Supernatural Friday: Winter Haunt (Original Poem)

Enjoy my original ghostly poem and please share the link and not the poem, so that others can read it too. 

Winter Haunt

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Winter’s chill deepens when night hits

A sky full of brilliant stars and a hovering moon

Draws you outside to view nature’s glowing glories

Peace fills you at the sights,

when suddenly something nearby catches your eye,

nearby the old oak tree a few feet away.

Not an owl or some other nightly predator,

No, it has a--no it is a shadow,

darker than the darkness itself.

Then it changes, becomes like mist

Except you know the night is clear,

and there’s no mist or fog anywhere.

“What is this strange thing,” you think,

drawing closer and you reach out,

and you see it too, reaches out

A chill much worse than the winter night offers

envelopes you, digs beneath your skin.

Eyes, a nose, a face appears within the glow!

The cold burrows deeper within you

until it finds your heart,

The steady beat of a drum grows louder, harder,

And you understand it’s fear pounding your heart like a hammer.

The need to bolt, to return to the warmth and solace of your home

Fills you like a meme:

Run. Run! RUN! Or it will get you! Go now!

But your feet remained as if glued to the ground,

The ghost moves and covers you completely.

Blind terror fills you, and yet, still, you cannot move.

When suddenly, the haunt vanishes, and the stillness that

held you, is gone.

Later, inside your house, safe and sound, still shaking,

a blanket wrapped around you for warmth and comfort,

You know that winter nights have more than you bargained for;

That the supernatural haunt them, too.

Supernatural Friday: The Myths and Story Behind Candy Canes

I am reposting this as I saw a post about a principal in Nebraska (the state I was born in) who banned candy canes from his school as claiming they represent Jesus Christ. I posted the blog in 2014, so people (and maybe that principal) can see where t=candy canes might have come from and why. 

It is said that the candy cane came by a candy maker in Indiana who wanted to make a candy that would be a witness, so he made the Christmas candy cane. He took several symbols from the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy, which symbolized the Virgin Birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, It had to be hard to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church, and firmness of the promises of God. He formed the candy in the form of a “J” to represent the precious name of Jesus. It could also represent the staff of the “Good Shepherd.” 


Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes, using three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross.
  

These Jesus celebrating candies were then, the story goes, handed out to good children in the church or used as a form of identification among Christians when they were persecuted. But none of this is true! Candy canes were not invented in Indiana since the first reports of hard candy sticks (the precursor to candy canes) come from the 17th century.

 

Actually, white candy sticks were actually quite common at Christmas. One story says that they turned into J’s because one choirmaster bent them to look like a shepherd’s staff for children during the nativity scene. But there is no evidence that that’s true either. 

 

In America’s introduction to Christmas candy canes can be traced to August Imgard, a German immigrant who’s credited with introducing the Christmas tree to Ohio in 1847. The National Confectioners Association makes a claim that Imgard “decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes.” But an article from 1938 points out a ceremony that a different kind of sweet was used.

 

Ornaments were made of paper, festooned in long chains by the younger members of the pioneer community. Kuchen baked according to a recipe sent from Bavaria by Imgard’s mother, hung upon the tree and served both as ornaments and tidbits. The cookies were colored with brown sugar and the family spent weeks baking them in quantities for the guests. Gilded nuts were other ornaments and inside the gilded shells were warm messages of greeting.

Red-and-white striped candy didn’t show up until around the turn of the century in America. 

 

Other myths concerning the candy cane:
A sweet treat made for children who behaved in church.
A way for Christians to identify each other during a time of persecution.

Whether how the candy cane came to be, now they are as much a part of the holidays as Santa Claus. 

So, please, quit stressing where they or songs came from or why, and just enjoy the holidays, whether you believe in Christmas, Hannakuh, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Los Posadas, Diwali, etc....  The only thing you might worry about candy canes are cavities and if you're diabetic.

Supernatural Friday: Witching Hour

The witching hour. The hour when witches, demons, and ghosts are supposed to appear, usually midnight. So, says one dictionary.

In folklore, the witching hour or devil's hour is a time of night associated with supernatural events. Creatures such as witches, demons, ghosts, and gremlins are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful. Black magic is thought to be most effective at this time. The hour between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. in European tradition was considered a period of peak supernatural activity, due to the absence of prayers in the canonical hours during this period. Women caught outside without any sufficient reason during this time were sometimes executed on suspicion of witchcraft.

