Carver Pike picked my name from the wheel of horror authors and my episode loaded today! He read from Tales from the Crib’s first story Gaebler’s Asylum of the Damned. Watch and listen and if you like it, go buy it!!!! I nearly choked on water as he was reading and went “damn” mid sentence at my graphic scene of death! I have been called sick, twisted, and demented over this story and carry the title Queen of Horror with pride!
Welcome to #RandomHorrorFacts! Horror has been my love since I was a child. The creepy, the witchy, the demonically inclined, possession, all of it was my go to! Ever wonder what incidents spawned your favorite horror book or movie? Well, let’s dig in and find out!
In the franchise of horror, the most creepy and vilest of ideas usually involve children as a focal point. It’s heart wrenching to think of a child coming into danger or even possibly dying in gruesome, horrific detail. Stephen King paved the way for such scenes of horror when he wrote Pet Semetary and killed the youngest character of the book in such a way that it has even left me traumatized by the event since childhood. My husband and I were just discussing the other day how our 10 year old was now old enough to check the mail, something I had been doing since I was around 7 years old, crossing the road to do so. We have tractor trailers that go fast up and down our road so you can imagine my apprehension of letting one of my children check my mail after watching the tractor trailer run Gage over in Pet Semetary.
One other way horror writers and screenplay writers were able to get under the skin of parents were to take an ordinary doll and make it out to be a fanatical murderer possessed by the spirit of an evil felon. That is what the Child’s Play franchise presented the public with in 1988 and was soon followed by the Puppet Master trilogy. Child’s Play initiated a whole list of movies that would come to life from the bold move of one screenwriter and director. A child’s toy comes to life and tries to take over his body to become human once more. The franchise has even made it all the way into 2020 with remakes and prequels such as The Cult of Chucky and even the remade version of Child’s Play where the doll wasn’t set with any safety features taking the paranormal aspect out of the equation.
In 1903, Robert Eugene Otto was given a doll. There are many different stories about how he received the doll and even a movie that was made from this real life story aside from Child’s Play that sticks to the story of the Nanny being let go and giving a doll as a parting gift to the child of her employers. The story goes on to say that she imbued the doll with voodoo and gave it life so it could exact her revenge on the family that she claimed abused her. Whether this story was the actual story or not, it does lend information to the story that surrounds the even of Robert the Doll.
Robert Eugene Otto named the doll Robert after himself and then took on his middle name as the name her preferred to be referred to as. Things that happened around the house were soon to be blamed on the doll. Moved furniture, broken items, etc., Eugene told his parents the doll did it. Not only was the doll moving stuff around the house, but he could blink his eyes and would also speak to Robert in private. Robert grew up and moved out of his parent’s house to only return to later in life when his parents passed away and he inherited the house.
Robert, now married, reacquainted with his long lost doll friend and soon began to spend the same amount of time together that he used to when he was a child. His wife didn’t like it. She also attested to the fact that the doll moved around on its own and moved things as well. When Robert died in 1974, the house was sold to Myrtle Reuter. She made the same claims as Robert and his wife had previously claimed; the doll was possessed and moved around on its own. She later donated the doll to a museum, Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida.
Today, people still flock to the museum to see the doll. Robert the doll receives letters and even gifts from people all around. The museum has even fallen victim to its own misfortunate events that many attest to Robert being treated unruly by staff members. We could most likely attribute all doll stories that were to come after Robert’s story going public to the doll. However, it wasn’t long until Annabelle hit the scene and another doll was soon made historic by being placed in a museum as well due to paranormal activity that surrounded it. Is it an over active imagination or did these events really take place? True or fiction, they opened the eyes of horror lovers everywhere and started the killer doll/possessed doll/creepy doll stories that have entertained us since 1988.
Welcome to #WeirdScienceWednesday! I am here to talk about the strange and unusual because let’s face it, I am strange and unusual lol Paranormal, aliens, conspiracies, Bigfoot… I am here to bring you some information! Enlighten you… maybe make you a new believer! I have studied all things weird since I was 8 years old. It’s time I shared my knowledge with SOMEONE!
