Terrors in the Night

This Week’s Prompt: 106. A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.

The Resulting Story: FORTHCOMING

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Mr. Lovecraft has here given us a terror that is very common in the world, rife with folklore explanations, and that plagued the man himself in his life. Sleep paralysis is the experience of waking up, but being unable to move, speak, or in anyway act. Victims often hallucinate, and commonly report the sensation that someone or something is in the room with them—something the brain processes as dangerous.

Such an anomalous sensation is the source of many terrors of the night—the most famous perhaps being the nightmare or night hag. In documents across Europe, the night hag finds sleeping people, binds them, and then rides them—like a mare—to her various delights, before returning them exhausted.

At various points in history, the nightmare has been its own spirit, either a being named Mara or a dwarf or the like. However, in English, the spirit quickly became associated with the more common source of supernatural evil: the witch.

Witchcraft reports from England suggest that such enchantment requires the insertion of objects—often sharp and deadly ones, such as scissors—into the victim for the magic to work. Some of these witches sent spirits, supposedly, to disturb the sleep of their victims. Often a these spirits took the form of cats (the recurring internet meme of cats making it impossible to move when they lay on you has some ancient parallels it seems). Other times, the shadow figures are witches themselves, who attempt to strangle their victim as well as prevent them from sleeping.

In South Carolina stories, the night hags are even more nightmarish. They often drink blood of their victims, and sometimes ride their victims without skin. With salt on the floor or certain rituals in a bottle, the Night Hag can be captured in a bottle while trying to reassume her skin. An informant claimed that the hag left a detestable slime when struck by salt—perhaps indicating there is something not entirely human beneath their skin. These hags might go door to door begging for food or hitchhiking, cursing those who show hospitality in a perverse inversion of regular witchcraft.

Witches in Nigeria were also believed to also engage in terrible acts during the night. They might make off with the breath of children, or feast on the souls or psyche. Meetings between witches, in both Africa and Europe, were often described as out of body experiences—as where some of the transformations a witch would engage in. These psychic feasts and meetings are the cause of illness, sickness, and death among communities—often by weakening the victim’s body such that more mundane illness can enter.

Of course, human intervention isn’t the only potential source. In China, Thailand, Poland,  and Uganda (among others) it is the dead that harass the living this way. The kokma of St. Lucia is a ghost, but rather specifically a ghost of a dead child that leaps on and throttles its victims. In Zanzibar, there is a terrible bat like demon that assaults people in their sleep. In Cornwall, the creature is instead a large hairy thing that binds a man down and called the hilla. In Ireland, it is instead a great bird with many talons and wings called tromlui. Beyond cats (who are easily the most common), sheep and roosters also appear as oppressive spirits in the world.

That isn’t to say there is no protection from these powers! Salt in some communities will work, but one particular charm from Anglo Saxon Texts protects against a spidery dwarf creature that enters illness upon the victim:

“Against a dwarf one shall take seven little offerings, such as one has worshipped with, and write these names on each of the offerings: Maximianus, Malchus, Iohannes, Martimianus, Dionisius, Constantinus, Serafion. Then afterwards one shall sing the charm that I say hereafter, first in the left ear, then in the right ear, and then above the top of the man’s head. And then a maiden must go and hang it around his neck, and do so for three days; he will soon be well. Here he came in walking, in spider form. He had his harness in his hand, he said that you were his steed, he put his traces on your neck. Then they began to travel from the ground; so soon they came from the ground, then their limbs began to cool. Then came in walking the beast’s sister; she put an end to this then and swore oaths that this would never harm the sick one, nor that one who might find this charm or knows how to recite it. Amen.So be it”

Here, we see the Seven Sleepers invoked as they often were to protect against sleeping illnesses and the like (We discussed the seven sleepers here). Other cures exist through out the world, from the aforementioned traps to cleansing to finding the witch responsible.

We come then to our story of horror. One of the most fascinating things, implied here, is that an object is left behind by the creature, spirit, or witch. This parting token to me marks not a gift, but rather a cursed object returned or some calling card—I am reminded of the discarded ring from our Netherlands stories that were in fact the doom of the woman who found them. Terror in the night for Lovecraft is not uncommon—the Witch’s House deals with dangerous dreams from living in a cursed place, and the threat of nightmares is common in horror (we could also consider the Hugenot house and other haunted places that torment victims in their dreams). But here, the presence has a dreadful physicality. It is not just terrible dreams—which might precede or follow from the spirits presence—but it is the arrival of something terrible and barely visible in the night.

