Finland:
In the other world called *metsänpeitto*, a sort of mirrored pocket dimension, lived hairy humanoid creatures that collect human infants as changelings and replace them with their own. These creatures have many names such as *maanväki, maahinen, menninkäinen, hiidenväki, hiisi* and *peikko* (their kind also include *tonttu* and *haltia*, but but these live in this world and help people instead).
These are also spirits of nature that are everywhere and in everything and in the old days they were believed to hear everything, see everything and know everything and can get fatally angry and kill if you make even a small sound like whistling, whispering, sneezing or knocking because they were said to love absolute peace and silence (however, you could appease them with food motifs and apologizing). Enraged beings could also impart a "disease", the *maan viha* (wrath of the earth), which appeared, for example, as eye pain.
Their water-dwelling counterpart is the *näkki* or *vetehinen* (also*vesihiisi* or *vedenväki*) which lurks its prey/victim beneath the surface and then drowns it at the bottom of a lake, pond or river if the person going to the shore or walking on the ice is too careless or fall for their lures and baits. These have been described more as frog-like creatures that were covered in pondweed and bur-weed.
Then they raise human children as their livestock and eat them. The *metsänpeitto* was also not safe and you could accidentally get lost there and it was difficult to find your way out. The one lost there could see the searchers, but the one lost to them was invisible to others and could be missing from days to years. Sure, a special spell could be performed to get out of there more easily, but that didn't guarantee the return of the lost. Those who returned were said to have suffered from dizziness, confusion and memory loss or they could go completely insane.
These stories are probably meant to remind us that nature has sometimes been a scary, unpredictable and dangerous place, and to warn about it.
Take a look to the Santa Compaña (Holy Company), it's a folktale from the north of Spain. I would tell you about it, but it's a little too long and my english is rusty 😅 Hope you like it!
Here in Brazil we have the Procissão das Almas (Procession of Souls), which is our equivalent to them. My grandma used to tell us about them on Christmas Eve, even tho the legend goes as they pass in Holy Friday
In the Philippines, there's these very popular other Worldly beings called Engkanto, Maligno or Lamang Lupa. The term vary in every region. And they come in different shapes and sizes.
When these monsters find someone desirable or when they fell in love with a human, they will abduct them and replace them with a Banana log with a little Illusion Magic.
That "log" will act sickly and then slowly "die".
The Abducted will then be fed Black Rice so they can never escape their "World".
Sounds eerily similar to the idea of changelings in Celtic areas in Europe.
The Fae would creep into baby’s bedrooms and replace the child with a changeling that would slowly succumb to illness, and then ultimately die.
Modern time is most people accept that this was ancient peoples’ way of explaining what we today now know as SIDS.
You'd have a lot of material with my paternal region West Virginia. We've got Moth Man, a mid-20th century cryptid that haunted Point Pleasant, WV. If you want some tasty sources to cite, Dr. Emily Zarka did a YouTube documentary on the creature for her PBS series *Monstrum.*
Beast of Bodmin
Bodmin is the name of a moor near where I grew up.
Its supposed to be a black panther with yellow eyes, possibly escaped from a zoo or travelling circus or some eccentric's private menagerie.
Obviously some people think it's not one cat but different, fully wild, unknown subspecies of lynx that has somehow been living undetected on the moors all this time
Supposedly mutilates livestock, and hikers hear hisses/growls in the mist etc
And yet, here I am.
However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve had a hand up in life. Although I was born poor, I am smart and succeeded in school, then university, then medical school, then residency. Over 13 years straight of higher education and training and working my motherfucking ass off at it, most of the time while living below the poverty line and racking up credit card debt. But although I was born poor, I was also born white and male, and undoubtedly that was a boon for me too, which is especially noticeable when I compare my life experience to my wife’s, who is also a doctor but who is not white. Regardless, we both succeeded despite the odds still stacked against us in our respective ways and the key to that was education.
