Goblins
A goblin is an evil, crabby, or mischievous creature of folklore, often described as a grotesquely disfigured or gnome-like phantom, that may range in height from that of a dwarf to that of a human. They are attributed with various (sometimes conflicting) abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases goblins have been classified as constant annoying little creatures somewhat related with the celtic brownie.
According to "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English" the name is probably derived from the Anglo-French gobelin (medieval Latin gobelinus), which is probably a diminutive of Gobel, a name related to the word kobold. Goblin is also related to the French lutin. In addition, there also exist various other alternative spellings of the word goblin, including: Gobblin, gobeline, gobling, goblyn, gobelinus (medieval Latin), and vulgus gobelinum (demon) (Latin).
Dwarfs, hiisi, duende, tengu, Mennink?inen and kallikantzaroi are often translated into English as 'goblins'. The Erlking and Billy Blind are sometimes called goblins. Goblins are often used as a general term to mean any small mischievous being.
According to some traditions, goblin comes from Gob or Ghob, the king of the gnomes, whose inferiors were called Ghob-lings.
Skratta is old Scandinavian word for a goblin or monster (modern Icelandic skratti, a devil).
Any creature resembling a goblin, but larger than a man, is considered a Troll.
One fabled origin for goblin is in France, in a cleft of the Pyrenees, from which they spread rapidly throughout Europe. They hitched a ride with Viking ships to get to Britain. They have no homes, being nomadic, dwelling temporarily in mossy cracks in rocks and tree roots.
Sir Walter Scott in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft ascribed gnomes, kobolds and goblins, along with Scottish bogles, to all correspond with a caricature of the Sami people. The Benevolent Goblin, by Gesta Romanorum (England) The Boy Who Drew Cats (Japanese fairy tale) The Cook and the House Goblin (Estonia), from A Book of Ghosts and Goblins (1969) Erlking is a malevolent goblin from German legend. 'Ghosts and Goblins' is a phrase traditionally associated with Halloween. The Goblin of Adachigahara (Japanese fairy tale) The Goblin and the Grocer, by Hans Christian Andersen The Goblin Pony, from The Grey Fairy Book (French fairy tale) The Goblins at the Bath House (Estonia), from A Book of Ghosts and Goblins (1969) The Goblins Turned to Stone (Dutch fairy tale) Goblins Thimbles are another name for foxgloves. Gwyn ap Nudd was ruler over the goblin tribe. (Welsh folklore) Shiva has a cohort of goblins and ghouls (India). The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen Twenty-Two Goblins (Indian fairy tale)
Demons
In religion, folklore, and mythology a demon (or daemon, d?mon, daimon from Greek: ?????? [?a?mon]) is a supernatural being that has generally been described as a malevolent spirit, and in Christian terms it is generally understood as a Fallen angel, formerly of God. A demon is frequently depicted as a force that may be conjured and insecurely controlled. The "good" demon in recent use is largely a literary device (e.g., Maxwell's demon), though references to good demons can be found in Hesiod and Shakespeare. In common language, to "demonize" a person means to characterize or portray them as evil, or as the source of evil.
As the Iranian Avestan and Vedic traditions as well as other branches of Indo-European mythologies show, the notion of 'demons' [Daewan] has existed for many millennia.
Ancient Egyptians also believed in demonic monsters that might devour living souls while they traveled towards the afterlife, although demons per se did not exist in Ancient Egyptian belief.
The Greek conception of a daemon (< ?????? daim?n) appears in the works of Plato and many other ancient authors, but without the evil connotations which are apparent in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible and in the Greek originals of the New Testament. The medieval and neo-medieval conception of a "demon" in Western civilization (see the Medieval grimoire called the Ars Goetia) derives seamlessly from the ambient popular culture of Late (Roman) Antiquity: Greco-Roman concepts of daemons that passed into Christian culture are discussed in the entry daemon, though it should be duly noted that the term referred only to a spiritual force, not a malevolent supernatural being. The Hellenistic "daemon" eventually came to include many Semitic and Near Eastern gods as evaluated by Christianity.
The supposed existence of demons is an important concept in many modern religions and occultist traditions. In some present-day cultures, demons are still feared in popular superstition, largely due to their alleged power to possess living creatures.
In the contemporary Western occultist tradition (perhaps epitomized by the work of Aleister Crowley), a demon, such as Choronzon, the "Demon of the Abyss", is a useful metaphor for certain inner psychological processes, though some may also regard it as an objectively real phenomenon. Aleister Crowley also contacted the abyssmal demon Kokomo through the use of a Ouija board and had nightly conversations. Crowley often said his "pet demon" Kokomo threatened death upon mockery and destroying the board. Crowley died shortly after burning his ouija board in an attempt to become possessed by demons.
Some scholars believe that large portions of the demonology (see Asmodai) of Judaism, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated in Zoroastrianism, and were transferred to Judaism during the Persian era.
The idea of demons is as old as religion itself, and the word demon seems to have ancient origins. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the etymology of the word as Greek daimon, probably from the verb daiesthai meaning "to divide, distribute." The Proto-Indo-European root deiwos for god, originally an adjective meaning "celestial" or "bright, shining" has retained this meaning in many related Indo-European languages and cultures (Sanskrit deva, Latin deus, German Tiw, Welsh [Duw],]), but also provided another other common word for demon in Avestan daeva.
In modern Greek, the word daimon(Greek: ??????) has the same meaning as the modern English demon. But in Ancient Greek, ?????? meant "spirit" or "higher self", much like the Latin genius. This should not, however, be confused with the word genie, which is a false friend or false cognate of genius.
Psychologist Wilhelm Wundt remarks that "among the activities attributed by myths all over the world to demons, the harmful predominate, so that in popular belief bad demons are clearly older than good ones." Sigmund Freud develops on this idea and claims that the concept of demons was derived from the important relation of the living to the dead: "The fact that demons are always regarded as the spirits of those who have died recently shows better than anything the influence of mourning on the origin of the belief in demons."
Demons as described in the Tanakh are the same as "demons" commonly known in popular or Christian culture.
Those in the Hebrew Bible are of two classes, the se'irim and the shedim. The se'irim ("hairy beings"), to which some Israelites offered sacrifices in the open fields, are satyr-like creatures, described as dancing in the wilderness (Isaiah 13:21, 34:14), and which are identical with the jinn, such as Dantalion, the 71st spirit of Solomon. (But compare the completely European woodwose.) Possibly to the same class belongs Azazel, the goat-like demons of the wilderness (Leviticus 16:10ff), probably the chief of the se'irim, and Lilith (Isaiah 34:14 - where the KJV Bible translates the Hebrew word 'lilith' as "screech owl"). Possibly "the roes and hinds of the field", by which Shulamit conjures the daughters of Jerusalem to bring her back to her lover (Canticles 2:7, 3:5), are faunlike spirits similar to the se'irim, though of a harmless nature.
The evil spirit that troubled Saul (I Samuel 16:14 et seq.) may have been a demon, though the Masoretic text suggests the spirit was sent by God.
Some benevolent shedim were used in kabbalistic ceremonies (as with the golem of Rabbi Yehuda Loevy), and malevolent shedim (mazikin, from the root meaning to damage) are often responsible in instances of possession. Instances of idol worship were often the result of a shed inhabiting an otherwise worthless statue; the shed would pretend to be a God with the power to send pestilence, although such events were not actually under his control.
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Gargoyles
In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building.