We had a  similar story with the night monsters earlier—the aswang was our creature then, that slowly revealed itself and well. The story is here. But still, we need I think a distinction between this story’s terror, the vampires we’ve discussed, and the earlier version of this story that we examined with the Horla (here). Making things a bit more difficult, the night hag and it’s many other names does not do much. It sits on a person, it strangles them—an experience that I can say personally is terrifying, but difficult to communicate a whole story about.

For some surely unknowable reason, all the artistic representations of sleep paralysis and nightmares sitting on people feature attractive women in distress.

Perhaps we can build on the notion or terror of SUNDS—sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome, a phenomenon referenced in some of my works as being related to nightmares and their kind. Mysterious and horrific deaths work better than a single stalking thing in the darkness. I have the notion now of a rash of mysterious deaths and killings, as creatures of darkness and night begin to swallow up a town or city—things that perhaps resemble our earlier aswang, that wait until nightfall to make their presence known, while walking in the day in more innocuous forms.

We can play with forms of horror here, I think. There is an existential fear, of falling asleep and not knowing if you will wake up—of falling asleep, and being started awake by some unseen terror—of waking up to terrible news while you were powerless. There is something we can wrap into and work with this story, as well as a monster story that has a resonance with the sleep deprived and brightly lit modern era.

 

Bibliography

Adler, Shelly R. “Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome among Hmong Immigrants: Examining the Role of the “Nightmare””, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 104, No. 411 (Winter, 1991), pp. 54-71. American Folklore Society

Davies, Owens. “The Nightmare Experience, Sleep Paralysis, and Witchcraft Accusations” Folklore, Vol. 114, No. 2 (Aug., 2003), pp. 181-203. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.

Gay, David E. “Anglo-Saxon Metrical Charm 3 against a Dwarf: A Charm against Witch-Riding?” Folklore, Vol. 99, No. 2 (1988), pp. 174-177. . Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.

Ross, Joe. “Hags out of Their Skins”. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 368 (Apr. – Jun., 1980), pp. 183-186. American Folklore Society.

Parrinder, E. G. “African Ideas of Witchcraft”. Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Sep., 1956), pp. 142-150. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.

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Romanian Vampires

This Week’s Prompt: 105. Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

The Resulting Story: Forth Coming

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We’ve discussed the nature of vampires many times—in fact in the last six months, we’ve discussed it at least twice, once focused on the Philippines, once on the Balkans. For this third venture, I decided to move to a more precise examination of the Vampire as Family member, especially in the Romania. These vampires have something in common with their Balkan kin, but are strange and horrifying in their own ways.

One early difference is that not all vampires in Romania are dead. People destined to become vampires when they die can send out their souls or even bodies far from their bodies—akin to the story of the Jack we discussed last time, where a solider sent out his form with a playing card. These living vampires can be contrasted with the dead vampires that possess their corpses to wander out at night. There are other types of vampire we will discuss.

Like Balkan vampires, Romanian vampires often target their families. However, unlike most of their Balkan counterparts, reports exist of vampires returning home at night and doing house work or tending to children, even as they feed on them. And the life cycle of a vampire is more expansive than in the Balkans. A vampire, after seven years, will devour its whole family, then the whole village. Eventually it returns to life, and leaves to another country (or at the least, a place where a different language is spoken). Here, the vampire will settle down and start a new family, with children destined to also become vampires when they die. Thus, the vampiric plague spreads outward and onward, from one community to the next.

The signs of a vampiric fate are readily apparent. The most common is to be born with a caul, but others include simple wickedness among men and women, especially witchcraft. A child that is unbaptized will become a vampire after seven years, and its burial site will become unholy if not well looked after. If a pregnant woman doesn’t eat salt, her child will become a vampire. If one can break the fate of a vampire, the person becomes an omen of good luck. Suicides can become vampires as well, and have to be carefully treated to avoid that fate. Those doomed to be a vampire, in some reports, leave their bodies at night. Their soul emerges as a fly and goes about the world—a true vampire’s soul emerges as death’s head moth, which can cause sickness in a home. These can be pinned to prevent their escape or mischief, although most are unwilling to subject even a vampire to a second death.