The Witching Hour can vary slightly,  but it should always be in the middle of the night, sometime between 12-3am.

One of the biggest reasons the Witching Hour is so vitally in the middle of the night (even though it is technically the beginning of the day) is because the liminality the time offers. Another reason, why many people focus on midnight as much as 3am because midnight is the time between two days, and many believe the veil between the worlds is at its weakest point then, allowing for a heightened level of communication between our world and another.

This makes it the perfect time to swap ghost stories, communicate with spirits, or why people take out an Ouija board or perform spells in the old days (think Victorian and before).

Additionally, even back in the centuries before, the hours between 12-3am are usually when most people are dead asleep. The cover of darkness and the sleeping world allows witches and other creatures to convene publicly, but without being seen or otherwise persecuted for the meeting. For demons to possess easier? Or when succubuses and incubuses invaded dreams to seduce mortals. For 12-3 are three hours and when someone has three scratches in a haunting, they say that means a demonic entity.

Another thing about this time is a lot of people wake up at around 3 am. Although this is said to be in relation to something wicked, experts argue that you’re in your REM sleep cycle during the time bracket. Your heart rate, cardiac pressure, breathing rate, and arterial pressure becomes irregular at this time, which is why you may feel anxious when you suddenly wake up at those odd hours. It is interesting that we are irregular and on alert at those

hours naturally. Is it a coincidence, or is it an evolutionary tactic developed to better protect ourselves?

Supernatural Friday: A Dark and Terrible Thing Is Coming!

"A Dark and Terrible Thing is Coming!"

It’s coming,

Like a terrible thing

It’s scary,

Dark, and with a toothy grin.

So you better beware,

Have everything ready

Decorate appropriately,

For the end is near.

Just remember one thing,

It only comes but once a year

Halloween, costumed in orange and black,

A mask upon its gruesome face

Ringing your doorbell with persistence,

Innocent child or demonic being

Feed it candy, just to be safe.

Trick or Treat.

 I hoped you enjoyed this poem I wrote, "A Dark and Terrible Thing Is Coming!" It's an original poem and copyrighted to me, so do share the link with friends, not the poem, please. Thank you.

 

Supernatural Friday: A Ghost By Any Other Name Still Will Haunt You

Ever done a ghost tour, or been on a paranormal investigation?  Listen to some ghostly tales told before a fire burning in a hearth? I’ve done all three myself. Ever had a feeling of being watched or even dread wash over you—though the dread may be unintentional, as the phantom may not be evil. What are spirits, ghosts, phantoms, and the other various names gave them? Are they each something different, or really a single entity with just many titles?

In traditional belief, a ghost is the soul of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestations, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely: The mode of manifestation in photos or seen by the living’s eyes can range from an invisible presence, shadow people, translucent or wispy shapes, and orbs, to realistic, life-like visions—solids. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as a séance. Paranormal investigators use equipment to find proof of paranormal activity and to make contact with phantoms.

In many tales, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or "fetch" is a related omen of death.

Another widespread belief that concerns an apparition is that it is composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Early beliefs were that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma, which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible, God is depicted as animating Adam with a breath.

Ghosts are also termed spook, spirits, phantoms, fetch, haint (a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition), wraith, revenant, apparition, specter, shade, and entity. Poltergeist, German for a “noisy spirit,” is for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects. The Bell Witch was considered a poltergeist.

Most times, a poltergeist is just mischievous, although there are instances of it being sinister, not unlike the Bell Witch. Was the Bell Witch a poltergeist or more along demonic lines? Good question. It was an entity that tormented a pioneer family that lived in what was then Red River, Tennessee in 1817-1827 ( Red River is now known as Adams, Tennessee). It was substantiated by eyewitness accounts (other than the family), affidavits, and manuscripts written by those who witness the phenomenon. More about this interesting tale can be found in author Pat Fitzhugh, The Bell Witch: The Full Account.

