Wildlife picture of the month

Each month I shall post pictures of wild animals doing funny and cute things. It would be themed to each month. For a year I posted a similar subject about wolves and now its time for any wildlife creature. 

Here is an autumn image of a little hedgehog playing in the autumn leaves. It's made for itself quite a pretty outfit! I'm so sure that its mother would be so proud.

"It's my Halloween costume," said the small hedgehog gleefully. Just beware of trick or treating at night though, little one. You don't want to get yourself in trouble making a mess.

The photo is from Pinterest. 

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.  

She Wolf Night        

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.  

She Wolf Night      

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