Moment in Oddity - A Fateful Pair of Shoes
Suggested by: Mitch Riggs
There is a story about a fateful pair of shoes that dates back to the time of the Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg to be exact. Members of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry were marching to Gettysburg when they came upon an obstacle in the road. There was a wagon full of stuff stuck in the road. The regiment quickly moved the wagon and then distributed the goods among themselves, which included thread, needles, pipes, tobacco and a pair of white canvas shoes. The cavalry private who grabbed the shoes used a pen to put his initials on both pairs of shoes, R.V.C. The next day, the regiment arrived in Gettysburg and participated in the battle. R.V.C. was killed in a skirmish and a Confederate took his canvas shoes. He put them on immediately, but didn't get to use them for long as he was soon killed. The shoes became Yankee footwear again as another of the 1st Massachusetts members took the shoes from the Rebel. He put them on and went to catch some sleep that evening as the fighting stopped. The battle began again early in the morning and the Confederates started gaining ground once again. The Yankee was one of the first killed in the battle. This time though, no one bothered to grab the shoes. Clearly, they had figured out that those canvas shoes were unlucky. Three men were killed wearing those shoes in a period of 36 hours and that, certainly is odd!`
This Month in History - Orville and Wilbur Wright First Flight
In the month of December, on the 17th, in 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright completed the first controlled flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft in Kittyhawk, North Carolina. The brothers had not always been pilots trying to get a plane off the ground. They had started off as printers and then they opened a bicycle shop. But through all of that time, they had worked on various contraptions to attain flight. Three days before their successful flight, Wilbur had been at the controls and the plane had stalled and crashed. Orville would take over on December 17th with conditions that were perfect. Orville wrote of the experience, "The wind, according to our anemometers at this time, was blowing a little over 20 miles, 27 miles according to the government anemometer at Kitty Hawk. On slipping the rope, the machine started off increasing in speed to probably seven or eight miles. The machine lifted from the truck just as it was entering on the fourth rail. Mr. Daniels took a picture just as it left the tracks… A sudden dart when out about 100 feet from the end of the tracks ended the flight. Time about 12 seconds (not known exactly as watch was not promptly stopped)." The brothers would make three more flights that day with each one gaining more distance than the one before. The last flight covered 852 feet in 59 seconds. I've been to Kitty Hawk and seen the marks where the plane landed. It doesn't seem like very far, but when you think of the time period and that we now send people to space, it truly is extraordinary what mankind can accomplish.
Yule
We mentioned Yule briefly in the History Goes Bump Christmas Special in 2015, but we've never just focused on this set of beliefs, practices and traditions. On this episode we are going to peer into the darkness to find the light that will lead us into Spring. Because that is really what Yule is about for most people that observe it. This is an opportunity to take the time during the darkest part of the year and focus on the end of the year and what the future holds and to prepare for the rebirth that Spring brings. This is also a festival of rituals for which much of the traditions and practices of Christmas are rooted. Join us as we explore Yule!
The Winter Solstice is on December 21, 2019. Yule this year, 2019, starts on December 22nd and ends on January 2, 2020. The community that surrounds History Goes Bump is the best! We might be biased, but I just love the richness of beliefs, traditions, thoughts, ethnicities, locations and love that our members bring to the group. Suzanne put it so well in the Spooktacular Crew when she said, "Love reading all these traditions! I had no idea. Going to have to add some of them to my family traditions. Thanks guys! This is what I love about this group. I learn so much. (And for those that love Cemetery Bingo, you have Suzanne to thank for that.) I so agree with Suzanne. I learn so much from everybody. And we couldn't share about Yule without asking our community, for those that observe Yule, what are some of your traditions? That is what Suzanne was commenting about.
Melissa P: I make a Yule log and my family writes down their wishes for the coming year and we burn them in the fire. This is the Yule log I made for this year. We found the log, pine cones & pine needles during a family outing up to the snow. It may not be “traditional” but its what I was called to make.
Sb: We light candles to chase away the darkness and eat a pomegranate or two.
Shannon B: We usually have a feast with friends, fill a papier-mâché boar with wishes for the coming year and then burn the wishes (not the boar- he’s too cute.), and light candles for Persephone and to welcome back the light/chase away the darkness. We also do ‘commercial Christmas’ with the tree and the gifts, and minus the Jesus.
Jannae M: We have dinner with friends, and write down wishes for the coming year. Lighting a candle to welcome back the sun is a must. I light it as the sun sets and then let it burn (safely) on my altar which is in my bedroom so it’s glow can remind us of the coming warmer months. Lots of warmth, light, and love.
Sara E: The key one for me is lighting a candle and being sure that it burns through midnight in order to lend light to the world in its darkest time. If I could I would leave one burning all night to offer strength to the sun. I'll traditionally take a few minutes to consider the year to come as well, although Samhain is the end of the old year, I make my resolutions at Yule.
Beth V: Yule and Solstice coincide and it depends really on pagan type and geography. My grandparents were old country Eastern Europe, so we celebrated solstice. But there is a lot of crossover. For Solstice we celebrate the longest night and fires for warmth and stories are usually a tradition. Singing, too. The main gift, often handmade, is given on Solstice and then small presents following with only a stocking with fruit and candy of the 25th. But the 21st overnight to the 22nd was most important.
Diane V: Light a fire started with the Yule log from last year that has been on the hearth. Family dinner and candle lighting.
Alicia J: We are lucky enough to have a winter solstice lantern walk around a local lake. The path around the lake is lit with candles, people bring their lanterns - a lot of them are homemade and amazing, there was even a dragon shaped lantern one year! And at the end of the walk there is a big bonfire and mince pies. At home I light our fire and leave a mince pie and a glass of mead on the mantlepiece for any visiting spirits who stop by as it tends to be an active time of year, in fact we've had a few things happen already this season! We've heard someone moving around upstairs (there was no one, it's just the two of us and the cat was with us at the time) I saw a white shape move across the room reflected in the mirror (no car lights passing as it was the side of the house facing the garden), the same day I heard someone knock on our door but the street was empty and my partner saw our recently deceased cat twice in the space of a couple of minutes. It's been a bit busy in our house!
Jess from SBT: We usually eat a lot, including a yule log shaped cake and drink a lot of beer.
So the common practices here seem to be lighting candles and/or a fire and making wishes for the new year. And then there are other traditions based on personal preferences or location. But where does all this come from? First, let us just clarify that Pagan and Wiccan beliefs are a matter of personal choice and run the gamete. We have been joined on episodes by several Pagan practitioners and have found them to have eclectic practices. The term Yule is derived from the Old Norse jól, although it has also been referred to as miðsvetrarblót or midwinter sacrifice. First, we have difficulty establishing origins on our present calendar because there have been several calendars throughout history, obviously. We are now in the Gregorian calendar. One of the ancient lunar months was known as Jultungel, which translates to Yule Moon. There are those who maintain that there were two parallel calendars before the Julian Calendar. One was based on weeks for the quarters of the year and each quarter started four weeks after the astronomical solstices and equinoxes. This was called the Week Year Calendar. The other calendar was the Lunisolar Calendar and was based on lunar months within the solar year rectified to the winter solstice. So basically, the point is that traditionally the Yule feast was to be observed at the first full moon after the first new moon following the winter solstice.
It is thought that the oldest yuletide feast was called Hokunott in Scandinavia and was first described by the 6th century Byzantine writer Procopius. This feast was to celebrate the return of the sun and was observed right after the Winter Solstice. The earliest reference to jól was in a 9th century Norse praise poem in honor of Harold Fairhair's victory at the battle of Hafrsfjorð, which unified the kingdom of Norway.
(Kelly) As we approach the Winter Solstice, we are moving from the darkest time of the year into the light. We are also moving into a time of the year where food is scarce for humans and animals. This was a time of famine and probably why this time was also called the midwinter sacrifice. The cattle would be butchered before this time because there would not be enough to feed them and the people would need them for food. So it was a time for meat feasting. The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year. Thus it would be a good time for introspection. These are the pieces of Yule that have traveled through the centuries: a feast, fire or light, introspection and future planning.
There are deities connected to Yule and they include The Oak King, The Horned One, The Green Man, Mabon, Odin, The Great Mother, Diana, Brighid, Demeter and The Dagda. Brighid taught the art of fire tending and working metal to the blacksmiths. We talked about her a lot on the Imbolc episode. She is thought to be a Celtic triple goddess. She is described as a daughter of The Dagda with two sisters having the same name by some, but by others these three personas are three aspects of a single deity. She is a goddess of hearth and home and helps with divination and looking to the future. The Dagda is an Irish deity looked at as the father-figure and controls the weather and crops and such, so you see his connection here. The Oak King is the counterpart to the Holly King. These two fight for supremacy and at Yule, The Oak King wins and Winter reigns. The Summer Solstice brings victory for the Holly King and Summer reigns. Some Pagan systems make them the opposite with them reigning on the Equinoxes and other traditions combine the two into The Horned One. The Oak King is sometimes called the god of the Sun, while the Holly King is referred to as the Dark Lord. The Holly King looks something like a nature version of Santa with sprigs of holly in his hair, dressed in red and driving a sleigh pulled by eight stags. The Oak King is thought to be a type of fertility god and can also be referred to as the Green Man. Most people know Odin is the chief Norse god, so makes sense that he is connected to Winter festivities and he bears a strong resemblance to Santa.