Besides the poltergeist phenomena, there are three other types of hauntings. First are residual hauntings. These are a recorded playback of what happened in the past. Maybe it could even be a time warp (one idea of mine, though I can’t prove this, who knows, a feasible one like any other theory). There is no interaction with the living -- the ghost does not see or hear you because the ghost is not actually there. Only his/her energy remains, it is a remnant of his living form that you are seeing, just like when you watch a video. This cycle continues in the same place at usually the same time of day or year indefinitely until the energy is exhausted or diminishes to a low enough level that it is undetectable by human perception. One account of residual hauntings is the Union soldiers marching into Centre Hill Mansion in Petersburg, Virginia every year at a certain time on January 24th. An interesting fact about the steps the soldiers march up is that they are not even the original staircase from the Civil War era, but new ones put in by Charles Davis. And yet, like clockwork, the soldiers march up those steps at the same time each January 24^th.  None died, but after the fall of Petersburg, Centre Hill became occupied by Union troops, led by General George L. Hartsuff. President Abraham Lincoln visited Centre Hill on April 3, 1865, to go over the local situation with General Hartsuff. This meeting took place only eleven days before Lincoln’s assassination.  The museum holds a Ghost Walk each year on one special date. 

Traditional, or intelligent, hauntings are the second. Whether actual human spirits that had not crossed over into heaven and had some unfinished business with a living person, or a message they wanted to deliver before they could move on, or even those that just want to stay in a place they lived in life or be on our plane of existence (more and more, I suspect they can travel back and forth between here and the “other side.” These ghosts will unlock doors and open windows, run the faucets and even interact with you directly because they are an "intelligent" presence, the personality of a person who was once alive but has stayed behind rather than passing over.

The third type of haunting, and undoubtedly the most frightening, is a demonic, or inhuman, haunting. To me personally, I think when a human was evil in life, they too would be considered under demonic. There have been stories of where priests have gone in to exorcize a possessed person, and instead of an inhuman demon, this one claims to be the parent or someone alive once, tormenting the person. 

The entity is similar to a traditional haunting because the spirit is intelligent and are existing in the present moment with you. These spirits are malevolent and hostile, suffering from psychological instability or distress stemming from an unresolved conflict with the people who are being subjected to the demonic activity. Demonic presences tend to be ‘unleashed' in order for them to manifest. This is one reason why the use of an Ouija Board is customarily discouraged among many ghost hunters. So if you find one in the game section of the store, don’t buy one. Not understanding and without protection, one can open up a portal, letting in things they can not handle and most times, demonic in nature.

With Halloween upon us, ghosts are on people’s minds. When you answer the knock at the door to hand out treats to the trick-or-treaters or head out for a Halloween party, enter that haunted house or step upon the trail of the haunted trails attraction, do be unnerved if you see shadows move in the darkness. It might be shadow people. Spirits roam Halloween as the legends claim that the opening of the veil is more certain on Samhain than any other night.  So maybe, just maybe, you did see something out of the ordinary that is not a person in costume.

After all, the dead want to party just like the living—right?

Supernatural Friday: Forget Godzilla, the Gashadokuro is Japan's Real Giant Monster!

The Japanese always had giant monsters attacking them. Although, one of the first terrors wasn't radioactive reptilian or a bug or a dragon, it was the gashadokuro. The tales of the gashadokuro goes back over 1000 years to a bloody rebellion against the central government by a samurai named Taira no Masakado. His daughter, Takiyasha-hime, was a famous sorceress. When Masako was eventually killed for his revolt, his daughter continued his cause. Using her black magic, she summoned a great skeleton to attack the city of Kyoto. 

The Japanese have many wild and wonderful legends of ghostly beings, known as Yokai.  One of the most malevolent of them all is the Gashadokuro.  The name literally translates to “starving skeleton”, but that doesn’t do this spirit justice.  Known also as Odokuro, which is apt, as it means “giant skeleton”.  The Gashadokuro is, in fact, a gigantic skeleton that roams the streets after midnight and bites off the heads of anyone unlucky enough to get in its way. It is usually found near mass-graves or battlegrounds and has no diet, but still enjoys feasting on human beings!

The name came from the fact that it’s created from the bones of people who have died of famine.  When a village, for example, dies of starvation, there is a good chance the rotting bones will knit together to form a Gashadokuro, which will then seek to fulfill its unending appetite.  The resulting skeletal ghost is said to be fifteen times the size of a man (or about 90 feet tall!).

if being a giant skeleton wasn’t bad enough, the Gashadokuro is completely invisible before it strikes.  The only way to know one is close is to hear the sound of bells ringing in one's ears just before it attacks.  Shinto charms may also make the monster visible.  There’s no real way to defeat these monsters; escape is the only way to survive an encounter with them.  Laying the bones to rest with offerings of food may work, but the giant ghosts are very difficult to defeat.  Otherwise, eventually, these creatures will burn themselves out, the spiritual energy necessary to hold together all of the bones finally giving way, and they collapse.

