Ghostly Folklore: Dames Blanches 🇫🇷👻

 

Dames Blanches.

🇫🇷🌉👻

In French folklore there is a ghost like woman often seen near bridge's or alleys.

Her name is Dame Blanche .

 The most common version of the legend says she would stop someone and ask them to join her in dance or assist her in a certain way in order to pass. If the passerby offered her assistance, she would make him courtesies and disappear,  if he refused to play along with her request, he would meet an unfortunate end.

The name Dames Blanche translates to  “White Ladie / Ladies” 

She is a supernatural entity most often thought to be a spirit though some believe she may infact be a type of fay .

She can be seen near near caverns, ravines, bridges and other narrow places where she can attract the attention of people passing by.

In France, the Dames Blanches are most  popular in  Lorraine and Normandy and were said to appear in Occitan, the Pyrenees mountains with various other sightings throughout the country.

The Dames Blanches have similar counterparts in name and characterization in Germany she's called  Weiße Frauen and in  Dutch she's  the Witte Wieven.

She may also have ancient connections to a pre Christian guardian goddesses known as the Matres,  specifically the Dominæ, who watched over the home, perhaps became the Dames of folklore.

.........

Thomas Keightley (1870) describes the Dames Blanches as a type of Fae known in Normandy "who are of a less benevolent character." They lurk in narrow places such as ravines, forest, and on bridges and try to attract passerby attention. They may require one to join in her dance or assist her in order to pass. 

If assisted she "makes him many courtesies, and then vanishes." One such Dame was known as La Dame d'Apringy who appeared in a ravine at the Rue Quentin at Bayeux in Normandy, where one must dance with her a few rounds to pass. 

Those who refused were thrown into the thistles and briar, while those who danced were not harmed. Another Dame was known on a narrow bridge in the district of Falaise, named the Pont d'Angot. She only allowed people to pass if they went on their knees to her. Anyone who refused was tormented by the lutins(a type of hobgoblin), cats, owls, and other creatures who helped her.

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

🎇🎆

Cryptids: The Boogeyman legends from around the world..

                  ===============THE BOOGEYMAN==========



No doubt you've heard of this creature of the shadows at some point or another during your lifetime.

He is the creature of nightmares, the monster under your bed, or that strange thing lurking in your closet late at night...he is the Boogeyman.

This cryptid appears in story's and myth's around the globe, here are a few of his other names ...

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Korea -

In Gyungsang province, Dokebi (도깨비)  a monster that show's up  to take misbehaving children.

 The word kokemi, however, is derived from a word Kotgahm (곶감), dried persimmon. According to Korean folklore, a woman, in an attempt to soothe her crying child, said "Here comes a tiger to come and get you.

I'll let him in unless you stop crying." Accidentally, a tiger passed by, overheard her and decided to wait for his free meal. Instead of opening the door of the house, to the tiger's disappointment, the mother offered her child a dried persimon saying "Here's a kotgahm." Of course, the child, busy eating, stopped crying.

The tiger, not knowing what a Kotgahm is, ran away thinking "this must be a scary monster for whom even I am no match." (Tigers are revered by Koreans as most powerful and fearsome creatures.) Other variations include mangtae younggam (망태 영감) an oldman (younggam) who carries a mesh sack (mahngtae) to put his kidnapped children in. In some regions, mangtae younggam is replaced by mangtae halmum (망태 할멈), an old woman with a mesh sack.



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Japan -the bogeyman is called Namahage he is a type of  demons that warns children not to be lazy or cry, during the Namahage Sedo Matsuri, or "Demon Mask Festival", when villagers wear demon masks or (Oni Mask) and pretend to be these spirits.

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Denmark and some area's of Norway --

The Boogeyman in Danish is called bussemanden. It hides under the bed and grabs children who will not sleep. It is also a slang term for nasal mucus. 



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Germany -

in Germany the Boogeyman is known as Der schwarze Mann (the black man), the "Buhmann" or the Butzemann. "Schwarz" does not refer to the color of skin but to his preference for hiding in dark places, like the closet, under the bed of children or in forests at night. There is also a children's game called Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann? (Who is afraid of the black man?).