Activities for a village included wassailing to the trees and crops. The trees were mainly cider apple trees. This would be singing and uttering incantations to promote a good crop at the next harvest and to scare away evil spirits. This makes me think of us talking to our plants. You listened to that episode of Odd Tonic about plants, right? The one that covered the Secret Life of Plants. So clearly this understanding of talking or singing to plants is ancient. This singing is something Beth incorporates into her observance too. Many villages would have a wassail king and queen that would lead the procession and the queen would hold up a Claven Cup with toast soaked in Wassail inside of it, up to the trees as an offering. One of the incantations went like this:
Here's to thee, old apple tree,
That blooms well, bears well.
Hats full, caps full,
Three bushel bags full,
An' all under one tree.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
Folklore has tales about the Apple Tree Man, which is the persona given to the spirit of the oldest tree in the apple orchard. This is thought to be the spirit of fertility in the orchard. Ruth Tongue and Katharine Briggs wrote about the Folktales of England and one of these tales is about a man in Somerset who offered his last mug of mulled cider to the trees in his orchard on Christmas Eve. The Apple Tree Man saw this and decided to reward the man, so he told him where he could find some buried gold.
The wassailing could go house to house too and this is where caroling comes down from. Children would also take gifts from house to house. These would be baskets made from evergreen boughs, which were sacred to the Celts since they didn't die, and wheat stalks dusted with flour, which represented the harvest with flour representing triumph, life and light. Inside the baskets were oranges and clove spiked apples. And drinks would usually be offered. Alcohol is a big part of the Yule celebration. You heard Jess mention that.
One of the most important symbols of Yule is the Yule Log. Traditionally, the Yule Log was made from a log found on the householder's land or given to them as a gift. The most prized log would come from an Ash tree, which was considered sacred by many tribes and Ash was said to be an herb of the Sun and thus it brings light to the hearth. The Vikings and Scandinavians believed that their tree of life that they called Yggdrasil, was made of ash. The roots of Yggdrasil were bound in hell and its branches were in heaven. The god Odin hung on this tree for 9 nights, so that he could gain the gifts of prophesy and divination. He lost an eye, but received those. The first man was said to have been formed from the Yggdrasil. Ash is also symbolically representative of the four elements.
This Yule Log was decorated with evergreen sprigs and boughs and doused with cider or ale. Flour would be dusted over it all. And these all symbolized what we mentioned with the gifts the children took around. The Yule Logs were saved from previous years and this was so that the fire that that year's Yule Log was to burned in could be started with the previous log. The fire would be kept burning through the night and left to smolder for the twelve days of Yule. Now in our present day, it is harder to observe this tradition because people don't have fireplaces, so many observers choose to drill three or more holes into a log and place candles in the holes that they can light. The decorating goes much the same. Candle colors range from the colors of the Sun God: green, gold and black to the colors of the Great Goddess: white, red and black to seasonal: red, green and white. I advise against the flour though because that is so hard to clean up.
And speaking of greenery, this is brought inside too to remind people of living, not death and to entice those nature faeries and spirits to come inside and celebrate. This is why holly, ivy and mistletoe have become a part of Christmas, this is just part of Yule. The mistletoe carried the added symbolism of fertility as the seed of the Divine and Druids would travel deep into the forest to find it in the middle of Winter. And you can probably imagine why people kissed under the mistletoe.
So you see the origins of Christmas in all of this. Bringing a tree into the house and decorating it with candles and bows. Christmas Carols carry many lines that leave people confused because they harken back to Pagan rituals. We light fires and candles. We make resolutions. We drink apple cider. And we give gifts. This is all very nice, but as you dig into the research, you do find some dark sides in the Pagan traditions. The English brought mistletoe into the house to ward off evil spirits. There is, of course, The Saturnalia, which was a week-long festival celebrating the Romans' agricultural god, Saturn. This festival lasted from December 17 until December 23 and the festivities were anything but a time for a child to get a sparkle in their eye as they dreamed of sugar plums and toys and tried to be good even though a crazy Elf on a Shelf was watching their every move like Big Brother and reporting back to jolly ole St. Nick. Come to think of it, Elf on a Shelf does add a bit of horror to the Christmas Season for kids. Anyway, Saturnalia usually involved gluttonous eating, drinking alcohol to excess, gambling and public nudity. I'm sure none of this goes on with any of your family festivities over the holidays. *wink, wink*
But Saturnalia could get even darker. There are those who claim that Saturn was the cruelest god of the Romans and demanded child sacrifice. This human sacrifice didn't last for long, but gladiator fights during the festival added blood. There is a return to talk of human sacrifice when looking at the candles on the tree, which some claimed was made from the fat of children who were sacrificed, but I would venture to say it was probably from the "sacrifices" of all the animals before winter set-in. And then Saturn has been said to be another image of Father Time and the New Year Baby is the sacrifice victim. And Saturn is also suppose to be like Santa and with a child on his lap, well, you get the picture. The balls on trees supposedly represent the heads of those conquered by the Sun God or his male genitalia and retrieving presents from under the tree represents parents sacrificing their children under the trees for the Sun God. Did any of these things happen. I'm sure there were cultures that participated. Human sacrifice did happen throughout history. But as for Yule for the past few centuries, it is all very tame.
Join us in observing Yule this year. Take a Solstice Walk and bring some greenery into the house and make yourself a Yule Log. Write down what you are grateful for in the past year. Visualize the next year and the path you want to walk. And kiss somebody under the mistletoe! We also want to remind you to join us on Christmas Eve at 8pm ET as we tell scary ghost stories in keeping with the old traditions. So have a Happy Yule, Merry Christmas and blessed whatever you observe at this time of year!
Show Notes:
https://www.brutenorse.com/blog/2017/12/norse-yuletide-sacrifices-had-almost.html
Nordberg, Andreas. 2006. Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning: Kalendrar och kalendariska riter i det förkristna Norden. Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur: Uppsal
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
25 Days of Creepy Christmas - True Christmas Ghost Experiences
We found some good ghost stories that took place during the holiday season while perusing the Internet and we thought we would share them:
MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT
-Arthur H.
My mother, to whom I was very close, passed away in 1964 when I was 17 years old. I left home that year and moved to Ontario from Nova Scotia. In 1969 I met a girl whom I will call Karen and we got married in March of 1970.
In December of 1971 we were expecting our first child. We were living in a small 1-1/2 bedroom bungalow. There was a fireplace in the living room. My wife and I loved the fireplace and we had it lit every night.
It was Christmas Eve, 1971, and we had just finished putting the gifts under the tree and a nice fire gave off a beautiful glow. On the tree, one string of lights, which was supposed to flash, had stopped several days before.
It was five minutes to midnight when the fireplace suddenly just about went out, and the string of lights started to flash - and the other lights stopped flashing! My wife and I were sitting on the floor and it had become very chilly in the room.
I looked over to my recliner chair...
and a figure was sitting there -- my mother with a big beautiful smile on her face! My wife, who had never met my mother, said she could see the same thing. This "ghost" never spoke, but just kept looking at me and my wife and smiling.
At 12 midnight, the fire in the fireplace started up again and the lights on the tree stopped flashing and the others started flashing again.
I looked over in the chair and the ghost was gone. No matter what I did to those Christmas lights, they never flashed again.
SEASIDE GHOST
-Mike B.
This happened on Christmas Eve, 1961. I had returned from college in London to spend Christmas in my hometown of Scarborough, on the north-east coast of England. In the afternoon, I went into the centre of town to buy Christmas presents. At about 4 p.m., I was ready to return home. Scarborough has two bays divided by a headland on which stands a ruined castle. A road, the Marine Drive, runs round the bottom of the headland from one bay to the other.
As I had not seen the sea for some time, I decided to walk this way home to where I lived in the North Bay. In those days the Marine Drive was unlit and very dark. I had gone about two hundred yards when a car came toward me round the bend of the drive. It was traveling quite slowly and for some time the beam of the headlamps fell on the railings on the seaward side of the road.
About 20 yards in front of me was a ghost standing at the railings looking down into the sea. The form was of someone dressed in a monk's cowl, hooded, drooping sleeves, a complete form, but clearly insubstantial -- the kind of figure most people accept as a stereotypical ghost. I was very afraid and stood rooted to the spot.
The ghost then turned toward me and, as if it was as frightened of me as I was of it, it began to retreat backward. There were no discernible limbs, but the bottom of the figure appeared to writhe about. It then disappeared out of the beam of the headlamp into the darkness. I decided to go no further round the drive, but turned around to return to the South Bay and catch a bus.
