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: Is There a Sturgeon Swimming in Your Full Moon?

August's full moon is the Full Hay Moon, also the Full Sturgeon Moon. The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this moon, since the sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. Other tribes across America gave August’s full moon different names. For example, the San Ildefonso and San Juan tribes called this month’s moon the Wheat Cut Moon. The Dakotah Sioux tribe called August’s full moon the Moon When All Things Ripen. And the Ojibwe tribespeople called it the Blueberry Moon. It happens August 26, 2018.

For thousands of years, people have looked up at the moon and wondered about its divine significance. No surprise many cultures had lunar deities - that is, gods or goddesses associated with the power and energy of the moon. If you're doing a moon-related ritual, in some traditions of Wicca and Paganism you may choose to call upon one of these deities for assistance.

Alignak is the god of both the moon and weather. He controls the tides, besides also earthquakes and eclipses. In some stories, it is told that he is also responsible for returning the souls of the dead to earth so that they may be reborn. Alignak may appear in harbors to protect fishermen from Sedna, the wrathful sea goddess.

Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt. As her twin brother, Apollo, was associated with the Sun, Artemis became connected to the moon in the post-Classical world. During the ancient Greek period, although Artemis was represented as a lunar goddess, she never gotten portrayed as the moon itself. In post-Classical artwork, she is depicted beside a crescent moon and is often associated with the Roman Diana as well. Like Artemis, Diana began as a goddess of the hunt who later evolved into a lunar goddess.

 

 

Cerridwen is the keeper of the cauldron of knowledge in Celtic mythology. Besides the giver of wisdom and inspiration, she is often associated with the moon and the intuitive process. As a goddess of the Underworld, Cerridwen is often symbolized by a white sow, which represents both her fecundity and fertility and her strength as a mother. She is both Mother and Crone; many modern Pagans honor Cerridwen for her close association to the full moon.

Chang'e of Chinese mythology was married to the king Hou Yi. Although he was once known as a great archer, later Hou Yi became a tyrannical king, spreading death and destruction wherever he went. People starved and were brutally treated. Hou Yi greatly feared death, so a healer gave him a special elixir that would allow him to live forever. Chang'e knew that for Hou Yi to live forever would be a terrible thing, so while he slept, one night she stole the potion. When Hou Yi saw her and demanded the return of the potion, she immediately drank it and flew up into the sky as the moon, where she remains to this day. In some Chinese stories, this is the perfect example of someone making a sacrifice to save others.

In Aztec stories, Coyolxauhqui was the sister of the god Huitzilopochtli. She died when her brother leaped from their mother's womb and killed all of his siblings. Huitzilopochtli cut off Coyolxauhqui's head and threw it up into the sky, where it remains today as the moon. She is typically depicted as a young and beautiful woman, adorned with bells and decorated with lunar symbols.

Hecate was venerated as a mother goddess, During the Ptolemaic period in Alexandria, she was elevated to her position as goddess of ghosts and the spirit world. Many contemporary Pagans and Wiccans honor Hecate in her guise as a Dark Goddess, although it would be incorrect to refer to her as an aspect of the Crone, because of her connection to childbirth and maidenhood. It's more likely that her role as "dark goddess" due to her connection to the spirit world, ghosts, the dark moon, and magic. 

Thoth was an Egyptian god of magic and wisdom, and appears in a few legends as the god who weighs the souls of the dead, although many other stories assign that job to Anubis. Because Thoth is a lunar deity, he is often portrayed wearing a crescent on his head. He is closely associated with Seshat, a goddess of writing and wisdom, who is known as the scribe of the divine. 

Sina is one of the best-known Polynesian deities. She resides within the moon itself and is the protector of those who might travel at night. Originally, she lived on earth but got tired of the way her husband and family treated her. So, she packed up her belongings and left to go live on the moon, according to Hawaiian legend. In Tahiti, the story goes that Sina, or Hina, simply got curious about what it was like on the moon, and so paddled her magical canoe until she got there. Once she had arrived, she was struck by the moon's tranquil beauty and decided to stay.

