CreatureFeature: (sand)Witches! (sand)Witches! They're not even human!

Okay, so witches are actually human, but you have to admit; the song is catchy!

Welcome my loverlies!!! Did you miss me? I missed you! This week things are going to take an interesting turn. Our lovely vixen Buffyrules01 will NOT be posting this Wednesday. Why you ask? Because I've sent her on an assignment with our other vixen, ScarC. The pair will be posting back to back posts on the same topic when they have finished, so you are all in for double the excitement! Until then, you are stuck with me, and today we are talking about witches.

Now, I believe that vampires, werewolves, and witches are probably the most popular supernatural beings. They are everywhere in literature and media, and Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer even have all three! Because of this, there are massive amounts of information and history involved with the trio and we cannot discuss everything in one simple post! We know this with Buffyrules' column. So, what do you do when you have all this information brimming before you? You right what you can!

So here we go!

In many myths and legends, witches are evil, dishonest, or dangerous. Some cultures do not consider them fully human. If not evil by nature, witches may be possessed by demons or wicked spirits determined to harm humans. Yet ordinary men and women may learn magic for the purpose of hurting others. Such people are sometimes called sorcerers and sorceresses rather than wizards and witches. African tradition distinguishes between good magicians, or medicine men, and bad magicians, or sorcerers. Both types are distinct from the nonhuman witch.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, the belief in witches was widespread. Witches were said to be worshipers of the Devil. Thousands of women and some men were tortured and executed after being accused of witchcraft. The English who settled in North America brought along a fear of witches. A witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 resulted in the execution of 19 people. Even today, accusations of witchcraft can lead to violence in some parts of the world.

Not all witches and wizards are evil. Some myths and folktales feature good spirits or magicians who help people. These are said to practice "white magic" rather than the "black magic" of the evil witches and wizards. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the modern Arthurian legends identify Morgan Le Fay as the enchantress known as Nimuë, or the Lady of the Lake. In this role, she tricks Arthur's magician Merlin into falling in love with her. After learning Merlin's secrets, she imprisons him behind invisible walls.

Witches take many forms. The traditional image in European and American folklore is that of a wrinkled old woman, perhaps wearing a black robe and a cone-shaped hat. These witches communicate with evil spirits called familiars, which often take the form of a black cat. According to legend, Japanese witches have owls as familiars, and African witches have monkeys.

Flight is often associated with witchcraft. In American folktales, witches usually travel through the night skies on enchanted broomsticks. In some parts of Africa, witches are said to fly on bats. African witches often take the form of animals and eat human flesh. In the mythology of some cultures, witches can change into animals to prey upon their victims.

Witches and wizards continue to fascinate the public and inspire people to use them in novel and media. The Harry Potter Series is probably the most well known when it comes to witchcraft and wizardry (ha! pun!). Buffy fans will always remember Willow and her witchiness, and now we have Bonnie on the Vampire Diaries.

It's interesting to see how so many mythical and supernatural beings can all come together. Whether they're fighting against each other, or they're best friends with each other.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this. If I did then I'd be even more fantastic than I already am.

Vampire Mythology: To Stake or Not to Stake?

That is the question.

Ever the preferred method of killing or immobilizing a vampire; stakes are possibly the most widely recognized way by which a vampire can be dealt with (unless you count sunlight-but you can't carry it around with you).

The stake driven through the heart is said to strike a killing blow to the undead; it is a technique by which a vampire may be put down while other, more permanent, means are used, such as: decapitation and burning. We recognize stakes today as the weapon of choice for any Vampire Slayer, and my personal favorite way to watch vampires meet their ends-in a pile of dust.

So, how did the method of staking come about? Like many other vampire myths, killing with a stake has its own historical significance.

Throughout central and eastern Europe, this method was taken very seriously. Not just any table leg or tree branch would do; the stake had to made of specific materials. In Russia, and through the Baltic, stakes had to be crafted from ash because of it's "magical qualities" (what's so magical about ash isn't said). In Silesia, the stakes were carved from oakwood, while Serbia had theirs crafted from hawthorn because of it's thorny shrub quality.

Vampirism was taken so seriously, in fact, that in Hungary and Romania bodies were staked after death to prevent the dead from coming back.

Most often vampires, or suspected vampires, were staked through the heart, though in Russia and northern Germany, the mouth was targeted for staking. In northeastern Serbia, the stomach was the appropriate place to stake a vampire. It was believed that staking a vampire was a way to relieve the bloated body of the devil spirit.

