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Category: Folk Horror

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WENDIGO

Among the monsters inhabiting the deep dark forests of the Great North in America, the Wendigo is one of the the scariest. This is a creature coming from the darkest corner. Compared to the cryptids as Bigfoot, this is far more intimidating, shocking, and sinister.

The Wendigo is described as “a mythological cannibalistic monster in the spiritual tradition of North American Algonquian-speaking tribes. It is associated with winter and described as either a fearsome beast that stalks and eats humans or as a spirit that possesses humans, causing them to turn into cannibals” (Britannica).

No surprise that the Wendigo is a popular motive in movies (Antlers, Ravenous, The Wendigo, and others) and literature: Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” is one of the most frightening horror stories ever written. The master of cosmic horror brings all the supernatural qualities of the Wendigo to the front.

The Wendigo as a physical beast is often an “emaciated figure” and extremely tall up to 4,5 meters. According to legends, it grows larger whenever it eats and devours its victims. Other dominant features are its antlers, glowing eyes, sharp long claws, and a horrible smell of rotten flesh. Their superior strength and speed leave their victims little chance of survival.

The interesting aspect here is the double nature of the Wendigo as a beast of the woods and an evil spirit. This is a bit similar to the Nantinaq. A Wendigo can possess humans after entering the person by biting him or through appearances in dreams. The affected person becomes a cannibal itself. There are some shocking stories about possession by a Wendigo as in the case of Swift Runner who claimed a Wendigo had told him to eat his family (Alberta, Canada 1879). He was hanged for his crimes later.

Most of all the Wendigo is a concept. It is an interesting case that proves again that the appearance and characteristics of otherworldly beings often relate to the land. The Great Northern with its endless wilderness caused many hardships. In the long winter, people were starving and isolated for months. Cannibalism and madness were a reality. The tough conditions on one side and historical developments as the gold rush were a breeding ground for corruption and greed. Some anthropologists claimed that the stories of the Wendigo were cautionary tales too. Their moral function was to impose a willingness to band together and share resources. No community can survive a greedy, selfish ego.

Certainly, the Wendigo is much more than a boogeyman invented to scare children not to go into the deep woods. The wendigo shares the same qualities as other supernatural beings and beasts. Most of all there is an ambiguity here: It is both physical and not physical. It is a shapeshifting demon. It is a monster but also a “demonic perspective”. The Wendigo can be something external or something psychological.

There is even a “Wendigo psychosis”. The term was used in the early 20th century for a “culture-bound syndrome among Native and First Nations” people” (Britannica). The psychosis leads to be belief in possession of an evil spirit and most significantly, a compulsion for human flesh – and in the end cannibalism. The existence of such a psychosis is however questionable.

There are several legends about the origins of a Wendigo. One legend says the first Wendigo was a lost hunter whose hunger drove him to cannibalism. Another story tells about a warrior who made a deal with the devil.

The Wendigo is an excellent example of how encounters with otherworldly encounters are transformed by cultural context. There is on one side a long tradition of powerful tales which gives the Wendigo credibility. Something must be out there in the Woods. On the other side, it shows that the stories may never tell what a Wendigo is. Any account has a certain perspective, a preset of the cultural belief system which in the case of the Wendigo seems to be driven by the landscape and its unique harsh conditions and last but not least the human condition.

The Wendigo has become again popular in recent feature films and on YouTube as creepypasta. If we remember that the Wendigo is also a symbol of insatiable greed and corruption it might be no coincidence that the Wendigo hunts our dreams. The otherworld mirrors ours.

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Local Folk Horror Stories – Intrinsic Part Of Topography and Heritage

Peter Engelmann, October 22, 2024

Today’s creepypasta researchers and YouTube presenters might search for local legends, supernatural stories, and the mysterious in the first place.

But it gets interesting if researchers and authors who are not after the uncanny in the first place discover ghost stories and unexplainable events in certain regions as a constant. They make us aware of something that seems obvious to the fans of folk horror but isn’t so much on our minds as we think.

These stories about witches, mountain lights, disappearances, ghosts, and supernatural encounters are like a layer that belongs to the landscape. Today this layer might be less accessible as people are less isolated and there are fewer families with close ties where different generations live under one roof: A while ago these stories were passed on from generation to generation and were part of the cultural heritage.