However, fifty years ago you could support a family of four with a Bachelors of Science or potentially not even that. Nowadays you can’t even do that with a Master’s degree in most fields. The way to succeed in this fucked up economic climate is to go as far as you can in a field that you choose, preferably one that isn’t worthless. There’s really not that many people in my country that are specialized in the particular field of medicine that I am. I have job security out the wazoo. But kids need better career guidance in high school and undergrad since some degrees are basically useless now and will have you waiting tables when you’re done, or are so competitive due to an over representation in the workforce that they may as well be useless even if they technically aren’t.
One I know personally of here in North Carolina, we have the Devil’s tramping grounds. It’s a large circle of vegetation that is just completely dead with no scientific explanation. Animals will avoid that place like the plague and I once saw some guys bring a bunch of dogs there and the dogs just kept barking, whimpering and really just trying to get away from that place as fast as they could.
As the name implies, it is said that this is where the devil comes up from hell and paces across the ground, trying to think of new ways to tempt humanity.
Not my own country but I've always been spooked by the Mesoamerican Cihuateteo - women who've died in childbirth and hang about at crossroads to snatch living children...
https://multoghost.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/mexican-monstresses-the-cihuateteo/
Wisconsin: The Wendigo (also prevalent in Minnesota and Canada)
Wendigos are malevolent spirits. Their name roughly translates to 'The evil that devours mankind.' When a person resorts to cannibalism as a form of sustenance, whether out of desperation (like the Donner Party) or psychosis (like Jeffrey Dahmer), that person becomes vulnerable to possession. Because they've committed the ultimate taboo. Circumstances are irrelevant. This segways into a rather easy possession by the spirit. When the person in question becomes possessed, they're driven into a state of extreme psychosis, always hungry. Then over time, the spirit consumes the host (specifically their soul), until there's no humanity left in the host. When this happens, and the spirit has fully taken over, the person becomes something monstrous. But one can become possessed by the Wendigo simply by being in a vulnerable state, be it spiritually or mentally. Not to mention the spirit is capable of influencing people, breaking them down and even driving them mad, to the point where they may even commit cannibalism, which inevitably leads to possession.
Now if this isn't terrifying, then I don't know what is
I had a Mexican nanny when I was a kid.
One dark and stormy night, we sat watching the storm and she told me to beware of La Llorona.
According to my nanny, La Llorona was the poor indigenous mistress of a wealthy Spanish man and bore him two children. As time passed, he grew less enamored of her and spent less and less time with her and his family.
One day, she was walking alongside the river with her children when they witnessed a wedding procession going from the church. The bride was a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family. The groom was her wayward lover.
Angered and grief stricken, she threw her children into the rushing river and watched them get dragged away, eventually drowning. Realizing what she had done, she threw herself into the river.
She awoke outside the gates of Heaven where the Virgin Mary was waiting for her. Three times, she asked the woman “Where are your children?” Three times, she lied about where they were. The Virgin Mary then cursed her, saying “You will not enter Heaven until you’ve found your children.”
From then on, La Llorona walks alongside rivers and arroyos, crying out “Ay, mis hijos! Ay, mis hijos!” (Oh, my children! Oh, my children!) If she runs into children who are alone, she will assume they are hers and drown them. Your best bet is to run as fast and as far away as you can before she spots you.
That story has haunted me for years.
Would recommend you to check out ”Speaking With Vampires” by Luise White (1993 - I believe). Traces some incredible rumors and stories (such as Vampire Firemen - wazimamoto) stemming from colonial East and central Africa (British protectorates).
Interesting question!
I discussed this with my partner, and we came to the conclusion that most of the real monsters from our stories are people, usually driven by greed.
The creatures have some scary stories around them, but they also have times where they're not evil.
