Happy New Year🎉🎊🥂

 

Another year gone by  ....

 Thank you all for stopping by and reading my posts, and for sharing on you social media. 

Have a spooky, kooky and not to crazy 2024 🥳

👻🦇🧛‍♀️🧟‍♂️🧟🧟‍♀️👺💀

🎊🎉🥂🎉🎊

Happy New Year.🎆🎇

🦉M.

Barbegazi: Frozen Beards

 

❄️🏔️ Barbegazi 🏔️❄️

The Skiing gnomes of the Alps.

The Barbegazi is type of gnome from Swiss and French folklore, they live deep in the mountainous areas between France and Switzerland; the Alps. 

They make their homes in a large networks of caves and tunnels  near the peaks of mountains through hidden entrances .

They spend most of the year in their underground home, and sleep all summer(like a summer hibernation). Only going out in the winter, because of these habits human interaction is rare.

The name comes from  barbes glacées roughly meaning 'frozen beards'. They get this name because they appear to have icicles growing from their chins instead of a beard, but this is just a result of the freezing temperatures they live in underneath the ice is just a normal beard.

Appearance wise they look similar to a mini yeti, they are covered in white fur like a snowsuit and have large feet, though unlike a yeti this guy's are no larger then an average gnome and nowhere near as violent as a yeti.

 They have been known to help or at least warn skiers and travelers of danger and even aid people.  The most well known form of  warnings they give to humans in possible dangerous areas or circumstances  is the whistling noises they make that sounds similar to a marmots or an eerie hooting noise, that  may be mistaken for gusts of wind, to warn hikers of avalanches. They may also attempt to dig out people trapped by snowfall or herd lost sheep back to their owners. Despite these beneficial activities their attitudes towards humans are still uncertain so if you encounter one do so with caution.

They have disproportionately large bigfoot like feet for their size , they use these oversized feet as snowshoes and ski's to travel across their frozen mountain homes.

They are never encountered in weather above zero degrees or below the tree line on the mountains they live in  they prefer the cold frozen climate the more snow the better.

One of their favorite activities is riding on top of avalanche 

They also have the ability to dig at a rapid pace, they can quickly bury themselves in snow to hide in a matter of seconds as well as dig themselves out of a snow drift no matter how deep .

Last post for the year, have a great New Year

🎇🎆

The Yule Lads, Iceland's 13 Santa's.

     

Iceland does not have a Santa Clause instead they have Christmas troll's .

The 13 Yule Lads  take turns to visit kids on the 13 nights leading up to Christmas. 

Instead of a Christmas stocking hung by the fire place children in Iceland keep one of their shoes on the windowsill where the Yule Lad will either leave candy or old  potatoes  depending on whether the kids have been good or bad.

The Yule Lads were originally either some what violent or just normal  pranksters depending on the region or who was telling the story. 

Iceland outlawed frightening children's stories in the 1700s after that the Yule Lads took on a more Santa like roll and are now a type of Christmas Troll's.

 They all have special name, that describes their favorite kind of mischievous behavior. 

Their names are:

Stekkjastaur- Sheep-Cote Clod

Giljagaur - Gully Gawk

Stúfur - Stubby

Þvörusleikir - Spoon Licker

Pottaskefill - Pot Scraper

Askasleikir - Bowl Licker

Hurðaskellir - Door Slammer (he loves waking people up by slamming doors)

Skyrgámur - Skyr Gobbler

Bjúgnakrækir - Sausage Swiper

Gluggagægir - Window Peeper

Gáttaþefur - Doorway Sniffer

Ketkrókur - Meat Hook

Kertasníkir - Candle Beggar

They are the children of  Grýla and Leppalúði

Two trolls you don't want to meet, especially Grýla.  You should also try to avoid their family pet the Yule Cat as it has been known to eat people.. Grýla is also well known for kidnapping and eating kids.

The Yule Lads live I northern Iceland in Myvatn at Dimmuborgir in an natural volcanic cave. They spend most of the summer sleeping there and seldom ever leave until winter.

The name of the cave translates to Dark Cities or Dark Fortress.

It seems at one point in the far past there were around 70 children of Grýla but these 13 are all that's left, or at least the ones most remembered.

Hope you've been good this year, you Really don't want Grýla showing up 👹

Have a great Christmas and New Year

🎄⛄

The Sodder Family Christmas Mystery.

 

Just after midnight on Christmas Eve in 1945, Jennie Sodder awoke to the smell of smoke. She quickly discovered that the Fayetteville, West Virginia, home she shared with her husband, George, and nine of their children, was ablaze. When the fire department arrived seven hours later, the two-story framed house had burned to the ground — and five Sodder children were missing. 