One of my favorite horror movies to hit the scene in the 2000’s was the movie Boogeyman that later turned into a franchise of B rated horror flicks. What was it that I loved so much about the original that the sequels seemed to leave high and dry? The legend that came with the monster in the closet! Throughout history, and across the world globally, there is some form of a bedtime story where a monster in the closet or under the bed will come out and drag the children to either monster land or hell itself. Adults have told the stories for generations as a way to keep kids in bed and not roaming around at night. But where exactly did they learn the stories from?
The descriptions vary from story to story but one thing they all share in common is that the boogeyman has sharp claws, talon like fingers, and sharp teeth. All of this imagery invokes the fear in the child that the monster is going to eat them. The word arose in the mid-19th century and most believe it to be another word for the rapid spreading fear of the Devil in Christian mythology. However, the different legends also depict the boogeyman as a demon, witch, or some other type of legendary mythological creature that would ensure fright. Some stories even have the boogeyman depicted with animal parts, horns being one of the favorites along with hooves and tails (since in Devil mythology he has horns, hooves, and a tail).
Where did the story of the boogeyman originate? No one really knows. Many assume that it came from the 1500s when the stories of fairies began to circulate and hobgoblins were being told as tales. One particular form of a hobgoblin is a bogey. However, locality didn’t explain for the massive spread of fear as parents across the globe told children about the evil witch or the horned beast that would drag them to hell for misbehaving or eat them for fun. Sack Man, El Coco, A Cuca, Babau, and Butzemann are just a few examples of the different legends created around a creepy, humanoid type creature that punished children. Each one is from a different area on the globe as well.
However, not all of the boogeyman legends are full of fright and horror. In Indonesia, the Wewe Gambel kidnaps children that are being abused by their parents and refuses to return them until the parent realizes their mistakes and learns to treat the children better. Many other legends tell of how the boogeyman protects the children or takes those that misbehave no matter the age. If you watch modern horror, you might have seen the movie Sandman. A child has a boogeyman invoked to protect her whenever anyone tries to harm her.
In Switzerland, the Böllima or Böögg is a part of their seasonal changes and is recognized as winter/death.
All across the world is this wonderful phenomenon of boogeyman tales and some even lend to other myths and legends like the Jersey Devil of the US. Or Grýla in Iceland that is the mother of the Yule Tide Lads myth.
Tell me, have you ever had an experience with a boogeyman? Or was it all just your imagination?
Supernatural fans have found their new fix in the ever expanding series The Guardians of Light. The series starts off with Firefly of Immortality that spins a love story between two angels unlike any other series. You get more than just a glance at the lives of the angels and are placed on the battlefield in the middle of an angelic war.
As the series expounds, myth, legend, fable, and religious text mingle together to create a new glimpse into the higher powered that be, and you are taken on a rise with one main goal: thwart the looming apocalypse. With each book added to the growing universe Kasey Hill has created comes more myths, more creature feature, and more individual stories that will combine to tell whether or not we can all be saved from Armageddon. Start your journey today!
Available on Amazon, KU, and wherever paperbacks are sold
Welcome to #WeirdScienceWednesday! I am here to talk about the strange and unusual because let’s face it, I am strange and unusual lol Paranormal, aliens, conspiracies, Bigfoot… I am here to bring you some information! Enlighten you… maybe make you a new believer! I have studied all things weird since I was 8 years old. It’s time I shared my knowledge with SOMEONE!
Last week, I touched on the Black Dog myth that lent rich mythology to the source of hellhound creation. The Black Dog of the Blue Ridge is one tale many that are native to Virginia have read and heard as a tale urging them to be safe while in the woods. In Botetourt, Virginia, there is a path that many would use to travel to Bedford County. In 1683, after the whispers had spread throughout that there was a beast guarding the path from passage, a group of young cavaliers decided to take the beast head on. Their horses refused to go anywhere near the dog and no one would believe them. So they went back with intentions of killing the dog and taking his hide as a prize. However, no matter how many times they shot the dog, he acted as if none of the bullets had stricken him, and there wasn’t any visible evidence to say that had either.
A beautiful woman came forth years later looking for her husband that had used the path to try and make a new home for them. She was met with the tale of the Black Dog but did not care. She knew the dog wouldn’t hurt her. So, men led her to where the black dog had been witnesses and she walked alone until the dog appeared, benevolent. The dog led her to a shallow grave where she found the bones of her husband and the bones and hair of the dog. Since she was able to lay his bones to rest, no one ever witnessed the apparition of the dog again. However, that is just one story of many of the Black Dog in the Appalachia.