The term originates from the French gargouille, originally "throat" or "gullet"; cf. Latin gurgulio, gula, and similar words derived from the root gar, "to swallow", which represented the gurgling sound of water (e.g., Spanish garganta, "throat"; Spanish g?rgola, "gargoyle").
A chimera, or a grotesque figure, is a sculpture that does not work as a waterspout and serves only an ornamental or artistic function. These are also usually called gargoyles in laypersons' terminology, although the field of architecture usually preserves the distinction between gargoyles (functional waterspouts) and non-waterspout grotesques.
Reproductions of statues representing gargoyle-like creatures, available in some retail stores, although sometimes functional, are more often than not grotesques modeled after famous gargoyles.
The term gargoyle is most often applied to medieval work, but throughout all ages some means of water diversion, when not conveyed in gutters, was adopted. In Egypt, gargoyles ejected the water used in the washing of the sacred vessels which seems to have been done on the flat roofs of the temples. In Greek temples, the water from roofs passed through the mouths of lions whose heads were carved or modelled in the marble or terra cotta cymatium of the cornice. At Pompeii, many terra cotta gargoyles were found that are modelled in the shape of animals.
A local legend that sprang up around the name of St. Romanus ("Romain") (631 641 A.D.), the former chancellor of the Merovingian king Clotaire II who was made bishop of Rouen, relates how he delivered the country around Rouen from a monster called Gargouille, having the creature captured by the only volunteer, a condemned man. The gargoyle's grotesque form was said to scare off evil spirits so they were used for protection. In commemoration of St. Romain the Archbishops of Rouen were granted the right to set a prisoner free on the day that the reliquary of the saint was carried in procession (see details at Rouen).
Although most have grotesque features, the term gargoyle has come to include all types of images. Some gargoyles were depicted as monks, combinations of real animals and people, many of which were humorous. Unusual animal mixtures, or chimeras, did not act as rainspouts and are more properly called grotesques. They serve more as ornamentation, but are now synonymous with gargoyles.
Monsters, or more precisely chimarae, were used as decoration on 19th and early 20th century buildings in cities such as New York (where the Chrysler Building's stainless steel gargoyles are celebrated), and Chicago. Gargoyles can be found on many churches and buildings.
One impressive collection of modern gargoyles can be found at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The cathedral begun in 1908 is encrusted with the limestone demons. This collection also includes Darth Vader, a crooked politician, robots and many other modern spins on the ancient tradition. The 20th Century collegiate form of the Gothic Revival produced many modern gargoyles, notably at Princeton University, Duke University and the University of Chicago.
In contemporary fiction, gargoyles are typically depicted as a (generally) winged humanoid race with demonic features: generally horns, a tail, and talons. These fictional gargoyles can generally use their wings to fly or glide, and are often depicted as having a rocky hide, or being capable of turning into stone in one way or another.
Zombies
A zombie is a reanimated corpse. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the dead being raised as workers by a powerful sorcerer. In modern horror fiction, zombies are generally undead corpses brought back from the dead by supernatural or scientific means, and hungry for the flesh of the living. They have very limited intelligence, and may or may not be under anyone's direct control.
According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or Voodoo sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Voodoo snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power.
In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony."
Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Canadian ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), induced a 'death-like' state because of tetrodotoxin (TTX), its key ingredient. Tetrodotoxin is the same lethal toxin found in the Japanese delicacy fugu, or pufferfish. At near-lethal doses (LD50= 5-8g/kg), it can leave a person in a state of near-death for several days, while the person continues to be conscious. The second powder, composed of dissociatives like datura, put the person in a zombie-like state where they seem to have no will of their own. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. There remains considerable skepticism about Davis's claims, although there is wide belief among the Haitian people of the existence of the "zombie drug". The Voodoon religion being somewhat secretive in its practices and codes, it can be very difficult for a foreign scientist to validate or invalidate such claims.
Others have discussed the contribution of the victim's own belief system, possibly leading to compliance with the attacker's will, causing psychogenic ("quasi-hysterical") amnesia, catatonia, or other psychological disorders, which are later misinterpreted as a return from the dead. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.
In the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that the souls of the dead could return to earth and haunt the living. The belief in revenants (someone who has returned from the dead) are well documented by contemporary European writers of the time. According to the Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were, particularly in France during the Middle Ages, the revenant rises from the dead usually to avenge some crime committed against the entity, most likely a murder. The revenant usually took on the form of an emaciated corpse or skeletal human figure, and wandered around graveyards at night. The "draugr" of medieval Norse mythology were also believed to be the corpses of warriors returned from the dead to attack the living. The zombie appears in several other cultures worldwide, including China, Japan, the Pacific, India, and the Native Americans.
The Epic of Gilgamesh of ancient Sumer includes a mention of zombies. Ishtar, in the fury of vengeance says: Father give me the Bull of Heaven, So he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling. If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!
Modern zombies, as portrayed in books, films, and haunted attractions, are quite different from both Voodoo zombies and those of folklore. Modern zombies are typically depicted in popular culture as mindless, unfeeling monsters with a hunger for human flesh, a prototype established in the seminal 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Zombies have been the subject of many horror films since, and occur as antagonists in many video games. There are still significant differences among the depictions of zombies by various media; for one comparison see the contrasts between zombies by Night of the Living Dead authors George A. Romero and John A. Russo as they evolved in the two separate film series that followed.
In philosophy of mind, zombies are hypothetical persons who lack full consciousness but have the biology or behavior of a normal human being; thought experiments involving them are often used as arguments against the identity of the mind and the brain. The term was coined by philosopher of mind David Chalmers. They are referred to as philosophical zombies or "p-zombies".
Some zombie fans continue the George A. Romero tradition of using zombies as a social commentary. Organized zombie walks, which are primarily promoted through word of mouth, are regularly staged in some countries. Usually they are arranged as a sort of surrealist performance art but they are occasionally put on as part of a unique political protest.
The world's largest zombie walk was held on October 29, 2006 in Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the setting of Romero's original Dawn of the Dead film. The walk consisted of 894 attendees who all were instructed to bring canned food for a local food drive.
Werewolves
Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes, are mythological or folkloric people with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or wolflike creature, either purposely, by using magic, or after being placed under a curse. The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the transformation with the appearance of the full moon; however, there is evidence that the association existed among the Ancient Greeks, appearing in the writings of Petronius. This concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by fiction writers.
Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in tales from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.
Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fictional books and films, although fictional werewolves have been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore, most notably the vulnerability to silver bullets.
Many authors have speculated that werewolf and vampire legends may have been used to explain serial killings in less enlightened ages. This theory is given credence by the tendency of some modern serial killers to indulge in practices commonly associated with werewolves, such as cannibalism, mutilation, and cyclic attacks. The idea (although not the terminology) is well explored in Sabine Baring-Gould's seminal work The Book of Werewolves.
A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ergot, which causes a form of foodborne illness, is a fungus that grows in place of rye grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or poor sections of towns, resulting in hallucinations and convulsions. (The hallucinogen LSD was originally derived from ergot). Ergot poisoning has been propounded as both a cause of an individual believing that one is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had witnessed a werewolf. This theory, however, is controversial and not widely accepted.
Some modern researchers have tried to use conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth over the entire body), or porphyria (an enzyme disorder with symptoms including hallucinations and paranoia) to explain werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features which include hairy hands and face, poorly healing skin, pink urine, reddish colour to the teeth, and photosensitivity, the latter of which leads sufferers to only go out at night.