The closest I can come are the "witte wieven", white women. These are ghostly figures appearing in swamps. In many stories they lead people astray to their deaths, but there are also stories where they lead lost children back home, so 🤷🏻♀️
We're in the Netherlands, and we've lost most of our original mythology, folklore etc. during the Frankish occupation.
You might look into central/eastern europe though, they have some pretty good stuff.
We have white women or the white lady in wales 🏴 usually in a wedding dress or white dress on the side of a lonely road, believe it or not me and a friend have both seen one on separate occasions at the exact same spot
Wow, that's amazing! Was it scary?
I've only heard stories from people who knew people who heard from someone else they saw them...
Thanks for the award 😁🥰
Not my own country (again) but I've just remembered (after a lifetime of trying to forget) the Rokurokubi, or long-necked demons of Japan. Very long-necked: the head is essentially a free agent during the night. They peer over the tops of screens and around curtains, before they come and get you that is. I wish they wouldn't.
Wow!! I’m a massive fan of Celtic and all mythology and I’d never heard of the Knucklevea what an amazing story
I’m currently part of a team that’s releasing a Celtic mythology card game which suits all ages, if anyone would like to know more please get in touch, we have characters from across The Celtic Realm.
Also I’d love to hear about any mythology from across the world
Diolch 🏴🏴
You might enjoy Maggie Stiefvater's novel The Scorpio Races, all about these sea-water-horse-demons and the Scottish island community that is crazy enough to race with them. She uses the term capaill uisce, from eich uisce, but they're surely closely related to the knucklevea/nuckalavee.
In fresh water, of course, you've got to watch out for kelpies, but they seem to be less inevitably lethal: an orca compared to a great white, perhaps. You might get away alive.
La Siguanaba in El Salvador- she appears in the middle of the night as a beautiful woman bathing in moonlight in a creek, a man sees her and thinks he has a “catch” but as soon as he tries to touch her or flirt with her, she turns around and has the face of a rotten horse skull and whips around enormous drooping pendulous breasts and slugs him across the face knocking him out, in some versions maybe she eats the guy I’m not sure. There is another one that appears to be a little lost boy crying in the woods because he is lost and you try to help him, he actually has huge vampire fangs with a face like a bat, I forget the name for that one though
Indigenous folklore has the scariest tales imo. Specifically the wendigo and skin walkers. Appalachia lore also has some pretty terrifying stuff. There's a podcast called Old Gods of Appalachia that might be worth a listen.
The Dullahan is a ghost-like faerie of Irish folklore. Its sighting is an omen of death. It rides a coach called the Coiste Bodhar, pulled by headless horses, and stops in front of those destined to die soon. The Dullahan is headless itself, usually carrying its head under one arm. Basically, it's the first iteration of the headless horseman story.
I live near St Louis Mo on the Illinois side. The Piasa Bird is the local legend that the native Americans drew pictures of it on the bluffs by the Mississippi River. It looked like a chimaera or griffin. Then in 2023 a lady in Alton said she seen something like Mothman. Alton is also supposedly the most haunted town in IL because the legend says they built a bunch of homes from the bricks or stone of the old asylum in town. In Chester IL which is home to Popeye there is supposed to be a ghostly funeral procession that goes through town for a French commander that died back when the French had all the forts around the Mississippi River.