Many stories stem from the Blue Ridge, through West Virginia, and even down into Kentucky about seeing the devil dog that was larger than any normal dog. I have seen many different breeds of large dogs that are European. Those who lived in early America were from Europe. They had seen the size of dogs there. To imagine a dog larger than a Neapolitan Mastiff, the Great Dane, the Irish Wolfhound, or even a Newfoundland begs to wonder how much larger dogs were in the earlier centuries prior to watering down their blood lines to create specific breeds.
In Pike County, Kentucky, there have been sitings of a dog that is 4 feet tall at the shoulders and 7 feet in length with a hump on its back. The Discovery Channel has a show called Mountain Monsters that have captured the creature on film.
Based on these images, the siting of the hellhound looks nothing like an actual dog, but rather a hyena mixed with some sort of wolf breed. Are Hellhounds, or even Black Dogs, actually dogs, or another breed yet to be discovered? What are your thoughts? Have you ever witnessed one of the devil dogs of the Appalachia?
Welcome to #WeirdScienceWednesday! I am here to talk about the strange and unusual because let’s face it, I am strange and unusual lol Paranormal, aliens, conspiracies, Bigfoot… I am here to bring you some information! Enlighten you… maybe make you a new believer! I have studied all things weird since I was 8 years old. It’s time I shared my knowledge with SOMEONE!
I am sure most of you have watched the movie Black Dog with Patrick Swayze. In the starting plot of the movie, he lost his trucker’s license and ended up in prison because he “saw the black dog” and crashed his truck into a vehicle that was broken down on the side of the road while falling asleep. He told everyone that the black dog had come for him through hallucination brought on by exhaustion. However, it was common trucker’s mythology that if you saw the black dog, “death was near” and you either wrecked your truck or killed someone. But where exactly did they get the idea for this small tendril of a myth in the movie? From Great Britain, of course!
A larger than normal dog with glowing eyes is what is most commonly reported for the Black Dog. Most commonly seen during electrical storms, at crossroads, places of execution, and ancient pathways, the Black Dog has a lot of ancient ideologies associated with death and is strictly seen at night. This is one reason it is called the death dog.
The legend/folk tale/myth of the black dog is indeterminate in origin. Some speculate Germanic origins and others speculate Celtic origins. Dogs had long been heralded by indigenous people throughout the years in ancient civilizations and on through modern as omens of the death and the visage of the Underworld. In Ancient Egypt, Anubis was the guardian of the Underworld and his effigy that was built by the Egyptians was that of an upright dog. The perpetuated belief of dogs being guardians of the Underworld very similar as to why condors, vultures, and other birds that feast on carrion are revered by indigenous people even today, such as Native American folklore. Dogs were considered to be scavengers. Scavengers helped carry your body off to the afterlife through a circle of life. A vulture feasts on carrion and then flies the soul into the heavens. Dogs dig holes and bury the bones; ashes to ashes, so to speak.
These beliefs evolved throughout time, and of course with religious persecutions of beliefs outside of the patriarchy set by the Roman Catholic Church, polytheistic and paganistic ideologies in folklore were demonized. The Black Dog turned from a guardian of the underworld that helped carry your soul into the afterlife into a scary omen of death. Many tales of the Black Dog mention how viscous the dogs are and to beware them. This can also be a deep seated root in the fear of death that evolved into a myth on its own as well outside of religious contempt. Many people fear death, and a hallucination of the Black Dog- entailing your death to come- could be seen as your own fear of the acceptance of your time to let go.
The Gurt Dog in Somerset and the Black Dog of the Hanging Hills Connecticut are believed to be benevolent apparitions of the Black Dog, whereas most of the time they are sinister or malevolent in nature- typically seen as “hellhounds” and most likely where the mythology of hellhounds originated.
I, myself, have never witnessed a black dog (I have witnessed shadows of the night). Have you ever seen the Black Dog and lived to tell about it?
I am looking for ARC readers for my Guardians of Light series. I have 2 books coming out this year and then I am starting a universe with 9 subseries. I want reviews in on time for book launches. If you would like to be an ARC reader for this saga, please join the group for it. Serious readers only! You have to read and review the 4 books already out (supplied by me for free of course) I want all of them read and done before I start the subseries.
www.facebook.com/groups/theguardiansoflightseriesarcgroup
