Imagine being chosen - not for glory, not for battle, but to be sealed alive inside the foundations of a castle, a bridge, or a dam, your body destined to become a permanent part of the structure above you. This was the grim reality of Hitobashira, an ancient Japanese practice of construction sacrifice in which a living person was entombed within or beneath a large building to invoke the protection of the Shinto gods. The belief was stark and unwavering: only the spirit of a sacrificed human could shield a structure from floods, earthquakes, and enemy attack.

As one instance, the central pillar of the Matsue Ohashi Bridge in Japan bore the name of the man buried beneath it for three centuries.

Far from being an isolated Japanese custom, the practice of burying people alive in the fabric of buildings has left its mark across the ancient world - from China’s da sheng zhuang, attributed to the legendary architect Lu Ban, to Myanmar’s myosade and Indonesia’s tumbal proyek.

These are stories of desperation, devotion, and a deeply human desire to impose permanence on the things we build, whatever the cost.

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Lots of people have heard of Roswell, America but what about Canada’s most famous UFO encounter? Known as the Falcon Lake Incident, it involves amateur prospector Stefan Michalak who claimed to have encountered an unidentified flying object, experiencing physical injuries and presenting compelling evidence to support his account.

Michalak’s story has proven more difficult than most to disprove, making his UFO encounter one of the most interesting on record. Decades after the event enthusiasts and skeptics alike have some important unanswered questions. What is it that makes the Falcon Lake Incident so fascinating and was Michalak telling the truth? Let’s find out.

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The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was, at her launch in 1958 the largest ship operating on the Great Lakes. An ore carrier, she was 729 feet (222 m) long, large and sturdy.

Then, one night in November 1975, she vanished during a storm. Her hull was found four days after her disappearance, at the bottom of Lake Superior in deep water and in two pieces. She had been torn in half.

For many people, that was enough. The Edmund Fitzgerald was famously long and with a narrow beam, to make passage along the canals that connected the lakes possible, and the storm that night had been high. The ship had been twisted beyond her tolerance limits, torn in two, and sank with the loss of 29 lives.

However, some believe that the storm itself was not enough to have sunk the mighty Edmund Fitzgerald. Some believe that a monster rumored to lurk in Lake Superior was the real culprit. This monster was known as the Three Sisters.

In total, around 350 ships have never returned once they sailed through this lake. More than 10,000 people lost their lives in these dangerous waters, called the graveyard of all the Great Lakes. The area between the Grand Marais, Whitefish Point and Michigan is the most dangerous area for the ships in Lake Superior.

And to be sure these lakes are dangerous. The weather and rapidly changing climatic conditions are very unpredictable around Lake Superior. The temperatures can turn freezing almost without warning, and storms can show up at any moment.

The most common reason for people remains around this lake is by drowning. People who show up in the middle of the lake with the idea of spending some relaxing hours amidst nature get hit by a big wave and lose their lives.

The Three Sisters

It is said that a repeating series of three rogue waves, the Three Sisters, attack the ships that sail to this particular area and are the major reason for most of the sinkings. Lake Superior tapers rapidly at this point and these waves, reflected off the shoreline, can speed across the surface of the lake and swamp even the largest vessel.

The danger of the Three Sisters is specifically the pattern of the attack. It is said that all three waves follow each other very closely. The ships don’t get time to fully recover from the first waves hit by shedding out the water, and by that time, the other two waves hit the ships hard. As a result, catastrophe happens, and it leads to sinkings.

The Captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald shared a report before the loss that his ship was hit by two big waves of around 30 to 35 feet (9-11 m). A third wave was said to follow the path of the other two, and it hit the Edmund Fitzgerald right at the time when it was sinking.

There have been several experiments done to examine the pattern of these waves. Some researchers even deployed some current-measuring and wave-measuring instruments all across the national lakeshore of the Apostle Islands.

Upon observing the results, there were three connected reasons for the emergence of Three Sisters. The possible causes are refraction on the shoals, reflection off the sandstone shorelines or diffraction around the islands.