There is also a rare mental disorder called clinical lycanthropy, in which an affected person has a delusional belief that he or she is, or has transformed into, another animal, but not necessarily a wolf or werewolf. Supernatural lycanthropy myths could originate from people relating their experiences of what could be classified as a state of psychosis.
Others believe that werewolf legends were partly inspired from shamanism and totem animals in primitive and nature-based cultures.
The name most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer, and Old Norse verr, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras, and Welsh g?r, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast." An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the berserker, said to wear a bearskin in battle.
Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw," or, euphemistically, "wolf". A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd but ate little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the rogue wolf before it destroyed the entire flock or herd. Herders would often hang the wolf's hide in the bedroom of a young infant, believing it to give the baby supernatural powers. The term Warg was used in Old English for this kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit) and for what would now be called a serial killer. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, an outlaw (who could be murdered with no legal repercussions and was forbidden to receive aid) was typically called vargr, or "wolf."
The Greek term lycanthropy (a compound of which "lyc-" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root wlkwo-, meaning "wolf") formally denotes the "wolf - man" transformation. Lycanthropy is but one form of therianthropy, the ability to metamorphose into animals in general. The term "therianthrope" literally means "beast-man," from which the words turnskin and turncoat are derived. (Latin: versipellis, Russian : oboroten, O. Norse: hamrammr). The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf. The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning "werewolf." This in turn is most likely from Frankish wer-wulf meaning "man-wolf."
In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lyc?on was said to suffer a similar fate. Herodotus in his Histories tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves.
The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthius' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across, resulting in his transformation into a wolf, a form in which he wandered for nine years. On the condition that he attacked no human being over the nine year period, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form.
In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods
Many European countries and cultures influnced by them have stories of werewolves, including Albania (oik), France (loup-garou), Greece (lycanthropos), Spain, Mexico (hombre lobo), Bulgaria (valkolak), Turkey (kurtadam), Czech Republic/Slovakia (vlkodlak), Serbia/Montenegro/Bosnia (vukodlak, ), Russia (vourdalak, ), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, ), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilko?ak), Romania (v?rcolac, priculici), Macedonia (vrkolak), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), the Netherlands (weerwolf), Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv), Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf, var?lfur), Galicia (lobis?n), Portugal/Brazil (lobisomem), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra (home llop), Hungary (V?rfarkas and Farkasember), Estonia (libahunt), Finland (ihmissusi and vironsusi), and Italy (lupo mannaro). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into animals including bears, as well as wolves.
Werewolves in European tradition were sometimes innocent and God-fearing folk suffering from the witchcraft of others, or simply from an unhappy fate, and who, as wolves, behaved in a truly touching fashion, adoring and protecting their human benefactors. In Marie de France's poem Bisclavret (c. 1200), the nobleman Bizuneh, for reasons not described in the lai, had to transform into a wolf every week. When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter. His behaviour at court was so much gentler than when his wife and her new husband appeared at court, that his hateful attack on the couple was deemed justly motivated, and the truth was revealed. Other tales of this sort include William and the Werewolf (translated from French into English ca. 1350), and the German fairy tales M?rchen, in which several aristocrats temporarily transform into beasts. See Snow White and Rose Red, where the tame bear is really a bewitched prince, and The Golden Bird where the talking fox is also a man.
The legends of ulfhednar mentioned in Vatnsd?la saga, Haraldskv??i, and the V?lsunga saga may be a source of the werewolf legends. The ulfhednar were vicious fighters similar to the better known berserkers, who were dressed in bear hides and reputed to channel the spirits of these animals to enhance effectiveness in battle. These warriors were resistant to pain and killed viciously in battle, much like wild animals. Ulfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.
In Latvian folklore, the vilkacis referred to someone transformed into a wolf-like monster which could be benevolent at times. A closely related collection of stories concern the skin-walkers. The vilkacis and skin-walkers probably have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European society, where a class of young unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves.
In sixteenth century Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, according to bishops Olaus Magnus and Majolus, the werewolves were far more destructive than "true and natural wolves," and their heterodoxy appears from the Catholic bishops' assertion that they formed "an accursed college" of those "desirous of innovations contrary to the divine law."
According to the first dictionary of modern Serbian language (published by Vuk Stefanovi?-Karad?i? in 1818) vukodlak / (werewolf) and vampir / (vampire) are synonyms, meaning a man who returns from his grave for purposes of fornicating with his widow. The dictionary states this to be a common folk tale.
Common amongst the Kashubs, and the Serbs and Slovenes of what is now northern Poland, was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shape-shifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf.
According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form. In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.
The 11th Century Russian Prince Vseslav of Polotsk was considered to have been a Werewolf, capable of moving at supehuman speeds, as recounted in The Tale of Igor's Campaign: "Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Sun, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at St. Sophia the bells; but he heard the ringing in Kiev."
There were numerous reports of werewolf attacksand consequent court trialsin sixteenth century France. In some of the casese.g. those of the Gandillon family in the Jura, the tailor of Chalons and Roulet in Angers, all occurring in the year 1598there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of association with wolves; in other cases, such as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf but none against the accused. Even though belief in lycanthropy reached a peak in popularity, it was decided in the case of Jean Grenier at Bordeaux in 1603 that lycanthropy was nothing more than a delusion. The loup-garou eventually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous heretic and reverted to the pre-Christian notion of a "man-wolf-fiend." The lubins or lupins were usually female and shy in contrast to the aggressive loup-garous.
Some French werewolf lore is based on documented events. The Beast of G?vaudan terrorized the general area of the former province of G?vaudan, now called Loz?re, in south-central France. From the years 1764 to 1767, an unknown entity killed upwards of 80 men, women, and children. The creature was described as a giant wolf by the sole survivor of the attacks, which ceased after several wolves were killed in the area.
Wolves were still found in England as late as 1600, but became extinct by 1680. At the beginning of the seventeenth century witchcraft was zealously prosecuted by James I of England, who piously regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic."
Common Turkic folklore holds a different, reverential light to the werewolf legends in that Turkic Central Asian shamans, after performing long and arduous rites, would voluntarily be able to transform into the humanoid Kurtadam (literally meaning "Wolfmen"). Since the wolf was the totemic ancestor animal of the Turkic peoples, they would be respectful of any shaman who was in such a form.
In popular belief of Ethiopian highlands, similar to the werewolf folklore, is the myth of people being able to transform into hyenas through exposure to a curse or explicit association with the devil. Though not linked to the presence of a full moon or any other seasonal event, the myth has it that those people often perform the transformation at will and often at night. The subjects are closely associated with the phenomenon of the evil eye ("Buda" in Amharic) popular in the province of Gojjam.
Historical legends describe a wide variety of methods for becoming a werewolf, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described). In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. To drink water out of the footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia. According to Russian lore, a child born on December 24 shall be a werewolf. Folklore and literature also depict that a werewolf can be spawned from two werewolf parents.
