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Jan. 1st, 2012 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
obscuritanHey, remember how I said I might shift my old Occult/Folklore/Anthropology blog over here so I could actually start posting on it again? Well, despite your cries of dismay I did it anyway :D I've backdated the old entries so that they don't clog up your Reading Pages / Friendslist, but here's a full list of those articlesendure look forward to? Here's an example:
The butcher of the town, quite old and very maladroit, began by opening the belly rather than the chest. He rummaged about for a long time in the entrails, without finding what he sought, and finally someone informed him that it was necessary to cut into the diaphragm. The heart was torn out to the admiration of all bystanders. But the body stank so terribly that incense had to be burned, but the smoke, mixed with exhalations of this carrion, did nothing but increase the stench, and it began to inflame the minds of these poor people. Their imagination, struck by the spectacle, filled with visions. They took it into their heads to say that a thick smoke was coming from the body, and we did not dare say that it was incense. People kept calling out nothing but “Vrykolakas!” in the chapel and in the square before it, this being the name they give to these supposed revenants. […] Several of the bystanders claimed that the blood of the of this unfortunate man was quite red, and the butcher swore that the body was still warm, from which they concluded that the deceased had the severe defect of not being quite dead, or, to state it better, to let himself be reanimated by the devil, for hat is exactly the idea they have of a vrykolakas.They caused this name to resound in an astonishing manner. And then there arrived a crowd of people who professed loudly that they had plainly seen that the corpse had not become stiff, when they carried it from the fields to the church to bury it, and that as a result it was a true vrykolakas. That was the refrain. (Barber, P. Vampires, Burial and Death, pp22-3).
- Yokai - Japanese goblins and ghouls
- Bakemono - Japanese monsters that used to be other things, including people, bloodstained trees, and sandals
- Henge - Japanese spirits that revolve around animals, including the Kitsune and the flying weasels that cut you. Yes, that's real.
- Yurei - AKA Japanese ghosts. And yes, Sadako gets a look-in
- Werewolves - Full of helpful how-to's, including serving your children's flesh to Zeus and drinking from particularly deep ponds
- Vampires - Actually covers all sorts of walking corpses from the Dark Ages as well, from the Norse draugr to the medieval Revanants
- Witches - Taking in Nordic rune magic and bloodsucking Serbian shtriga
- Angels - Going into the intricate rankings and sometimes bizarre descriptions of angels from the Persians, Jews, Christians and Muslims
The butcher of the town, quite old and very maladroit, began by opening the belly rather than the chest. He rummaged about for a long time in the entrails, without finding what he sought, and finally someone informed him that it was necessary to cut into the diaphragm. The heart was torn out to the admiration of all bystanders. But the body stank so terribly that incense had to be burned, but the smoke, mixed with exhalations of this carrion, did nothing but increase the stench, and it began to inflame the minds of these poor people. Their imagination, struck by the spectacle, filled with visions. They took it into their heads to say that a thick smoke was coming from the body, and we did not dare say that it was incense. People kept calling out nothing but “Vrykolakas!” in the chapel and in the square before it, this being the name they give to these supposed revenants. […] Several of the bystanders claimed that the blood of the of this unfortunate man was quite red, and the butcher swore that the body was still warm, from which they concluded that the deceased had the severe defect of not being quite dead, or, to state it better, to let himself be reanimated by the devil, for hat is exactly the idea they have of a vrykolakas.They caused this name to resound in an astonishing manner. And then there arrived a crowd of people who professed loudly that they had plainly seen that the corpse had not become stiff, when they carried it from the fields to the church to bury it, and that as a result it was a true vrykolakas. That was the refrain. (Barber, P. Vampires, Burial and Death, pp22-3).