Last, is Selene. She is the sister of Helios, the Greek sun god. Tribute got paid to her on the days of the full moon. Like many Greek goddesses, she had a number of different aspects. At one point she was worshipped as Phoebe, the Huntress, and later was identified with Artemis. Her lover was a young shepherd prince named Endymion, who was granted immortality by Zeus - however, he was also granted eternal slumber, so all that immortality and eternal youth were wasted on Endymion. The shepherd was doomed to sleeping in a cave forever, so Selene descended from the sky every night to sleep beside him. Unlike most other lunar goddesses of Greece, Selene is the only one who is actually portrayed as the moon incarnate by the early classical poets. 

But the moon has more to do with superstitions and legends besides as a diety:

The word lunatic comes from the Latin luna. This is because it was believed that people were more likely to exhibit aberrant behavior during a full moon. Although studies have been done showing that emergency room visits and accidents are increased during the full moon period, there has yet to be conclusive evidence for causation. Of course, with the full moon at some point being a part of a werewolf ‘s transformation, maybe this is what they thought.

The moon seems to have an effect on animals as well as people. A Florida expert on animal behavior reports that hamsters spin in their wheels far more aggressively during the moon's full phase. Deer and other herbivores in the wild tend to ovulate at the full moon, and in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the full moon is mating time for coral. Werecoral?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, was inspired by the strange -- and yet very true -- case of Charles Hyde, a London man who committed a series of crimes at the time of the full moon.

A British legend tells that if Christmas falls on the day of a dark moon, the following year's harvest would be a bountiful one. In some parts of the British Isles, it is believed that a waxing moon on Christmas will ensure a good crop the next fall, but a waning moon indicates a bad one will happen.

When a halo is seen around the moon, in some countries this means bad weather is coming.

The first time you see a crescent moon for the month, take all your spare coins out of your pocket and put them in the other pocket. This will ensure good luck for the next month.

It is believed that the fifth day after a full moon is the perfect time to try to conceive a child.

Offerings are made to the ancestors on the night of a full moon in some Chinese tales.

The moon is held captive by a hostile tribe in some Native American legends. In the tales, there is a pair of antelope who hope to rescue the moon and take it to the village of a good tribe. But Coyote, the trickster, interferes. The antelope chase Coyote, but he throws the moon into a river each night, always out of reach of the antelope.

The night of the full moon is believed to be a good time for divination and scrying, so if you want to find some things out, a good time to do so.

 

Supernatural Friday: So, June Is More than a Hot Month

Where did the first month of summer, June, get its name? In Old English, this month was often referred to as simply “midsummer month.” Today being June 1^st, there is more to the month than the end of spring and beginning of summer.

In Greek mythology, the month may come due to Hera, known in Roman as Juno. In Roman myth, she is the patron goddess of Rome. She is shown alternately as a cruel goddess in Virgil’s Aeneid, and the goddess of marriage and childbirth. In fact, summer weddings are still very popular, and they may have started because of the blessing that this goddess bestowed on those who got married in her sacred month.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is Connected to the month June too.  The relationship between Janus and  the Greek goddess Juno is defined by the closeness of the notions of beginning and transition and the functions of conception and delivery, result of youth and vital force.

This Roman god is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. In other words, sounds like Gemini twins in the zodiac, which is connected to birthdays end of May through a portion of June. Gemini people are thought to be two-faced in their personalities.

Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The gates of a building in Rome named after him, not a temple as it is often called, but an open enclosure with gates at each end, were opened in time of war, and closed to mark the arrival of peace (which did not happen very often). As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping. The ancient Greeks had no equivalent to Janus, whom the Romans claimed as distinctively their own.

The function god of beginnings has been clearly expressed in numerous ancient sources, among them most notably Cicero, Ovid, and Varro. As a god of motion, Janus looks after passages, causes actions to start and presides over all beginnings. Since movement and change are interconnected, he has a double nature, symbolized in his two headed image. He has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes.

According to myth Janus was the first to mint coins and the as, first coin of the liberal series, bears his effigy on one face.

Representing time, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as at marriages, deaths and other beginnings. He represented the middle ground between barbarism and civilization, rural and urban space, youth and adulthood. Having jurisdiction over beginnings Janus had an intrinsic association with omens and auspices.