Staking is still, today, a widely used technique for doing away with vampires. Fictionalists utilize this technique over any and all others for the destruction of vampires. Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are just a few examples of that fact.

Forgive me for not posting last night. You may all stake me if you'd like.

Vampire Mythology: Bats baby!

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the vampire, but this was not always the case.

Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought them lucky-they wore charms made of bad bones. And in England, the Wakefield crest and those of some others have bats on them.

So how did bats end up becoming associated with vampires? There are only three species of vampire bats in the entire world, all of which occur in Central and South America. During the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. It wasn't long before they began to associate bats with their vampire legends. Over the following centuries the association became stronger and was used by various people, including James Malcom Rhymer who wrote "Varney the Vampyre" in the 1840's. Stoker cemented the linkage of the bats and vampires in the minds of the general public with what we now know as "Bram Stoker's: Dracula."

Now as we very well know, vampires in media over the past decade don't even turn into bats like the vampires of the olden days. In a ways, it's sort of become taboo. Why would any vampire want to turn into a bat and fly away when they can just run at incredible speeds? The last time I ever saw a vampire turn into a little bat in the media was the movie, "The Littlest Vampire," and that was a kids movie.

Bats and vampires have changed. In movies like Underworld; where Marcus was all bat and his brother was all wolf, and Van Helsing, where Dracula turned into a bat; these bats were ginormous. Not the little tiny bats we see flying around nowadays. These guys were huge and human sized. You would wet your pants if they flew at you.

So there you have it. Bat's influence in the vampire world, even though it's short and sweet-they are still important.

Buffy Moment and Nerdy Passion

For those of you that are unfortunate enough to not know what I mean by a 'Buffy Moment' let me explain... I had a brief moment where I was reminded of a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which should be discussed in this blog at some point). The moment you might ask was while I was with one of my brothers. He was telling me about how he didn't pass the written portion of a test and BANG! I had a Buffy Moment.

Master: You were destined to die! It was written!

Buffy: What can I say? I flunked the written.

(Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Season 1; Prophecy Girl)

*I told my brother this quote and we had a good laugh.

As for my other topic that is included in the title of this post... "Nerdy Passion"... it comes from hanging out with a couple of friends (a girl and her 15/16 yr. old brother) today in which we discussed our "Nerdy Passion". A nerdy passion, according to our definition, is something that you are completely obsessed with... to the degree that you'd be considered a "nerd" in that subject. My nerdy passion... if you must know... is volcanoes and fire. I probably have others, but that is my biggest one. My girl-friend's brother and I decided that her nerdy passion was benefiting from other people's nerdy passions while his nerdy passion was the fact that he is completely obsessed with Lord of the Rings and has read/watched all the extended versions/clips for it.

So, in an effort to gain a better understanding of the readers of this blog I ask... what is your nerdy passion?

- Scarc91989

Vampire Mythology: Vampire Controversy?!

Believe it or not, there was an actual controversy involving vampires during the 18th century. Shocking? I thought so too!

As we very well know today, everyone is familiar with vampires. How can you not? There's vampire media and merchandise everywhere! But in Britain very little was known about vampires prior to the 18th century.

What brought the attention of vampires to the general public?

During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires (seriously, people back then were nuts!).

This controversy was directly responsible for England's current vampire myths. In fact,the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 via an English translation of a German report of the much publicized Arnold Paole vampire staking in Serbia (who? I'll explain it later).

Western scholars seriously considered the existence of vampires for the first time rather than just brushing them off as superstition. It all started with an outbreak of vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1725-1734.

Two famous cases involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the other famous case Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had been
attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After death people began to die and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbors.

These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural people having an epidemic of vampire attacks and digging up bodies all over the place. Many scholars said vampires didn't exist - they attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst. However, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treaty in 1746 which said vampires did exist. This had considerable influence on other scholars at the time.

Eventually, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa sent her personal physician to investigate. He said vampires didn't exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. But by then everyone knew about vampires and it was only a matter of time before authors would preserve and mold the vampire into something new and much more accessible to the general public.

Can you believe they don't write this stuff in History books? Real people actually believed in vampires and had "vampire epidemics". I'm pretty sure all of us wish vampires could really exist, but these people seriously believed it! What a scary time period to live in!

CreatureFeature: Phoenix

I told you I would post Creature Feature at any random time, so how many of you guessed that I would do it mere hours after I announced it? Pretty random, eh?

