt concerned that grave robbers would steal his deceased wife's expensive gold wedding ring. He tried to pull it off her cold dead finger but it just wouldn't budge. So she was buried anyway still wearing a valuable ring, and people talked about it.

Eventually the news of a corpse wearing a gold ring reached the wrong ears. One night the cemetery was visited by grave robbers who heard about dead Marjorie's expensive ring. They were quick to dig into her grave and thought about the riches they would get from the ring itself. Once they opened the coffin, they failed to pull off the expensive wedding ring from her corpse so they all agreed to cut off her finger instead. Once they began to cut her finger and draw blood, the deceased woman sat up and screamed. The terrified robbers ran away and we know nothing else about them! It's understood they were too scared to go back. Marjorie crawled from the dirt and staggered through the cemetery while bleeding.

She wandered back home and knocked on the front door. When her husband answered it, he saw his wife standing there, who was back from the dead. The doctor instantly died of shock. Soon he had a funeral and was buried in the same plot where Marjorie had been buried in before! She then moved on with her life, eventually remarried and had children. Many years passed when she died the second time and she was buried at the same cemetery as she was buried in previously. Her gravestone is still there to this day and it reads: "Lived Once, Buried Twice." People living in Lurgan have claimed to have witnessed seeing Marjorie's ghost wandering around in the cemetery as if she was risen from the dead a second time.  

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Wildlife picture of the month

Each month for a year I shall post interesting pictures of animals. For a year I posted amusing photos of wolves and this time it's any animal picture that looks amazing, adorable and funny. 

Here is a picture of a two baby rabbits sitting inside a huge cabbage in a garden. It looks so fairy tale and cute like something out of a Disney animation. Those rabbits look very cosy inside there, probably doing their school homework or just chilling. 

"No, we're just staying close to our meal!" the rabbits said.

Imagine being the photographer when finding this. That would've been awesome.

The photo comes from Pinterest.  

Spring-Heeled Jack

Out of Victorian London is a strange legend of Spring-Heeled Jack. Long before evil Jack the Ripper murders, was Spring-Heeled Jack, who was described as a tall fire-breathing man who could jump extremely high. He mainly attacked women but it's not certain if he killed anyone. The public were frightened of this bogeyman appearing and then disappearing without warning. He leapt so high and breathed flames that many thought he was a demon. 

First appearing in 1837, a neighbourhood in London were getting scary visits from a demon shaped like a large white bull. An historian Mike Dash uncovered this around the time of Spring-Heeled Jack, that looked like a monster to the residents who called it "ghost" and "imp". Others  described him as wearing a suit of armour, red shoes, metal claws and helmet, while some said he looked like a bear. 

This entity used to ring doorbells and then attack those who answered, such as the case of a young woman named Jane Alsop, who opened the door to Spring-Heeled Jack. He spewed flames then tore at her clothes and body, then fled when her family came to her rescue. He liked to give surprise attacks to people out walking in the streets. Two teenaged sisters were walking outside when a shadowy figure jumped in front of them. He blew blue flames at one of the sisters and blinded her.

Many more violent incidents of Spring-Heeled Jack happened across London. This made headlines in the national newspapers, and the stories of Spring-Heeled Jack spread across the country. Many anticipated Spring-heeled Jack turning up anywhere. Soon this unknown fire-breathing assailant didn't show anymore and eventually he became the stuff of legends.  

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Dark things of the moon

Of all the stories about the moon, the less known tend to be the scariest. Besides werewolves shape shifting at the full moon, there are many more dark superstitions about this phase. In Ireland, it was considered very unlucky to have the full moon shining on your face as you're sleeping. Among other moon omens from Ireland, includes one about seeing the full moon reflected into a mirror that will reveal a frightening vision. There's a horror story set in Ireland, about a sleeping girl who died as the moonlight was reflecting in the mirror and shining upon her face.   

Some traditions believe that there is a face on the moon that once belonged to a man who was exiled there. The Romans believed that this man was banished to the moon for stealing sheep. Christians believe that he's probably Cain. The Chinese believe that he's a man named Wu Gang who keeps chopping down a magical tree on the moon but it always grows back. 

The ancients regarded the moon as a powerful deity. According to Siberian myth, the reason that the moon is pockmarked is because of a huge dragon named Alklha, who's constantly feeding upon the moon. In Chinese myth, a giant dog in the sky will eat the moon one day. In Norse mythology the moon god Mani is forever hunted across the sky by a monstrous wolf that wants to eat him.  

There are dark truths behind the legends too. The full moon has a negative effect on people, and crimes go up during a full moon. One of the creepiest facts of all is that the moon is disappearing! It slowly moves away from the earth about 3.78 centimetres each year. So in the future, the earth itself would be plunged into very dark moonless nights! The moon has very severe temperatures and moonquakes that last longer than earthquakes. Astronauts have noticed their shadows on the surface of the moon looks much darker than back home on earth. One of the most biggest creepy facts about the moon is that it has a graveyard up there! 

Sources:

"Moon Face" story on Scary For Kids 

Man in the Moon Wikipedia

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