The ultimate fate of the five young children is still unknown, but their family never saw them again, and their remains were never found in the ashes of their ruined home.

The siblings’ older brothers, John, 23, and George Jr., 16, and their father had gone to bed early that Christmas Eve, tired from a long day working at George’s coal trucking business. The younger children, however, were allowed to stay up late to play with the toys their older sister, Mary Ann “Marion” Sodder, 17, had bought them for Christmas. Their mother took the youngest child, 3-year-old Sylvia, to bed with her at around 10:30 p.m., telling Maurice and Louis to attend to the cows and chickens.

Joe Sodder, 21, had been discharged from the Army the day before the fire and was the only one of the 10 Sodder children not home.

At about 1 a.m., Jennie bolted out of bed when she smelled smoke and saw flames in her husband’s office, blocking her from reaching the phone. She told Marion, who had fallen asleep on the couch to take Sylvia outside while she and George frantically tried to save the rest of the children. George Jr. and John, who said he woke his siblings — but later updated his account, saying that he had only shouted at them — ran downstairs. Fire engulfed the staircase to the attic where the children slept, preventing their father from going upstairs. The fact that no one heard them crying out was one of the reasons the Sodders later believed they might not have been in their bedroom at all. 

At the time, however, George desperately tried other ways to get to his children. He was unsuccessful  for two peculiar reason ls.  First, a ladder that normally stood by the house wasn’t there. He and his sons then tried to move his trucks against the house, hoping to reach the upper floor by standing on top of them, but they couldn’t get them started.

Although authorities determined that the children — Maurice, 14; Martha, 12; Louis, 10; Jennie Irene, 8; and Betty, 5 — had died in the fire, their family disputed the finding and never gave up searching for them. 

Even if Jennie had been able to reach the family’s telephone, she couldn’t have placed a call: The line had been cut. George Bragg, a local writer and researcher, told NPR in a 2005 interview that a man later admitted that he had cut them — and during the fire was in an outbuilding on the Sodders’ property stealing a block and tackle (used to remove car engines). While there is speculation that he set the fire as a diversion, it’s also possible he took advantage of the family’s distraction to take the equipment. Still, neither the thief nor anyone else was ever charged with arson in the catastrophic fire.

The phone was working just after midnight, Jennie later said. Its ringing was the first of three separate strange events, including the smoke, that had awakened her. The caller asked to speak to someone Jennie didn’t know. After she replied that they must have the wrong number, the caller responded with what Jennie described as a strange laugh.

Half an hour later, Jennie heard “something like a rubber ball” hit the roof. “It rolled and hit the ground with a thump,” she said.

At the time, it didn’t worry her, and she fell back asleep again. But a passing bus driver (or passenger ) described having seen “balls of fire” being thrown on the tar and wood roof, where it was determined the fire had started. Sylvia later found a rubber object in the yard, the family claimed, that George identified as a type of hand grenade. 

Death certificates for the children were issued on Dec. 30, five days after the fire. The cause of death for each was listed as “fire or suffocation.” Although George and Jennie Sodder later insisted otherwise, a journalist who covered the story for NPR said four people had reported seeing remains — including one of Jennie’s brothers. If so, they weren’t collected or included in official records.

George Sodder himself may have unintentionally destroyed evidence that his children had died. On Dec. 29, he brought in a bulldozer to fill the basement with dirt in order to create a memorial for them. At the time, the grieving family did not doubt the officials’ determination that the five children did not survive. Only later would John reportedly admit that he hadn’t actually seen or heard his five siblings respond when he warned them to escape as he and George Jr. fled.

In the “burial, cremation, or removal” section of the children’s death certificates, “burial” is selected with the date of Dec. 27. The Sodders’ address is listed as the “cemetery.”  though no actual body's could be found.

The Sodder children we're never seen again and now nearly a century after the tragedy that destroyed their family the mystery remains, what really happened to the Sodder Family?

Because of so many odd events surrounding the  fire and the Sodder children's disappearance's, the case immediately captured the public eye  and is still one of the greatest mysteries of the early 20th century.

After only 45 minutes the five bedroom home had burned to nothing but ash leaving only the foundation.

The true fate of the family will likely never be solved and decades from now people will still find this mystery as perplexing as we do now 

.......

Mari Lewd 🐴💀👻

 

Mari Lwyd.

In short summary, the Mari Lewd is a Welsh myth about a horse headed creature that shows up during the twelve days of Christmas each year and goes door to door singing with a small Troup of followers trying to gain entry to your home to eat your food and drink your booze.