Today we will be talking about the mythical creature known as the Phoenix. Now the Phoenix is probably my favorite creature and rightly so, it's just so dang cool! I wish real birds could burst into flame and come back from their own ashes. The Phoenix is a gorgeous bird of red and gold plummage (or purple and blue-either way it's pretty) and are about the size of an eagle according to some sources (I picture it being much larger). A Phoenix can live from 500 to around 1,000 years before it comes to the end of it's life; it'll then build itself a nest made out of twigs before igniting on fire and burning until nothing is left but ash. Then, of course, it comes out of the ashes and starts it's life all over again.

There is only one Phoenix that comes to my mind when I think of the bird and that is Fawkes, Dumbledore's Phoenix from Harry Potter. We see in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets that it burst into flames just like any other Phoenix, but we also know by the conclusion of the novel that Fawkes' tears can heal fatal wounds. This is also trait with any Phoenix. The birds really are immortal in every shape and form.

Another good example of a phoenix is not of a bird, but of a woman. Marvel Comic nerds will rejoice when I mention Jean Grey's Phoenix. I won't delve to deeply in the comics because there are so many and most of you who are reading this probably haven't read them. So I will discuss Jean Grey in the X-men Trilogies. As we know by the end of the series, Jean has had the Phoenix locked inside her mind by Professor Xavier and after her death at the end of the second movie (did anybody notice when the camera pans out across the lake you can see flames in the water in the shape of a bird?) the Phoenix is released and completely takes over Jean. The only way to stop her is to kill her and we get to see the amazingly buff Hugh Jackman get his shirt and skin ripped off several times before he finally gets to her and does it. Since she's a Phoenix though, does that mean she'll rise again? An intriguing thought.

The phoenix is a central figure in Lebanese ancient and modern cultures, as Lebanese are descendants of the Phoenicians and often claim themselves sons of the Phoenix. Lebanon, and Beirut particularly, is often depicted symbolically as a phoenix bird having been destroyed and rebuilt 7 times during its long history.

Don't you just love mythical creatures? There's so much to learn and to appreciate about them. I'm sure there's way more to Phoenixes than what I have found so far, so be watchful of updates to this column. You never know when I'll be adding new stuff!

Announcement: CreatureFeature

What's this? I'm posting on a Thursday and it isn't even sundown? Don't panic, I'm just doing this because I have an announcement to make; this will be the only time anything is ever posted when it is not dark out.

There will be a slight change to Creature Feature. It will no longer be posted every Saturday; instead, it will be posted at random and it will not be written by ScarC1989. I will be taking up the challenge while ScarC persues other parts of the Fangdom-so keep a weathered eye out for her! The Creature Feature on werewolves will be finished with ScarC and she will be joined by our very own Buffyrules01. No worries, folks, Buffyrules will still be doing her mythology every Wednesday until her research dries up; then it too will show up at random times.

Buffyrules would also like to inform all the vampire fans that she has not turned to the other side by writing about werewolves, she is still a vampire loyalist in her undead heart and as dark as ever.

Expect great things this month. New columns will be showing up to quench your eternal thirst.

Vampire Mythology: Gypsies-say what?

Yeah, I bet you didn't know gypsies had anything to do with vampires (unless you're a Buffy fan, then you know exactly what I'm talking about *coughSOULcough*). Gypsies have actually been in fiction and on screen for quite some time. In Bram Stoker's book Dracula the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth to guard him (talk about loyal).

In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romany language.
By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431.

Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back (this so reminds me of the ensouled vamp. most of us know and love). The Gypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands.

The ancient home of the Gypsies; India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found the brahmaparusha (say that five times fast), a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood (gross!).

The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses, and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.

Sara or the Black Goddess is the form in which Kali survived among Gypsies. Gypsies have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptised a Gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24th in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred.
One Gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire was believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)

Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry, but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had animal appendages, etc. was believed to be a vampire.

Even plants or dogs, cats, or farm animals could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons
kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises, or show blood.

To get rid of a vampire people would hire a dhampire (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it.

In spite of the disruption of Gypsy lives by the various eastern European communist regimes, they still retain much of their culture. In 1992 a new king of the Gypsies was chosen in Bistritz, Romania.

There ya go! Gypsies have a part of vampire mythology too, and in modern day fiction, we know that they would often punish vampires for feeding off of one of their kin. I won't go into further details though, those vampires will be discussed later.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my wit. If any of you are gypsies and find this inaccurate, by all means, contact me and let me know.