Although we are all familiar with the creatures of the sun lit world, there are beings which have never stood in the full light, seemingly hovering between this dimension and another. Perhaps doorways slip open when the conditions are right and it easier for them to step through. Ancient people gave these creatures different names. Modern humans may call them something entirely different. We do know this, since humans became conscious we have been aware of these beings from a half-lit world. Here are just a few to ponder.
The Foreboding Far
Dorocha
Far Dorocha, or the “Dark Man,” is an
Irish ghost that rides a black horse throughout the countryside to kidnap
the mortal human beings that the Fairy Queen desires. At the request of the Fairy Queen, Far Dorocha will capture a human for her. He never speaks directly. But his commands are understood in such a way that most people surrender to his
will and mount the black horse behind him.
If the human being is released from Fairyland and gives out fairy
secrets, Far Dorocha will pluck out that person’s eyes to take away their fairy
sight or makes his or her arm or leg wither, as a penance for betraying the
fairies.
Glastig,
or Goat-Footed Women
In the Scottish Highlands, there are
stories of goat-footed women who feeds upon the life blood of the men they
tempt. Glastigs are vampirical fairies
that drink the blood of lonely farmers and shepherds left alone at twilight in the
fields. They often appear at nightfall when beings are most able to slip
through the dimensions. Glastigs are said to wear long, flowing, green gowns to
cover up their goat parts so no human will be able to recognize them as
anything other than a normal human being.
The Glastig is a seductress of sorts. She
lures men to dance with her in the mist covered fields and woods. Through her
dancing, as the man swoon from tiredness, the Glastig will pounce and
feast on his blood. Even though the Glastig is generally considered to be a
rather wicked fairy she is known to herd cattle for farmers and tend to old
people or children when they are sick.
Deathly Dullahan
The
Dullhan is an especially unnerving Irish fairy more akin to a ghoul, with some
relationship to the banshee. From the Gaelic word Gan Ceann, meaning “headless”
the Dullhan is rather wicked and is one of the unseelie fairies. This scary
fairy appears riding a black horse while carrying his rotting head under his
arm. He uses the spine of a corpse as his whip and if he drives a wagon it will
be made of funereal objects or parts of other dead bodies he has collected from
the graveyard. The moldy flesh on the Duhllan’s head is like cheese. Corpse
flies buzz about his body. His eyes bulge and he shows a hideous grin that is
more like a slash in face which extends from ear to ear. Whereever the Dullhan stops a person is said
to die. When calling out the name of the doomed individual, the Dullhan then
vanishes into nothingness.
Deer
Women
A shape-shifter with the body of a deer
and the face of a woman, Deer women appear in Native American mythology in
North America and Mexico. The Deer woman can be a young maiden and sometimes an
elderly woman. At times she is described as a beautiful human female, but with
the hooves and large dark eyes of a deer. In some legends, the upper torso is
human while the lower body is a white tailed deer. Deer women are sirens who lure men
off their trails, sometimes hiding behind a shrub while calling the men to
follow after them.
Once the Deer women attract the men to the area where they
are hiding, it is said they sometimes stomp men to death. Other legends
claim that if you see a Deer woman, she comes with a warning. Usually, the
warning is about a calamity or almost tragedy. During dances, Deer women will
sometimes join the group of people and only leave when the drums have ceases. As
she runs away, the dancers may notice her white tail and hooves while she
retreats from the crowd.
Since strange beings are usually feared,
the Ojibwe use tobacco and chanting to banish her from areas. It is recommended
if one encounters a Deer woman, you should stare down at her feet, which will
sometimes break the spell and she will vanish.
In Scotland, there is another creature who is a type of vampire with the lower body of a goat. In
India, there is another female creature who will seek out travelers to journey
alongside them. Much to the traveler’s surprise, when they look down they will
notice the women to have the hooves of a cow.
These part-bovine (cattle, goats) and
part-cervine (deer) women are often associated with fertility and birthing. Deer women
are said to sometimes help women in childbirth. However, Deer women are shy and
not often seen.
Clootie the friendly Demon
Clootie
is a Scottish name for the Devil or some other diabolical imp that is intent
upon pestering human beings. Clootie simply means “cleft-footed” alluding to
the Devil’s hoof. Also called “Auld
Hornie” it is likely Clootie is a remnant of the older god Pan or other pagan
gods denigrated by the church as fallen angels or demons. However, the Scottish believed Clootie was
the Devil himself.