The Mari Lwyd is a wassailing folk custom that involves a giant horse's skull carried from house to house. It takes place in parts of Wales during the Christmas season.

The first recorded mention of Mari Lwyd comes from 1800s, in a book called ‘A Tour through Part of North Wales’ by J. Evans. However the tradition is actually more associated with Southern Wales, and towns like Glamorgan and Gwent.

Where the name ‘Mari Lwyd’ comes from isn’t entirely clear. It translates roughly to ‘grey mare’ with some thinking this is a reference to the prominence of pale horses in Celtic mythology. Folklorist Iowerth C. Peate thought it meant ‘Holy Mary’ referring to The Virgin Mary

.......

The Mari Lwyd goes from door to door with a group of followers, At each house they sing a song asking to come in. (Similar to modern Christmas  Carling) The occupants of the house sing back,  denying them entry at first, before eventually relenting. This back and forth is known as ‘pwnco’, and is an improvised battle of rhyme and verse.

Once the singers are allowed in they are given cakes and alcohol, the Mari Lwyd causes some mischief maybe frightening a few children in the process and everyone moves onto the next house.

Mari Lwyd was popular in the nineteenth century, thought it all but  disappeared from Wales by the beginning of the twentieth century. 

However, by the 1960s it had been revived in the town of Llangynwyd.

 From the 1970s onwards it appeared in more towns and villages across the country. Aberystwyth even marked the millennium by organising the world’s largest Mari Lwyd.

There are some similar traditions in England, such as Hoodening in Kent, or Old Tup in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. These also involved a horse’s head, a cloak, and going from house to house at Christmas time.

Winter Yokai: Oshiroi babā

 

❄️Oshiroi babā❄️

The white face powder hag.

This Yokai can be traced back at least as far as 1537.

Oshiroi babā are yokai that take the form of  old woman who appear in snowy mountainous areas near the end of the year. 

Oshiroi Baba (oshiroi; white face powder) +  (baba; old woman, hag). The word oshiroi specifically refers to the white face powder used by geisha and maiko.

She wears a tattered old kimono and a massive, straw umbrella hat covered in heavy snow,she carries a bottle of sake, usually a classic ceramic tokkuri and her face is covered in oshiroi powder, usually slathered on without  care for appearance.

Some claims say you will hear the sound of a mirror dragging and clattering abut from behind her as they hobble through the streets. Though the mirror is almost never actually seen.

 Her back is disfigured, twisted and bent like an old woman’s after a lifetime hard work. 

She carries a cane in one hand, and a sake bottle in the other, and wear a broken straw hat. 

Her most defining feature is their wrinkly old face caked with thick, sloppy, white face powder.

Oshiroi babā don’t tend to interact with humans too often. For the most part, their looks alone are  enough to ward if interactions.

 Though they will occasionally bother people, demanding makeup or trying to buy sake. In this way they are somewhat similar to other old hag yōkai who wander the streets at night, such as amazake babā. However, nearly every account of oshiroi babā describes them as hideous or scary, but not dangerous. 

Other version of the myth claims she appears on cold snowy nights and offer's warm sake to those in need.

According to some local legends, oshiroi babā are a variation of yuki onna. They leave the  mountains and wonder into villages on snowy nights.

 Others say they are more similar to yama uba, who sometimes demand makeup from travelers or can be found  at the bases of mountains trying to buy alcohol.

 According to Toriyama Sekien, oshiroi babā serve as the attendants of Shifun Senjō, the goddess of cosmetics which would explain the mirror, and make up requests.

  

❄️🍺🪞🧓🏔️

Drakavac

 

           Drekavac 

It's name means the screamer" or "the screecher,  as it's name would suggest its known for its distinctive and often terrifying scream.

The Drekavac is most often encountered  at night, especially during the twelve days of Christmas (called unbaptized days ) and in early spring, when other demons appear most often. 

It takes the form of the child, though deformed with elongated limbs and sometimes fur.

In other story's (especially more modern tellings) it usually resembles a dog like creature. However it can also assume other forms as well like a dappled foal, dog, cat, or bird or even a  human like being with glowing eyes. Other visions of the cryptid are described as a dog like beast that walks on its back legs, a long legged long necked animal with a cats head or an undead vampire like man that wonders the cemetery similar to a ghoul.

Originally believed to have come from the soul of a corrupt or sinful man, or from children who died unbaptized 

When seen in it's human form it looks like a child, and  predicts someone's death while in its animal form, it predicts cattle disease.

The Drekavac ether dislikes or fears dogs and is believed to avoid dogs and bright light.

 There is also a common belief that if the shadow of drekavac falls on someone then that person will become sick and eventually die.