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Norway* - "nøkken" and in some areas Busemannen , the norwaegian bogeyman is often described as a monster in the lake, he was said to come and take children which did not come in when they were told too.

                                                                 Nokken




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Netherlands - Boeman, The Dutch Boogeyman is  a creature that resembles the a adult male, dressed completely black, with sharp claws and fangs. The Bogeyman takes bad children or those who refuse to sleep and locks them in his basement for a period of time.






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 Sweden -

The Swedish  Boogeyman is most often called the  Monstret under sängen which basically means "the monster under the bed".


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France-


In France the Bogeyman is le croque-mitaine ("the mitten-biter" or rather "the hand-cruncher"—mitaine means mitt in an informal way) 

Another version of a Boogyman like bing from french mythology is called Bonhomme sept heures or (Seven o'clock man) he was said to take children who stayed outside past 7pm. He is described as an old man wearing a hat and cape, and having a cane and a bag full of sand that is uses to throw in the eyes of the children he targets....





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 Russia, Ukraine and Belarus-

 Here the Boogeyman is usually said to be hiding under the bed, babay ("бабай") or babayka ("бабайка") this version of teh story is used to keep children in bed at night  or stop them from misbehaving. 'Babay' means 'old man' in Tatar. Children are told that "babay" is an old man with a bag or in some versions a monster, and that it will take them away if they misbehave.

The eastern part of Ukraine has babay as well, possibly due to Russian influence. Slovenia

 The Slovenian Bogeyman is called Bavbav. It doesn't have a particular shape or form. often it isn't even defined as a man or anything human. It can be thought of as a kind of sprite or spirit.


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Romania -

In Romania the Boogeyman is called a bau-bau (pronounced "bow-bow"). Bau-bau stories are used by parents to scare children who misbehave. The babau (babao or barabao) also appears in Italy.


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The Boogeyman can be found in many places world wide so behave yourselves or you just may meet him lol and don't forget to check under your bed...

The Beast of Gevaudan, Terrifying Werewolf Encounter.

The Beast of Gevaudan

Sightings  of the beast took place between 1764 - 1767





 La Bestia de Gavaudan is a name given to a large man eating wolf like creature that is said to have terrorized the former province of Gevaudan Now known as department of Lozere and part of Haute - Loire in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767 over an area stretching 56 by 50 miles....

The beasts were consistently described by eyewitnesses as having many large teeth and immense tails. Their fur had a reddish color, The head was  wolf like with darker brown fur, short stright ears, a wide chest with white fur gaping jaws and a thick long tail, the back paws were large and long according to some witnesses, they appeared to be hooves like a horse, well the front paws were shorter covered in long fur and had six claws on them the creature was also  said to have emitted an unbearable odour.  Once when the beast was seen crossing a river, it raised itself up on it's hind legs like a human and waded across, The creature was said to make a sound closer to that of a horse  neighing then a wolf howling, also low growls  like that of a dog scared of in pain...

It was also very strong and fast, sometimes being seen in different locations very far apart on the same day, during hunting it would crawl so low to the groung that it's belly almost touched the dirt.

One Shepard even claimed the beast could stand up on it's hind legs and was strong enough to lift a full grown sheep with it's  arm's.

Another strange fact worth mentioning is that measurements of distance between footprints show that the beasts were able to clear  up to 28 feet  well running on level ground

They killed their victims by tearing at their throats with their teeth. The number of victims differs according to source. De Beaufort (1987) estimated 210 attacks, resulting in 113 deaths and 49 injuries; 98 of the victims killed were partly eaten. An enormous amount of manpower and resources was used in the hunting of the animals, including the army, conscripted civilians, several nobles, and a number of royal huntsmen.


All animals operated outside of ordinary wolf packs, though eyewitness accounts indicate that they sometimes were accompanied by a smaller female, which did not take part in the attacks

The first attack that provided a description of one of the creatures took place on June 1, 1764. A woman from Langogne  saw a large, lupine  animal emerge from the trees and charge directly toward her, but it was driven away by the farm's bulls.