The research results indicate that the waves are produced mostly near the reflecting walls. The instruments also observed that when one of the three sister waves emerges, the other two won’t be farther from it. Within a period of one hour, ships can expect around three or four of these big waves. After which, there won’t be a single wave throughout the day.

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The research wasn’t done much close to Lake Superior but in the Apostles, as no one wants to experience that dangerous water trail. The waves that appeared on the data were not that big of a size, which might have sunk the Fitzgerald, but were big enough to trouble yachts or kayakers.

Upon analyzing the wave or current patterns, the experts determined a computer model for calculating the climatic history of Lake Superior for the past three decades or more. The results specify that the wave climate of the region has been consistently increasing as it has less ice coverage and experiences strong winds during the winters.

As a result, it was concluded that under the right conditions, the waves could indeed be much larger.

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The Lake that Eats Men

In general, science states that warmer water allows dead bodies to float to the top. But, at Lake Superior, the bottom has a temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit, only just above freezing.

These conditions create a unique environment. Thus, human body remains that sink to the bottom will never resurface. There have been numerous sinkings, as per the reports released by the national and global media.

All ship sinkings reported here are true to the best of reports as per the investigations held back then. The Three Sisters are suspected of having been involved in other shipwrecks, but their rapid speed and unpredictable nature means such accusations are hard to prove.

The May Flower is one of the oldest shipwrecks ever recorded at Lake Superior. It was a wooden scow schooner that was built in 1887. The ship sailed for the last time on 2nd June 1891, transporting sandstone blocks from Portage, Michigan, and traveling to Duluth, Minnesota.

The wooden ship encountered bad weather conditions while crossing Lake Superior and was just a few miles away from entering the harbor. But she never made it, swamped by some unseen hand she vanished for a century. Her bones were only discovered in the year 1991.

And such phenomena are not unique to the Great Lakes. Sets of waves in Scotland’s exceptionally deep Loch Ness have been observed emitting from speedboats and then recrossing the water’s surface hours later, when nothing is nearby, giving rise to all sorts of local legends.

But were the Three Sisters responsible for the sinking of the largest ship on the Great Lakes? It certainly seems possible, and the hidden danger lurks in Lake Superior to this day.

Top Image: Some believe the Three sisters sank even yje largest ship operating on Lake Superior. Source: Sirius / Adobe Stock.

By Bipin Dimri

References

Wilderness North, 2015. The Three Sisters. Available at: https://wildernessnorth.com/the-three-sisters/

Great Lakes Museum, 2021. Know The Ropes: The Mysterious Tragedy. Available at: https://www.marmuseum.ca/news/187-know-the-ropes-mysterious-tragedy

Split Rock Lighthouse, 2023. Shipwrecks. Available at: https://www.mnhs.org/splitrock/learn/shipwrecks

Lake Superior Circle Tour, 2023. Famous Lake Superior Shipwrecks. Available at: https://lakesuperiorcircletour.info/famous-lake-superior-shipwrecks/

Coble, C, 2018. The Many Dangers Of Lake Superior. Available at: https://crimereads.com/the-many-dangers-of-lake-superior/

Walker, N, 2023. What Lives At The Bottom of Lake Superior? Available at: https://a-z-animals.com/blog/what-lives-at-the-bottom-of-lake-superior

When people think of MI6, they tend to think of suave spies gliding across the scene, armed with a range of gadgets to disarm the enemy. They tend not to think of any of those gadgets involving bodily fluids.

However, one of the earliest forms of secret messages was to use semen as invisible ink. But how did this come to be? Well, this article will give you some idea behind the thinking of the semen ink pen and why it was, worryingly, not as successful as its creator may have hoped.

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Holding onto the crown in 16th century England was no small task. When Elizabeth I came to throne in 1558 the Tudor dynasty was less than a century old, and had won their right to rule on the battlefield.

For a woman to rule, and to rule unmarried was almost unheard of, and Elizabeth I faced endless plots to depose her and replace her with someone more “suitable”. And yet she ruled in isolation for the next 40 years. She achieved this through choosing the right men for the job, and particularly, the right man.