An Explorer Of The Supernatural Stories From The Bavarian Forest

When Karl-Heinz Reimeier, a local historian from Grafenau in the haunted Bavarian Forest began to visit families to learn more about traditions and life conditions in the remote region in Europe he wasn’t after ghost stories. But soon he learned that nearly in every family a ghost story or a mysterious supernatural story exists that plays an important role. Typical cases are the “announcement stories” where somebody announces his death even if he isn’t there. A picture falls from the wall or even voices occur the moment a close relative dies. And of course, there are endless supernatural stories from the dark forest (the Bavarian Forest certainly is one). Some of the typical themes of horror in the forest are similar present as those in haunted places in America or elsewhere. Mysterious lights for example play an important role, the witches in the forest and encounters with otherworldly creatures. Sometimes it is the devil itself.

Stories with a special quality

Nevertheless, there is always a special quality in these stories that makes them unique and ties them to the place and a specific landscape. The supernatural events are often connected to a very specific location. Reimeier says in a short report by local broadcaster Bavaria television that even though there is often a natural explanation there a 5-10% of stories that will never be explained. What’s important to him is the deep meaning of these stories for the people and the people who narrate them. Even if it is often a sad or uncanny story the narrators are alive, enriched, and fully focused when they speak about otherworldly experiences or old legends.

Folk Tales are soul, there aren’t just scary stories or cautionary tales. Often a “morale” is introduced later in the story. But again and again, they occur to be part of the connection of the land, they are a way of experiencing the landscape. In the Bavarian Forest, there is even a specific name for the lore, an old German word, “Weihrazt”. It indicates a special quality that these tales are not just creepy or scary. The word suggests more of a special kind of experience and a special reality that is there. Reimaier wrote a popular book “Wenn’s Weihrazt” – Stories from the Intermediate World. An excellent subtitle that describes the nature of the old legends and ghost stories.

The Intermediate Realm is bound to places

When it comes to the other world there is often a distinction between an (abstract) higher realm that is so different from our ordinary world that it creates an ontological shock if somebody enters these higher realms and an intermediate realm which is not so different from ours but exist on another plane of reality. It is the otherworld of the celts and there are similar conceptions known from the indigenous people in Northern America. The folk tales seem to happen at points where the intermediate realm and the ordinary world overlap at certain places or at certain times for example Samhain or winter solstice.

What Do We Learn From That?

There is another thing here which is obvious but easily overlooked. The author of the book “Wenn’s Weihrazt” visited families or single-living people and did long interviews with them. They stem both from a situation and a milieu where the internet wasn’t present as it is now and he got the “raw material”. In our digital era now there is endless replication and reproduction. So, often when you hear a story it might be that the story is already contaminated with all the stuff that hangs around on social media and elsewhere. We can’t turn back to the old times, but for everybody interested in the stories from the intermediate realm, the original folk horror we should always look for the original.

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The Triumph Of The Dark Forest On YouTube: Paranormal and Supernatural Genre Channels En Masse.


Peter Engelmann, October 13, 2024

Most of you have certainly seen it: Creepypasta. The Supernatural and Unexplained is doing great on YouTube. There are meanwhile many channels exploring haunted forests, ghost houses, missing 411 cases, alien abductions, and mysteries. The number of these channels seems to have grown exponentially. Some videos and channels have incredible numbers of subscribers and viewers, even over one million viewers. What does that mean for our knowledge of the otherworld, the paranormal and the unexplained? And what does it mean for filmmakers and horror writers?

Various formats and often similar topics

First, what do we see in these channels? Many channels focus in their videos on a case. Missing person cases are prominently featured. Or it is expeditions to notorious haunted places. One format is a narrator (not visible) telling a story and we see a compilation of stock footage but sometimes 2d animation or graphics specially designed for the episode or historical photos. In some cases, the narrator is a KI voice. These channels are a script for YT and its illustration.

There is a huge variety when it comes to production value and the amount of effects. Some very successful channels have the narrator as a presenter visible most of the time either in a studio setting or in a location like Mr. Ballen or David Paulides. They use inserts of photos or video clips to underline the narration but these channels are successful because of their charismatic creator and narrator. It’s crucial to succeed in this type of channel that the narrator is an excellent storyteller like the old oral storytellers and that he can engage the audience.

The other type of channel is expeditions which feature often real experiences of paranormal researchers in the woods or haunted houses, or it is the host of the channel taking us on tour for example to the Hoia Baciou forest in Romania. Even if we don’t know what might be “scripted” reality and what is a real documentary the videos have often strong engaging moments. Scenes often resemble the found footage genre such as Blairwitch. Some other good creators invest in their research, take a long time to shoot their videos, and add interesting visuals such as historical photos.