My right leg went. I found it very difficult to walk, but managed to hobble to the bus stop where I eventually caught a bus home. My leg was better by the time I got off the bus. This infirmity had never happened to me before, nor has it since.
I later made enquiries and found someone had committed suicide from somewhere near the position of the ghost. They had removed their clothes and left them neatly folded on the drive before leaping into the sea. That said, there can be no incontrovertible connection between this and the ghost I saw.
THE LOST GHOST
-Alle G.
Around Christmas time, 2001, I had a few weird experiences involving a spirit that must still live in our house. One of the past owners, a lady, died in our house. Around Christmas time, I felt the presence more and a lot stronger than I usually did.
One night, I decided to draw whatever my hand felt like drawing. I drew a bottle with ribbons exploding out of it, then a yacht... then it felt like someone was moving my hand for me. My hand drew a circular shape that at first looked like a peach. My hand lifted and dropped and made a mark inside the circle. My hand lifted again and dropped and it made a weird curve. My hand drew another dot. I regained full control over my hand again and I looked at what I had a drawn: a weird smiley face.
I told my mum about it and she said to try it again the next night, and so I did. I was painting some landscapes in water colours when I felt the presence again. My mum had said that she thought her name was Faye, so that name was stuck in my mind.
I asked, "What is your name?" and I let my hand be controlled. I wrote what looked like the name Faye. I asked what the last name was. I wrote something that looked like "Edith." This was all confusing. I asked why it was here, and the reply looked like "I'm lost." I asked why it was here with me, and the reply looked kind of like "crussby," but was still very hard to read. I asked, "What?" and the answer cleared up a bit, but still not a real word. I asked again, and the final reply came what looked like "crusty." I am still puzzled, but the spirit may have meant the house was crusty since it is falling to bits in some areas.
Later on, my mum confirmed that the lady's name was Edith. This freaked me out big time, and I still felt the presence strongly for a while until a few days after Christmas.
MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT
-Arthur H.
My mother, to whom I was very close, passed away in 1964 when I was 17 years old. I left home that year and moved to Ontario from Nova Scotia. In 1969 I met a girl whom I will call Karen and we got married in March of 1970.
In December of 1971 we were expecting our first child. We were living in a small 1-1/2 bedroom bungalow. There was a fireplace in the living room. My wife and I loved the fireplace and we had it lit every night.
It was Christmas Eve, 1971, and we had just finished putting the gifts under the tree and a nice fire gave off a beautiful glow. On the tree, one string of lights, which was supposed to flash, had stopped several days before.
It was five minutes to midnight when the fireplace suddenly just about went out, and the string of lights started to flash - and the other lights stopped flashing! My wife and I were sitting on the floor and it had become very chilly in the room.
I looked over to my recliner chair...
and a figure was sitting there -- my mother with a big beautiful smile on her face! My wife, who had never met my mother, said she could see the same thing. This "ghost" never spoke, but just kept looking at me and my wife and smiling.
At 12 midnight, the fire in the fireplace started up again and the lights on the tree stopped flashing and the others started flashing again.
I looked over in the chair and the ghost was gone. No matter what I did to those Christmas lights, they never flashed again.
SEASIDE GHOST
-Mike B.
This happened on Christmas Eve, 1961. I had returned from college in London to spend Christmas in my hometown of Scarborough, on the north-east coast of England. In the afternoon, I went into the centre of town to buy Christmas presents. At about 4 p.m., I was ready to return home. Scarborough has two bays divided by a headland on which stands a ruined castle. A road, the Marine Drive, runs round the bottom of the headland from one bay to the other.
As I had not seen the sea for some time, I decided to walk this way home to where I lived in the North Bay. In those days the Marine Drive was unlit and very dark. I had gone about two hundred yards when a car came toward me round the bend of the drive. It was traveling quite slowly and for some time the beam of the headlamps fell on the railings on the seaward side of the road.
About 20 yards in front of me was a ghost standing at the railings looking down into the sea. The form was of someone dressed in a monk's cowl, hooded, drooping sleeves, a complete form, but clearly insubstantial -- the kind of figure most people accept as a stereotypical ghost. I was very afraid and stood rooted to the spot.
The ghost then turned toward me and, as if it was as frightened of me as I was of it, it began to retreat backward. There were no discernible limbs, but the bottom of the figure appeared to writhe about. It then disappeared out of the beam of the headlamp into the darkness. I decided to go no further round the drive, but turned around to return to the South Bay and catch a bus.
My right leg went. I found it very difficult to walk, but managed to hobble to the bus stop where I eventually caught a bus home. My leg was better by the time I got off the bus. This infirmity had never happened to me before, nor has it since.
I later made enquiries and found someone had committed suicide from somewhere near the position of the ghost. They had removed their clothes and left them neatly folded on the drive before leaping into the sea. That said, there can be no incontrovertible connection between this and the ghost I saw.
THE LOST GHOST
-Alle G.
Around Christmas time, 2001, I had a few weird experiences involving a spirit that must still live in our house. One of the past owners, a lady, died in our house. Around Christmas time, I felt the presence more and a lot stronger than I usually did.
One night, I decided to draw whatever my hand felt like drawing. I drew a bottle with ribbons exploding out of it, then a yacht... then it felt like someone was moving my hand for me. My hand drew a circular shape that at first looked like a peach. My hand lifted and dropped and made a mark inside the circle. My hand lifted again and dropped and it made a weird curve. My hand drew another dot. I regained full control over my hand again and I looked at what I had a drawn: a weird smiley face.
I told my mum about it and she said to try it again the next night, and so I did. I was painting some landscapes in water colours when I felt the presence again. My mum had said that she thought her name was Faye, so that name was stuck in my mind.
I asked, "What is your name?" and I let my hand be controlled. I wrote what looked like the name Faye. I asked what the last name was. I wrote something that looked like "Edith." This was all confusing. I asked why it was here, and the reply looked like "I'm lost." I asked why it was here with me, and the reply looked kind of like "crussby," but was still very hard to read. I asked, "What?" and the answer cleared up a bit, but still not a real word. I asked again, and the final reply came what looked like "crusty." I am still puzzled, but the spirit may have meant the house was crusty since it is falling to bits in some areas.
Later on, my mum confirmed that the lady's name was Edith. This freaked me out big time, and I still felt the presence strongly for a while until a few days after Christmas.
Friday, December 9, 2016
25 Days of Creepy Christmas - Changelings and Christmas
Changelings and Christmas?
Loki, the Norse trickster god, saw this and he crafted a dart with the mistletoe's poison. Then he challenged Baldur's blind brother to a game of darts and as you probably already guessed, he helped guide the brother's hand to throw the dart at Baldur. The mistletoe became a part of the Yule season from that time. Rome used mistletoe during Saturnalia as well. It was eaten during fertility rites.
The Christmas tree was brought inside to help keep the wood spirits warm. Food and treats were put on the trees for the spirits. The Winter Solstice is a time of visions. The Celtic Mare Goddess known as Rhiannon, rides through the dreams of people at night and transports them to a place where they can create their own visions.
This is all interesting, but not very creepy, right? If we look to the Viking Goddess of winter, we find some pretty spooky stuff. Her name is Skadi and that word means shadow or shade. Shadow people would find comfort in her presence. She is a dark magician. Venomous snakes, wolves and the sythe are sacred to her. Priestesses of Skadi were said to have bathed in blood to prepare themselves. Skadi isn't the only creepy goddess from the Winter Solstice. There is also Perchta who was also known as Holda. People would leave out food for her during the Christmas period, so that they would have prosperity in the New Year. Holda was the goddess of death and destiny. She shared much in common with the Norse Freya. Witches claimed to ride with Holda in the hunt. She was ambivalent towards children and she was used as a bogey person to keep kids on the straight and narrow. She rewarded good kids at Christmas. Naughty kids were severely punished and this usually entailed her carrying them off into the woods. She would keep the children in wells and eventually turn them into Faery changelings.Changelings were substitutes left for human children. Faeries would steal babies and replace them with a lesser creature. The faery magic would fool the human parents into thinking that the replacement was actually their child. In reality, the substitute was usually a faery child. They usually have deformities and are temperamental. The faery folk would keep the human babies as their own or use them as slaves. There are some who believe changelings are children of the Devil and have no souls.
So as you can see, Christmas traditions and lore can be woven in such a way that one can end up in the creepy place of changelings. Who would've thought that changelings and Christmas could go hand in hand? See, HGB can use pretty much anything to add a little creepy to Christmas!
Thursday, December 24, 2015
History Goes Bump Christmas Special 2015
On this year's Christmas Special, we are joined by special guest Dan Foytik of the 9th Story Podcast, The Wicked Library and The Lift. We discuss some of the history behind Christmas and most importantly, analyze the history of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Most of our Christmas traditions are rooted in Victorian England. Sending Christmas cards and caroling door to door are just a couple of those traditions, but one tradition fell by the wayside and that is the practice of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. We are keeping that alive on the History Goes Bump Podcast and The 9th Story Podcast. We told ghost stories last year and we are doing it again this year. Mark Nixon of http://shadowsatthedoor.com joins us to tell one of his own original stories as well!