Sir Francis Walsingham was an English statesman and diplomat who has become legendary for the creation of a highly effective intelligence network. He successfully stopped England’s enemies both domestically and foreign from fulfilling their missions.

Walsingham utilized some of the first double agents and covert propaganda to be recorded in history. He pioneered code breaking and used agents provocateurs to advance the English cause. He has been strongly linked with the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587.

But who was the spymaster and how did he become famous around the world?

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It was the Italian scholar Petrarch who first coined the term “Dark Age” in the way we understand it. The 14th century polymath, lamenting what he perceived as a lack of cultural progress and literary quality since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, compared these times to the glory days of the past and found them wanting.

The concept of the “Dark Age” as he saw it was one of a Europe shrouded in cultural and intellectual darkness following the fall of the Roman Empire. The Classical Age was one of progress, culture, and civilization. Petrarch’s view of later European history was one where things were forgotten, where much that was good was lost.

Almost any modern reader looking to apply this dichotomy to the 21st century would conclude we are in an age of enlightenment. Our sophistication, our mastery of science and the natural world, the sheer sum of human knowledge we have amassed, should permit no other conclusion.

Right?

The Evolution of Petrarch’s Thought

Francesco Petrarch, often dubbed the “Father of Humanism,” was an early and pivotal figure in the development of the Renaissance. This radical rethink of humanity in Europe revered the classical past and aimed to revive its values.

Petrarch’s own writings, filled with nostalgia for the glories of Rome and Greece, often contrasted the grandeur of antiquity with what he saw as the cultural decay of his own time. He coined the concept of the “Dark Ages” to describe the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and his own present day, which he saw as a period of darkness compared to the light of classical knowledge.

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But this is Petrarch looking at his world, and therefore considering what a “Dark Age” is cannot be limited solely to what Petrarch saw. For a start, modern historians generally agree that Petrarch was on to something with this idea, and there are definitely periods of cultural decline. And they also agree that we can apply his thinking to other periods of history: there has been more than one Dark Age.

The most famous of the others is the Greek Dark Age, which straddles the Mycenean kingdoms of the Bronze Age and the world of Homer to the later Hellenic Greece. For centuries after the Bronze Age Collapse from around 1200 BC Greece lost much of what it had been.

The great palaces, cities and kingdoms fell. Trade within Greece was reduced to a trickle of necessities. Trade between what remained of the Greek states and surrounding civilizations all but vanished. Their culture in ruins, the Greeks of the Dark Ages even forgot how to read, having to relearn the secret of writing far later from the Phoenicians.

And yet this new, agrarian subsistence reality was not without its glories. In a time without records many would look at the ruins that surround them and perceive a greater lost past, captured and preserved in their great stories and in the oral record. But they would not necessarily feel themselves impoverished.

The coastal town of Lefkandi, on the Greek island of Euboea, holds a settlement on a promontory known as Xeropolis, surrounded by Greek Dark Age cemeteries. Here the Greeks buried their dead with pomp and circumstance, and at the center of these remains lies something extraordinary: a hērōön, a hero’s grave.

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Inside are two people, a man and a woman. The man has been cremated, his ashes wrapped in a linen cloth and held in a Cypriot amphora.

The woman however has not been cremated, but lies in her finery, surrounded by glittering artifacts made from precious metals. She wears a gorget from Babylonia which was a thousand years old when she was buried, but she herself cannot come from that time: the iron bits in the mouths of the four horses buried with the couple leave no doubt.

These were powerful and wealthy people. These people did not see themselves as living in a Dark Age, as struggling to survive as the knowledge of humanity went to ruin around them. Those who live in a Dark Age rarely perceive it themselves.

A Time of Impermanence and a Time of Forgetting

So, what was it that Petrarch pointed to when he saw his Dark Age, what is it that the Greeks lacked? There are two key aspects which both agree defines an Dark Age, one from those who lived at the time, and one from those who look back.

The first is that a Dark Age is a time of fragmentation when much is forgotten. As the great, cohesive societies crumble an emphasis is placed on survival and practicalities, or more accurately what those who control the societies see as practicalities.