A deaths head hawkmoth

Vampires have a variety of powers, even while alive. In one town, Michaela, vampire women were said to be tied to specific animals or phenomena from whom they drew power. Drawing this vitality is dangerous for the victim—a vampire who draws from bees may render them unable to gather pollen, and thus starve them. Another, more domestic vampire drained the power of bread from other households to make her bread the best anyone could manage. On St. George’s Eve they gather this power, either for themselves or for others—a vampire might gather beauty for a woman, rivalry for men, and so on. The women appear as red faced and dry, often in rags on St. Andrew’s Eve. The male vampires are bald and have hooves and a tail.

St. Andrew has a few other ties with vampires. One informant claimed that St. Andrew helped vampire women who had achieved their state rather than being born into it. St. Andrew’s Eve is also when they begin to travel the world, and are at their strongest (except wizard or witch vampires, who are strongest at the new moon). They weaken in spring, with either St. George’s Eve or Easter, no longer able to work as terrible powers as they once could.

The most dread vampire is the varcolac, a species of celestial vampire. These creatures cause eclipses, and bloody the moon when she is red or coppery. They appear as dogs, dragons, many mouthed creatures, and more when they go to eat the moon. Otherwise, they dwell in mortal bodies that enter a deep sleep when they sally out to eat the stars.  Their origins range from again cursed children to spirits born of dust swept towards the sun, and some of the stories are almost comedic—for instance, that spinning by moonlight allows them to ride the string up to the Heavens and eat the moon and sun.  The sun defeats them with the lion he rides on, while the moon is too strong to be so easily devoured. In one story, it is God that has given them this mission, to inspire penance in humanity.

A recurring story in Romanian Vampire lore is the vampire who takes a lover. In one story, a young man and a girl were deeply in love, and carried on a tryst without the girl’s family knowing. Eventually the young man’s relations approached them for marriage—and were rejected, as they were very poor. So the young man hung himself and became a vampire, and continued to visit the girl—except the girl did not love him, evil spirit he had become.

A wise woman advised her to attach some yarn to the coat, and follow the thread. She followed him back to his churchyard, and waited at twilight. She then saw him feeding on the heart of a dead man. When the vampire confronted her about her delay, she denied knowing anything. Even as he threatened her father, she asserted she knew nothing. And so her father died. The next day, she again refused, and her mother died. At last, he threatened to kill her—and she claimed to know nothing. She instructed her relations that she was going to die soon. She asked to be held in wake near an opening in the wall, and buried in a forest not a church yard.

And so it came to pass. She was buried in the woods, and a wonderous flower grew over her grave. The son of the emperor passed by one day, and saw this flower—and took it with him, digging it up and transplanting it to his garden. At night, the flower became the girl again, and she and the emperor’s son came to be married. She would not leave the house, however, in fear of the vampire—except once, when her husband asked her to go with him by carriage. And there by the road, who should they pass? The vampire himself! She fled the carriage at once, and the vampire pursued, until they came to a church. The girl hid behind a holy picture, as the vampire reached to grab her. And then that holy picture fell down, and struck the vampire, rendering him to dust.

Variants on this story can be found, repeating the same pattern and tricks. A detail that isn’t mentioned in this version is the meeting on St. Andrew’s day. Some variants specify she can’t go to church for four years—and going early, her vampire lover murders her husband and son. Her grandmother provides the solution, with water of life and holy water—the first to revive her family, the second to murder the vampire.

St. Andrew, wondering why he’s associated with all these damn vampires.

Another tale about vampires and women tells of how a vampire approached a group of girls at a river, disguised as a youth. He told such wonderful jokes and made such good conversation that the whole group could not help but laugh. But there was one girl in particular that he teased remorselessly, pinching her until she was black and blue. Such torment caused her to drop her distaff with linen—and see his tail. Realizing what he was, she tried to leave with her friend—but her friend’s laughter made it impossible for her warnings to be understood. So she fled into the woods alone( “into the forest as old as the world and as black as her fear”, which is such a lovely phrase). Her companions waited for her return, until it became apparent she was not returning. The vampire, enraged, demanded he be found—and when she wasn’t, he brutally murdered the other girls.