On June 30, the first official victim of the beast was Jeanne Boulet, 14, killed near the village ofLes Hubacs, not far from Langogne.

On September 21, 1765, Antoine killed a large gray wolf measuring 31 inch's high, 5.6 ft long, and weighing  130 lb. The wolf was called Le Loup de Chazes, after the nearby Abbaye des Chazes. It was agreed locally that this was quite large for a wolf. Antoine officially stated: "We declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Which is why we estimate this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage." The animal was further identified as the culprit by attack survivors, who recognized the scars on the creature's body, inflicted by victims defending themselves

The wolf was stuffed   and sent to Versailles where Antoine was received as a hero, receiving a large sum of money as well as titles and awards.

However, on December 2, 1765, another beast emerged in La Besseyre ain Mary, severely injuring two children. Dozens more deaths are reported to have followed......

The beast also seemed to target people over farm animals, many times it would attack someone while cattle were in the same field.

On January 12, 1765, Jacques Portefaix and seven friends, including two girls, were attacked by the Beast; they drove it away by staying grouped together. Their fight caught the attention of King Louis XV, who awarded 300 livres  to Portefaix, and another 350 livres to be shared among the others. He also directed that Portefaix be educated at the state's expense. The King had taken a personal interest in the attacks, and sent professional wolf-hunters, Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and his son Jean-François, to kill the beast. They arrived in Clermont - Ferrand   on February 17, 1765, bringing with them eight bloodhounds which had been trained in wolf-hunting. They spent several months hunting wolves, believing them to be the beast. However, the attacks continued, and by June 1765 they were replaced by François Antoine (also wrongly named Antoine de Beauterne ) the king's  harquwbus bearer and Lieutenant of the Hunt. He arrived in Le Malzieu on June 22.

he killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited to a local hunter, Jean Chastel, at the  Sogne d' Auvers on June 19, 1767. Later novelists (Chevalley, 1936) introduced the idea that Chastel shot it with a blesses silver bullet of his own manufacture. Upon being opened, the animal's stomach was shown to contain human remains.



Controversy surrounds Chastel's account of his success. Family tradition claimed that, when part of a large hunting party, he sat down to read the Bible  and pray. During one of the prayers the creature came into sight, staring at Chastel, who finished his prayer before shooting the beast. This would have been aberrant behavior for the beast, as it would usually attack on sight. Some believe this is proof Chastel participated with the beast, or that he had even trained it. However, the story of the prayer may simply have been invented out of religious  views of the time.



Various explanations were offered at the time of the attacks as to the beast's identity. Suggestions ranged from exaggerated accounts of wolf attacks, to a werewolf possibly multiple werewolfs, or even a punishment from God.

Jay M. Smith, in his book "Monsters of the Gevaudan" suggests that the deaths attributed to the beast were more likely the work of a number of wolves or packs of wolves.....


Richard H. Thompson, author of Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan, contended that there can be satisfactory explanations based on large wolves for all the Beast's depredations.

Another explanation is that the beasts were some type of domestic dog or, a crosse between wild wolves and domestice dog's oon account of their large size and unusual coloration.^[2] This speculation has found support from naturalist Michel Louis, author of the book La bête du Gévaudan: L'innocence des loups (English: The Beast of Gevaudan: The innocence of wolves). Louis wrote that Jean Chastel was frequently seen with a large red colored mastiff, which he believes sired the beast. He explains that the beast's resistance to bullets may have been due to it wearing the armoured hide of a young boar, thus also accounting for the unusual colour. He dismisses hyenas as culprits, as the beast itself had 42 teeth, while hyenas have 34.


Some cryptozoologists have suggest that the Beast may in fact have been a surviving remnants of a Mesonychild seeing how some witnesses described it as a huge wolf having hooves rather than paws and it was larger than any normal sized wolf will others still believe it was a hyena.

Other Werewolf like sightings.......