So it is that religion often takes hold in a Dark Age, attracting people with its reassuring allure that there is a bigger plan, that temporary suffering with lead to eventual reward. Illiterate societies also look to the clerics to keep their records, and such records can be doctored to the enrichment of those in charge.

This leads to a concentration of wealth as those who hold the knowledge seek to keep it to themselves. Those who control the flow of information can decide who gets to see what, and therefore what the “truth” of our society is. The less objectively accurate this is, the more actual knowledge is lost.

It should also be noted that the loss of knowledge is linked to the second aspect which defines a Dark Age: such ages are “dark” from the perspective of those looking back. It is not that there was nothing great in such times, as the burial at Lefkandi proves. It is that we simply do not know what happened in those times. Records, if they were kept at all, have been lost.

So how then does this apply to our current society? The concentration of wealth is easy to see, driven by capitalism and the intellectual property held by immortal, intangible corporations. This is not to say capitalism is “bad”, rather that it channels our widespread efforts into a ends which leave no permanent trace.

As for the loss of knowledge, our records are electronic, a state more ephemeral than at any point in history. Our understanding of the universe may be unrivalled but it could all be lost in a cataclysmic instant, taking both the structure and hierarchy of our world and much of our collective memory with it.

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We also find ourselves more and more dependent on the tools we have created, using machines to make ever more sophisticated machines. So much of our society is dependent on this structure and the more complex we become, the more will be lost when we cannot replicate such complexity any more. We will lack both the knowledge to build our machines, and the machines to build them too.

Nor does our society have anything tangible to leave behind. The Shard in London, its tallest building and most imposing landmark, is designed to last for just 75 years, a prefab shelter of glass and metal built to earn money and then be torn down.

The reason Petrarch remembered the Romans is heavily linked to the fact they built in stone. Much of the tangible fabric of Roman society, their roads and population centers, remained after they had gone. None of the so called “barbarians” were seen as the equal of Rome, perhaps unfairly. But then, they built in wood.

Our modern world seems extraordinary, and in many ways it is. But would some future historian, looking back at our age from theirs, agree?

The records of our time will be forgotten, our impermanent buildings gone to dust. Our cultural achievements, compromised in their artistic endeavor like everything else by the need to be “profitable”, will be dismissed.

This was not a Golden Age, they would conclude. It was a Dark Age.

Top Image: Our impermanent society and ephemeral record keeping suggests we are living in a Dark Age. Source: Dan Marsh / Adobe Stock.

By Joseph Green

References

Britannica.com, 2024. Petrarch, Italian Poet. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Petrarch

Hirst, KK. Lefkandi: A Hero’s Burial in Dark Age Greece. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/lefkandi-greece-village-cemeteries-171525

Mark, JJ. Greek Dark Age. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Dark_Age/

Much of the history of Judaism revolves around protocol and divine laws, provided by the Hebrew god for his chosen people. The Bible contains entire books which revolve around appropriate behaviors and manners in which to worship God, centered for much of the text around the great Temple in Jerusalem.

However, the passage of time has made much of what was then well-known obscure to the modern reader. While many of the ascribed behaviors are still clear, aspects at the ceremonial heart of Judaism are often unclear, and this is never more so than with the treasures of the “House of God”.

One of the most interesting of these mysterious items is what is known as the “Urim and Thummim” which has been tentatively translated to mean the “lights” and “perfections”. These two words refer to something at the heart of Hebrew ritual, something which apparently allowed for communication with God himself.

What, therefore, was the Urim and Thummim?

What Do We Know?

We can be certain that the Urim and Thummim were tangible objects. They were associated with the “hoshen”, the traditional vestment worn by the high priest of the Temple of Jerusalem, and here we are on firmer ground.

We have a detailed description of the hoshen, a breastplate consisting of precious gems in a grid which the priest wore on ceremonial occasions. It seems that the Urim and Thummim, whatever they were, were used to ask questions of God through interacting with this breastplate.

Most historic scripts and scholars suspect that the phrase refers to a set of two objects that are used by the high priest, who would place them into a pouch within the hoshen. Once placed within the pouch they would either answer a question set by the priest, or more obscurely reveal the will of God.