In Galician, Portuguese, and Brazilian folklore, it is the seventh of the sons (but sometimes the seventh child, a boy, after a line of six daughters) who becomes a werewolf (Lobisomem). In Portugal, the seventh daughter is supposed to become a witch and the seventh son a werewolf; the seventh son often gets the Christian name "Bento" (Portuguese form of "Benedict", meaning "blessed") as this is believed to prevent him from becoming a werewolf later in life. In Brazil, the seventh daughter become a headless (replaced with fire) horse called "Mula-sem-cabe?a" (Headless Mule). The belief in the curse of the seventh son was so widespread in Northern Argentina (where the werewolf is called the lobiz?n), that seventh sons were frequently abandoned, ceded in adoption, or killed. A 1920 law decreed that the President of Argentina is the official godfather of every seventh son. Thus, the State gives a seventh son one gold medal in his baptism and a scholarship until his twenty first year. This effectively ended the abandonments, but there still persists a tradition in which the President godfathers seventh sons.
In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628), "are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures." Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote.
The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh king Vereticus into a wolf; St. Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men are supposedly become werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.
A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of a man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other Werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the abundance of the earth down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that Werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolacy and superstitious belief.
A distinction is often made between voluntary and involuntary werewolves. The former are generally thought to have made a pact, usually with the Devil, and morph into werewolves at night to indulge in mischievous acts. Involuntary werewolves, on the other hand, are werewolves by an accident of birth or health. In some cultures, individuals born during a new moon or suffering from epilepsy were considered likely to be werewolves.
Werewolves have several described weaknesses, the most common being an aversion to wolfsbane (a plant that supposedly sprouted from weeds watered by the drool of Cerberus while he was brought out of Hades by Heracles). Unlike vampires, werewolves are not harmed by religious artifacts such as crucifixes and holy water.
Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. The simplest method was the act of the enchanter (operating either on oneself or on a victim), and another was the removal of the animal belt or skin. To kneel in one spot for a hundred years, to be reproached with being a werewolf, to be struck three blows on the forehead with a knife, or to have at least three drops of blood drawn have also been mentioned as possible cures. Many European folk tales include throwing an iron object over or at the werewolf, to make it reveal its human form.
Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern horror fiction, but this kind of transmission is rare in legend, along with another form of this being "licked" by a werewolf to turn one's self (in this case the person is continuously a werewolf but has total control over the form, and has no blood lust, but gains increased strength and agility)
The process of transmogrification is often portrayed as painful in film and literature. The resulting wolf is typically cunning but merciless and prone to killing and eating people without compunction, regardless of the moral character of its human counterpart. The form a werewolf assumes is not always that of an ordinary wolf but often anthropomorphic or otherwise larger and more powerful than an ordinary wolf. Many modern werewolves are supposedly immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects (usually a bullet or blade). This negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the metal on a werewolf's skin will cause burns. Current-day werewolf fiction almost exclusively involves lycanthropy being either a hereditary condition or being transmitted like an infectious disease by the bite of another werewolf.
More recently, the portrayal of werewolves has taken an even more sympathetic turn in some circles. With the rise of environmentalism and other back-to-nature ideals, the werewolf has come to be seen by some authors as a representation of humanity allied more closely with nature. Some recent fiction also discards the idea that the werewolf dominates the mind when one transforms, and instead postulates that the wolf form can be used at will, with the lycanthrope retaining its human thought processes and intelligence.
Jack-o-Lanterns
A jack-o'-lantern, sometimes also spelled Jack O'Lantern, is a carved vegetable, usually a pumpkin, but alternately a turnip, associated chiefly with the holiday Halloween. Typically the top is cut off, and the inside flesh then scooped out; an image, usually a monstrous face, is carved onto the outside surface, and the lid replaced. During the night, a candle is placed inside to illuminate the effect. The term is not particularly common outside North America, although the practice of carving lanterns for Halloween is.
Sections of the pumpkin are cut out to make a design, often depicting a face. A variety of tools may be used to carve and hollow out the gourd, ranging from simple knives and spoons to specialized instruments, typically sold in holiday sections of grocery stores. Printed stencils can be used as a guide for increasingly complex designs. It is possible to create surprisingly artistic designs, be they simple or intricate in nature. After carving, a light source (traditionally a candle, sometimes an electric light) is placed inside the pumpkin and the top is put back into place. The light illuminates the design from the inside. Sometimes a chimney is carved in the lid to allow heat to escape, preventing damage. A carved pumpkin can last up to 2 or 3 weeks, possibly longer. Traditionally the carved pumpkin would be a face, often with a simple crooked toothed grin. But toward the end of the 20th century, artists began expressing every kind of idea they could imagine on pumpkins. Today, it is common to see portraits of political candidates, celebrities and cartoon characters.
Throughout Britain and Ireland, there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from vegetables, particularly the turnip, mangelwurzel, or swede. But not until 1837 does jack-o'-lantern appear as a term for a carved vegetable lantern, and the carved lantern does not become associated specifically with Halloween until 1866. Significantly, both occurred not in the British Isles, but in North America. Historian David J. Skal writes, Although every modern chronicle of the holiday repeats the claim that vegetable lanterns were a time-honored component of Halloween celebrations in the British Isles, none gives any primary documentation. In fact, none of the major nineteenth-century chronicles of British holidays and folk customs make any mention whatsoever of carved lanterns in connection with Halloween. Neither do any of the standard works of the early twentieth century.
In America, the carved pumpkin was associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote in "The Pumpkin" (1850): Oh!fruit loved of boyhood!the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
An old Irish folk tale tells of Jack, a lazy yet shrewd farmer who uses a cross to trap the Devil. One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn't get down. Another myth says that Jack put a key in the Devil's pocket while he was suspended upside-down;
Another myth says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen, when he met the Devil, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting the Devil with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told the Devil to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (the Devil could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin/Devil disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack's wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack had closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped. In both myths, Jack only lets the Devil go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, the Devil had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from Hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and the Devil mockingly tossed him an ember that would never burn out from the flames of hell. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which was his favourite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-Lantern.
There are variations on the legend: Some versions include a "wise and good man", or even God helping Jack to prevail over the Devil. There are different versions of Jack's bargain with the Devil. Some variations say the deal was only temporary but the Devil, embarrassed and vengeful, refuses Jack entry to hell after Jack dies. Jack is considered a greedy man and is not allowed into either heaven or hell, without any mention of the Devil.
Despite the colourful legends, the term jack-o'-lantern originally meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern, with the earliest known use in the mid-17th century; and later, meaning an ignis fatuus or will-o'-the-wisp. The names "Jacky Lantern" and "Jack the Lantern" persist in the oral tradition in Newfoundland, referring to the will-o'-the-wisp type phenomenon, rather than the carved pumpkin jack-o'-lantern.
For a long time, Keene, New Hampshire held the world record for most jack-o'-lanterns carved and lit in one place. Life is Good teamed up with Camp Sunshine, a camp for children with life threatening illnesses and their families, to break the record. A record was set on October 21, 2006 when 30,128 jack-o'-lanterns were simultaneously lit on Boston Common. Pumpkin festivals were also held in several locations across the United States, and while the numbers of jack-o'-lanterns carved and lit in these locations were much lower, funds were raised for Camp Sunshine and other charities. One such annual festival is the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, sponsored by Citizens Bank, held in Rhode Island. A team of 30 professional pumpkin carvers spend six weeks creating a pumpkin trail viewed at night through the month of October.
Bats
A bat is a mammal in the order Chiroptera. Their most distinguishing feature is that their forelimbs are developed as wings, making them the only mammals in the world naturally capable of flight (though other mammals, such as flying squirrels, gliding flying possums and colugos, can glide for limited distances). The word Chiroptera comes from the Greek words cheir "hand" and pteron "wing," as the structure of the open wing is very similar to an outspread human hand with a membrane (patagium) between the fingers that also stretches between hand and body.