The origin of the Gashadokuro is shrouded in mystery, but one possible explanation comes from 10th century CE. During a very bloody conflict within Japan’s government (which are quite common in the island nation’s history), the daughter of a warlord sought to protect her father and castle from an invading army by summoning a giant skeleton.  She used a spell inscribed on a scroll and the skeleton appeared from a dark void to attack the soldiers.  There is the famous woodblock painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, titled Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre that depict this event.  It is said that after this mythical battle, Gashadokuro were unleashed upon the world.

Supernatural Friday: A Ghoulish Last Friday in August

"They are neither man nor woman

They are neither brute nor human

They are Ghouls" 

— Edgar Allan Poe

When George Romero's Night of the Living Dead came out, the press called the undead zombies. Except Romero never coined them that term. Instead, he had called them ghouls. Which would be the right term, as zombies are connected to voodoo and are people drugged and controlled, not flesh-eating monsters.

What are ghouls? A ghoul is a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses.  It is one who shows morbid interest in things considered shocking or repulsive and supposedly lives in burial grounds. 

In Arabic folklore, ghouls are a type of jinn that could change their shapes but had one unchanging feature: donkey's hooves for feet. Even more horrible, it kills young children and even can lure unwary folk into abandoned places. By extension, the word ghoul is also used derogatorily to refer to a person who delights in the macabre, or whose profession is linked directly to death, such as a gravedigger.
Ghoul is from the Arabic ghul, from ghala "to seize." It is even thought to come from Gallu, a Mesopotamian demon. In Sumerian and Akkadian  mythology, the Gallus (also called gallu demons  or gallas [Akkadian: gallû]) were great demons/devils of the underworld. Their job was to haul off unfortunate victims to the underworld and even accompanied Istar when she headed down to the underworld.

The ghul is a fiendish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis, known to the Devil in Islam. A ghoul is a desert-dwelling shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, and eats the dead, taking the form of the person most recently eaten. In the Arabic language, the female form is given as ghouleh and the plural is ghilan. In colloquial Arabic, the term is sometimes used to describe a greedy or gluttonous individual.

In stories and films, I think Gollum is the closest to the idea of a ghoul, and I wouldn't be surprised this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote him into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. What other beings in books or TV or film, do you believe are ghouls?

Supernatural Friday: Slender or Tall, He's Out to Scare You!

The Slender Man is an urban legend of a mythical creature often depicted as a tall, thin figure wearing a black suit and a blank face. According to the legend, he can stretch or shorten his arms at will and has tentacle-like appendages protruding from his back. Depending on the interpretations of the myth, the creature who seems to be no unlike the men in black ufo stories can cause memory loss, insomnia, paranoia, coughing fits (nicknamed “slendersickness”), make photograph/video distortions, and can teleport at will.  Where he comes from is as much a mystery as what he wants. All that is known is that there is evidence of him existing for far longer than one would expect. Those who see him often wind up missing or worse, their mutilated bodies are impaled upon a tree, their organs removed, and then replaced in a systematic way. Supposedly, sightings of this creature have been seen in many places around the world, including the United States, Norway, and Japan. The story goes that those who have seen him are frequently found to be maniacally writing strange messages, and drawing mad scribbles of a dark, faceless figure. It is advised that one stops investigating too much, otherwise will find that you become the subject of unwanted interest. There will be a horror movie coming out next week in movie theaters, Slender Man. You can view the trailer here: Youtube.

Supposedly, in June 2009, a “’paranormal pictures” photoshop contest was launched on the ‘Something Awful’ Forums. The contest required participants to turn ordinary photographs into creepy-looking images through digital manipulation and then pass them on as authentic photographs on a number of paranormal forums. Something Awful users soon began sharing their faux-paranormal creations with layered images of ghosts and other anomalies, usually accompanied by a fabricated witness account to make them more convincing. One of the forum users on June 10^th had posted two black and white photographs of unnamed children with a short description of “Slender Man” as a mysterious creature who was stalking the kids in the photographs. Another user of the forum reused the Slender Man character for his own story. The original thread, which still remains active today, extends for 46 pages as of June 2011.