The birthstone of June is the pearl. Arabian legend say pearls are drops of the moon that the oyster has fallen in love with. The Chinese believed that the pearl came from the brain of a dragon. 

As we forge ahead into June, thinking of the end of school, summer, end of spring, summer vacation, the beach or pool, and amusement parks, it is interesting to learn there is more to June than the mundane.

Supernatural Friday: Fairy, Fae, Faery, It All Leads to the Little People

The term Faerie is derived from "Fé erie.” It means the enchantment of the Fées, while Fé is derived from Fay, derived from Fatae, or the Fates. The term originally applied to supernatural women who directed the lives of men and attended births. Now it has come to mean any supernatural creature tied to the earth, except monsters and ghosts. The modern term, “fairy,” was created, due to fairy tales.

In Ireland, the Faeries are called the Aes Sídhe (the singular being Aes Sídh). Sídhe happens to be the name for the earthen mounds and hills dotting the Irish landscape. Irish tales claim the Faeries live under these mounds, so the term "sídhe" has come to mean Faerie in general. The word also refers to the palaces, courts, halls, and residences of the Faeries. Fairies are also known b y other euphemisms, "the Fair Folk", "the Good Neighbors", "the Little Folk", "the Little Darlings", and "the People of Peace". The reason why: first is to avoid attracting their attention. The second was to avoid insulting them.

Thanks to legends and folklore of Scandinavia the elf was used the same way Aes Sídh was used in Ireland, to refer to any Faeries, and it was introduced to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons. English literature made the elves the diminutive fairies of Spenser and Shakespeare, which in conventional Faerie lore would be the equivalent of the little nature spirits.

There are tales in myths of how fairies came to be. The first way had them as fallen angels. A few did not follow Lucifer into Hell, but decided to reside on earth.

Second: It is explained them as the dead not good enough to enter Heaven, but too good for Hell. It is said they live in limbo as they recreate their former lives.

Third and last: This has them as children of Eve. She hides them from God, who curses her that the children she tried to hide from Him would remain hidden from her, and subsequently all Mankind.

Myth also divides fairies into three groups. This explains Faeries as an older race of people driven into hiding by invading newcomers. This old race continues to survive in part by stealing tools, food, animals, even woman and children from the invaders, attacking solitary travelers who wander into their territory, or haunting isolated farms where they do work in exchange for food. In time, the invaders come to think of these people as having supernatural powers, and develop traditions about them to protect themselves and try to stay out of their way. Of course, this may have occurred in Ireland, when the Mesolithic hunter-gathers were supplanted by Neolithic farmers sometime around 4500 B.C. Irish mythological history says defeated races retreated under mounds to become the Faeries (this is also in England too—the “little people” of mounds there). It was also said that Fairies might be a form of ancestor worship, especially forebears from a past "Golden Age" of heroic history. Legends and folktales tell how great kings and heroes entered Faerieland when they died, to establish new kingdoms under hills and mounds. Does this not also sound like what happened to King Arthur, taken to Avalon? But then the Celts were not only in Ireland, but in England and Wales then, too.  Same of some in Scotland. Anyway, the Irish generally believed that Faeries were the dead, and Faerieland was the afterlife. Even after their conversion to Christianity, the Irish continued to believe that most people when they died waited for the Last Judgment inside one or another Faerie mound. Last theory concerned that Faeries were dwindled gods. It  is said that generations of people retold their myths, changing them from deities to nature spirits, especially after the coming of Christianity. In Ireland, the legends and folktales say that the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann and Fir Bholg retreated under the mounds to become the first Faeries, and most mythographers believe they were the gods of the ancient Irish.

There is a connection in mythology of people and children being taken by fairies and coming back years later hardly aged. Sounds somewhat like alien abduction, doesn’t it? Fairies steal babies, leaving a changeling in the child’s place. Fairies stole young women as brides, or perhaps for other, less honorable purposes. In the aptly named tale “Stolen Bride,” a gang of fairies carries off a young woman, and something similar happens in "Jamie Freel and the Young Lady.” In both cases, the women are put under an enchantment that leaves them mute and confused.   And sometimes the women are left pregnant—like in alien abduction stories—only to lose the child one night after abduction.