There are estimated to be about 1,100 species of bats worldwide, accounting for about 20 percent of all mammal species. About 70 percent of bats are insectivores. Of the remainder, most feed on fruits and their juices. Only three species sustain themselves with blood, some preying on vertebrates: these include the leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae) of Central America and South America, and the two bulldog bat (Noctilionidae) species, which feed on fish. At least two species of bat are known to feed on other bats: the Spectral Bat, also called the American False Vampire bat, and the Ghost Bat of Australia. One species, the Greater Noctule bat, is believed to catch and eat small birds in the air. Bats are present throughout most of the world; despite the cold weather, there are six species of bats in Alaska.
Some of the smaller bat species are important pollinators of some tropical flowers. Indeed, many tropical plants are now found to be totally dependent on them, not just for pollination, but for spreading their seeds by eating the resulting fruits. This role explains environmental concerns when a bat is introduced in a new setting. Tenerife provides a recent example with the introduction of the Egyptian fruit bat.
Bats can also be in the superorder Archonta.
Bats are mammals. Though sometimes called "flying rodents", "flying mice," or even mistaken for insects and birds, bats are not, in fact, any of these things. There are two suborders of bats: Megachiroptera (megabats) Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats)
Despite the name, not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinction between the two suborders is based on other factors: Microbats use echolocation, whereas megabats do not (except for Rousettus and relatives). Microbats lack the claw at the second toe of the forelimb. The ears of microbats do not form a closed ring, but the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear. Microbats lack underfur; they have only guard hairs or are naked.
Megabats eat fruit, nectar or pollen while microbats eat insects, blood (small quantities of the blood of animals), small mammals, and fish. While megabats have a well-developed visual cortex and show good visual acuity, microbats rely on echolocation for navigation and finding prey.
Genetic evidence indicates that megabats should be placed within the four major lines of microbats (Yinochiroptera), who originated during the early Eocene. The same research also seems to show that the microbats are the original bats while megabats evolved from them independently through parallel evolution, where most of them lost the ability to use echolocation. However, the brains of megabats show a number of advanced characteristics linking these animals to primates. There have been deemed unlikely to have arisen by parallel evolution (for details, see Flying primates theory).
There is some morphological evidence that Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from Microchiroptera; if so, the Microchiroptera would have uncertain affinities. When adaptations to flight are discounted in a cladistic analysis, the Megachiroptera are allied to primates by anatomical features that are not shared with Microchiroptera. But this alternative seems to have little support these days.
Little is known about the evolution of bats, since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize well. However a Late Cretaceous tooth from South America resembles that of an early Microchiropteran bat. The oldest known definite bat fossils, such as Icaronycteris, Archaeonycteris, Palaeochiropteryx and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene (about 50 million years ago), but they were already very similar to modern microbats. Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.
Bats are traditionally grouped with the tree shrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and the primates in superorder Archonta because of the similarities between Megachiroptera and these mammals. However, molecular studies have placed them as sister group to Ferungulata -- a large grouping including carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and whales.
By emitting high-pitched sounds and listening to the echoes, also known as sonar, microbats locate prey and other nearby objects. This is the process of echolocation, an ability they share with dolphins and whales. Two groups of moths exploit the bats' senses: tiger moths produce ultrasonic signals to warn the bats that the moths are chemically-protected (aposematism) (this was once thought to be a form of "radar jamming", but this theory has been disproved); the moths Noctuidae have a hearing organ called a tympanum which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive manoeuvres.
Although the eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, their sense of vision is typically very good, especially at long distances, beyond the range of echolocation. It has even been discovered that some species are able to detect ultraviolet light. Their senses of smell and hearing are excellent.
The teeth of microbats resemble those of the insectivorans. They are very sharp in order to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruits.
While other mammals have one-way valves only in their veins to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, bats also have the same mechanism in their arteries.
The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals. One reason is that the cartilage in their fingers lacks calcium and other minerals nearer the tips, increasing their ability to bend without splintering. The cross-section of the finger bone is also flattened instead of circular as is the bone in a human finger, making it even more flexible. The skin on their wing membranes is a lot more elastic and can stretch much more than is usually seen among mammals.
Because their wings are much thinner than those of birds, bats can manoeuvre more quickly and more precisely than birds. The surface of their wings are also equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, found in most mammals, including humans. But these sensitive areas are different in bats as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive, and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.
One species of bat has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is extremely beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding - their long narrow tongues can reach deep down into the long cup shape of some flowers. When their tongue retracts, it coils up inside their rib cage.
Mother bats usually have only one offspring per year, and they are viviparous. A baby bat is referred to as a pup. Pups are usually left in the roost when they are not nursing. However, a newborn bat can cling to the fur of the mother and be transported, although they soon grow too large for this. It would be difficult for an adult bat to carry more than one young, but normally only one young is born. Bats often form nursery roosts, with many females giving birth in the same area, be it a cave, a tree hole, or a cavity in a building. Mother bats are able to find their young in huge colonies of millions of other pups. Pups have even been seen to feed on other mothers' milk if their mother is dry. Only the mother cares for the young, and there is no continuous partnership with male bats.
The ability to fly is congenital, but at birth the wings are too small to fly. Young microbats become independent at the age of 6 to 8 weeks, megabats not until they are four months old. At the age of two years, bats are sexually mature.
A single bat can live over 20 years, but the bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate.
Witches
Witchcraft (from Old English wiccecr?ft "sorcery , necromancy"), in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers.
A witch (from Old English masculine wicca, feminine wicce, see Witch (etymology) is a practitioner of witchcraft. The Online Etymology Dictionary states a "possible connection to Gothic weihs "holy" and Ger. weihan "consecrate," and writes, "the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents."While mythological witches are often supernatural creatures, historically many people have been accused of witchcraft, or have claimed to be witches. In "Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion", author H. S. Versnel writes: "Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures." Witchcraft still exists in a number of belief systems, and indeed there are many today who self-identify with the term "witch" (see below, under Neopaganism).
While the term "witchcraft" can have positive or negative connotations depending on cultural context (for instance, in post-Christian European cultures it has historically been associated with evil and the Devil), most contemporary people who self-identify as witches see it as beneficent and morally positive.
Witches are traditionally stereotyped as being female, however their male equivalents were also often referred to as witches.
Practices and beliefs that have been termed "witchcraft" do not constitute a single identifiable religion, since they are found in a wide variety of cultures, both present and historical; however these beliefs do generally involve religious elements dealing with spirits or deities, the afterlife, magic and ritual. Witchcraft is generally characterised by its use of magic.
Sometimes witchcraft is used to refer, broadly, to the practice of indigenous magic, and has a connotation similar to shamanism. Depending on the values of the community, witchcraft in this sense may be regarded with varying degrees of respect or suspicion, or with ambivalence, being neither intrinsically good nor evil. Members of some religions have applied the term witchcraft in a pejorative sense to refer to all magical or ritual practices other than those sanctioned by their own doctrines - although this has become less common, at least in the Western world. According to some religious doctrines, all forms of magic are labelled witchcraft, and are either proscribed or treated as superstitious. Such religions consider their own ritual practices to be not at all magical, but rather simply variations of prayer.
