Tag Archives: folklore

Night Terrors: The Alp

Alps are nasty little fellows who torture people in their sleep. When someone wakes up with a sensation of pressure on their chest only to find they are unable to move or make a sound, they have experienced the dirty tricks of an alp.

Even when the door is closed, Alps can enter a bedroom. They slip in through keyholes or tiny cracks in the wall. Once they’re inside, they can only leave through the same hole they entered. Plugging up the holes is not advised or the alp will stay around forever.

Alps enter dreams by transforming into a mist and seeping into the sleeping person. Sometime they transform into a snake and slither in through the nostrils and mouth. Working from inside inside the person, the alp creates horrible dreams. The German word for nightmare, Alpdrucke, means ‘alp pressure.’

Like elves, alps play other dirty tricks while people are sleeping. They often ride horses all night and bring them back in the morning exhausted. They tangle people’s hair by sucking on it and they put dirty diapers back on babies.

Supposedly, people whose eyebrows join in the middle of their forehead have the power to send alps to plague their enemies. Getting rid of an alp can be tricky. Alps are incredibly persistent and will travel great distances to torture their victims. A horse head supposedly repels them. This may be a case, however, of the cure being worse than the affliction. Sleepers who feel the alp pressure on their chest can call out “come tomorrow and drink with me.” This should force the alp to leave and compel the uni-browed person who sent him  to visit the next day.

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La Llorona

In Mexico and the Southwestern U.S.  parents warn their children not to misbehave or wander off because La Llorona (Spanish for crying woman) will mistake them for her own children and snatch them up. La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who is doomed to search for all eternity for her drowned children.

One version of the story tells of a young woman who wants to attract the man of her dreams but can’t because she has children. After she drowns her children the man rejects her anyway. Horrified by what she has done, La Llorona kills herself. She spends the rest of eternity searching the river for her children.

People tell many variations of the story. In one, the man is the children’s father who leaves La Llorona for a rich woman. In the version told in Honduras, the children drown when the woman is doing laundry and not paying attention to her kids. This horrible fear, shared by many parents, is terrifying if perhaps a little less romantic.

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Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

Nursery Rhymes are frequently based on unspeakable historical horrors. Children, I fear, may be essentially evil. They regularly and gleefully recite little rhymes filled with subject matter that would give pause to even the most graphic horror writer.

“Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” the familiar English rhyme is a choice example. The Mary alluded to in the rhyme, is Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary. The daughter of Henry the VIII, Mary, was a staunch Catholic responsible for a repressive policy against practitioners of Protestant faith.

The ‘garden’ is a euphemism for the graveyards which, under her harsh supervision, filled up quickly with Protestant martyrs.

The silver bells and cockle shells are colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The ‘silver bells’ were thumbscrews. This simple vice with protruding studs or spikes on the interior surfaces was placed on the victim’s thumbs and slowly tightened until the victim gave a confession. The ‘cockleshells’ were supposedly instruments which were attached to the genitals and worked much the same way.

Beheading in Bloody Mary’s time was problematic. The one who was to be beheaded was often uncooperative and had to be chased around the scaffold. Often multiple blows were needed to sever the head. Simple executions turned into drawn out and complicated public spectacles. The guillotine solved these problems. The nickname for the the guillotine was the maiden. The pretty maids all in a row refers to the collection of guillotines used to get rid of troublesome Protestants.

Mary was indeed contrary. In spite of that, down through the ages children have embraced her and sung her praises. Doesn’t this seem suspicious? I suspect those cute little cherubs are actually monsters waiting for us to drop our vigilance for just one second.

You’ve been warned.

Thank you to Amanda Spaid for the use of her artwork. You can see more of her wonderful art here.

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The Blajini

 

According to Romanian folklore the Earth is a disc. Humans live on one side and the other side is a mirror image of our world populated by the Blajini. The Blajini (gentle ones) are small creatures with heads like rats who don’t understand the ways of human beings. They live peacefully in paradise on the other side of the disc. They once lived alongside humans but somehow when Moses parted the Red Sea they ended up on the wrong side of the returning water.

Throughout the year, the Blajini fast, which frees up resources for humans. Each Spring, to thank the Blajini, Romanians throw red Easter egg shells into streams. The egg shells are carried on the current through the Apa Sâmbetei (World Ocean) to the river along which the Blajini’s live. When the Blajini see the red egg shells they know it’s time for their annual feast. Apa Sambetei

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Kikimora: Does a Little Woman Live Behind your Stove?

Kikimora (кики́мора) is a female house spirit in Slavic folklore. She looks just like a tiny hunch-backed Slavic woman wearing a dirty dress. Her flowing hair is the only thing that distinguishes her from an actual Slavic woman. (Slavic woman cover their hair and girls wear braids)

Kikimora usually lives behind the stove, or occasionally in the cellar. She’ll look after the chickens and help out with the housework, if the house she inhabits meets her standards. But if it’s a mess, she’ll tickle, whistle and whine to keep the children awake all night. Once she gets angry, the only way to appease her is to wash all the pots and pans in fern tea.

Kikimora enjoys spinning late at night. But if any household member is unlucky enough to see her, he or she will be the next to die.
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