Henry James wrote in his novel The Turning of the Screw, "The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child." British humorist Jerome K. Jerome wrote, “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve, but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.” But where did this tradition originate?
Many scholars claim that Charles Dickens inspired the practice by writing A Christmas Carol. During the Victorian era, Spiritualism was very popular and famous writers from that time all took a turn at writing ghost stories including Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Elizabeth Gaskell and Edith Nesbit. But the tradition reaches further back then that because Washington Irving was writing about ghost stories being told on Christmas long before Dickens wrote his famous novel. And let's consider the origins of many of our Christmas traditions. They date back to Celtic times, the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yule. Yule was a religious festival that entailed lighting the Yule Log, feasting on the Yule Goat and Boar and singing of songs with dancing. Different groups observed it differently, but it usually lasted for twelve days. Some religions like Wicca still observe Yule.
Saturnus was the god of seed and sowing and Saturnalia became the festival created to honor him. It officially was celebrated on December 17 and during the reign of Cicero it lasted seven days, running from December 17 to 23. Augustus didn’t want the courts to be closed so many days, so he limited the festival to three days. Caligula changed things again and extended it to five days. The practice soon moved back to a full week of celebration. The poet Catullus described Saturnalia as the “best of days.” It was a holy day in which sacrifices were made to Saturn and it was a time of celebration. Roles were reversed on this day so slaves became masters and masters became slaves. Masters would serve food to their slaves and slaves got to practice leisure. They could use that leisure for playing sports or gambling. Gifts were exchanged and usually were items like earthenware figurines or wax candles. In each home, someone was appointed Saturnalicius princeps, roughly, Lord of Misrule.
One cannot ignore the obvious when it comes to Christmas Eve though and that is the time of year that this holiday falls during. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and winter is considered the darkest time of the year. If Halloween inspires ghostly tales because the veil is thin, then Christmas inspires scary tales because it is dark and night reigns. The death of the sun is thought to be observed at this time and while some maintain that Halloween is when the veil is thinnest, it really makes more sense that the longest night would be when the veil is thinnest. The reason why Marley is walking the Earth on Christmas Eve in A Christmas Carol is because the veil is thin. And at Christmas we celebrate family. It is the perfect time to remember those who are no longer with us anymore.
We must also consider that winter stories referred to fantastical stories. Jim Moon of Hypnogoria is the guy I go to on this kind of stuff and he wrote, "Furthermore in his story, The Christmas Tree (1859), in a section often collected separately as Telling Winter Stories, ironically enough Mr Dickens himself gives us a clue to where we may discover how many Christmases ago the tradition truly stretches - 'There is probably a smell of roasted chesnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories - Ghost Stories, or more shame for us - round the Christmas fire.' Now the important term in that above quote is Winter Stories, for this is no mere idly coined epithet but a specific phrase that has fallen into disuse and whose meaning has been forgotten. For a 'winter story' referred to a fantastical story and this term was in usage for centuries before Dickens. For example, a 17th century century philospher Joesph Glanvill, in his most famous work, the treatise on witchcraft (referenced by Poe in Ligeia and by HP Lovecraft in his Yule horror tale The Festival) Sadducismus Truimphatus (1681) had harsh words for those who dismissed the existence of unearthly powers as "meer Winter Tales, or Old Wives fables". Rewinding a little further back into the past, we discover this usage of the term was around in William Shakepeare's time. And this is why he titled his strange fable of magic and transformations, A Winter's Tale (1623)."
As we continue to wind back the clock to the 16th century, we find plays mentioning winter stories as being stories that speak of spirits. So telling stories near the Winter Solstice is a century olds practice. And somehow it has disappeared in our modern era. Why? Did the church manage to wipe the practice out as it absorbed other pagan customs of the time? Why would it hold onto decorating trees and such, but get rid of spooky stories? Or was it something else? Isn't it time that we return to building fires, lighting some candles, filling our mugs with coffee, tea, cider or hot chocolate and gathering to tell and hear scary ghost stories?
Henry James wrote in his novel The Turning of the Screw, "The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child." British humorist Jerome K. Jerome wrote, “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve, but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.” But where did this tradition originate?
Many scholars claim that Charles Dickens inspired the practice by writing A Christmas Carol. During the Victorian era, Spiritualism was very popular and famous writers from that time all took a turn at writing ghost stories including Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Elizabeth Gaskell and Edith Nesbit. But the tradition reaches further back then that because Washington Irving was writing about ghost stories being told on Christmas long before Dickens wrote his famous novel. And let's consider the origins of many of our Christmas traditions. They date back to Celtic times, the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yule. Yule was a religious festival that entailed lighting the Yule Log, feasting on the Yule Goat and Boar and singing of songs with dancing. Different groups observed it differently, but it usually lasted for twelve days. Some religions like Wicca still observe Yule.
Saturnus was the god of seed and sowing and Saturnalia became the festival created to honor him. It officially was celebrated on December 17 and during the reign of Cicero it lasted seven days, running from December 17 to 23. Augustus didn’t want the courts to be closed so many days, so he limited the festival to three days. Caligula changed things again and extended it to five days. The practice soon moved back to a full week of celebration. The poet Catullus described Saturnalia as the “best of days.” It was a holy day in which sacrifices were made to Saturn and it was a time of celebration. Roles were reversed on this day so slaves became masters and masters became slaves. Masters would serve food to their slaves and slaves got to practice leisure. They could use that leisure for playing sports or gambling. Gifts were exchanged and usually were items like earthenware figurines or wax candles. In each home, someone was appointed Saturnalicius princeps, roughly, Lord of Misrule.
One cannot ignore the obvious when it comes to Christmas Eve though and that is the time of year that this holiday falls during. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and winter is considered the darkest time of the year. If Halloween inspires ghostly tales because the veil is thin, then Christmas inspires scary tales because it is dark and night reigns. The death of the sun is thought to be observed at this time and while some maintain that Halloween is when the veil is thinnest, it really makes more sense that the longest night would be when the veil is thinnest. The reason why Marley is walking the Earth on Christmas Eve in A Christmas Carol is because the veil is thin. And at Christmas we celebrate family. It is the perfect time to remember those who are no longer with us anymore.
We must also consider that winter stories referred to fantastical stories. Jim Moon of Hypnogoria is the guy I go to on this kind of stuff and he wrote, "Furthermore in his story, The Christmas Tree (1859), in a section often collected separately as Telling Winter Stories, ironically enough Mr Dickens himself gives us a clue to where we may discover how many Christmases ago the tradition truly stretches - 'There is probably a smell of roasted chesnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories - Ghost Stories, or more shame for us - round the Christmas fire.' Now the important term in that above quote is Winter Stories, for this is no mere idly coined epithet but a specific phrase that has fallen into disuse and whose meaning has been forgotten. For a 'winter story' referred to a fantastical story and this term was in usage for centuries before Dickens. For example, a 17th century century philospher Joesph Glanvill, in his most famous work, the treatise on witchcraft (referenced by Poe in Ligeia and by HP Lovecraft in his Yule horror tale The Festival) Sadducismus Truimphatus (1681) had harsh words for those who dismissed the existence of unearthly powers as "meer Winter Tales, or Old Wives fables". Rewinding a little further back into the past, we discover this usage of the term was around in William Shakepeare's time. And this is why he titled his strange fable of magic and transformations, A Winter's Tale (1623)."
As we continue to wind back the clock to the 16th century, we find plays mentioning winter stories as being stories that speak of spirits. So telling stories near the Winter Solstice is a century olds practice. And somehow it has disappeared in our modern era. Why? Did the church manage to wipe the practice out as it absorbed other pagan customs of the time? Why would it hold onto decorating trees and such, but get rid of spooky stories? Or was it something else? Isn't it time that we return to building fires, lighting some candles, filling our mugs with coffee, tea, cider or hot chocolate and gathering to tell and hear scary ghost stories?
Friday, December 4, 2015
HGB Podcast, Ep. 87 - The Legend of Krampus
Moment in Oddity - The Dragon's Triangle
Suggested by: Spooktacular Crew Member Shelby Labrie
The Japanese call it the Ma-no Umi: the Sea of the Devil. Everybody else calls it the Dragon's Triangle. It is nearly opposite the Bermuda Triangle and often compared to it for good reason. It is the cause of many ships and planes mysteriously disappearing. Some believe that Amelia Earhart went missing because of the Dragon's Triangle. Other phenomenon have been linked to the area including ghost ships, USOs, lapses in time, and electronic equipment malfunctions. Some researchers claim that seismic events, volcanoes and other natural occurrences cause most of the "paranormal" activity within the Dragon's Triangle. It is true that the area is volcanically active and small islands seem to appear and disappear regularly, but does this really explain how ships and planes could just disappear or in most recent news reports, could this cause several large wooden ghost ships full of decaying bodies to wash up on Japanese shores? At least 12 wooden boats have been found in the Sea of Japan over the past two months carrying the decaying bodies of 22 people. The bodies were described as "partially skeletonized." One boat had only six skulls in it and another had two bodies without their heads. The bodies probably belong to people defecting from North Korea out of desperation and who could blame them. The ships are old and hard to steer. Could wandering through the Dragon's Triangle make things even worse? The triangle takes its name from the dragons that were believed to live in the area. And while these fire breathing dragons were probably volcanoes, who knows if dragons just might have dotting the landscape. No matter the explanation, the things that happen around the Dragon's Triangle certainly are odd!