"Witchcraft" is also used to refer, narrowly, to the practice of magic in an exclusively inimical sense. If the community accepts magical practice in general, then there is typically a clear separation between witches (in this sense) and the terms used to describe legitimate practitioners. This use of the term is most often found in accusations against individuals who are suspected of causing harm in the community by way of supernatural means. Belief in witches of this sort has been common among most of the indigenous populations of the world, including Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. On occasion such accusations have led to witch hunts.
Under the monotheistic religions of the Levant (primarily Christianity, and Islam), witchcraft came to be associated with heresy, rising to a fever pitch among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Late Medieval/Early Modern period and sometimes leading to witch hunts. Throughout this time, the concept of witchcraft came increasingly to be interpreted as a form of Devil worship. Accusations of witchcraft were frequently combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Cathars and Waldensians.
The Malleus Maleficarum, a witch-hunting manual used by both Roman Catholics and Protestants, outlines how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely to be a witch, how to put a witch to trial and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female.
In the modern Western world, witchcraft accusations have often accompanied the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria. Such accusations are a counterpart to blood libel of various kinds, which may be found throughout history across the globe.
Practices to which the witchcraft label have historically been applied are those which influence another person's mind, body or property against his or her will, or which are believed, by the person doing the labelling, to undermine the social or religious order. Some modern commentators consider the malefic nature of witchcraft to be a Christian projection. The concept of a magic-worker influencing another person's body or property against his or her will was clearly present in many cultures, as there are traditions in both folk magic and religious magic that have the purpose of countering malicious magic or identifying malicious magic users. Many examples can be found in ancient texts, such as those from Egypt and Babylonia. Where malicious magic is believed to have the power to influence the mind, body or possessions, malicious magic users can become a credible cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence and other such misfortunes. Witchcraft of a more benign and socially acceptable sort may then be employed to turn the malevolence aside, or identify the supposed evil-doer so that punishment may be carried out. The folk magic used to identify or protect against malicious magic users is often indistinguishable from that used by the witches themselves.
There has also existed in popular belief the concept of white witches and white witchcraft, which is strictly benevolent. Many neopagan witches strongly identify with this concept, and profess ethical codes that prevent them from performing magic on a person without their request.
Where belief in malicious magic practices exists, such practitioners are typically forbidden by law as well as hated and feared by the general populace, while beneficial magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the people - even if the orthodox establishment objects to it.
Probably the most obvious characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell, a "spell" being the word used to signify the means employed to accomplish a magical action. A spell could consist of a set of words, a formula or verse, or a ritual action, or any combination of these. Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give it magical powers, by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect him or her magically, by the recitation of incantations, by the performance of physical rituals, by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions, by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination, and by many others means.
Strictly speaking, "necromancy" is the practice of conjuring the spirits of the dead for divination or prophecy - although the term has also been applied to raising the dead for other purposes. The Biblical 'Witch' of Endor is supposed to have performed it (1 Sam. 28), and it is among the witchcraft practices condemned by ?lfric of Eynsham:
"Yet fares witches to where roads meet, and to heathen burials with their phantom craft and call to them the devil, and he comes to them in the dead man's likeness, as if he from death arises, but she cannot cause that to happen, the dead to arise through her wizardry."
The familiar witch of folklore and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences. The characterisation of the witch as an evil magic user developed over time.
Early converts to Christianity looked to Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe its concern with magic lessened.
The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle Witches, commonly involve a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. The witches or wizards addicted to such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments, observe "the witches' sabbath" (performing infernal rites which often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church), pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness, and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. Witches were most often characterized as women. Witches disrupted the societal institutions, and more specifically, marriage. It was believed that a witch often joined a pact with the devil to gain powers to deal with infertility, immense fear for her children's well-being, or revenge against a lover.
The Church and European society was not always obsessed with hunting witches and blaming them for bad occurrences. Saint Boniface declared in the 8th century that belief in the existence of witches was un-Christian. The emperor Charlemagne decreed that the burning of supposed witches was a pagan custom that would be punished by the death penalty. In 820 the Bishop of Lyon and others repudiated the belief that witches could make bad weather, fly in the night, and change their shape. This denial was accepted into Canon law until it was reversed in later centuries as the witch-hunt gained force. Other rulers such as King Coloman of Hungary declared that witch-hunts should cease because witches do not exist.
The Church did not invent the idea of witchcraft as a potentially harmful force whose practitioners should be put to death. This idea is commonplace in pre-Christian religions and is a logical consequence of belief in magic. According to the scholar Max Dashu, the concept of medieval witchcraft contained many of its elements even before the emergence of Christianity. These can be found in Bacchanalias, especially in the time when they were led by priestess Paculla Annia (188-186).
However, even at a later date, not all witches were assumed to be harmful practicers of the craft. In England, the provision of this curative magic was the job of a witch doctor, also known as a cunning man, white witch, or wiseman. The term "witch doctor" was in use in England before it came to be associated with Africa. Toad doctors were also credited with the ability to undo evil witchcraft. (Other folk magicians had their own purviews. Girdle-measurers specialised in diagnosing ailments caused by fairies, while magical cures for more mundane ailments, such as burns or toothache, could be had from charmers.) "In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil... The witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham."
Such "cunning-folk" did not refer to themselves as witches and objected to the accusation that they were such. Records from the Middle Ages, however, make it appear that it was, quite often, not entirely clear to the populace whether a given practitioner of magic was a witch or one of the cunning-folk. In addition, it appears that much of the populace was willing to approach either of these groups for healing magic and divination. When a person was known to be a witch, the populace would still seek to employ their healing skills; however, as was not the case with cunning-folk, members of the general population would also hire witches to curse their enemies. The important distinction is that there are records of the populace reporting alleged witches to the authorities as such, whereas cunning-folk were not so incriminated; they were more commonly prosecuted for accusing the innocent or defrauding people of money.
The long-term result of this amalgamation of distinct types of magic-worker into one is the considerable present-day confusion as to what witches actually did, whether they harmed or healed, what role (if any) they had in the community, whether they can be identified with the "witches" of other cultures and even whether they existed as anything other than a projection. Present-day beliefs about the witches of history attribute to them elements of the folklore witch, the charmer, the cunning man or wise woman, the diviner and the astrologer.
Powers typically attributed to European witches include turning food poisonous or inedible, flying on broomsticks or pitchforks, casting spells, cursing people, making livestock ill and crops fail, and creating fear and local chaos.
Ghosts
A ghost is defined as the apparition of a deceased person, frequently similar in appearance to that person, and usually encountered in places she or he frequented, or in association with the person's former belongings. The word "ghost" may also refer to the spirit or soul of a deceased person, or to any spirit or demon. Ghosts are often associated with hauntings, which is, according to the Parapsychological Association, "the more or less regular occurrence of paranormal phenomena associated with a particular locality (especially a building) and usually attributed to the activities of a discarnate entity; the phenomena may include apparitions, poltergeist disturbances, cold drafts, sounds of footsteps and voices, and various odours."
Ghosts are a controversial anomalous phenomenon. According to a poll conducted in 2005 by the Gallup Organization, about 32% of Americans believe in the existence of ghosts. The term ghost has been replaced by apparition in parapsychology, because the word ghost is deemed insufficiently precise.
The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is closely tied to the ancient concept of animism, which attributed souls to everything in nature, including human beings, animals, plants, rocks, etc. As the nineteenth-century anthropologist James Frazer explained in his classic work, The Golden Bough, souls were seen as the creature within that animated the body.