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In the quiet Bavarian town of Leiblfing, a vibrant and deeply religious young woman named Anneliese Michel began a tragic descent into a living nightmare that would eventually shock the world. What started as terrifying convulsive seizures in 1968 soon spiraled into disturbing demonic visions, guttural voices, and a violent aversion to sacred religious objects. Caught in a desperate clash between modern psychiatric medicine and ancient spiritual rites, her family ultimately abandoned medical treatment in favor of sixty-seven grueling, secret exorcisms. Decades after her tragic and highly controversial death, the haunting question remains: was Anneliese Michel the victim of a severe, untreated mental illness, or was her body truly a battleground for the forces of hell?

Who was Anneliese Michel?

Anneliese Michel was born in Germany on September 21, 1952. She grew up in a devoutly, somewhat extreme, Catholic family. Pictures of her taken in her childhood show a vibrant, pretty girl on her way to becoming a gorgeous woman. She had shining black hair, an open, honest face, and a stunning smile. By the time she turned 23-years-old, she became emaciated, heavily bruised, scarred, and deranged. Allegedly taken over by demons, she fought for nearly eight years before finally losing her battle with evil. Later, her death was ruled a negligent homicide. But was there anything anyone could have done for Anneliese Michel? Were those who were with Anneliese really fighting Satan?

Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother, Anna Michel gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. This was a source of shame for the Catholic family. After she married and gave birth to Anneliese, she apparently harbored feelings of guilt about her first daughter. Unfortunately, Anneliese’s older sister died at the age of eight, but Anneliese reportedly felt like she needed to repent for her mother’s sin. She supposedly spent much of her time doing penance for her mother, sinful youth, and bad priests.

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Early Symptoms That Something Was Wrong

Anneliese’s supposed symptoms of possession began in 1968. Anneliese was a 16-year-old high school student. She suffered convulsions that a neurologist diagnosed as epilepsy. Anneliese Michel took medicine for her condition and continued her life to the best of her ability. She finished high school and went on to college, where she studied to become a teacher. Apparently, the medicine was not helping her much. Her problems only got worse.

Over time, Anneliese Michel complained of seeing disturbing visions while saying her prayers. Later, evil voices giving her commands followed. Finally, Anneliese began showing an aversion to religious iconography. An older woman, a friend of the Michel family, noticed this while on a pilgrimage with Anneliese. She said that Anneliese smelled “hellishly bad” and took her to see some priests. Many of them said Anneliese needed a doctor. However, one eventually said Anneliese needed an exorcism, which eventually became granted.

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Faith in Exorcism

In 1975, Anneliese Michel and her parents stopped seeking medical advice and gave over Anneliese’s fate to the Roman exorcism ritual. Anneliese, the priests, and her parents truly believed she was possessed. Anneliese Michel herself said that Judas, Nero, Hitler, Cain, Lucifer, and others were inside of her. Over the next ten months, Father Arnold Renz and Pastor Ernst Alt performed 67 exorcisms for the tormented girl. It is important to note that Anneliese condoned every action taken during these rituals.

Sometimes, the seriously ill Anneliese would perform hundreds of genuflections during these rituals. It is rumored that her parents held her up for them when she became too weak to do it herself. It is not hard to imagine this being necessary, given that Anneliese stopped eating altogether for some time before she died. She believed it would lessen the evil’s control over her. There are claims that Anneliese spoke several different languages (or the demons and evil souls that possessed her did) during the exorcisms. The author of this article cannot verify such claims, as she does not speak the languages Anneliese supposedly spoke in the tapes.

Failing Health

It is certain that medicine did not help Anneliese Michel from whatever tormented her, but her health obviously worsened during the exorcism. She allegedly urinated and defecated on the floor frequently, also licking up her own urine. She ate insects, growled at religious icons and sat under her kitchen table barking for two days. Surely, her family was afraid of her. But a medical professional probably would not have left her under the table for two days or let her starve to death, which is eventually what she did.