This Day in History - Mary Celeste Found Abandoned
By: April and Courtland Rogers-Krick
[Transcript] On this day, December 4th, in 1872, the Mary Celeste was found abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The British brig Dei Gratia had left New York shortly after the Mary Celeste and it was her crew that discovered the ghost ship. Captain David Morehouse sent a crew off to the ship to see if it needed assistance. The crew found no one aboard, but belongings were still inside the ship. The sails were still set. Six months worth of food was still on board. The only lifeboat was missing and there was three and a half feet of water in the bottom of the ship. The Mary Celeste had a crew of seven plus the Captain, his wife and their daughter. After a thorough investigation, no one could figure out why the crew would leave the ship. It had a working pump and the water in the ship was normal for a ship left afloat with no crew. The compass was damaged and the clock was not working, but this would not call for abandonment. A sextant and the ship's log and papers were missing, but something else was missing that struck investigators as very odd. The Mary Celeste had been hauling 1700 barrels of alcohol used to fortify wine. Nine of those barrels were empty. Where had the alcohol gone? The boarding party from the Dei Gratia sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar to claim a reward. The reward was less than expected and might have been less because some suspected foul play on the part of Dei Gratia. The top theory as to what happened is that the alcohol barrels were empty because they had leaked causing intense fumes. The hatches were opened, but the Captain decided to have the crew and his family get into a lifeboat that they tied onto the ship to wait for the fumes to dissipate. Somehow the lifeboat floated away leaving those aboard at the mercy of the sea. Some time later, a boat full of horribly decomposed bodies washed up on shore in Spain. Was this the crew of the Mary Celeste? We'll never know.
[Full research] On December 4, 1872 The Mary Celeste, an American merchant brigantine, was found adrift and abandon in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores Islands, by the Canadian brigantine, Dei Gratia. She was disheveled and under partial sail but still seaworthy. No one was on board and the lifeboat was missing.
The Mary Celeste was built in Canada in 1860 and was originally christened Amazon. During her first 10 years she encountered many accidents and went under repair. After her last repair she was renamed Mary Celeste. In 1870 J.H. Winchester purchased the Mary Celeste and she gave two years of good service. In 1872 Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs purchased shares in the Mary Celeste and became her captain. The ship was then altered to accommodate the captain’s family so that they could sail with him.
Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah and their 2 year old daughter Sophia and a crew of seven men set sail from New York to Genoa on November 5, 1872. The ship carried a cargo of 1701 barrels of poisonous denatured alcohol. Do to uncertain weather conditions Captain Briggs set anchor near Staten Island for two days. On November 7, 1872 the weather eased and the Mary Celeste left harbor and set sail in the Atlantic.
On December 4, 1872 Captain David Morehouse of the Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste about six miles away and headed unsteadily towards the Dei Gratia. The ships erratic movements and the set of her sails lead Captain Morehouse to suspect something was wrong. After not receiving an answer to his signals and not seeing anyone on deck of the Mary Celeste the captain sent first mate Oliver Deveau and second mate john Wright to investigate.
Once Deveau and Wright boarded the Mary Celeste they discovered her completely deserted. The sails were still partly set but in poor condition, some were missing altogether, and much of the rigging was damaged with ropes hanging loosely over the sides. The main hatch cover was secure, but the fore and lazarette were open, their covers beside them on the deck. The ship’s single lifeboat, a small yawl, was missing, while the binnacle housing the ship’s compass had shifted and the glass broken. On deck a sounding rod ( a device used for measuring the amount of water in the hold) was found abandon. 3.5 feet of water was found in the hold. Although it is a significant amount of water it was not enough to effect a ship the size of the Mary Celeste.
In the mates cabin the ships daily log was found. The last entry was dated November 25, 1872 at 8:00 am, nine days earlier. It recorded the Mary Celeste’s position just off Santa Maria Island in the Azoles, nearly 400 nautical miles from the point where the Dei Gratia encountered her. Deveau took note that the cabin interiors were wet and untidy from water which had entered through doorways and skylights, but otherwise in good order. In Brigg’s cabin, Deveau found personal items scattered about, including a sheathed sword under the bed, but most of the ship’s papers, together with the captains navigational instruments were missing. Galley equipment was neatly stowed away and there were ample provisions in the stores. Only the moldy remains of what looked like a child’s breakfast was found on the table. There were no signs of fire or violence. The evidence indicated an orderly departure from the ship by means of the missing lifeboat.
After reporting these findings to Captain Morehouse, he agreed to transport the abandon ship to Gibraltar, 600 nautical miles away. Under maritime law a salvager could expect a substantial share of the combined value of the ship and the cargo. Captain Morehouse divided the Dei Gratia eight man crew between the two ships. The weather was fairly calm for the trip to Gibraltar but with each ship severally undermanned progress was slow. On December 12, 1872 the Dei Gratia reached Gibraltar. The Mary Celeste, having encountered fog arrived the following morning. She was immediately impounded by the vice admiralty court, preparatory to salvage hearings.
The salvage court hearings began on December 17, 1872, under Sir James Cochrane, the chief justice of Gibraltar. The hearing was conducted by Fredrick Solly Flood, Attorney General of Gibraltar, who was also Advocate-General and Proctor for the Queen in Her Office of Admiralty. Somehow the testimonies of Oliver Deveau and John Wright convinced Attorney General Flood that foul play had been committed. He was quoted as saying “The inference is that Foul Play has been committed and that alcohol is at the bottom of it.” On December 23 Flood order an examination of the Mary Celeste, which was carried out by John Austin, Surveyor of Shipping, with the assistance of a diver, Ricardo Portunato.
Austin noted cuts on each side of the bow, he thought caused by a sharp instrument, and found what he believed to be possible traces of blood on the captain’s sword. His report emphasized that the ship did not appear to have been struck by heavy weather. To support his claim he cited a phial of sewing machine oil found upright in its place. Austin did not acknowledge that the phial might have been replaced since the abandonment, nor did the court raise this point. Portunato’s report on the hull concluded that the ship had not been involved in a collision or run aground. A further inspection by a group of Royal Naval captains endorsed Austin’s opinion that the cuts on the bow had been caused deliberately. They also discovered stains on one of the ship’s rails that might have been blood, together with a deep mark possibly caused by an axe. These findings strengthened Flood’s suspicions’ that human wrongdoing rather that natural disaster lay behind the mystery of the abandon ship. On January 22, 1873, Flood sent the reports to the Board of Trade in London, adding his own conclusion that the crew had got at the alcohol (he ignored its non-potability) and murdered the Briggs family and the ship’s officers in a drunken frenzy. He stated they had cut the bows to simulate a collision, then fled in the yawl to suffer an unknown fate. Flood thought that Morehouse and his men were hiding something, specifically that the Mary Celeste had been abandon in a more easterly location and that the log had been doctored. He could not accept that the Mary Celeste could have traveled so far while unmanned.
Oh Janurary 15, James Winchester arrived in Gibraltar, to inquire when the Mary Celeste might be released to deliver its cargo. Flood demanded a surety of $15,000, money Winchester did not have. He became aware that flood thought he might have deliberately engaged a crew that would kill Briggs and his officers, as part of some conspiracy. On January 29, during a series of sharp exchanges with Flood, Winchester testified to Brigg’s high character, and insisted that he would not have abandoned the ship except in extreme circumstances, Flood’s theories of mutiny and murder received a significant setback when scientific analysis of the stains found on the sword and elsewhere on the ship showed that they were not blood. A second blow to Flood followed in a report commissioned by Howard Sprauge, the American consul in Gibraltar, from Captain Shufeldt of the US Navy, In Shufeldt’s view the marks on the bow were not man-made, but came from the natural actions of the sea on the ships timbers.
On February 25 with nothing to support his suspicions, Flood reluctantly released the Mary Celeste from the court’s jurisdiction. Two weeks later, with a locally raised crew headed by Captain George Blatchford from Massachusetts, the Mary Celeste left Gibraltar for Genoa. On April 8, the question of the salvage payment was decided when Cochrane announced the award of £1,700 or about one-fifth of the total value of ship and cargo. This was far lower than the general expectation. It was thought that payment should have been two to three times that amount given the level of hazard in bringing the abandon ship into port. Cochrane’s final words were harshly critical of Morehouse for his decision, earlier in the hearing, to the Dei Gratia under Deveau to deliver its cargo of petroleum. Morehouse had remained in Gibraltar at the disposal of the court.
