Every culture/region has stories and myths about the things existing there. What are the ones you find the most spooky and/or interesting?
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I need more information about your culture, if you’re willing. Are you in a western country? Are you actually in danger of being buried in salt? Is salt burial common in your country? In your religion? Is it a legal practice? I have so many questions, and if you’re open to answering them, you’d make me very happy. Lol. But if not, I understand.
Sorry to disappoint but things are a lot less mysterious than you may be thinking, lol. A comment below called it. United States, new-age/pagan and Gardnerian Wicca. I was raised in it but no longer believe.
Lol, no one is buried in salt for real. Salt is used for what they call “grounding”, and warding/protection, and cleansing (it’s versatile) which is what she was referring to.
I mean…I can’t say no one has ever gotten into a bathtub and filled it with salt but um…that’s not really what she was talking about. Or is it? Who knows.
I’d say Google it for more info but also I am absolutely afraid of what nonsense may come up and make the situation look more ridiculous than what actually was happening.
What she was saying was the equivalent of a superstitions person doing something to ward off the “evil eye” n whatnot. Think a long the lines of spitting on the ground after saying a bad thing, throwing salt over your shoulder, knock on wood, etc.
You were raised in it? I’d love to hear about that. I dabbled in Wicca years ago, as I have in most pagan traditions commonly found in the US. I like learning about religion, but I’ve never met anyone who was raised in it, only converts.
Well, hm, I say “raised” for simplicity. I converted at age 6 or 7 (initiated by me, not converted by another person or family member). Before then, I wasn’t raised with any specific beliefs and when I made a friend who was actually raised wiccan from birth I started hanging out with them and just kind of fell into their religion because it made sense to me. Even at that age I was into new-agey stuff on my own. Before converting, when I prayed (because TV told me to every night), I prayed to “all the gods and goddesses” because I (a kindergartner) didnt want anyone to feel left out. So I wasn’t very traditional in the first place and can you even say a 7 year old converted? It’s more like I discovered the concept of a belief system and Wicca was what I gravitated to, at the time.
Other family members dabbled in the belief but I was the only True Believer until, ironically, my official joining of the religion/coming of age/rite of passage ceremony (think first communion or bar/bat mitzvah but more low key and cheesier because it was made up by a bunch of hippies with no real ties “to the ancients”). I was preparing for the ceremony by doing some ritual self reflecting (meditation stuff) and began to leave my faith.
While I do have some ghosts of pagan beliefs left it’s more like superstitions than a religion or belief system.
Like if I’m in trouble, genuinely afraid lost-in-the-woods trouble, I immediately start praying this specific wiccan song. Because my earliest spirituality wasn’t crafted by the Abrahamic religions so my go-to operating system is pagan.
I can’t think of any real difference between someone who was born in it, converted as a child, or converted later in life except for the fact that I never had Catholic guilt or other Christian or other Abrahamic religious values instilled in me. I was exposed to them a lot because of Western culture (also, Bible camp = free daycare in the summer) but nothing really appealed to me or stuck, especially since I had major issues with the way the Abrahamic religions treated women even as a very young child.
she probably just made it all up
Or stole it from the weeping angels on Doctor Who
This was before the reboot. Were the angels part of the older series?
Sounds a bit like the topiary scene in The Shining. (Book version)
This sounds like a more likely source 🤣.
There is an abandoned spruce plantation right behind my house. The trees move, for real. Not their roots but the branches. One day you can walk right though easy, then the next the path is crossed with branches. This happens for real and I’ve not found a cause or explanation online. Maybe it’s moisture content changing in the branches.
We have the ättestupa in Sweden - the idea that we pushed the elderly off a cliff when they got old.
There’s a funny scene about this in Norsemen
There’s a less funny scene about this in Midsommar
Dalafíflaþáttr (‘the story of the fools from the valleys’) in which one particular family is so miserly that they prefer to kill themselves than see their wealth spent on hospitality. In this tale, the family members kill themselves by jumping off a cliff which the saga calls the Ættarstapi or Ætternisstapi (“dynasty precipice”), a word which occurs in no Old Norse texts other than this saga.