Beast of Gubbio (Italy), 1220–22,
Beasts of Paris (France), 1422,
 Beasts of Paris (France), 1439,
Beasts of Paris (France), 1447,
Beast of Riviera Benacense (Italy), 1457–1458,
Beast of Sabbio Churches (Italy), 1475,
Beasts of Lugano (Switzerland), 1500,
Beast of Bovegno (Italy), 1510,
Beast of Marmirolo (Italy), 1518,
Beasts of Bedburg (Germany), 1590,
Beasts of Varese ( Italy), 1593,
Beasts of Toulouze (France), 1605,
Beasts of St. John of Casarsa (Italy), 1625–1633,
Beast of Caen (France), 1631–1633,
Beast of Évreux (France), 1633–1634,
Beast of Ventimiglia (Italy), 1641,
Beasts of Gâtinais (France), 1655,
Beast of Fontainebleau (France), 1669,
Beasts of Oberviechtach (Germany), 1677–80,
Beast of Ansbach (Germany), 1685,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1691–1702,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1693–1694,
Beast of Palazzolo Acreide (Italy), 1695,
Beasts of Varese (Italy), 1704,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1709,
Beasts of Varese (Italy), 1714,
Beast of Ghemme (Italy), 1728,
Beast of the Auxerres (France), 1731–34,
Beasts of Neuville-les-Dames (France), 1738,
Beast of Benais (France), 1751,
Beasts of Vienne (France), 1751,
Beasts of the Lyonnais (France), 1754–1756,
Beast of the Avallon (France), 1755,
Beast of Chaves (Portugal), 1760,
Beast of Sarlat (France), 1766,
Beasts of the Périgord (France), 1766,
Beast of Cusago (Italy), 1792,
Beasts of Nièvre (France), 1794,
Beast of Chateauneuf-Brinon (France), 1796,
Beast of Veyreau (France), 1799,
Beast of Albiolo (Italy), 1801,
Beast of Busto Arsizio (Italy), 1801,
Beast of Novedrate (Italy), 1801,
Beasts of the Auxerres (France), 1807,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1808,
Beast of Como (Italy), 1808,
Beasts of Lenta (Italy), 1809–1815,
Beast of the Cévennes (France), 1809–1816,
Beasts of Roasio (Italy), 1810–1814,
Beasts of Buronzo (Italy), 1811–1815,
Beast of Breno (Italy), 1812–1813,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1814,
Beasts of Balocco (Italy), 1814,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1814,
Beast of Nettelhoven-Dernau (Germany), 1815,
 Beast of Trecate (Italy), 1815,
Beasts of San Remo (Italy), 1815–1816,
Beast of the Auxerres (France), 1817,
Beast of Bergamo (Italy), 1817,
Beast of Gysinge (Sweden), 1820–1821,
Beast of Corfinio (Italy), 1829,
Beast of Karelia (Finland), 1831–1832,
Beast of Pacentro (Italy), 1839,
Beasts of Tampere (Finland), 1877,
Beasts of Turku (Finland), 1880–1881,
Beasts of Kaunas (Lithuania), 1916–1917,
Beasts of Voronezhskiy (USSR), 1920,
Beasts of Kuibishevskaya Oblast (USSR), 1935,
Beasts of the Minsk Oblast(USSR), 1935,
Beasts of Lyubanskiy (USSR), 1936–37,
Beast of Bray Road (U.S.A), 1936-Present
Beasts of Domanovichskiy (USSR), 1940,
Beast of the Kirovskiy Oblast (USSR), 1944–1945,
Beasts of the Akhalkalakskiy-Bogranovskiy (USSR), 1945,
Beasts of Dagestan (USSR), 1945,
Beasts of Vladimirskaya Oblast (USSR), 1945–1947,
Beasts of Polenovskiy (USSR), 1946,
Beasts of Ludinovskiy (USSR), 1946,
Beasts of Kaluzhskaya Oblast (USSR), 1947,
Beast of Losinoostrovskoye (USSR), 1949,
Beast of the Kirovskaya Oblast (USSR), 1951–1952,
Beasts of Hazaribagh (India), 1981, Beasts of Ashta (India), 1985–1986,
Beasts of Khost (Afghanistan), 2005, Beasts of Naka (Afghanistan), 2005,
Beasts of Vali-Asr (Iran), 2005

There are a lot more sighting's then the one's posted here..........