Cochrane’s tone carried an implication of wrongdoing which followed Morehouse and his crew for the rest of their lives.
135 years later a new investigation was conducted. With the use of modern investigative techniques and the finding of new evidence it has been determined the Mary Celeste and crew was not the victims of foul play. The Mary Celeste encountered three major storms and it had taken three weeks to sail what should have taken no more than two weeks. Captain Brigg made a major route change trying to avoid more storms. On November 22 with no land insight Briggs realized that his navigational equipment was faulty. On November 24 the Mary Celeste encountered more bad weather. Rain and winds of 30 knots and higher battered the ship. On the morning of November 25, 1872 it is believed that Captain Brigg’s was under the impression that the Mary Celeste was slowly sinking and he made the decision to abandon ship to save the lives of his family and crew. Seeing land that he believed to be the island of Santa Maria in the Azoles about 13 miles away and a break in the weather he ordered his family and crew to abandon ship. The Brigg’s family and crew, left all personal belongings behind and set sail in the small yawl for land. It is believed that bad weather and waves overtook the small lifeboat. They are not believed to have ever made it to land.
The Legend of Krampus (Research Assistant Carbon Lilies & Listener Elora)
There are Christmas trees and reindeer and candy canes, but Santa Claus is probably one of the most familiar images intertwined with Christmas. Most of us as kids were raised with the warning that you better be good, for goodness sake, or you would end up on Santa's naughty list and thus receive coal in your stocking. But as we trace back the various traditions associated with the holiday season, we come upon a character that has been around longer than good old St. Nick and the warnings that came with him, were far more dire. On this episode, we will explore the origins, history and terror that are a part of the legend of Krampus.
During the 4th century AD, Roman influence caused many Germanic tribes, such as the Goths and Vandals, to convert to Christianity. Their pagan traditions managed to survive in small villages in the Alps where the Church couldn't penetrate. One of those pagan traditions involved Krampus. The name Krampus is derived from the German word "krampen" meaning “claw." It is believed that Krampus started appearing sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries in Southern Germany and Austria (the area known as Bavaria) before spreading to Switzerland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and even the Alp villages of Italy under different names: Knecht Ruprecht, Certa, Black Peter, Schmutzli, Pelznickel and Klaubauf to name a few. The legend is said to have originated from a German folktale. There are some who claim that Krampus is a representation of the son of Hel, ruler of the underworld in Norse mythology. This is up for debate as most Norse mythology comes from the more Northern regions of the area while Krampus was a more southernly fixture. But it was in 1250 AD that King's Mirror, a Norwegian text, featured a Wild Man character who was described as being covered in hair.
Having his roots in Germanic tradition, Krampus is the companion of St. Nicholas. He is no cutesy little elf; however, but a beast out of your worst nightmares. He is almost something like an evil twin to Santa. The difference to us would be as if you were comparing God to Satan. And the descriptions of Krampus are quite similar to the traditional ideas about Satan. Krampus rises to the height of seven feet and has long goat horns, cloven hooves, pointed ears, bulging eyes and is entirely covered with dark, matted hair. One of his most recognizable features is a huge pointed tongue protruding from between sharp fang that moves around whip-like. Not only is he terrifying to behold, but his actions make him the perfect horror movie star.
While Santa might bring coal to bad kids, Krampus brings true punishment. He carries with him bells, birch stick switches, whips and rusty chains and uses them on naughty children before throwing them in his basket and dragging them to the underworld where they would serve him until they repented or even for their whole lives or even more frightening, he may even eat them. The bells he carries are rung to warn the children that he is coming. Quite different than the bell ringing in the movie "A Wonderful Life" where such a sound was equated with an angel getting his wings, not a child getting an extreme punishment. One can imagine that this would be quite persuasive in getting children to be on their very best behavior all year long. Some believe that the chains are carried by Krampus as a carry over from Christianity. As Christianity adopted pagan traditions and altered them to fit its customs, it is believed that Krampus became a representative of Satan and thus the chains symbolized Satan being bound to the Church.
Krampus was given his own night, which is still observed today: Krampusnacht also referred to as Krampus Night, which is celebrated on December 5th. On this night, Krampus runs around making loud noises and scaring the children. It is customary to offer a drink of warm Schnapps to Krampus. This tradition has inspired Krampuslauf (Krampus Run) where intoxicated party goers dress as devils, wild-men and witches bearing torches and they run through the streets terrifying children and adults alike. The trend has caught on, spreading to other parts of Europe like France and Finland and even many American cities like Philadelphia, Portland, Rochester, Los Angeles and others. Some of these festivals can last for days.
Another tradition has Krampus joining St. Nicholas on Christmas Eve, so that he could handle Santa's naughty list. He did seem to fall by the wayside for a bit, but then Krampus started to regain acceptance and a following in the 19th century thanks in part to the Brothers Grimm. And Krampus got a quick reference in the 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie. In the early 19th century, Krampus began appearing on greeting cards and soon there was a Krampus card for every St. Nicholas card. These greeting cards depicted the creature in all his glory, a peculiar way to wish someone happy holidays. The Catholic Church has outlawed the observation of Krampus Night at various times in history. During the reign of the Third Reich, Krampus was outlawed as being a socialist but was allowed to invade the streets again when World War II came to an end. Yes, even the Nazis feared Krampus.
Although St. Nicholas has been given the job of punishing naughty kids by either not bringing them presents or leaving them coal in their stockings, Krampus is making a comeback and has become commercialized. You can find him everywhere from t-shirts to comic books and even Hollywood horror movies, which is why we picked this day to release this episode since the Krampus Movie is debuting today. Krampus has been on American Dad, Supernatural, The Colbert Report and Grimm.
When discussing a creature like Krampus, it is only fitting to discuss someone else who appears in the folklore of the Alp regions and is sometimes seen as a partner to krampus and that is Perchta. She is sometimes described as a goddess of light, but she has a dual nature and the other side is quite horrific and the one that is focused upon at Christmas time. Perchta was described as roaming the countryside in Bavaria during the winter. She would enter homes during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany and apparently she had been watching the children because she knew who had been good and who had been bad. Good kids got coins in their shoes, but woe to the bad kids because Perchta was worse than Krampus. She would just slit their bellies open then and there. She clean out their guts and stuff them with straw. I bet these kids ate their porridge after that tale! Many of the pictures we have seen of this female entity look very similar to Krampus. A match made in Hell perhaps?
Mummery is also something that has ancient folklore ties and is a European practice that takes place during the Winter Solstice or the holiday season. Mummers are people who perform in disguises that represent creatures, animals, mythic figures and the like. One of those characters would be Krampus, so basically those that dress up on Krampus Night are mummers. Mummery is believed to be the inspiration for dressing up on Halloween. Newfoundland has a Mummer's Festival every year and it is believed that Newfoundland is where mummery got its start. The practice had all but died out in 1861 when a bill was passed making it illegal for people to wear masks in public without official permission from the government after a man named Isaac Mercer was killed by a bunch of mummers. Today it is experiencing a resurgence. Philadelphia hosts the Mummer's Parade every year to bring in the New Year. It started in the 1800s and was made official in 1900. The parade features music, pageantry and unique costumes.
Is it the resurgence in pagan religions, hunger for a darker `Nightmare Before Christmas’ style holiday or possibly a world of increasingly dissatisfied and spoiled children that is the reason for the renewed interest in the “Christmas Demon?” Could Krampus be here to scare these spoiled kids straight? We know that St. Nick is based on a real person in history. Did a creature like Krampus ever exist? That is for you to decide!
Show Notes:
Krampus Events and such: http://www.krampus.com/
Origins: http://krampusfest.com/origin.htm
To watch the Philly Mummer's Parade on New Years: http://site463216.46.webydo.com/
Book featuring the history and over 180 greeting cards: Krampus: The Devil of Christmas
Suggested by: Spooktacular Crew Member Shelby Labrie
The Japanese call it the Ma-no Umi: the Sea of the Devil. Everybody else calls it the Dragon's Triangle. It is nearly opposite the Bermuda Triangle and often compared to it for good reason. It is the cause of many ships and planes mysteriously disappearing. Some believe that Amelia Earhart went missing because of the Dragon's Triangle. Other phenomenon have been linked to the area including ghost ships, USOs, lapses in time, and electronic equipment malfunctions. Some researchers claim that seismic events, volcanoes and other natural occurrences cause most of the "paranormal" activity within the Dragon's Triangle. It is true that the area is volcanically active and small islands seem to appear and disappear regularly, but does this really explain how ships and planes could just disappear or in most recent news reports, could this cause several large wooden ghost ships full of decaying bodies to wash up on Japanese shores? At least 12 wooden boats have been found in the Sea of Japan over the past two months carrying the decaying bodies of 22 people. The bodies were described as "partially skeletonized." One boat had only six skulls in it and another had two bodies without their heads. The bodies probably belong to people defecting from North Korea out of desperation and who could blame them. The ships are old and hard to steer. Could wandering through the Dragon's Triangle make things even worse? The triangle takes its name from the dragons that were believed to live in the area. And while these fire breathing dragons were probably volcanoes, who knows if dragons just might have dotting the landscape. No matter the explanation, the things that happen around the Dragon's Triangle certainly are odd!
