Hala

There is a frightening creature in folklore from Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria called Ala or Hala, and this is a female demon. She is mostly a storm demon and she makes horrific thunderclouds over landscapes growing crops and orchards. Her nature is to kill harvests so that she can starve people. Hala is one demoness but there are many more of her kinds, which is a collective plural name "ale". Hala and her ale species are capable of stealing crops, vines, fruit and vegetables, if she's not destroyed them already. Known to eat children, people often grow up with nightmares about her/ and the rest of her kind. She even causes solar and lunar eclipses to plunge the world into darkness and delay growth of fertile plants just to bring about more cold and misery. 

Described as looking like a variety of entities, depending on the localised stories and legends. In some she looks like a shadowy cloud of wind and a tornado. She is also said to look like a monster in humanlike form, sometimes in animal forms, mainly as a gigantic serpent with wings or as a huge raven that is so big it appears like a storm cloud. She also takes on the appearance of a giant woman with a large mouth full of sharp teeth. This creature is an aerial demon who dwells mainly in the sky, among clouds, on mountain tops, tree tops, in most high altitude places, as well as in other remote areas like caves, lakes and underground tunnels. One of her biggest enemies is a fire-breathing dragon, which is believed to be able to kill a Hala demon. Eagles could also kill Hala. Humans can destroy an ale demon such as in the tale of Saint Elijah who worked a dragon to defeat Hala. 

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The Wild Rose

This is a folk legend that may or may not be based on a true story. It happened during the Middle Ages, in Ireland, with no specific date.  A young woman named Elisa Day was regarded as so beautiful that she was like a wild rose. There were wild red roses that grew along the river bank near where she lived, and these roses were so red that they looked like blood. 

Elisa, sometimes named Eliza, had many suitors, and men who fell in love with her. But there was one man in particular who was deeply in love with her that took things too far. He was from outside of town, and he became infatuated with Elisa Day. He found out where she lived and visited her. The next time he went to see her bringing a red rose, and he invited her to go with him to where the wild red roses grow. The third time he visited her, he took her out to the riverbank, a beautiful location full of blooming wild red roses. It was romantic. It wasn't to last.

Then he cruelly turned violent and hit her head with a rock, so that blood poured down her hair and face. As she lay there dying, he whispered "All beauty must die!" and then he killed her. He then put a red rose between her teeth and pushed her into the river. Afterwards, many people wondered where Elisa Day had gone, as she disappeared. Some people saw Elisa Day's spirit aimlessly walking along the riverbank, with blood all over her. The ghost of Elisa held a red rose. 

Whether or not this is based on a true event, it's a very sad one. It also has become a legend, and warns of the dangers of trusting people and falling in love with total strangers. The body of Elsa Day was never found and there's no evidence that she was a real person who died that tragic way. People always regard her as "The Wild Rose". Her killer is also unknown.

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Cryptid rabbits

As it's the season of Easter ,let's mention strange rabbits. One is called the Jackalope. It's a type of hare or jackrabbit with antlers. The horns are described in folklore as looking similar to antelope's horns. This is why it got it's name, for it's a combination of "jackrabbit" and "antelope". While this is a legendary creature popular today in North America, it's said that this created stories because of many 19th and 20th century taxidermists who made unusual looking animals for display. They put antlers on mounted trophies of hares. Some have found in parts of California are wild rabbits and hares with "horns" growing from their heads but this is due to an infection called Shope papilloma virus. People would've thought they were seeing jackalopes when they saw these infected rabbits. There are stories about jackalopes further back in time. In the 16th and 17th centuries there were books and illustrations mentioning jackalopes, such as in The History Book of Natural Quardrangles by John Johnston.

In German folklore is the Wolpertinger, .a legendary rabbit with horns as well as wings. They can be found in the forests of Bavaria, haunting the region and playing tricks. It's believed that the creature might be immortal and cursed to roam the landscape. This was based on a superstition that a wild female hare was raped by a feral roebuck, and she soon gave birth to strange offspring that looked like rabbits with antlers (it must be pointed out for scientific reasons that rabbits and hares are a different species although belonging to the same family of Leporidae). Deer cannot breed with hares or rabbits so the hybrid animal story is unbelievable today. As the saliva of a wolpertinger is magical enough that if it touches some person's arm, thick hair will grow on it. It's a shy entity but will attack only if threatened, by spraying stinking fluid on their attacker that will smell for years. Also many taxidermists made creatures looking like the wolpertinger in the 19th and 20th centuries, today found in public places in Bavaria. 

Similar to that is a Rasselbock, a creature that is a counterpart of jackalope and wolpertinger. It's said to have the body of a rabbit and antlers of a deer, and also sharp fangs with long canines. This shy mythical animal is found in the Harz Mountains and in the Thurungian Forest region. It's believed that its footprints have been left in the snow. 

Source:

More stuff on this at: Sophienburg Nuseum and Archives Wolpertingers and other mythical rabbits.

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Wolfssegen

 

A "wolfssegen" is a Bavarian name of a certain protection talisman against werewolves and wolves. It's a charm used mostly by being worn to prevent wolf attacks. It was also used to protect from malicious curses and spells that was popular in the Middle Ages. It was often believed now that these are folklore relics but also there were vocal wolf spells. During these centuries of the Middle Ages, wolf attacks were fairly common and most peasants were more vulnerable. 

Thomas Heiser was an elderly man accused of witchcraft and for being a werewolf. He confessed things under severe torture and mentioned that he performed wolf spells that a mentor had taught him when he was young. He used such a spell to cause a wolf attack on livestock in a village over many years. 

These wolf spells were condemned by the Church as heresy and tried to put a stop to it. Today we associate the metal silver as a protection against werewolves, such as the silver dagger, silver necklace and silver bullets. It's thought that the idea of silver bullets may come from silver metal charms of wolfssegen talismans.   

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Wildlife picture of the month

Every month will be a picture of a British and European wild animal looking nice for the season. This month we'll be looking at common blackbirds ready for Spring. In the photo there is a blackbird sat inside a tree full of cherry blossoms. 

Facts about blackbirds include:

Male blackbirds are with black feathers, and they have yellow beaks and yellow rings around their eyes. Female blackbirds are brown with a few speckles and brown coloured beaks. They have nice songs and they're the most regular birds, that seem to be more active when Spring arrives. These small birds are omnivores, and they can eat bugs, worms and fruit. They belong to the family Tardus merula. Other members of this family includes thrushes and chats. There are different types of blackbirds in the world and not all of them are black feathered.  

Most are familiar with the whimsical English rhyme that includes blackbirds:

"Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. When the pie was open the birds began to sing. Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before a king."

In folklore blackbirds are associated with water and good luck. Seeing two of them together usually means even better good luck. And it would be special and a magical gift if they nested somewhere near your home. Ancient druids associated blackbirds with magic and goddess Rhiannon. 

Source: Info page on the common blackbird at Woodland Trust.  

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