Funny how this archetype has existed forever across many cultures
“Nah, I don’t think I’m going to do it.”
Ah I’ve seen this in Midsommar, thought it was completely made up. Still a shit movie
Near Antigonish in Nova Scotia is a forest called Dagger Woods…the sign is right on the main highway. The story goes that a young lady was killed there a few centuries ago and you can hear her screams. First far away and then it slowly gets closer and louder till it’s piercing loud. Nothing bad happens but super freaky!
The Saci-Pererê is a Brazilian folklore about a one-legged man who lives in the forest, and loves to play tricks on people. He uses his cap* (autocorrect) to disappear and reappear elsewhere, sets animals loose, steals kid’s toys, etc. Not scary but it’s what came to mind.
Pretty sure you meant cap in place of cape, right? I’ll say that does sound pretty badass though!
Here’s a Wikipedia link for folks who want to read more.
Not sure how such an outlandish tale captivated so many people for so long, but: Trickle-down economics.
Americans try not american the most irrelevant threads up (IMPOSSIBLE)
Apologies It’s been a lifetime of frustration and sometimes I lash out at people (and threads) who don’t deserve it
Some Salish tribes told stories of the basket ogress which was a disheveled woman who would come and steal misbehaving children, throw them in a basket, and eat them. She was also venerated as bringing wealth.
Well, I mean, remove the kids you will have more wealth!!
My grandpa would tell this one:
There once was a man who lived all by himself way out in the woods. He lived in a small log cabin with just one room, and that room served as his kitchen, dining room, parlor, and his bedroom too. This man owned three great big hunting dogs. One was called You-Know, one was called Eye-Know, and the third was called Cumptico-Calico.
One winter night the man had run out of food and had to go to bed without supper. Just as he was starting to drift off to sleep, he snapped his eyes open at a noise. He looked around and there in the cabin with him was the curiousest creature that you ever did see. It has two little pointed ears, and two great big red eyes, and it had a great big long tail. The man snatched up his hatchet and swung at the creature, chopping off it’s tail. The creature shrieked and fled back out into the wilderness.
The man cooked and ete the tail for his supper and then went back to bed.
An hour or so later the man wakes with a start. Way out in the distance he hears something call out, “taily-po! Taily-po! All I want’s my taily-po!” The man called out to his dogs, and they came barrelling around the side of the cabin and chased the whatever-it-was far away from the cabin. Only two of the dogs came back.
Later that night, the man awoke again. Something called out, “taily-po! Taily-po! All I want’s my taily-po!”, only from nearer than before. The man called out to his dogs again, and the two dogs crashed across the meadow chasing the whatever-it-was even farther away than before. But this time only one dog came back.
In the deep, dark hours of morning, the man woke again. And from just outside his front door he heard the whatever-it-was demanding again: “Taily-Po! Taily-Po! All I want’s my taily-po!” The man called out to his last dog, who chased the whatever-it-was for miles and miles and never came back.
Just before daylight the man woke once again. He didn’t hear anything, but when he looked down at the foot of his bed he could see two little pointed ears. And after a moment two big, red, fiery eyes were looking at him. Slowly the whatever-it-was crept up the foot of his bed until it was right on top of him. And in a low voice it said, “taily-po. Taily-po. All I want’s my taily-po.”
The man found his voice and screamed, “I ain’t got your taily-po!”
But the whatever-it-was replied, “yes, you has!” And it jumped on the man and scratched him all to pieces!
Some say it got its taily-po back; some say it didn’t. But when the moon shines bright and the wind blows down the valley, you can sometimes hear a voice cry out, “taily-po!”
And it jumped on the man and scratched him all to pieces!
I do like a happy ending. The jerk had it coming. Hopefully the dogs were okay though.