This Day in History - Mary Celeste Found Abandoned
By: April and Courtland Rogers-Krick
[Transcript] On this day, December 4th, in 1872, the Mary Celeste was found abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The British brig Dei Gratia had left New York shortly after the Mary Celeste and it was her crew that discovered the ghost ship. Captain David Morehouse sent a crew off to the ship to see if it needed assistance. The crew found no one aboard, but belongings were still inside the ship. The sails were still set. Six months worth of food was still on board. The only lifeboat was missing and there was three and a half feet of water in the bottom of the ship. The Mary Celeste had a crew of seven plus the Captain, his wife and their daughter. After a thorough investigation, no one could figure out why the crew would leave the ship. It had a working pump and the water in the ship was normal for a ship left afloat with no crew. The compass was damaged and the clock was not working, but this would not call for abandonment. A sextant and the ship's log and papers were missing, but something else was missing that struck investigators as very odd. The Mary Celeste had been hauling 1700 barrels of alcohol used to fortify wine. Nine of those barrels were empty. Where had the alcohol gone? The boarding party from the Dei Gratia sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar to claim a reward. The reward was less than expected and might have been less because some suspected foul play on the part of Dei Gratia. The top theory as to what happened is that the alcohol barrels were empty because they had leaked causing intense fumes. The hatches were opened, but the Captain decided to have the crew and his family get into a lifeboat that they tied onto the ship to wait for the fumes to dissipate. Somehow the lifeboat floated away leaving those aboard at the mercy of the sea. Some time later, a boat full of horribly decomposed bodies washed up on shore in Spain. Was this the crew of the Mary Celeste? We'll never know.
[Full research] On December 4, 1872 The Mary Celeste, an American merchant brigantine, was found adrift and abandon in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores Islands, by the Canadian brigantine, Dei Gratia. She was disheveled and under partial sail but still seaworthy. No one was on board and the lifeboat was missing.
The Mary Celeste was built in Canada in 1860 and was originally christened Amazon. During her first 10 years she encountered many accidents and went under repair. After her last repair she was renamed Mary Celeste. In 1870 J.H. Winchester purchased the Mary Celeste and she gave two years of good service. In 1872 Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs purchased shares in the Mary Celeste and became her captain. The ship was then altered to accommodate the captain’s family so that they could sail with him.
Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah and their 2 year old daughter Sophia and a crew of seven men set sail from New York to Genoa on November 5, 1872. The ship carried a cargo of 1701 barrels of poisonous denatured alcohol. Do to uncertain weather conditions Captain Briggs set anchor near Staten Island for two days. On November 7, 1872 the weather eased and the Mary Celeste left harbor and set sail in the Atlantic.
On December 4, 1872 Captain David Morehouse of the Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste about six miles away and headed unsteadily towards the Dei Gratia. The ships erratic movements and the set of her sails lead Captain Morehouse to suspect something was wrong. After not receiving an answer to his signals and not seeing anyone on deck of the Mary Celeste the captain sent first mate Oliver Deveau and second mate john Wright to investigate.
Once Deveau and Wright boarded the Mary Celeste they discovered her completely deserted. The sails were still partly set but in poor condition, some were missing altogether, and much of the rigging was damaged with ropes hanging loosely over the sides. The main hatch cover was secure, but the fore and lazarette were open, their covers beside them on the deck. The ship’s single lifeboat, a small yawl, was missing, while the binnacle housing the ship’s compass had shifted and the glass broken. On deck a sounding rod ( a device used for measuring the amount of water in the hold) was found abandon. 3.5 feet of water was found in the hold. Although it is a significant amount of water it was not enough to effect a ship the size of the Mary Celeste.
In the mates cabin the ships daily log was found. The last entry was dated November 25, 1872 at 8:00 am, nine days earlier. It recorded the Mary Celeste’s position just off Santa Maria Island in the Azoles, nearly 400 nautical miles from the point where the Dei Gratia encountered her. Deveau took note that the cabin interiors were wet and untidy from water which had entered through doorways and skylights, but otherwise in good order. In Brigg’s cabin, Deveau found personal items scattered about, including a sheathed sword under the bed, but most of the ship’s papers, together with the captains navigational instruments were missing. Galley equipment was neatly stowed away and there were ample provisions in the stores. Only the moldy remains of what looked like a child’s breakfast was found on the table. There were no signs of fire or violence. The evidence indicated an orderly departure from the ship by means of the missing lifeboat.
After reporting these findings to Captain Morehouse, he agreed to transport the abandon ship to Gibraltar, 600 nautical miles away. Under maritime law a salvager could expect a substantial share of the combined value of the ship and the cargo. Captain Morehouse divided the Dei Gratia eight man crew between the two ships. The weather was fairly calm for the trip to Gibraltar but with each ship severally undermanned progress was slow. On December 12, 1872 the Dei Gratia reached Gibraltar. The Mary Celeste, having encountered fog arrived the following morning. She was immediately impounded by the vice admiralty court, preparatory to salvage hearings.
The salvage court hearings began on December 17, 1872, under Sir James Cochrane, the chief justice of Gibraltar. The hearing was conducted by Fredrick Solly Flood, Attorney General of Gibraltar, who was also Advocate-General and Proctor for the Queen in Her Office of Admiralty. Somehow the testimonies of Oliver Deveau and John Wright convinced Attorney General Flood that foul play had been committed. He was quoted as saying “The inference is that Foul Play has been committed and that alcohol is at the bottom of it.” On December 23 Flood order an examination of the Mary Celeste, which was carried out by John Austin, Surveyor of Shipping, with the assistance of a diver, Ricardo Portunato.
Austin noted cuts on each side of the bow, he thought caused by a sharp instrument, and found what he believed to be possible traces of blood on the captain’s sword. His report emphasized that the ship did not appear to have been struck by heavy weather. To support his claim he cited a phial of sewing machine oil found upright in its place. Austin did not acknowledge that the phial might have been replaced since the abandonment, nor did the court raise this point. Portunato’s report on the hull concluded that the ship had not been involved in a collision or run aground. A further inspection by a group of Royal Naval captains endorsed Austin’s opinion that the cuts on the bow had been caused deliberately. They also discovered stains on one of the ship’s rails that might have been blood, together with a deep mark possibly caused by an axe. These findings strengthened Flood’s suspicions’ that human wrongdoing rather that natural disaster lay behind the mystery of the abandon ship. On January 22, 1873, Flood sent the reports to the Board of Trade in London, adding his own conclusion that the crew had got at the alcohol (he ignored its non-potability) and murdered the Briggs family and the ship’s officers in a drunken frenzy. He stated they had cut the bows to simulate a collision, then fled in the yawl to suffer an unknown fate. Flood thought that Morehouse and his men were hiding something, specifically that the Mary Celeste had been abandon in a more easterly location and that the log had been doctored. He could not accept that the Mary Celeste could have traveled so far while unmanned.
Oh Janurary 15, James Winchester arrived in Gibraltar, to inquire when the Mary Celeste might be released to deliver its cargo. Flood demanded a surety of $15,000, money Winchester did not have. He became aware that flood thought he might have deliberately engaged a crew that would kill Briggs and his officers, as part of some conspiracy. On January 29, during a series of sharp exchanges with Flood, Winchester testified to Brigg’s high character, and insisted that he would not have abandoned the ship except in extreme circumstances, Flood’s theories of mutiny and murder received a significant setback when scientific analysis of the stains found on the sword and elsewhere on the ship showed that they were not blood. A second blow to Flood followed in a report commissioned by Howard Sprauge, the American consul in Gibraltar, from Captain Shufeldt of the US Navy, In Shufeldt’s view the marks on the bow were not man-made, but came from the natural actions of the sea on the ships timbers.
On February 25 with nothing to support his suspicions, Flood reluctantly released the Mary Celeste from the court’s jurisdiction. Two weeks later, with a locally raised crew headed by Captain George Blatchford from Massachusetts, the Mary Celeste left Gibraltar for Genoa. On April 8, the question of the salvage payment was decided when Cochrane announced the award of £1,700 or about one-fifth of the total value of ship and cargo. This was far lower than the general expectation. It was thought that payment should have been two to three times that amount given the level of hazard in bringing the abandon ship into port. Cochrane’s final words were harshly critical of Morehouse for his decision, earlier in the hearing, to the Dei Gratia under Deveau to deliver its cargo of petroleum. Morehouse had remained in Gibraltar at the disposal of the court.
Cochrane’s tone carried an implication of wrongdoing which followed Morehouse and his crew for the rest of their lives.