In some regions it could be considered a type of boogyman, used to  scare kid's into behaving, in a similar way a the Boogeyman is in other places. 

It's also used as a scare tactic to keep smaller children from wandering to far from home. 

......

Other cryptids or monsters similar to a drakavac..

• Bukavac – recorded in Syrmia, a six-legged monster with gnarled horns, slimy skin and long tail, that lives in water (rivers, swamps and creeks) and comes out of it during the night. It is known that it makes loud noises, and it will try to strangle people and animals that it encounters;
• 👹👻🧛‍♀️
• Jaud (pronounced [jaud]) – a vampirised premature baby.
• 🧛‍♀️
• Myling – from Scandinavian folklore, a phantasmal incarnations of the souls of unbaptized children that had been forced to roam the earth.
• 👻
• Nav – the soul of dead child that died before its third age.
• 👻
• Plakavac – recorded in Herzegovina, is a newborn strangled by its mother, which will rise from its grave at night as small vampire-like creature, return to its house and scream around it, but otherwise can't do any harm.
• 🧟👻
• 
  
• Poroniec – a hostile and malicious demon from Slavic mythology. They were believed to come into existence from stillborn fetuses, but also from improperly buried remains of children who had died during infancy.

👹

Karampusnacht.🐐🎄

Krampusnacht is celebrated on December 5 every year across Germany, other European countries, and Australia. It occurs the night before the celebration of the Feast of St. Nicholas, a night when people dress up as the devil Krampus and chase naughty children through the streets.       

 In the old stories St. Nicholas would travel with krampus on the night of December 5th.

He would rewards good children by leaving presents, Krampus would  beat those who are naughty with branches and sticks. In some cases, he is said to eat them or throgh them in his basket and take them to hell. 

In the 21st century, many Alpine countries continue to celebrate the Krampusnacht with parades, where the townsmen dress like devils and run through the streets chasing after children and naughty parents alike

If you hear hooves on the roof top tonight, it may not be reindeer lol

Norse God of Winter🌨️❄️

 

             ❄️Ullr❄️

Ullr, the Viking God of Winter 

He is the son of the grain goddess Sif, and the stepson of the thunder god Thor.

In chapter 31 of Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, Ullr is referred to as a son of Sif (with a father unrecorded in surviving sources. 

He's a highly skilled  archer, hunter, skater, and skier.

Ullr - pronounced “ULL-er,” often Anglicized as “Ull,” and sometimes “Ullinn”)

In Grímnismál, it says his home is called Ýdalir, “Yew Dales.”

 He lives at his hall Ydalir, which translates to Yew Dales: yew wood was the material of choice for making bows in ancient Scandinavia. 

Ullr was also known as the god of oaths and combat. It's said that all oaths were taken on Ullr’s ring, which would shrink down to sever your finger should you break your oath.

In some versions of the myths his wife is the giantess Skadi....(in other stories, skadi is the wife of Njord The Sae God.)

 He was the ruler of Asgard when Odin was away for ten years.

There are several locations in Scandinavia  named after him. 

A few of the city's ...

Ullevål,

 Ullevi, 

Ullared, 

Ullensaker 

And Ullensvang..

Because of his status as a winter god, many worshippers would pray to Ullr before travel in the harsh northern winter.

Within the winter skiing community of Europe, Ullr is considered the Guardian Patron Saint of Skiers (German Schutzpatron der Skifahrer).

 An Ullr medallion or ski medal depicting the god on skis holding a bow and arrow, is widely worn as a talisman by both recreational and professional skiers as well as ski patrols in Europe and elsewhere.

Ever since 1963 the town of Breckenridge, Colorado has held a week-long "Ullr Fest" each January, featuring events designed to win his favor in an effort to bring snow to the historic ski town.

Ullr is also a playable character in the video game Smite.

.......

Can't believe its already December, time flys I guess, bundle up and enjoy the snow .

❄️☃️🎿⛷️

Bakeneko the Demon Cat..

             -----------Bakeneko or Changing cat is a type of yokai (Sprite / demon) -----------




Cat's are often seen as sly and mysterious creatures..

Cats depicted as yōkai in Japan date back as far as the Kamakura Period  (1185–1333).

In the collection of setsuwa (oral tradition of folktales before the 14th century), the Kokon Chomonju   from this period, there are several descriptions of cats that do odd and suspicious things, noting that "these are perhaps ones that have turned into demons.
 ========================================

One of the more well know legends regarding a Bakeneko...
 is the story of Takasu Genbei...