Then there are channels that work similarly like professional documentaries with re-enactment, special effects, and real live scenes with actors. These channels have often a high number of viewers but not so many videos since they need a real budget and post-pro to produce these types of videos.

What makes these YT creepypasta channels so attractive?

There is no proven answer here because this would require surveys and market research. However, there is an obvious thing here: Many of the best videos are good campfire tales. And we know that the best horror and supernatural movies or novels are good campfire tales. Stephen King wrote in his book about horror that simple cautionary tales like the story of the hook he describes in Dance Macabre are the origin of the genre.

It’s amazing how many YouTube creators show strong talent in good storytelling. The storytelling is often very basic and centers around a mystery, some turning points, and shocking revelations. But it works because the stories are well-structured and efficient.

The success of paranormal, mystery, and supernatural-oriented YouTube channels might be related to the fact that they revive traditional storytelling qualities.

Do these YouTube channels about the paranormal enrich our knowledge about the otherworld and the unexplained?

Only time can tell if the huge number of these channels leads to new insight. The majority of the channels are there for good entertainment, but some provide well-researched information. Fundamental questions about the nature of phenomena are, however, mostly not the focus of their narration.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that we see certain motives and themes are often repeated. Even if the stories are unique they are centered around the usual suspects: Witches, satanic rituals, bigfoot, creatures in the woods, ghosts, and aliens. An important sub-genre is the missing 411 cases, often in National Parks. Often portrayed locations are the famous Bennington triangle (Freetown Fall River Forest) which comes up very often, Glastonbury Mountain in Vermont, Hoia Baciu in Romania, Skinwalker Ranch, Epping Forest (near London), Superstition Mountains, Mount Shasta, but there are also many videos about lesser known places. It’s interesting that often similar phenomena are reported and that way the YouTube creators can indeed help to a deeper understanding of the unexplained on this planet because it shows us certain patterns. These patterns pop up again and again.

A selection Of Creepypasta Channels On YouTube:

This selection is anything but not in any way representative. Sorry, if I forgot important channels, but there are indeed many of them now. I tried to list a mix of bigger channels and smaller channels here. Especially smaller channels have often special qualities and do impressive research. We can always update the list or if I got something wrong just let me know!

A big and well-known channel is MR BALLEN https://www.youtube.com/@MrBallen which deeply impressed me with his accouracy and precise account of details. Great storytelling.

Another one is the MISSING VOID, which is about the popular theme of unexplainable disappearances, https://www.youtube.com/@MissingVoidTV

Very intriguing storytelling and interesting not-so-popular stories are featured also in The Inbetween, strange and unexplained, https://www.youtube.com/@TheInBetweenTales

Don’t Scare Claire, Looking for paranormal stories, ghostly encounters, and grisly tales from history is an exciting British Channel and particularly interesting with its focus on history: https://www.youtube.com/@DontScareClaire

What Lurks Beneath is another Big US Channel: paranormal, all kinds of mysteries, national parks: https://www.youtube.com/@WhatLurksBeneath

And Of course, there is the Godfather of the Missing 411, David Paulides with his famous channel Canammissingproject. The Channel often focuses on mystical disappearances in National Parks but covers a broad variety of interesting cases: https://www.youtube.com/@canammissingproject/videos

More dark tales offer Dark Holler Studios,
Real Stories from the Shadowed World.., https://www.youtube.com/@darkhollerstudios

Then there are travel- and expedition Channels that take us to the most haunted places in the World: AmysCrypt brings us paranormal investigations from the world’s most haunted locations. https://www.youtube.com/@AmysCrypt

And there is the Travel Channel, which doesn’t sound so paranormal but has different playlists such as The Woods Are Haunted, Mountain Monsters, Paranormal Activity Caught on Camera: https://www.youtube.com/@TravelChannel

More mystical stories are featured in Abstract, stories from our strange world: https://www.youtube.com/@Abstract

Another impressive one is The Tape Library: “The home of the strange, the scary, the paranormal and the unidentified”. The “dark corner of the internet” produces spectacular videos with over 1 Mio viewers https://www.youtube.com/@TheTapeLibrary

Motech dives into the unknown and has a knack for cutting-edge things: https://www.youtube.com/@motech8117

And there is Bedtime Stories, “For the discerning horror fan, we cover the most chilling cases throughout history. From the paranormal to the supernatural, unsolved mysteries and strange deaths to cryptids, conspiracy theories and the most disturbing of true crimes, all told in a unique and creepy way”: https://www.youtube.com/@BedtimeStoriesChannel

Disturbing and intriguing stories from the Twilight Zone are also on The Paranormal Files, a”web series which explores all things paranormal, including spirits, religion, demons and even extraterrestrials”. https://www.youtube.com/@theparanormalfiles

Tales Untold features feral encounters among other stuff, https://www.youtube.com/@TalesUntoldYT, and The Missing Enigma, Disappearances, https://www.youtube.com/@TheMissingEnigma is another channel about mysterious disappearances.