Now in Virginia where I live, there is a state park that is named Fairy Stone State Park. It is the largest of Virginia's six original state parks, is home to its namesake "fairy stones." These rare mineral crosses and the park's scenic beauty, rich history and ample recreational opportunities make it a local and regional favorite. The 4,639 acres that make up the park were donated by Junius B. Fishburn, former owner of the Roanoke Times, in 1933. The Civilian Conservation Corps originally built the park, its lake and many structures still in use there.

For many years people held these little crosses in superstitious awe, firm in the belief that they protected the wearer against witchcraft, sickness, accidents and disaster. Fairy stones are staurolite, a combination of silica, iron and aluminum. Staurolite crystallizes at 60 or 90 degree angles, hence the stone's cross-like structure. Found only in rocks once subjected to great heat and pressure, the mineral was formed long, long ago, during the rise of the Appalachian Mountains. The stones are most commonly shaped like St. Andrew’s cross, an "X," but "T" shaped Roman crosses and square Maltese crosses are the most sought-after. The rare staurolite stones are found elsewhere but not in such abundance as at Fairy Stone State Park.

The Legend of the Fairy Stone: Many hundreds of years before Chief Powhatan’s reign, fairies were dancing around a spring of water, playing with naiads and wood nymphs, when an elfin messenger arrived from a city far away. He brought news of the death of Christ. When these creatures of the forest heard the story of the crucifixion, they wept. As their tears fell upon the earth, they crystallized to form beautiful crosses. 

If you like to visit this park, find out more at the official website at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/fairy-stone#general_information

Supernatural Friday: Scary Movies to Make Your Heart Stop for Valentines Day

Every year on February 14^th, most people exchange cards, candy, gifts or flowers with their special “valentine.” Today is Valentine’s Day. This day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5^th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture. It was also dedicated to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus—those twins that fed at the teats of a she-wolf.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection in classical mythology. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus, and is known in Latin also as Amor ("Love"). His Greek counterpart is Eros.  Eros appears in Classical Greek art as a slender and winged youth, But in the Hellenistic period he became more and more portrayed as chubby boy, with the bow and arrow to represent uncontrollable desire.

Cupid is a minor character in myths who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. The only time he is a main character is in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons he experiences the ordeal of love.

So what can be scary about a day dedicated to love?  Well, how about some horror flicks you can watch with your horror honey?

My Bloody Valentine (1981): A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead.

My Bloody Valentine (2009): One of my favorite actors from the TV show, Supernatural, Jensen Ackles, is in this film: Tom returns to his hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine's night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Instead of a homecoming, Tom finds himself suspected of committing the murders, and it seems like his old flame is the only one that believes he's innocent.

Valentine (2001): Five women are stalked by an unknown assailant while preparing for Valentine's Day.

Lover's Lane (1999): A man with a hook for a hand who committed a series of murders thirteen years ago begins to hunt down his victims' children.

X-Ray--Original Title: Hospital Massacre (1981): While receiving a routine check-up, a beautiful woman is stalked by a maniac out to avenge a childhood Valentine's Day 

humiliation.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935): Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate. (It is sort of a love story).

The Shape of Water (2017): In theaters now and Oscar nominated, including Best Picture: At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

Creature From the Black Lagoon--since Shape of Water reminded me of the Creature and his fascination for a human woman in the movie (1954): A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.

Cat People (1942): An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.

Cat People--Remake (1982): More erotic than the original. A young woman's sexual awakening brings horror when she discovers her urges transform her into a monstrous black leopard.

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987): This Hong Kong period piece tells the tale of love between a human and a ghost enslaved by a wicked tree demon.

Ghost (1990): After a young man is murdered, his spirit stays behind to warn his lover of impending danger, with the help of a reluctant psychic.

I Will Follow You Into the Dark (2012): A woman reeling from the death of her parents becomes attached to an alluring man whose sudden disappearance sends her and her friends into a haunted high-rise to find him.

Spring (2014): A young man in a personal tailspin flees from US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a woman harboring a dark, primordial secret.