Interestingly, “clootie” is also the
name of prayer rags tied to Hawthorn trees near holy wells in Ireland and
Scotland. It is theorized the clootie rag is derived from the old Scottish word
for cloth, however, in common folklore God and the Devil as actual beings that
are never very far apart. The
cloven-footed god Pan was the one who tended flocks and sheep in early
mythology. With his horns and pointed beard, the one who peacefully herded
sheep, just like Christ, otherwise known as Clootie, or Pan in the
Mediterranean world, came to be a symbol for the Christian Devil.
The “Clootie Croft” in Scotland is
an untilled area of land that is left over as a gift to the Devil to occupy him
so he won’t cause trouble for humans.
Changelings
A
changeling child is a questionable fairy, one that is switched for a human
child shortly after birth, typically by elves or goblins who wish to introduce
new, human blood into their fairy race. After the human baby is stolen away, a
changeling or a fairy which looks like a child is left in its place. Often the
changeling turns into a type of monster within a few hours, sucking greedily at
its mother’s breast. Afterwards, the changeling is capable of stretching so
tall that within a few short days that its head reaches the rafters.
Martin
Luther, as a man influenced by the superstitions of this time, believed in
changelings, but thought them to be soulless children of Lucifer, sent to
offended and disrupt the lives of pious Christians. Populations in Muslim
countries also had a belief in a type of changeling children, but considered
them as offspring of the jinn or genies, so feared them. In reality,
changelings are not really fairy children, but they are old fairy souls, some
howling and dangerous just like any force of nature can be.
According
to superstition the only way to truly get rid of a changeling is to boil
eggshells and hold the changeling baby over the steam. This is supposed to fill
the fairy imposter with peals of laughter that he won’t be able to control. If
the changeling laughs, his true nature will be revealed and the fairies will be
forced to return and retrieve their changelings, leaving their original human
child in its place. The
British Isles, Scandinavian countries and Germany are filled with such accounts
of these strange, scary fairies that pose as human babies.
Etheric
Revenants
Etheric
Revenant is a term made popular in John Greer’s book “Monsters,” referring to
creatures of darkness that exist simultaneously in the physical world as in the
ethereal realm. They are part-spirit, part-physical beings that are able to
slip through dimensions. This
would explain vampires, as well as other tales of ghouls, and creatures like
banshees. According to Greer, Etheric Revenants are, at times, completely
ethereal, but manage to take shape in some physical way, able to feed upon the
living for vitality or energy.
In one West Virginia banshee tale, a
small girl in the early part of the 20th century reported that when the banshee
visited her grandmother’s farmhouse on a white horse during the 1918 Spanish
Flu epidemic she stood so close to the banshee’s horse that she could feel the
animal’s hot breath on her face. When the banshee made the proclamation that
one member of the family would die that same night, the banshee wailed and she
and her horse instantly vanished.
With
appearances of ghosts, there is sometimes a material component such as the
overwhelming smell of roses in the morgue of the abandoned Waverly Hills
Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Louisville, Kentucky. Some “etheric” beings can even
touch or scratch. An Etheric Revenant may explain this type of encounter.
In
some Celtic lore, the banshee is associated with vampires and lamias. She is
also tied to clans, her fairy powers passed down through the blood and “blood
ties.” The West Virginia Mothman, clearly a physical entity when he appeared,
might also be partly explained by Greer’s theory of Etheric Revenant.
Herne the Hunter
Herne
the Hunter is a mythic English character that is alternately a ghost and a
pagan god. Herne is often associated with Cernunnos, an early Celtic divinity
often depicted with the horns of a stag, and the “Green Man” just one other
aspect of this nature figure. In folklore, Herne the Hunter, much like Robin
Hood, was believed to have been an actual person. He served the king (sometimes
written as Richard II or Henry VII) as a royal huntsman but died under unhappy
circumstances. Before dying, Herne was
said to have saved the king from an attacking stag.
After
killing the stag Herne took the antlers and placed them on his head. Herne
recovered for a short while and appeared to be infused by the spirit of the
slain stag.