135 years later a new investigation was conducted. With the use of modern investigative techniques and the finding of new evidence it has been determined the Mary Celeste and crew was not the victims of foul play. The Mary Celeste encountered three major storms and it had taken three weeks to sail what should have taken no more than two weeks. Captain Brigg made a major route change trying to avoid more storms. On November 22 with no land insight Briggs realized that his navigational equipment was faulty. On November 24 the Mary Celeste encountered more bad weather. Rain and winds of 30 knots and higher battered the ship. On the morning of November 25, 1872 it is believed that Captain Brigg’s was under the impression that the Mary Celeste was slowly sinking and he made the decision to abandon ship to save the lives of his family and crew. Seeing land that he believed to be the island of Santa Maria in the Azoles about 13 miles away and a break in the weather he ordered his family and crew to abandon ship. The Brigg’s family and crew, left all personal belongings behind and set sail in the small yawl for land. It is believed that bad weather and waves overtook the small lifeboat. They are not believed to have ever made it to land.
The Legend of Krampus (Research Assistant Carbon Lilies & Listener Elora)
There are Christmas trees and reindeer and candy canes, but Santa Claus is probably one of the most familiar images intertwined with Christmas. Most of us as kids were raised with the warning that you better be good, for goodness sake, or you would end up on Santa's naughty list and thus receive coal in your stocking. But as we trace back the various traditions associated with the holiday season, we come upon a character that has been around longer than good old St. Nick and the warnings that came with him, were far more dire. On this episode, we will explore the origins, history and terror that are a part of the legend of Krampus.
During the 4th century AD, Roman influence caused many Germanic tribes, such as the Goths and Vandals, to convert to Christianity. Their pagan traditions managed to survive in small villages in the Alps where the Church couldn't penetrate. One of those pagan traditions involved Krampus. The name Krampus is derived from the German word "krampen" meaning “claw." It is believed that Krampus started appearing sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries in Southern Germany and Austria (the area known as Bavaria) before spreading to Switzerland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and even the Alp villages of Italy under different names: Knecht Ruprecht, Certa, Black Peter, Schmutzli, Pelznickel and Klaubauf to name a few. The legend is said to have originated from a German folktale. There are some who claim that Krampus is a representation of the son of Hel, ruler of the underworld in Norse mythology. This is up for debate as most Norse mythology comes from the more Northern regions of the area while Krampus was a more southernly fixture. But it was in 1250 AD that King's Mirror, a Norwegian text, featured a Wild Man character who was described as being covered in hair.
Having his roots in Germanic tradition, Krampus is the companion of St. Nicholas. He is no cutesy little elf; however, but a beast out of your worst nightmares. He is almost something like an evil twin to Santa. The difference to us would be as if you were comparing God to Satan. And the descriptions of Krampus are quite similar to the traditional ideas about Satan. Krampus rises to the height of seven feet and has long goat horns, cloven hooves, pointed ears, bulging eyes and is entirely covered with dark, matted hair. One of his most recognizable features is a huge pointed tongue protruding from between sharp fang that moves around whip-like. Not only is he terrifying to behold, but his actions make him the perfect horror movie star.
Krampus was given his own night, which is still observed today: Krampusnacht also referred to as Krampus Night, which is celebrated on December 5th. On this night, Krampus runs around making loud noises and scaring the children. It is customary to offer a drink of warm Schnapps to Krampus. This tradition has inspired Krampuslauf (Krampus Run) where intoxicated party goers dress as devils, wild-men and witches bearing torches and they run through the streets terrifying children and adults alike. The trend has caught on, spreading to other parts of Europe like France and Finland and even many American cities like Philadelphia, Portland, Rochester, Los Angeles and others. Some of these festivals can last for days.
Another tradition has Krampus joining St. Nicholas on Christmas Eve, so that he could handle Santa's naughty list. He did seem to fall by the wayside for a bit, but then Krampus started to regain acceptance and a following in the 19th century thanks in part to the Brothers Grimm. And Krampus got a quick reference in the 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie. In the early 19th century, Krampus began appearing on greeting cards and soon there was a Krampus card for every St. Nicholas card. These greeting cards depicted the creature in all his glory, a peculiar way to wish someone happy holidays. The Catholic Church has outlawed the observation of Krampus Night at various times in history. During the reign of the Third Reich, Krampus was outlawed as being a socialist but was allowed to invade the streets again when World War II came to an end. Yes, even the Nazis feared Krampus.
When discussing a creature like Krampus, it is only fitting to discuss someone else who appears in the folklore of the Alp regions and is sometimes seen as a partner to krampus and that is Perchta. She is sometimes described as a goddess of light, but she has a dual nature and the other side is quite horrific and the one that is focused upon at Christmas time. Perchta was described as roaming the countryside in Bavaria during the winter. She would enter homes during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany and apparently she had been watching the children because she knew who had been good and who had been bad. Good kids got coins in their shoes, but woe to the bad kids because Perchta was worse than Krampus. She would just slit their bellies open then and there. She clean out their guts and stuff them with straw. I bet these kids ate their porridge after that tale! Many of the pictures we have seen of this female entity look very similar to Krampus. A match made in Hell perhaps?
Mummery is also something that has ancient folklore ties and is a European practice that takes place during the Winter Solstice or the holiday season. Mummers are people who perform in disguises that represent creatures, animals, mythic figures and the like. One of those characters would be Krampus, so basically those that dress up on Krampus Night are mummers. Mummery is believed to be the inspiration for dressing up on Halloween. Newfoundland has a Mummer's Festival every year and it is believed that Newfoundland is where mummery got its start. The practice had all but died out in 1861 when a bill was passed making it illegal for people to wear masks in public without official permission from the government after a man named Isaac Mercer was killed by a bunch of mummers. Today it is experiencing a resurgence. Philadelphia hosts the Mummer's Parade every year to bring in the New Year. It started in the 1800s and was made official in 1900. The parade features music, pageantry and unique costumes.
Is it the resurgence in pagan religions, hunger for a darker `Nightmare Before Christmas’ style holiday or possibly a world of increasingly dissatisfied and spoiled children that is the reason for the renewed interest in the “Christmas Demon?” Could Krampus be here to scare these spoiled kids straight? We know that St. Nick is based on a real person in history. Did a creature like Krampus ever exist? That is for you to decide!
Show Notes:
Krampus Events and such: http://www.krampus.com/
Origins: http://krampusfest.com/origin.htm
To watch the Philly Mummer's Parade on New Years: http://site463216.46.webydo.com/
Book featuring the history and over 180 greeting cards: Krampus: The Devil of Christmas
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Merry Christmas 2014
Merry Christmas from History Goes Bump!
The movie was directed by Bob Clark and based on the stories of Jean Shepherd, whom also narrates the movie. The store that was used for several scenes in the movie was a well known store by the name of Higbee's in Cleveland, Ohio. The store was named after Edwin Converse Higbee who began his traverse into stores with the Hower and Higbee Dry Goods store he opened with a partner. After the death of his partner, the store name changed to Higbee Company. The new department store known simply as Higbee's, opened in September of 1932 in the Terminal Tower Complex. It was the first department store in the area and had twelve floors with an elegant restaurant, The Silver Grille, on the tenth floor. Higbee's was known for its elaborate Christmas displays and was a major part of the golden age of department stores, which are nearly a thing of the past now. In the 1960s, the store underwent a renovation adding magnificent crystal chandeliers to the front entrance aisle. The 60s also saw the Higbee brand expand into six stores. In 1992, Higbee's was bought by Dilliard's and then eventually closed for good in 2002. It was the last department store in the area at that time.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The History Goes Bump Christmas Special 2014
The chorus of the Christmas carol "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" goes like this:
"There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories
Of Christmases long, long ago
It's the most wonderful time of the year."
Originator of the antiquarian ghost story, M R James wrote in 1904 in a preface to one of his works that he "wrote these stories at long intervals, and most of them were read to patient friends, usually at the seasons of Christmas." James also detailed how a good ghost story should be told by writing, "Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo. ... Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage. Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story."
The best proof that ghost tales were an important tradition is in Charles Dicken's beloved Christmas classic "A Christmas Carol." Not only is the story a morality tale, but it incorporates the use of ghosts to scare Ebenezer Scrooge into becoming a more compassionate human being. The ghost of Marley coming on Christmas Eve to Scrooge follows the tradition of Christmas ghost tales as well.
There is also the connection to the Winter Solstice, which represents the death of light and the taking on of more darkness with the day being the shortest one of the year. Some say this leads to the Winter Solstice being the most haunted day of the year. Some scholars will claim that ghost stories at this time of year dates back further than the Victorian era and could go all the way back to Celtic times when the Solstice was more revered. We may never know exactly when the telling of ghost stories on this day originated, but we do know that it is a lost tradition.
Listen to the podcast as we take part in this fun Christmas tradition. Pull up a chair to the fire and grab some cocoa and cookies!
We will begin with the first ghost story M R James wrote and shared with his friends near the fireplace: Canon Alberic's Scrapbook. This tale was written in 1894!
Our second story is "The Red Lodge" written by H. Russell Wakefield. Wakefield is well known for his ghost stories, which he began writing in the 1920s.
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