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Anneliese Michel Death

Anneliese Michel died of dehydration and malnutrition on July 1, 1976. The 23-year-old woman weighed 68 pounds at the time of her death. Josef Michel (her father), Anna Michel and the two exorcists were eventually charged with negligent homicide. During the trial, evidence of the possession worked both for and against the defense. Forty-two of the exorcisms were audio-recorded including various pictures of a seriously ill-looking, bruised and sore-covered Anneliese. Anneliese sounds horrifying in these tapes. The defense claims it proves Anneliese was possessed but it is certainly not conclusive. If nothing else, the tapes made it clear that Anneliese was seriously ill and no one was making her eat. It is certain that possessed or not, Anneliese should have been cared for better.

The gravestone of Anneliese Michel. Image by Offenbacherjung (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0]

There is no way to prove or disprove supernatural occurrences, such as exorcisms. That makes it difficult to know what really happened to Ms. Michel. However, it is possible to prove that there is some evidence that epileptics are at an increased risk of displaying symptoms of schizophrenia and it is has been posited that Michel suffered from dissociative personality disorder and schizophrenia. That, combined with her religious background, could easily account for the events leading to her death, but one can never be certain, of course.

By Shelly Barclay

References

Questioning the Story, retrieved 4/8/11.
Slater, Eliot & Beard A.W., The Schizophrenia-like Psychology of Epilepsy, retrieved 4/8/11, journals.sagepub

After being arrested for the murder of his landlord, Alan Bono, in 1981 Johnson claimed, “the Devil made him do it”. Unsurprisingly, his trial became a media sensation at the time and Johnson became a household name.

Amazingly, two famous paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, came to his defense, arguing at trial that Johnson truly was possessed. For decades this has left some wondering if Johnson was guilty or if the devil really made him do it.

The Murder

To an outsider, it would seem everything was going okay for Arne Johnson in early 1981. He was happily engaged to Debbie Glatzel, had just moved into a new home, and was working as a tree surgeon at Wright Tree Service. That outsider would be dead wrong.

On February 16, 1981, Johnson called in sick to work. Apparently playing hooky, he joined his sister, Wanda, his fiancé Debbie, and her 9-year-old cousin, Mary, at Debbie’s place of work. At the time Debbie worked at a kennel owned by Alan Bono, who just so happened to be the couple’s landlord.

Bono and Johnson were on friendly terms and Johnson would often drop in to visit the kennels. On this fateful day, Bono took the group to a local bar for lunch where he reportedly had too much to drink. After lunch, Debbie took Wanda and Mary for pizza, wanting to get them away from the intoxicated Bono, leaving the two men alone.

According to reports, when the girls returned a fight broke out between Johnson and Bono. This led to an agitated Bono grabbing the young Mary and refusing to let her go. While Wanda and Debbie fought to de-escalate the situation, Johnson pulled out a five-inch knife and began growling like an animal.

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As Wanda tried to pull her brother away, Johnson stabbed Bono repeatedly and the man suffered four or five serious wounds to the chest, with one stretching from his stomach to his heart. Bono was rushed to hospital but died several hours later. Johnson was found 2 miles (3.2 km) from the site, arrested, and held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center.

Upon his arrest, he made the strange claim that the Devil had made him do it.

So, Did the Devil Make Him Do It?

Of course, Johnson wasn’t the first murderer to claim he wasn’t responsible for his actions, but he was the first (in America at least) to claim the Devil was. While it’s tempting to dismiss his claim as a desperate plea, as it turns out Johnson and those close to him had been plagued by strange goings on in the run-up to the murder.

According to Johnson and his lawyer, the events that led to the tragic murder had actually begun months before and were tied to Debbie’s 11-year-old brother, David. In the summer of 1980 David started acting strangely. In particular, he told Debbie and Johnson that a strange old man had been following him around and taunting him.

Since David was a pretty typical 11-year-old the couple thought he was playing tricks and was trying to get out of doing his chores, in other words, they didn’t believe him. But then things rapidly got worse and the two were forced to start taking him more seriously.