Afterwards,
Herne fell out of favor with the king and in his dejection, was said to have
hung himself from an oak tree in Windsor Great Park near Windsor Castle. Later
Herne the Hunter became a type of a wandering spirit. His
ghost is seen there at Windsor Park wearing the horns of the great stag.
Sightings of Herne the Hunter have been reported even into current times. It
takes no theoretical leap to realize Herne the Hunter serves as a modern aspect
of the much earlier Celtic/Druid mythologies of divinities borne out of much
more ancient times.
Men in Black
Sinister beings, in human form, who typically appear as two or three men dressed
entirely in black. They often show up to intimidate witnesses who have had
encounters with UFOs or aliens. Often the MIBs (Men in Black) will issue subtle
threats to anyone who talks in public about the “saucers” or other alien
encounters.
Over the years, some have
theorized the Men in Black work for the U.S.
government, hence, the entirely inaccurate Hollywood
movies “Men in Black. “ Others
who have actually encountered the M1Bs describe them as something entirely
different, something alien, if you will. Most Men in Black speak with a
strange robotic pitch to their voices and what they express, aside from the
vague threats about “saucers,” is typically nonsense. Witnesses have described
the MIBs as at first seeming incredibly stupid, even about the simplest of
matters.
During the famous 1966 Mothman
sightings in West Virginia,
two MIBs were seen in a local restaurant in Point Pleasant attempting to drink
the plastic cups of Jello that came with their meals. The strange men acted
entirely confused over what to do with the silverware but were fascinated by
ballpoint pens. At another time, one MIB was witnessed “chirping” and singing
to the birds in the trees overhead.
Mysteriously, some of the
“nonsense” uttered by the Men in Black often turns out to be prophetic. For
instance, they may speak off-handedly of certain surgeries, specific operations
or hospitals. Later, the person threatened by the MIBs may have the very same
surgeries, quite unexpected, months later. Witnesses describe meeting the MIBs
in completely unexpected ways, such as encountering one in an elevator, or
passing another in a car, and generally being stalked by them.
Typically dressed entirely in
black, or dark tones, MIBs are deeply tanned, or the opposite, extremely pale.
They wear unusual hairstyles with parts of their
heads shaved in odd places. They will have almond-shaped dark eyes or watery blue ones.
Interestingly, their first appearances coincided with the exodus of the Dalai
Lama from Tibet
in 1948. The Tibetans are said to have their own name for the Men in Black.
Albert Bender, a UFO
researcher and author, first encountered the Men in Black in 1953. He later stopped writing about
the MIBs warning others to do the same. Apparently, Bender suffered
excruciating headaches as well as further threats in the form of phone calls
from his encounters with the MIBs.
West Virginia UFO contactee
Woodrow Derenberger of Mineral Wells believed the Men in Black who visited his
farm were “Mafia types” and was frightened of them. Derenberger had earlier reported being stopped by a tall,
dark-haired man named “Indrid Cold” (many recognize as a typical “Man in
Black”) who stepped out of a spaceship near the intersection of I-77 and route
47 in West Virginia to interview him for about fifteen minutes in early
November of 1966.
Author John Keel received
reports of MIBs being seen with “Gypsies” or dark- skinned people around Manhattan. If this sounds
like pure science fiction or a Lovecraftian horror tale, characters similar to
the Men in Black have been reported and written about throughout history.
In the Middle Ages MIBs were
thought to be demons or even the Devil, himself. Often met at the Crossroads in the Middle Ages, as Woodrow Derenberger met Indrid Cold at the Crossroads of Route 47 and I-77 in Novemer of 1966 this devil in black will bargain for your very soul. Woodrow Derenberger surely found this out for himself. Strangely enough, the strange,
alienated men have never disappeared from folklore. MIB encounters occur to this very day throughout
different parts of the world.
--by Susan A Sheppard
Nyx is the Greek goddess of night. All of the
mysteries belong to her. With her dark veil shimmering with stars, she also
represents the underworld, which is a river that ebbs and flows beneath earthly
consciousness—the consciousness of being awake. But there is another consciousness of those who sleep and that is what Nyx rules over. Nyx was born from Chaos and
Eros, and later bred the darkness with the light. She favors mischief and
duplicity, hiding thieves and fugitives in her dark cloak of night. Nyx is also
tied to the muses who are said to sing to her from the dark. She often inspires
both poetry and song, though such poetry and song tends to be melancholy.