Chilling Scares focuses on true horror content, and features often on a certain number of cases as the six most disturbing camping encounters https://www.youtube.com/@ChillingScares

Wild Dream Films is about history and the paranormal: https://www.youtube.com/@WildDreamFilms

Small Town Monsters is about Bigfoot, Creatures, etc: https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownMonsters

Another UK channel is Ghost Theory: They introduce themselves as”This is Ghost Theory, two filmmakers, adventurers and lovers of the paranormal. Traveling the UK in search for paranormal hotspots to find the truth and conjure up our theories to the strange things that happen in places most would never venture”: https://www.youtube.com/@GhostTheory

Again, this is not a representative selection and I also don’t want to forget our own Forest Dark YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@theforestdark It doesn’t really fit into this selection yet as it is more a mood channel for the movie project but it’s supposed to grow into something bigger. Stay tuned.

Takeaways

The little excursion into the world of YouTube creepypasta reminded me of the origins of the genre as campfire tales.

There is indeed a tremendous number of videos here and so many creators. Everybody has a right to do this and the effort people invest in research and filmmaking is stunning.

However, there might be a Blakean element of Generation here, what William Blake called  “a view focused on production and reproduction without higher goals”. But this is THE problem of our times. The information and digital era allows reproduction with no end and we have to see where this leads us. The smarter storytellers on YouTube and the filmmaker community too might work on an evolution of the genre and our deeper insights into the otherworld. We all want to know what’s going on.

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SHAPESHIFTING REALITIES

Peter Engelmann, August 11, 2024

A fundamental quality of the otherworld is its shapeshifting quality. This is the common denominator between myth, folklore, fiction, and “true story witness accounts”. Nothing is what it seems in the otherworldly forest. Small and big can change within a second. A nearby place can be suddenly far away. Nothing is what it looks like. The otherworld is a zone where our laws of nature do not apply—UFOs, as modern daemons perfectly represent this shapeshifting quality.

This shape-shifting is a common experience in dreams. Usually, the shapeshifting otherworld is seen as the counterpart of ordinary reality, the otherworld as a mirror world, often with the distorting mirrors in a mirror cabinet. These uncertainties of reality apply not only to the objects, space, or the inhabitants of the otherworld. Time is different too: “On the other hand, a short period of clock time can seem like an age in the Otherworld” (Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality).

Apparitions are the most common feature of shapeshifting phenomena. The fairies are shapeshifters par excellence as their modern counterparts, the aliens. But also beasts, “giant-black cats” bigfoot, or other denizens of the forest have a shape-shifting quality. They are known – of course – for shapeshifting: a dwarf becomes a cat or even something inanimate can become a living creature. Or appearing as a living creature. Fairies can make small things big and big things small.

The most intriguing quality of apparitions is their contradictory nature: they are both real and not real in the same moment, both material and immaterial at the same time. This is a concept even hard to grasp for those who spent years studying these themes. It demands us to abandon our common idea about reality. A step nearly impossible to take for the ordinary man. Even scholars, initiates or shamans struggle with these fundamental fissures in our understanding of the world.

Nevertheless, this is where we are. Did somebody figure out what Ufos are? Science explained phenomena like a color-shifting lake where bacteria turns blue or green water into purple. But many mysteries remain a mystery. A missing person is found at an impossible distance. In science, we are puzzled by the mysterious ambivalence of quantum particles, the unknown nature of dark matter, or the impenetrable dark holes. Excellent writer Patrick Harpur found the definition for this special kind of reality: He called it Daimonic Reality and titled his legendary book Daimonic Reality too.

The world is full of encounters with daimonic reality. A key takeaway from the idea of daimonic reality is that we often see only the surface of something but the whole reality is veiled and is hiding in another dimension. A deer is not what it seems. Harpur describes Even the celestial bodies, the stars, and the objects in the skies can be windows into another dimension.