 In this story  a man named Takasu Genbei, whose mother's personality suddenly changed  after his pet cat went missing for many years. His mother avoided interactions with old  friends and even family and would  often eat alone in her room. Untill one day when the family peeked in on her, they saw a cat-like monster in the mother's clothes, chewing on animal carcasses. Takasu, still skeptical, slew what looked like his mother, and after one day his mother's body turned back into his pet cat that had been missing. Takasu then tore up the floorboards of his mother's room to find her skeleton hidden there, her bones gnawed clean of all flesh.


=============================

  --------------------------------------------------

Folk lore:.....

The Bakeneko myths from arond Japan....


In Yamagata District, Hiroshima Prefecture, it is said that a cat raised for seven years or longer would kill the one that raised it. There are also many regions where when people began raising a cat, they would decide in advance for how many years they would raise it because of this superstition.

 Also, depending on the area, there are stories in which cats that were killed by humans in a brutal manner would become bakeneko and curse that human. The stories of bakeneko are not only about aged cats, but are also sometimes stories of revenge against cruel humans.

 
The abilities attributed to the bakeneko are various, but include shapeshifting into humans,  wearing a towel or napkin on the head and dancing, speaking human words,  cursing humans manipulating dead people, possessing humans  and lurking in the mountains and taking wolves along with them to attack travelers.

 As an unusual example, on Aji island, in  Oshika District, of the Miyagi Prefecture and in the Oki Islands, Shimane Prefecture, there's a story of a cat that shapeshifted into a human and wanted to engage in sumo.

 
However the legend of cats with the ability to speak, may have arisen because humans simply misinterpring the cat's meowing as human language, and for this reason some would say that the cat is not a type of yōkai. In 1992 (Heisei 4), in the Yomiuri newspaper, there was an article that argued that when people thought they had heard a cat speak, upon listening a second time, they realized that it was simply the cat's meowing and that it was only coincidence that it resembled a word in human language.

In the Edo period (1603–1867), there was a folk belief that cats with long tails like snakes could bewitch people. Cats with long tails were disliked and there was a custom of cutting their tails. It is speculated that this is the reason that there are so many cats in Japan with short tails nowadays, because natural selection has favored those with short tails.

Folk beliefs that cats can cause strange phenomena are not limited to Japan. For example, in Jinhua, Zhejiang, in China, it is said that a cat, after having been raised for three years by humans, would then start bewitching them. Because it is said that cats with white tails are especially good at this, there arose the custom of refraining from raising white cats. Since it is said that their ability to bewitch humans comes from taking in the spiritual energy of the moon, it is said that when a cat looks up at the moon, whether its tail has been cut or not, it should be killed on the spot
===============================
======================
=================


The reason that cats are seen as yōkai in Japanese mythology is attributed to many of the characteristics that they possess: for example, the way the irises of their eyes change shape depending on the time of day, the way their fur seems to cause sparks due to static electricity when they are petted (especially in winter), the way they sometimes lick blood, the way they can walk without making a sound, their wild nature that remains despite the gentleness they can show at times, the way they are difficult to control (unlike dogs), the sharpness of their claws and teeth, their nocturnal habits, and their speed and agility.


There are many yōkai animals other than cats in old tales that have similar attributes: the deep tenacity of snakes, the ability of foxes (kitsune) to shapeshift into women, and the brutality of tanuki in eating humans depicted in the Kachi-kachi Yama folktale from the Edo period. Cats in particular, however, have acquired a great number of tales and superstitions surrounding them, due to the unique position they occupy between nature and civilization.

As cities and towns were established and humans began living farther apart from nature, cats came with them. Since cats live close to humans yet retain their wild essence and air of mystery, stories grew up around them, and gradually the image of the bakeneko was formed^.
 
One folk belief concerning the bakeneko is that they would lick the oil of oriental lamps, and in the Edo period encyclopedia, the Wakan Sansai Zue, it is said that for a cat to lick this oil is an omen of some strange event about to occur.

 People in the early modern period used cheap oils from fish, like sardine oil, in the lamps, and that could explain why cats would want to lick them.

 The diet of most  Japanese people at that time was based primarily on grains and vegetables, and the leftovers would be fed to the cats.

 However, since cats are carnivores, such a diet would have been lacking in protein and fat, and therefore they would have been even more attracted to the oil in the lamps.

Furthermore, the sight of a cat standing up its hind legs to reach the lamp, with its face lit up and eyes round with anticipation, could have seemed eerie and unnatural, like a yōkai.

The mysterious air that cats possess was associated with the image of prostitutes who worked in the Edo period red-light districts. This was the origin of a popular character in kusazōshi (among other publications), the bakeneko yūjo