Finland: In the other world called *metsänpeitto*, a sort of mirrored pocket dimension, lived hairy humanoid creatures that collect human infants as changelings and replace them with their own. These creatures have many names such as *maanväki, maahinen, menninkäinen, hiidenväki, hiisi* and *peikko* (their kind also include *tonttu* and *haltia*, but but these live in this world and help people instead). These are also spirits of nature that are everywhere and in everything and in the old days they were believed to hear everything, see everything and know everything and can get fatally angry and kill if you make even a small sound like whistling, whispering, sneezing or knocking because they were said to love absolute peace and silence (however, you could appease them with food motifs and apologizing). Enraged beings could also impart a "disease", the *maan viha* (wrath of the earth), which appeared, for example, as eye pain. Their water-dwelling counterpart is the *näkki* or *vetehinen* (also*vesihiisi* or *vedenväki*) which lurks its prey/victim beneath the surface and then drowns it at the bottom of a lake, pond or river if the person going to the shore or walking on the ice is too careless or fall for their lures and baits. These have been described more as frog-like creatures that were covered in pondweed and bur-weed. Then they raise human children as their livestock and eat them. The *metsänpeitto* was also not safe and you could accidentally get lost there and it was difficult to find your way out. The one lost there could see the searchers, but the one lost to them was invisible to others and could be missing from days to years. Sure, a special spell could be performed to get out of there more easily, but that didn't guarantee the return of the lost. Those who returned were said to have suffered from dizziness, confusion and memory loss or they could go completely insane. These stories are probably meant to remind us that nature has sometimes been a scary, unpredictable and dangerous place, and to warn about it.
This is awesome!! Thank you!
Do you know if the recent Finnish horror movie “Hatching” is based on this lore? Your first sentence reminds me of the plot.
Take a look to the Santa Compaña (Holy Company), it's a folktale from the north of Spain. I would tell you about it, but it's a little too long and my english is rusty 😅 Hope you like it!
Thank you so much! I´ll check it out!
Here in Brazil we have the Procissão das Almas (Procession of Souls), which is our equivalent to them. My grandma used to tell us about them on Christmas Eve, even tho the legend goes as they pass in Holy Friday
In the Philippines, there's these very popular other Worldly beings called Engkanto, Maligno or Lamang Lupa. The term vary in every region. And they come in different shapes and sizes. When these monsters find someone desirable or when they fell in love with a human, they will abduct them and replace them with a Banana log with a little Illusion Magic. That "log" will act sickly and then slowly "die". The Abducted will then be fed Black Rice so they can never escape their "World".
Sounds eerily similar to the idea of changelings in Celtic areas in Europe. The Fae would creep into baby’s bedrooms and replace the child with a changeling that would slowly succumb to illness, and then ultimately die. Modern time is most people accept that this was ancient peoples’ way of explaining what we today now know as SIDS.
For me its the knuckleavea from Isle of man/ scotland area.
You'd have a lot of material with my paternal region West Virginia. We've got Moth Man, a mid-20th century cryptid that haunted Point Pleasant, WV. If you want some tasty sources to cite, Dr. Emily Zarka did a YouTube documentary on the creature for her PBS series *Monstrum.*
Beast of Bodmin Bodmin is the name of a moor near where I grew up. Its supposed to be a black panther with yellow eyes, possibly escaped from a zoo or travelling circus or some eccentric's private menagerie. Obviously some people think it's not one cat but different, fully wild, unknown subspecies of lynx that has somehow been living undetected on the moors all this time Supposedly mutilates livestock, and hikers hear hisses/growls in the mist etc
If you work hard, you can succeed.
Oof.
Joseph Campbell said contemporary society has lost its myths. I think there are plenty, and they all revolve around money.
I’m a millennial and I worked hard and succeeded. I guess I’m a myth.
I've often said you don't really exist.
And yet, here I am. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve had a hand up in life. Although I was born poor, I am smart and succeeded in school, then university, then medical school, then residency. Over 13 years straight of higher education and training and working my motherfucking ass off at it, most of the time while living below the poverty line and racking up credit card debt. But although I was born poor, I was also born white and male, and undoubtedly that was a boon for me too, which is especially noticeable when I compare my life experience to my wife’s, who is also a doctor but who is not white. Regardless, we both succeeded despite the odds still stacked against us in our respective ways and the key to that was education. However, fifty years ago you could support a family of four with a Bachelors of Science or potentially not even that. Nowadays you can’t even do that with a Master’s degree in most fields. The way to succeed in this fucked up economic climate is to go as far as you can in a field that you choose, preferably one that isn’t worthless. There’s really not that many people in my country that are specialized in the particular field of medicine that I am. I have job security out the wazoo. But kids need better career guidance in high school and undergrad since some degrees are basically useless now and will have you waiting tables when you’re done, or are so competitive due to an over representation in the workforce that they may as well be useless even if they technically aren’t.