Often so-called abduction cases or encounters of the third kind are much more puzzling than they seem at first sight: Patrick Harpur recalls in Daimonic Reality the case of Virginia Horton who experienced a couple of supernatural experiences. On one occasion in France not far from the river Rhine she got lost in the woods and returned later with a bloody blouse. She talked about an encounter with a deer which seemed like a magical being. Simple “supernatural explanations” such as an alien encounter with the alien disguising as a deer don’t work here. Harpur writes, that under “Hypnosis, Virginia talked more about the deer: ‘ I had a sense of personality inside this deer.’ The sense that there is someone behind phenomena is the sense of the daemonic, the divine even, in all things”.

The Forest As Shapeshifter

Nature itself can be daimonic. Folk Horror tales describe this power of place and the hidden quality of nature around us. The field is more than just a field, the tree is more than a tree and of course, the forest itself has both transforming and shapeshifting qualities. What happens inside the observer and what happens on the outside we often don’t know.

We learned from the great writer Algernon Blackwood the idea that nature is a sentiment being: William P. Simmons writes in the preface of his anthology “Wildwood”: “Sky, soil, trees, grass, air, water – everything that man defines in scientific or organic means, Blackwood imbued with a personality, a soul. In ‘The Willows”, ‘The South Wind’ and others, Nature is not only a symbol of life but a self-aware entity that might be only a part of a vast, fragmented host of powers. The forest, the wildwood, is beyond science and rationality. Blackwood’s conception of nature is both beautiful and horrifying, beyond good or evil, immeasurable and undefinable” (Wildwood, Shadow House Library of Weird Fiction).

The mysterious island in the river Danube in “The Willows” is a good example of what William P. Simmons describes in the preface of Wildwood. The island seems to be constantly changing. An island in the wilderness of a river is a place of change. But when the story’s two protagonists stop and spend the night much more is going on. An uncanny presence plays tricks with the mind and nothing is any longer what it seems.

But is the forest as a shapeshifter only a concept in literature and myth?

Traditionally shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means and not only in the perception of others. We need to get back to this to understand how common this feature is in many forms: Many Gods are shapeshifters: Think of Zeus or Proteus who could change his shape at will. In Norse mythology it is Loki. You find them anywhere in any religion or mythology. Sometimes the transformations into animals or monsters are not voluntary as in the case of Medusa or Arachne. It can be a punishment.

Creatures and supernatural beings are often shapeshifters by nature like vampires or werewolves. The skin-walkers of the Navajo are shapeshifters who roam the woods and the fields like some other tricksters. Then we have fairies, witches, and wizards. Fairies are among the most prominent shapeshifters. They can be humanlike or even appear as humans but quickly shift into a different form. Perhaps the mysterious lights in the forest are a fairy.

So far we are talking about entities. Living beings, agencies, Gods, and demons who can perform metamorphosis. What about the place, the forest itself? The first thought which comes to mind is of course, that any forest challenges our perception. The change of light, the darkness, not seeing the forest for the trees. If we have that feeling of getting lost, if we feel Sylvan dread, our surroundings change. But is it all in the mind? Or is metamorphosis possible? Can a path disappear, the landscape takes a different shape, a different mood?

Well, there are alleged true stories. They are often related to cases where people got lost in the woods or the unsolved missing 401 cases. Here comes an example from “Only In Your State”:

“A few visitors have reported encountering bridges made of birch branches and twigs that span small creeks. According to the visitors’ reports, once they cross a bridge and move away from the area, they are unable to relocate the bridge. It doesn’t matter if the hiker carefully marks her path, or even retraces his footsteps exactly – the bridge (and in some cases, the stream) will simply disappear. This phenomenon has been reported most frequently in the area surrounding Berry Pond.” (Spend The Night At Massachusetts’ Most Haunted State Park For A Truly Terrifying Experience)

This is a very typical example: A path that suddenly isn’t any longer there or even the dimensions in the forest feel somehow “wrong”. Is it possible? It depends on our worldview: If it is true what philosophers say, that our visible, everyday world is only part of a larger invisible world any kind of transformation, distortion or shape-shifting isn’t so absurd.

Or as William P. Simmons said:

“By entering the Wildwood, we are inviting metamorphosis, a terrifying breakdown of how we attempt to define existence. A world that lives, breathes, and feels as dramatically as the humans who stumble along its paths.”

This is the common thread, a reoccurring motive: In movies from IN THE EARTH by Ben Wheatley to the classic “STALKER”, in great literature as in “THE WHITE PEOPLE” by Arthur Machen to Algernon Blackwood but also in countless witness accounts from the Bridgewater triangle, from haunted forests all over the world and even in smaller woods which hold secrets and are always trapdoors to a deeper, different reality.