He then found the girl in the woods, and asked her to come with him—and in her state of shock and fear, she followed the monster to a hole in the woods. He asked her to descend, but she insisted he descend first. He agreed, and she trapped him with some linen before fleeing east to a house. Here she found a strange sight—a dead man with his arms crossed over his breast and a torch at his head. She decided to sleep her, and would have slept well if not for the pursuing vampire. The vampire arrived, and fought the dead man for some time, both vanishing when day arrived—for the dead man was also a vampire. Awakening three times in the night, the girl was terrified—except the third time, when she beheld the beauties of the woods. At last she left in the morning and returned home, telling her parents of all she’d seen.

And she began to sink into the ground. For the vampire had enchanted her, and she too had become a vampire.

This tail, a unique signifier of the vampire here, is the source of another amusing fact of Romanian vampires—when they wash, it rains. Unlike other vampires, for whom running water is a bane, Romanian vampires cannot drown and always float.  Kings would send their armies to bath during drought, in case one turned out to be a vampire.

The Romanian Vampire is much more a creature of nature than some its counterparts—we have a strong association with power over natural things (bees, beasts, and insects), we have them living in wild places, often on the borders of villages or in ancient woods. Some are great, terrible, even cosmic threats that consume stars, while others are much more mundane and lurking creatures. And their capacity, nay, fascination with family works well for this story. We anticipated this in our story about the returned father before—I admit, this prompt was on my mind even then. But this story I think could take a stranger, darker turn—the vampire’s Gothic roots and the notion of it as a hereditary condition are all at play in a way that was less relevant for the Balkan vampire. What horror will we weave? Come next week and see!

Bibliography:

Murgoci, Agnes. “The Vampire in Roumania”, Folklore, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 320-349. Taylor & Francis, Ltd (Dec. 31, 1926).

Perkowsky, Jan. Vampires of the Slavs. Slavica Publishers, Inc. 1976

 

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The Flood

This Week’s Prompt: 104. Old sea tavern now far inland from made land. Strange occurrences—sound of lapping of waves. [“Vacancy at the Fenrick Inn” by F. Omar Telan]

The Prior Research:Dutch Tales About the Sea

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The light house of the Shellburg family was the only famous thing they still had to their name. Old sea charms still hung from the poor family home, occasionally jostled by the playing children. Joseph and his brother, Maurice, remembered the jade statues from China, the gold from the New World, and ivory chess pieces from India. But then they killed the sea.

The children of the town often wonder at the lighthouse now, miles and miles away from and jutting out of  a church, a looming steeple. No light shines from it anymore, but a dolling sound is heard every hour, ringing from its sturdy foundations. They don’t rember that the rocking outcroppings they play on were once buried beneath the ocean waves, who’s shore washed over their school. When their older they learn such fanciful things, when the world feels more certain.

And when the sea died, the sailors moved with it. For the most part, they went with the tide, towards new docks and ports, where their trade was still of worth. But Captain Shellburg was growing old for the sea, and the work of a farm seemed to his liking. When the new land was laid, he set up home around the lighthouse his brother manned, and bought land from the Livington family.

Joseph Shellburg cursed his grandfather’s memory. For the Captain, as he was known among the family, knew little of land and was perhaps swept up in romantic memory. He bought land worth little, marshy land on which little grew. Nothing of worth, the Livingtons boasted in the bars, ever came from Shellburg soil.

And so fortunes dwindled, portion by portion. At last, they had to sell the land, retreating up into the great lighthouse that now looked over farmland for miles around. Joseph had protested the last indignity by the Livington family, who had asked that the house be scrapped. It was an unsightly thing, they said, and served no real purpose. The new church needed a steeple, they said, and there was plenty of stone to be found in the old light house.

It was the priest, Edward, who suggested otherwise.

“We perhaps do not need a new tower—rather, could we use the lighthouse itself? Build round it. It has such a lovely few of the town.” Father Edward said, his constantly shaking hands stroking his chin. “And of course, we are called to be fishers of men. The tower once lead ships to shore, perhaps its bell will call souls to salvation.”

Joseph was thankful, especially when he secured work for his son as the bell-ringer—he himself had found employment with the little food that did grow on the land. Still, he loathed that bell as it woke him from his recollections every hour. An ultimate charity, yes, but a reminder of what had been lost with the sea.

The bell tolled five times, as Joseph looked up from the field. The sun was still high in the sky. But he had worked the agreed amount, and collected his share from Coreman. The Coreman’s farms were not the best off, but Joseph would rather work to aid a poor man than beg for scraps from the Livingtons. He already had to see them at the inn, he would loath to see them during the day.