The creation of “Slender Man” may have inspired an ongoing series of amateur adventure games titled “Chzo Mythos.” Published by Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw in 2003, one of the main villains is called Cabadath. It is also referred to as “Tall Man.”Making his first in-game appearance in Trilby’s Notes, the character was portrayed in the third installment as a tall, thin man dressed in a long, black, high-collared coat with tails that reach to the floor and having a blank face.

But this slender man or tall man has more far-reaching stories from old legends. There is Der Großmann, German for “The Great Man,” is often translated as The Tall Man, too. It is rumored to be a German folklore concerning a tall boogeyman existing since the 16th century. The Tall Man also abducts children, just like the Slender Man is supposed to. There is a horror film about the Tall Man, called “The Tall Man,” that came out in 2012: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1658837/. Even the fiend in the Phantasm movies is called the Tall Man.No doubt, the game developers took this being and using “Slender Man” for the name of their villain, put him into their game. 

From what I could find, there are some old legends for the Great Man or tall Man, but I suspect that the Slender Man has been fabricated on more and more in modern times, with help by the Internet, not unlike the Bunnyman of Virginia. 

But just in case I am wrong, if you see an extremely tall, thin man dressed all in black not far from a children’s playground, maybe you should take heed. Especially before you forget. . .

Supernatural Friday: A Basket of Thirteens for You-Friday the 13th!

With me working on edits sent by the editor for my short story that was accepted for a fairy fantasy anthology and other stuff, no time today to write a blog post. So, since it is Friday the 13th today, here is repost from April 13th.  

There’s nothing more invigorating on this day than a basket of 13 black cats. Right?

For many reasons, people feel Friday then 13th is a day of bad luck. Not so for me, 13 is my lucky number. Over the years, I've won prizes and money with this number. Heck, I own a black cat!

2018 has double the trouble as Friday the 13th happens today again. 
The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). The term is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a simple phobia (fear) of the number thirteen appearing in any case.
Both the number thirteen and Friday have been considered unlucky:
In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve recognized signs of the zodiac, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Apostles of Jesus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.

Friday, as the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified, has been viewed both positively and negatively among Christians. The actual day of Crucifixion was the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew Lunar calendar which does not correspond to "Friday" in the solar calendar of Rome. The 15th day of Nissan (beginning at Sundown) is a celebration of Passover.
In the 20th century, only did the superstition receive a greater audience, as Friday the 13th doesn't even merit a mention in E. Cobham Brewer's voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for "Friday, an Unlucky Day" and "Thirteen Unlucky." When the date of ill fate finally does make an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant claims as to the superstition's historicity or longevity. Though the superstition developed relatively recently, much older origins are often claimed for it, most notably in the novel, The Da Vinci Code (and later the film), which traced the belief to the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307.

Friday the 13th has for years been considered a day to watch out for. A study done in 1993, by authors in the British Medical Journal have proven more car accidents are higher on the 13th than on normal Fridays.

Both the number 13 and the sixth day of the week have foreboding reputations since ancient times. Those who fear something bad will happen on the 13th, will not go to work, eat, etc...

The number 13 is also connected with a legend. It is said, that if thirteen people sit down to dinner, one of them will die within the year. Many cities do not have a 13th Street or Avenue. There are buildings without a thirteen floor. Having thirteen letters in your name means you will have the devil's luck. People with 13 letters include Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Theodore Bundy, Albert De Slavo, to name a few.

Turks have a dislike so much for the number that it is almost stricken from their vocabulary. And of course, everyone knows there are thirteen witches in a coven!

To give the argument from the other side: Chinese consider the number to be a sign of luck. Egyptians used this for spiritual ascension--twelve in their life and thirteenth beyond, meant to be eternal afterlife.

It is thought that western civilization reviled the number as it is considered feminine--used by prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures. It corresponded to the lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year.

Millions of Americans have a fear of Friday the 13th in this day and age. It has been proven that the number of hospital admissions due to vehicular accidents was significantly higher than on "normal" Fridays. Does it keep most of them from venturing out to work and more? No. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they carry a rabbit's foot in their purse or pocket or something that they believe is lucky for them. 
What plans are you making to do today for the 13th--stay home safe and sound or go out as usual? Do you believe in the 13th being an unlucky day or not? Thirteen is just a number--right? It's just another day. 

OR IS IT?  💀💀