In Finnish folklore there’s a couple of scary things but the one that pops to my mind is the water spirits. Näkki, vetehinen and hiisi. They are all slightly different but all have basically been used to scare kids to stay safe around waters or the water spirit of your choice will drown you. There’s stories of them attacking boats too and trying to trick adults into drowning themselves.
Oh, I’ve got one.
In Romania, on June 24th there’s the “Sânziene” day. Which are like fairies. Google sources say they’re good, love/fertility fairies but there’s folk stories that say you shouldn’t swim during that night because they might come and take you (by drowning you).
I lived in Hawaii for a short time. Stories of the night marchers messed me up for a while. They also had a lot of Japanese folklore that got tangled up there too. Calling ghosts are fucked up too.
I live in New Jersey. Most people know it for the sopranos or even just the turnpike, but in the south of the state there’s a huge pine forest called the pine barrens. The Lenape that originally lived in New Jersey spoke of a spirit in the forest known as M’Sing, a deer like creature with leathery wings.
After New Jersey was colonized, a legend came out of a family that lived in the barrens in the 18th century, the Leeds. Mother Leeds, upon finding out she was pregnant for a 13th time, cursed the child. It is said she gave birth during a terrible storm. When the child was delivered, it transformed into a creature, not unlike what the Lenape described. It quickly took off out of the chimney and disappeared in the forest. Since then, people spot the “Jersey Devil” throughout the state, but especially around the pine barrens. Personally, everything I hear the thing is harmless, but creepy.
I’m from new jersey too but the northern part(Sussex county). Most of the stuff I heard was more weird things than actual folklore.
For example there was the toilet in the woods. Off of rt 23 if you pull over at a specific spot in the middle of no where, walk about 1/2 a mile into the woods there was a toilet. No outhouse or Porta potty. Just a toilet out in the woods. Weird thing is it had to be connected to a water source and sewer because it worked, you could flush it and everything.
There was also the pyramids off Clinton road. Just square based pyramids made of brick in the woods, no idea why they are there or what there purpose is/was. There was also stories of kkk on Clinton road so if you saw a car with a headlight out and you flashed your lights to alert them they would chase you and run you off the road(pretty sure this was just stupid highschoolers being bored and assholes).
Reading Weird New Jersey growing up was a trip. Full of stories like yours
Yup, I used to love that magazine. There’s also the stuffed bears on the telephone poles. Again on rt 23 there is I think about a 5 mile long stretch with stuffed teddy bears on the top of all the telephone poles. Snow, thunderstorms whatever causes them to fall in a day or two they are put back.
Once a car ran into one of the poles, they had to replace the pole and 2days later there was a new teddy bear on top of the pole.
We have few, but you probably know them already from playing Witcher
i grew up in East Anglia, which is the hump on the east-by-south-east side of England, UK, British Isles, Europe, Earth, etc
not only did we have the super cool Hereward the Wake, and Boudic(e)a and the Iceni tribe
but also
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devils dyke — a seven mile ditch caused allegedly by the devil himself being turned from a wedding and stomping his tail, and you can summon him yourself by walking around the local church 7 times
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fairy cow — a magic cow who gave milk to all in times of famine stamped her hoof in the sandstone and the.imprint is still seen today
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devils hole - a place where such a horrific crime was committed that when it rains the ground never gets wet
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tom hickathrift - a 1700s legend of a giant-killing giant whose catchphrase was “a turd in your teeth for your news” and whose weapon of choice was a wagon wheel
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That they can’t make poutine right in the US.
Shredded cheese instead of proper squeaky cheese curds. 😬
You’re just in the wrong part of the US.
In the best part of North America eh.
Ope! Hey der, good to see someone else in on the secret.
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My area has a supposed undead creature called Stovepipe. He has a stovepipe stuck in his head and attacks people by train tracks. Apparently he died in a terrible accident and couldn’t move on because he was so mad about his death. High schoolers love going looking for him lol. I don’t believe he exists, but it’s an interesting thing.