"As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which moves it. If a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside, who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being the permanent absence of the soul... "
Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it was widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress.
Another widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they were composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists speculate that this may also stem from early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person, 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.
persistent.
In many historical accounts, ghosts were thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. Most cultures have ghost stories in their mythologies. Many stories from the Middle Ages and the Romantic era rely on the macabre and the fantastic, and ghosts are a major theme in literature from those eras.
Ghost stories date back to ancient times, and can be found in many different cultures. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Tzu (470-391 BC), is quoted as having said:
"The way to find out whether anything exists or not is to depend on the testimony of the ears and eyes of the multitude. If some have heard it or some have seen it then we have to say it exists. If no one has heard it and no one has seen it then we have to say it does not exist. So, then, why not go to some village or some district and inquire? If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voices, how can we say that they do not exist? If none have heard them and none have seen them, then how can we say they do? But those who deny the existence of the spirits say: "Many in the world have heard and seen something of ghosts and spirits. Since they vary in testimony, who are to be accepted as really having heard and seen them?" Mo Tzu said: As we are to rely on what many have jointly seen and what many have jointly heard, the case of Tu Po is to be accepted." (note: King Hsuan (827-783 BC) executed his minister, Tu Po, on false charges even after being warned that Tu Po's ghost would seek revenge. Three years later, according to historical chronicles, Tu Po's ghost shot and killed Hsuan with a bow and arrow before an assembly of feudal lords.)
One of the earliest known ghost "sightings" in the west took place in Athens, Greece. Pliny the Younger (c. 63 - 113 AD) described it in a letter to Licinius Sura: Athenodoros Cananites (c. 74 BC 7 AD), a Stoic philosopher, decided to rent a large, Athenian house, to investigate widespread rumors that it was haunted. Athenodoros staked out at the house that night, and, sure enough, a dishevelled, aged spectre, bound at feet and hands with rattling chains, eventually "appeared". The spirit then beckoned for Athenodoros to follow him; Athenodoros complied, but the ghost soon vanished. The philosopher marked the spot where the old man had disappeared, and, on the next day, advised the magistrates to dig there. The man's shackled bones were reportedly uncovered three years later. After a proper burial, the hauntings ceased.
Many Eastern religious traditions also subscribe to the concept of ghosts. The Hindu Garuda Purana has detailed information about ghosts.
The Hebrew Torah and the Bible contain few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf. Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable reference is in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:7-19 KJV), in which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor summon the spirit of Samuel. In the New Testament, Jesus has to persuade the Disciples that he is not a ghost following the resurrection, Matthew 24. In a similar vein, Jesus' followers at first believe him to be a ghost when they see him walking on water.
The Child ballad Sweet William's Ghost recounts the story of a ghost returning to beg a woman to free him from his promise to marry her, as he can not, being dead; her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead would haunt their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release.
The Unquiet Grave expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various location over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest.
Critics of "eyewitness ghost sightings" suggest that limitations of human perception and ordinary physical explanations can account for such sightings; for example, air pressure changes in a home causing doors to slam, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night. Pareidolia, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, can cause people to believe they have seen ghosts. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human peripheral vision. According to skeptical investigator Joe Nickell:
...peripheral vision is very sensitive and can easily mislead, especially late at night, when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds.
Nickell also states that a person's belief that a location is haunted may cause them to interpret mundane events as confirmations of a haunting:
Once the idea of a ghost appears in a household . . . no longer is an object merely mislaid. . . . There gets to be a dynamic in a place where the idea that it's haunted takes on a life of its own. One-of-a-kind quirks that could never be repeated all become further evidence of the haunting.
Sound is thought to be another cause of ghost sightings. Frequencies lower than 20 hertz are called infrasound and are normally inaudible, but British scientists Richard Lord and Richard Wiseman have concluded that infrasound can cause humans to feel a "presence" in the room, or unexplained feelings of anxiety, and/or dread. Additionally, the symphonic resonance of the eye is around 18 hertz, which may interfere with the eye's normal functions and cause a person to see things that aren't there.
Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause powerful auditory and visual hallucinations, depression, and a generalized sensation of illness and dread, was recognized as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921.
Another potential explanation of apparitions is that they are hypnagogic hallucinations.
The traditional perception of ghosts wearing clothing is considered illogical, given the supposed spiritual nature of ghosts, suggesting that the basis of what a ghost is said to look like and consist of is quite dependent on preconceptions made by society. Skeptics also say that, to date, there is no credible scientific evidence that any location is inhabited by spirits of the dead.
Some researchers, such as Professor Michael Persinger (Laurentian University, Canada), have speculated that changes in geomagnetic fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or solar activity) could stimulate the brain's temporal lobes and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. This theory has been tested in various ways. Some scientists have examined the relationship between the time of onset of unusual phenomena in allegedly haunted locations and any sudden increases in global geomagnetic activity. Others have investigated whether the location of alleged hauntings is associated with certain types of magnetic activity. Finally, a third strand of work has involved laboratory studies in which stimulation of the temporal lobe with transcerebral magnetic fields has elicited subjective experiences that strongly parallel phenomena associated with hauntings. All of this work is controversial and thus has attracted a large amount of debate and disagreement.
Ghosts are prominent in the popular cultures of various nations. The ghost story is ubiquitous across all cultures from oral folktales to works of literature.
Perhaps the most recognizable ghost in English literature is the shade of Hamlet's father in the play The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In Hamlet, it is the ghost that encourages the title character to investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon King Claudius, the suspected murderer of Hamlet's father.
Possibly the next most famous apparitions are the ghosts of A Christmas Carol, where the ghost of Jacob Marley, The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come help Ebenezer Scrooge see the error of his ways.
Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost has been adapted for film and television on several occasions. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw has also appeared in a number of adaptations, notably the film The Innocents and Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw.
Films including or centering on ghosts are common, and span a variety of genres. Ghosts can also be found in various television programs.
The ghost hunting theme has also become prevalent in reality television series such as Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, A Haunting, and many others. It is also represented in children's television by such programmes as The Ghost Hunter.
The Grateful Dead adopted their name and iconography from a series of traditional ghost stories known as Grateful Dead (folktale).
One of the odder manifestations in recent years has been a so-called "Ghost in a Bottle" which turned up on Ebay and which, it was reported, singer Michael Jackson wanted to bid on.
Vampires
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings that are renowned for subsisting on human blood or lifeforce, but in some cases may prey on animals. Though vampires have widely varying characteristics, they are described for the most part as reanimated corpses who feed by draining and consuming the blood of living beings. Almost all vampire lore comes from the southeastern region of Europe, particularly the Balkans and Greece, with the term being popularised in the early 18th century. Folkloric vampires were depicted as revenants who visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were living. They wore shrouds, did not bear fangs and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or darkened countenance, markedly different from today's vampire.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre (1819) by John Polidori; The story was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However it is the 1897 novel Dracula which is best remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided many traits which have been incorporated into modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century with books, films such as Dracula and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Today, the vampire is generally held as a fictitious entity, with little actual belief in the creature surviving, although superstition in vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures.