Warm Bodies (2013): After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

Wolf (1994): Publisher Will Randall becomes a werewolf and has to fight to keep his job. The movie is also the antithesis of a young adult novel's adolescent love story. Wolf finds love with a more adult pairing: Michelle Pfeiffer and a lycanthropic Jack Nicholson.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925): A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer. No, not the musical, but the first one on film.

Supernatural Friday: Monsters of the Last Frontier

With the cold weather leaving us for a while (at least where I live), I still wanted to blog about monsters connected to a cold section of the country—Alaska.

The first are tornits. In the beginning, the Inuit and the tornits lived peacefully in villages near each other, sharing common hunting grounds.

The Inuit people often built and used kayaks for hunting. While the tornits were unable to master the building of kayaks, they became aware of the advantages of having and using one. One tale says a young tornit borrowed a young Inuit's kayak without permission and damaged the bottom of it. The young Inuit grew angry and stabbed the tornit in the the neck while he slept and killed him. The rest of the tornits fearing they would be killed by the Inuit fled the country. Since that time, stories of hunters disappearing, later found dead and mangled or never seen again. Apparently, hunters and the tornits no longer peacefully shared common hunting grounds. One thing about these tornits, they sound like Bigfoot.

The next monster of Alaskan myth is the Tizheruk, large, snake-like sea creatures believed to roam Alaska's waters. They are described as having head 7 feet long, a body with a tail ending in a flipper, making them about 12 to 15 feet long. These creatures are claimed to snatch people from docks and piers.

The Tizheruk have some similarities to the Haietlik, or "Lightning Snakes," occasionally associated with the Thunderbird of Southeast Alaska and Pacific Northwest native cultures. Once the Thunderbird spotted a killer whale, it would launch Haietlik as living weapons by throwing them from the skies like lightning.

The Qalupalik is a creature of Inuit legend described as being human-like and having green skin with long hair and very long fingernails. She lives in the sea, hums to entice children to come closer to the water and wears an amautik -- a parka worn by Inuit women to hold a child against the back in a built-in baby pouch just below the hood.

Like the boogeyman legends, parents and elders tell children that if they are disobedient or wander too close to the sea shore, the Qalupalik will come onshore, snatch and stow them in her amautik, before taking them back to the sea with her to raise them as her own children. Some tales say she eats the children, but most I read say she keeps them in a secret place, putting them to sleep so they don’t try to escape. These tales say she feeds off their “energy” to stay young, to keep her shiny green skin lovely, and her wild hair lustrous. As the children age, the Qalupalik grows younger.

Then there’s the bloodthirsty Adlet, bearing resemblance to the werewolf. The Inuit legend tells that the Adlet are a race of people said to have the lower body of dogs and the upper body of humans. Typically, they're believed to be the offspring of an Inuit woman and a dog, thanks to an unnatural mating.

The woman gave birth to 10 children, half of whom were dogs and the other half, Adlet. The family was sent to a remote island because they were so voracious, and their grandfather would hunt for them and provide them with meat. Every day, the dog-husband was supposed to swim from the island to the mainland, where the grandfather was supposed to fill a pair of boots wrapped around the dog's neck with meat. Eventually, the grandfather filled the boots with rocks, drowning the husband.

Fearing for her children's lives, the mother sent them inland, where they spawned more Adlet. The Adlet are typically portrayed as aggressive savages who will attack men when they cross paths.

Although the Adlet legend is based in far north mythology -- a version of the story appears in Greenland too. There the Adlet are called Erqigdlit -- a few researchers have linked it to the European tales of the werewolf.

The last Alaskan beastie is The Keelut is described as an evil earth spirit that takes the form of a black, hairless dog with only hair on its feet. It's not unlike the Black Dogs that haunt Great Britain and other parts of the United States (like in my book, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales). It tracks travelers at night, attacking, and then killing them. If a trail of dog paw prints are found in the earth and they vanish, the story goes that it is considered a Keelut is nearby.

Supernatural Friday: Brrrr…It’s Cold: Myths and Legends of Winter; Part 1

Most of the United States has went been freezing a polar vortex this past week, as of New Year’s Eve night. Yesterday, we had a nasty northeaster, where along the East Coast and places inland had snow dumped on it. With the return today of colder temps until the afternoon of Monday, January 8^th, it might be good to blog about winter legends and myths for the next couple of Supernatural Fridays.