At Roger Coreman’s request, Joseph brought in some water from the well for the evening. And it was then, while walking to the well and the tree, that Joseph saw something strange. A gull circled over head, landing on the top of the well and squawking.

“Run along, little bird.” Joseph said, tossing a stick at the gull. “There is no sea here, no fish for you.”

The gull fluttered away but stayed a moment longer, squawking defiantly. Joseph threw a stone to frighten the creature off. It would starve, Joseph thought, among the farms so far from the shore.

He lowered the bucket down into the well, deep into the fresh water. After a moment he raised it back up—and the rope shook violently. Staring down, Joseph saw…a shape in the water dark, moving and shaking the bucket. He frowned as the bucket came up—and found a squirming scaly fish within. Carefully, Joseph removed the fish.

“Ah, did he drop you in here? What a strange present from an old gull.” Joseph said, frowning. “But you need not suffer like me. Let me set you back, into your little sea.”

And he gently lowered the bucket back down. When he came up again, the water was clear and clean as it ever was.  He brought it back to Coreman, who thanked him and paid a little extra for the small favor.

Joseph set back towards the town center now, ragged and worn. He met Maurice at the entrance, as a toll rang out from the old light house. His younger brother was wideshoulder and prone to smiles—and had found an old sight in the town. A black cat, purring as he scratched beneath its chin.

“Ah, they’ll be calling us witches again if you do that.” Joseph said shaking his head.

“Oh, but look at the poor thing.” Maurice said, reaching behind the ears. “Remember, when there were dozens of these?”

“Yeah, two for a ship, catching rats and the like.” Joseph said, admiring the cat, it’s white star chest born proudly. “But people talk.”

“Let them talk.” Maurice said, waving his hand. “There isn’t any witchcraft in cats, no more than there was in our knots and charms from the ships, nor in the old driftwood we played with.”

Joseph nodded. The Livingtons liked cats—everyone in town liked cats. But black cats brought storms, and witches. Joseph had a hid a few wild ones as a child, but they all eventually vanished.

“Fair, fair. Keep it out of sight, I’m hitting the old Mermaid.” Joseph said, waving him off and holding up his extra pay. “Enough to make the place tolerable.”

“I’ll catch up.” Maurice said, the cat having settled and curled up on the barrel.

The old Mermaid had once been a rickety wooden tavern, but in the generations since the Captain, stone had been laid around it’s foundations. It was an impressive building now, pillars on the front, a carving of a twin-tailed mermaid atop the entrance. The lights inside were still warm, and the bartender still fond of the Shellburg family. Inside, it hadn’t changed at all. The tables were the same, some cracked and wobbly. The booths at the edge were new, but little else.

Joseph even heard the tide sometimes, sitting with his drink. A dull rumbling, sloshing sound beneath the floorboards. He took a drink and sighed, waiting for Maurice to come back. No doubt smuggling in the black cat.

He blinked at the taste of the beer, staring down at the cup. The taste of seaweed in it. And a salt-smelling wind battered on the doors and windows. As the bell tolled, he even heard…a dull roar. Foam rose from the cracks for a moment, a fog out of the floorboards.

Joseph stood up, as the room seemed to rock. A roar grew outside. Louder and louder. He reached the door, the ground sinking beneath his feet. His shoe nearly stuck in the new muddy stone. The sound, the dreadful sound—there it was. Growing from the North, like a roused lion. Transfixed, he barely noticed Maurice pulling his jacket back, black cat around his back.

“Flood!” Maurice shouted, as he ran, to drunken patrons and confused  passersby. “Flood! Get to high ground!”

“Flood?” One of the Livingtons said, and laughed. “Don’t you know, boy—the sea is dead!”

Maurice was frantic in pulling his dullard older brother up and up to their only home, the tolling light house. He shouted and railed, but none would believe him that a flood was coming. Even as seagulls circled and settled atop the roofs. Even as the ground heaved and sank and slipped. Even as the darkness of night settled over the land, only the rounding bell to guide them up.

The sea roared to life, swallowing field and home, waves crashing over roofs—only the lighthouse remained.

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This story is one of my favorites, even if I think it’s half finished. I think at the moment, its a bit too slow and not quite odd enough–the tension doesn’t build appropriately, and the ending is a bit sudden. But it has more promise than most! Next time, a return to a common topic of our research–the hungry dead!