The word vampire appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1734 as much on the subject was appearing in German literature. After the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz where parts of Serbia and Wallachia came under Austrian control, the Austrian officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires". These reports prepared between 1725 and 1732 received widespread publicity. Several theories of the word's origin exist. The English term was derived (possibly via French vampyre) from the German Vampir, in turn thought to be derived in the early 18th century from Serbian /vampir, or Hungarian v?mp?r. The Serbian and Hungarian forms have parallels in virtually all Slavic languages: Bulgarian (vampir), Czech and Slovak up?r, Polish w?pierz and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upi?r, Russian (upyr'), Belarusian (upyr), Ukrainian (upir'), from Old Russian (upir'). (Note that many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West). Among the proposed proto-Slavic forms are ?pyr and ?pir. The Slavic word might, like its possible cognate that means "bat" (Czech netop?r, Slovak netopier, Polish nietoperz, Russian / netopyr' - a species of bat), contain a Proto-Indo-European root for "to fly".
The first recorded use of the Old Russian form (Upir') is commonly believed to be in a document dated 6555 (1047 AD). It is a colophon in a manuscript of the Book of Psalms written by a priest who transcribed the book from Glagolitic into Cyrillic for the Novgorodian Prince Vladimir Yaroslavovich. The priest writes that his name is "Upir' Likhyi " ( ), which would mean something like "Wicked Vampire" or "Foul Vampire." This apparently strange name has been cited as an example of surviving paganism and/or of the use of nicknames as personal names. However, in 1982, Swedish Slavicist Anders Sj?berg suggested that "Upir' likhyi" was in fact an Old Russian transcription and/or translation of the name of ?pir Ofeigr, a well-known Swedish rune carver. Sj?berg argued that ?pir could possibly have lived in Novgorod before moving to Sweden, considering the connection between Eastern Scandinavia and Russia at the time. This theory is still controversial, although at least one Swedish historian, Henrik Janson, has expressed support for it. Another early use of the Old Russian word is in the anti-pagan treatise "Word of Saint Grigoriy," dated variously to the 11th13th centuries, where pagan worship of upyri is reported.
The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demons and spirits including the Empusa, Lamia, and Lilitu, who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the devil was considered synonymous with the vampire in earlier times. However, despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity we know today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from Southeastern Europe. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire itself. Belief in such legends became so rife that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires. Although the original lore has been distorted due to new fictional references such as Dracula, there are many ways to destroy a vampire; decapitation, a stake to the heart, incineration and exposure to sunlight are commonly cited.
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire though there are several elements common to many European legends. It is usually reported as bloated in appearance and ruddy, purplish or dark in colour, often attributed to drinking blood. Indeed, blood is often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one is seen in its shroud or coffin and his left eye is often open. Clothing often consisted of the linen shroud they were buried in and teeth, hair and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature.
Other attributes may vary greatly from culture to culture; some vampires, such as those found in Transylvanian tales, are gaunt, pale and have long fingernails, while Bulgarian vampires only had one nostril, while Bavarian vampires slept with thumbs crossed and one eye open. Moravian vampires only attacked victims naked and the vampires of Albanian folklore wore high heeled shoes. As stories of vampires spread throughout the globe to the Americas and elsewhere, so did the varied and sometimes bizarre descriptions of them; Mexican vampires had a bare skull instead of a head, Brazilian vampires had furry feet and vampires from the Rocky Mountains only sucked blood with their noses from the victim's ears. Even broad descriptions were implemented, such as having red hair. So from these various descriptions across time, works of literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula and the influences of historical figures such as Gilles de Rais and Vlad Tepes, the vampire has developed into the stereotype we perceive today; over time, a selection of more common reported attributes from a huge variety of ancient and medieval stories have coalesced to form a contemporary vampire profile as seen in literature and film today.
It is commonly accepted in modern cultural depictions that one is likely to become a vampire if bitten by one. However the causes were far more varied in original vampire folklore. In Slavic and also Chinese traditions any corpse which was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or cat, would become one of the undead. If a body had a wound which had not been treated with boiling water. And in Russian mythology, vampires were said to have once been witches while they were living, or people who rebelled against the church.
Practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was a common prevention method, as well as placing earthly objects, such as scythes or sickles, near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method is similar to the ancient Greek practice of placing an obolus in the corpse's mouth so that they may pay their way across the River Styx in the underworld; it has been argued that instead, the obolus was intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body and this may have influenced later mythology surrounding the vampire. This Greek tradition was continued on in regard to modern Greek folklore about the vrykolakas, the equivalent of a modern vampire, in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body becoming a vrykolakas. Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the tendons at the knees or placing poppy seeds, millet or sand on the ground at the gravesite of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains. In similar Chinese narratives about vampire-like beings, it is stated that if one of these creatures comes across a sack of rice, he will have to count all of the grains; this is a theme similar to myths recorded on the Indian subcontinent as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.
The rituals behind identifying a vampire were in most cases elaborate, with several methods arising throughout Eastern Europe and other areas where vampire legends became prominent. In some Eastern European instances, the method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin, black stallion; the tomb which the horse stopped at first was said to be that of the vampire's. Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism. Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition. In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face. Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours; folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor poltergeist-like activity and pressing on people in their sleep.
A common theme is the use of apotropaics to ward the revenants off, namely mundane or sacred items or things such as garlic, sunlight or holy water. Items vary from region to region; a branch of wild rose is said to harm vampires as well as the hawthorn plant; in Europe, sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of a house was said to keep vampires away. Other apotropaics include sacred items, for example a crucifix, rosary beads and the aforementioned holy water; vampires are said to be unable to walk on consecrated ground, such as those of churches or temples or cross running water. In Asian legends, vampiric creatures are often warded by holy devices such as Shint? seals. In South American superstition, Aloe vera hung backwards behind or near a door has the same function. Although not regarded as a vampire apotropaic, mirrors have been used to ward off vampires when placed facing outwards on a door; it's a well known myth that vampires do not have a reflection and in some cultures, do not cast shadows either, perhaps to express the vampire's lack of a soul. This attribute, although not universal as the Greek vrykolakas/tympanios was capable of both reflection and shadow, was utilized by Bram Stoker in Dracula and has since remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers. In addition to apotropaics, some traditions hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner, although they only have to be invited once as after this they can come and go as they please without further permission.
Traditional methods of destroying vampires were varied, with staking the most commonly cited method. This was most common in southern slavic cultures. The preferred wood is ash in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record of oak in Silesia. Potential vampires were most often staked though the heart, though the mouth was targeted in Russia and northern Germany, or the stomach in northeastern Serbia. Unlike today's cloaked and suave vampires, the original revenants were described as largely bloated. Thus the act of piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the vampire; this is similar to the act of burying sharp objects, such as sickles, in with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently whilst transforming into a revenant. Decapitation was the preferred method in German and western slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body. The act of cutting off the head was also seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul from the body, which in some cultures, was said to linger in the corpse for a prolonged amount of time before dispersing. Other than being decapitated, the vampire's head, body or clothes could be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising. Gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In the Balkans a vampire could also be shot or drowned, as well as having the funeral service repeated, or by the sprinkling holy water on the body, or exorcism. In Romania garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the coffin was taken. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. Even a lemon was placed in the mouth of suspected Saxon vampires in Germany.
Vampires are sometimes endowed with special abilities when described in folklore; some are given great strength, while others the ability to transform not only into a bat, as is often depicted in modern cartoons and film, but rather other familiars such as rats, dogs, wolves, spiders and even moths. An attribute shared by the 19th century literary vampires Lord Ruthven and Varney the Vampire was the ability to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore. Though folkloric vampires thought more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to sunlight. This vulnerability has developed with subsequent vampire fiction.