The winter solstice has Latin roots and means “sun standing still.” It happens in a two-to-three-day period, where the arced path the sun cuts across the sky stops descending and appears to come to a standstill, before making a slow trek upwards.

Shorter days, colder temperatures, and the associated dramatic changes in the patterns of all living things, contributes to many beliefs and practices associated with the winter time. Myths and legends arose to both explain and understand the ebbing of the sun’s light, warmth, and influence. Though some of these have either faded in prevalence and influence or have grown modified over time, others have endured for centuries. Also, over time, many customs, practices, stories, and elements of folklore from different cultures were borrowed or became blended.

The pagan celebration of Saturnalia might have been one of the first solstice-related festivals to incorporate the custom of gift-giving. It also might have helped foster a tradition of goodwill toward men at that time of year because during the several days of the celebration, slaves could reverse roles with their masters (a benevolent emperor permitting). The Druids may have been among the first to use the dominant colors and fragrances of the season and to place herbs, branches, and wreaths in their homes to adorn as well as sanctify them. In the Norse country, the goddess Frigga was not only thought to labor hard to bring back the lost light of day, but also to determine the fortunes and fate of humans for the coming new year at her weaving wheel

Native Americans have myths concerning winter. Like the Anishinaabe tribes’ Biboon. This mythological being is the North Wind spirit and his name varies widely from community to community. Biboon (and its many spelling variants) literally means "Winter." Gichi-Biboon means "Great Winter," and Biboonike and Gaabiboonike are names meaning "Winter-Maker" or "One who causes the winter." Giiwedin literally means "north wind," although this name is rarely used to refer to the mythological character.

Connected to the Chippewa people is a monster called the Windigo.  One other spelling is Wendigo, though there are many more. Windigos are the evil man-eating giants of Anishinaabe mythology. Windigos play the roles of monsters and bogeymen in some legends; in others, Chippewa people who commit sins (especially selfishness, gluttony, or cannibalism) are turned into a Windigo as punishment. The appearance of a windigo is huge, monstrous, and made of or coated in ice, but the human it once was is still frozen inside the monster where its heart should be, and must be killed to defeat the windigo. In a few legends a human has been successfully rescued from the heart of a windigo, but usually once a person has been possessed by a windigo spirit, the only escape is death.

In many Iroquoian and some Algonquian legends, the culture hero has a twin brother or younger brother named Flint who killed their mother in childbirth, usually by intentionally cutting his way out rather than waiting to be born. In Iroquois stories this spirit is often malevolent and goes on to create hardships for humans and fight with his brother. In Algonquian legends, the character of Flint does not generally commit any further crimes or problems other than the death of his mother. In many tribes, Flint is associated with winter, night, and death.

In Iroquois mythology, Flint (Tawiscara or Tawiskaron in the Iroquois languages) is one of twin grandsons of the mother goddess Sky Woman. He is often, though not always, associated with evil, like the Bad Spirit or Evil Mind of the Cayugas. Flint's brother is the creator god Sky-Holder. Sometimes they are said to have created humans together, thus explaining why people have both good and evil nature. In some Iroquois myths, Flint is a sociopathic villain, intentionally killing his own mother and deceiving his grandmother into believing his brother was the killer. Eventually, he must be defeated and imprisoned by his brother. In other Iroquois traditions, Flint is more of a trickster figure than a villain, and causes destruction merely because of his chaotic nature. Flint and Sky-Holder are sometimes said to exist in a kind of cosmic balance, with both light and darkness being necessary for life.

Flint is less prominent in Algonquian mythology, but is sometimes described as the youngest brother of the Anishinabe hero, Nanabozho, or the twin brother of the Wabanaki hero, Glooscap. Some of his Algonquian names are Chakekenapok (Potawatomi) and Mikwam (Ojibwe.) In some stories the culture hero kills him to avenge their mother's death in childbirth, but in other stories, Flint remains as one of the seasonal or directional demigods.

Next week, we will talk about more wintry beings from myths, legends, and folklore from different parts of the world. Until then stay warm, and watch out for the Windigo.