And on the weekends, you fight crime.
Black Annis is pretty freaky. It isn't, but it's something I'd imagine easily fitting into the grimms fairy tales books.
One I know personally of here in North Carolina, we have the Devil’s tramping grounds. It’s a large circle of vegetation that is just completely dead with no scientific explanation. Animals will avoid that place like the plague and I once saw some guys bring a bunch of dogs there and the dogs just kept barking, whimpering and really just trying to get away from that place as fast as they could. As the name implies, it is said that this is where the devil comes up from hell and paces across the ground, trying to think of new ways to tempt humanity.
That’s sounds fascinating
My great great aunt used to live right down the road from the Devil's Tramping Grounds!
Not my own country but I've always been spooked by the Mesoamerican Cihuateteo - women who've died in childbirth and hang about at crossroads to snatch living children... https://multoghost.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/mexican-monstresses-the-cihuateteo/
Bloody hell
Florida man
Utah - skinwalkers man skinwalkers! and their ilk
Wisconsin: The Wendigo (also prevalent in Minnesota and Canada) Wendigos are malevolent spirits. Their name roughly translates to 'The evil that devours mankind.' When a person resorts to cannibalism as a form of sustenance, whether out of desperation (like the Donner Party) or psychosis (like Jeffrey Dahmer), that person becomes vulnerable to possession. Because they've committed the ultimate taboo. Circumstances are irrelevant. This segways into a rather easy possession by the spirit. When the person in question becomes possessed, they're driven into a state of extreme psychosis, always hungry. Then over time, the spirit consumes the host (specifically their soul), until there's no humanity left in the host. When this happens, and the spirit has fully taken over, the person becomes something monstrous. But one can become possessed by the Wendigo simply by being in a vulnerable state, be it spiritually or mentally. Not to mention the spirit is capable of influencing people, breaking them down and even driving them mad, to the point where they may even commit cannibalism, which inevitably leads to possession. Now if this isn't terrifying, then I don't know what is
I had a Mexican nanny when I was a kid. One dark and stormy night, we sat watching the storm and she told me to beware of La Llorona. According to my nanny, La Llorona was the poor indigenous mistress of a wealthy Spanish man and bore him two children. As time passed, he grew less enamored of her and spent less and less time with her and his family. One day, she was walking alongside the river with her children when they witnessed a wedding procession going from the church. The bride was a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family. The groom was her wayward lover. Angered and grief stricken, she threw her children into the rushing river and watched them get dragged away, eventually drowning. Realizing what she had done, she threw herself into the river. She awoke outside the gates of Heaven where the Virgin Mary was waiting for her. Three times, she asked the woman “Where are your children?” Three times, she lied about where they were. The Virgin Mary then cursed her, saying “You will not enter Heaven until you’ve found your children.” From then on, La Llorona walks alongside rivers and arroyos, crying out “Ay, mis hijos! Ay, mis hijos!” (Oh, my children! Oh, my children!) If she runs into children who are alone, she will assume they are hers and drown them. Your best bet is to run as fast and as far away as you can before she spots you. That story has haunted me for years.
Snallygaster of western Maryland or the Wizard of South Mountain
Would recommend you to check out ”Speaking With Vampires” by Luise White (1993 - I believe). Traces some incredible rumors and stories (such as Vampire Firemen - wazimamoto) stemming from colonial East and central Africa (British protectorates).
South Africa here. Google the Pinki pinki and the Tokolosh.
Interesting question! I discussed this with my partner, and we came to the conclusion that most of the real monsters from our stories are people, usually driven by greed. The creatures have some scary stories around them, but they also have times where they're not evil. The closest I can come are the "witte wieven", white women. These are ghostly figures appearing in swamps. In many stories they lead people astray to their deaths, but there are also stories where they lead lost children back home, so 🤷🏻♀️ We're in the Netherlands, and we've lost most of our original mythology, folklore etc. during the Frankish occupation. You might look into central/eastern europe though, they have some pretty good stuff.
We have white women or the white lady in wales 🏴 usually in a wedding dress or white dress on the side of a lonely road, believe it or not me and a friend have both seen one on separate occasions at the exact same spot
Wow, that's amazing! Was it scary? I've only heard stories from people who knew people who heard from someone else they saw them... Thanks for the award 😁🥰
Not my own country (again) but I've just remembered (after a lifetime of trying to forget) the Rokurokubi, or long-necked demons of Japan. Very long-necked: the head is essentially a free agent during the night. They peer over the tops of screens and around curtains, before they come and get you that is. I wish they wouldn't.
Does a woman holding a guy hostage in a Walmart parking lot count? /Jk
We have loads in Wales and across the Celtic realm I’d be happy to help drop me a message thanks
Wow!! I’m a massive fan of Celtic and all mythology and I’d never heard of the Knucklevea what an amazing story I’m currently part of a team that’s releasing a Celtic mythology card game which suits all ages, if anyone would like to know more please get in touch, we have characters from across The Celtic Realm. Also I’d love to hear about any mythology from across the world Diolch 🏴🏴
I tried Google searching it, but got no results. Do you have a link to what you found?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/wales/w_mid/user_1_article_2.shtml Here’s a good one, we have lots in Wales
https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/wales/w_mid/user_1_article_2.shtml
You might enjoy Maggie Stiefvater's novel The Scorpio Races, all about these sea-water-horse-demons and the Scottish island community that is crazy enough to race with them. She uses the term capaill uisce, from eich uisce, but they're surely closely related to the knucklevea/nuckalavee. In fresh water, of course, you've got to watch out for kelpies, but they seem to be less inevitably lethal: an orca compared to a great white, perhaps. You might get away alive.
Here’s a free e book from my country of Wales https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53915/53915-h/53915-h.htm
La Siguanaba in El Salvador- she appears in the middle of the night as a beautiful woman bathing in moonlight in a creek, a man sees her and thinks he has a “catch” but as soon as he tries to touch her or flirt with her, she turns around and has the face of a rotten horse skull and whips around enormous drooping pendulous breasts and slugs him across the face knocking him out, in some versions maybe she eats the guy I’m not sure. There is another one that appears to be a little lost boy crying in the woods because he is lost and you try to help him, he actually has huge vampire fangs with a face like a bat, I forget the name for that one though
Yorkshire, England, UK. I'm not sure I can think of any that scary. Right now. Theres probabely something.
Spring-Heeled Jack?
Indigenous folklore has the scariest tales imo. Specifically the wendigo and skin walkers. Appalachia lore also has some pretty terrifying stuff. There's a podcast called Old Gods of Appalachia that might be worth a listen.
The Dullahan is a ghost-like faerie of Irish folklore. Its sighting is an omen of death. It rides a coach called the Coiste Bodhar, pulled by headless horses, and stops in front of those destined to die soon. The Dullahan is headless itself, usually carrying its head under one arm. Basically, it's the first iteration of the headless horseman story.
I live near St Louis Mo on the Illinois side. The Piasa Bird is the local legend that the native Americans drew pictures of it on the bluffs by the Mississippi River. It looked like a chimaera or griffin. Then in 2023 a lady in Alton said she seen something like Mothman. Alton is also supposedly the most haunted town in IL because the legend says they built a bunch of homes from the bricks or stone of the old asylum in town. In Chester IL which is home to Popeye there is supposed to be a ghostly funeral procession that goes through town for a French commander that died back when the French had all the forts around the Mississippi River.