David claimed the encounters were becoming more frequent and more violent. The family had just moved into a new rental property and according to David, the old man wanted them to move out. If they didn’t, he’d start hurting the whole family, not just David.

The poor boy would wake up in tears, describing dreams of a “man with big black eyes, a thin face with animal features and jagged teeth, pointed ears, horns, and hoofs.” As David got worse and began showing signs of scratches and bruises the couple decided to turn to the church and called in a priest for help.

The priest’s blessing turned out to be ineffectual, so the couple turned to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. At the same time, the hauntings stepped up a notch.

The family could now hear sounds in the attic and David began having violent fits where he would bite and scratch those near him. During these seizures, he hissed, spat, and spoke in strange voices that quoted Paradise Lost and the Bible.

The Warrens visited the family repeatedly and oversaw three exorcisms during which they recorded that David levitated, cursed, and even stopped breathing. These exorcisms only made things worse, and the family even went as far as notifying the local police that things were getting dangerous.

According to the Warrens and Debbie, Arne Johnson became increasingly frustrated with what the demon was doing to the young boy. During one exorcism, against the Warrens’ advice, he taunted the entity, demanding it take him on instead and leave the boy alone.

The family, believing their new home was cursed, moved out and decided to rent one offered by Debbie’s boss, Bono. Johnson returned to the house one last time, determined to face the demon, which was said to live in a well at the back of the property.

According to Debbie, shortly afterward her brother recovered but Johnson began to exhibit his own strange behaviors, falling into strange trances where he would growl and hallucinate. A few short months later he stabbed Bono.

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The Trial

Unfortunately for Johnson, there was little legal precedent for his plea. His lawyer, Martin Minnella, attempted to enter a plea of “not guilty by reason of demonic possession” but it was an uphill battle from the beginning.

His plan was to bring in the Warrens alongside the priests who had been involved in the exorcisms to defend Johnson and verify his claims, but things didn’t go to plan. First, throughout the trial, the Warrens and Minnella were mocked by their peers and the media with both parties being described as profiteers of tragedy. The Warrens were simply dismissed as a kind of sideshow act.

Even worse, the church was less than helpful. It refused to confirm that four priests had been involved in any kind of exorcism at the house.

Instead, the Diocese of Bridgeport simply acknowledged that the priests had supported the young David through a challenging time. Clinical psychologists who had been brought in testified that David suffered from a learning disability, not demonic possession.

With no credible witnesses to vouch for Johnson, and even less evidence, the judge, Robert Callahan, decided to reject Johnson’s plea. He stated that the man’s defense was impossible to prove and that any testimony on the matter of possession was unscientific and therefore irrelevant.

Johnson was ultimately forced to change his plea to self-defense. On November 24, 1981, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison. He was out in five.

This wasn’t the end of the story, however. While Johnson was in jail a book about his case, The Devil in Connecticut was released, and a straight-to-TV film, The Demon Murder Case went into production. In more recent years, a big-budget adaptation, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has also been released, claiming to be based on the “true story.”

Johnson and Debbie married while he was in prison and to this day continue to argue his innocence. As Debbie puts it, the only thing he ever did wrong was to challenge the devil, a mistake that she believes led to his own possession and the murder of Bono.

Of course, others are less convinced and think a murderer got off lightly. Whether or not you believe him, one thing is true. The case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson makes for one heck of a creepy bedtime story.

Top Image: Arne Cheyenne Johnson claimed that possession by the Devil had led him to murder. Source: Fotokitas / Adobe Stock.

By Robbie Mitchell

References

Margaritoff. M. 2023. Arne Johnson Killed His Landlord — Then Said The Devil Made Him Do It. All That’s Interesting. Available here: https://allthatsinteresting.com/arne-cheyenne-johnson

Donovan. J. 2022. Did Arne Johnson’s ‘Devil Made Me Do It’ Defense Work? How Stuff Works. Available here: https://people.howstuffworks.com/arne-johnson.htm

Clendinen. D. 1981. Defendant In a Murder Puts the Devil On Trial. New York Times. Available here: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/23/nyregion/defendant-in-a-murder-puts-the-devil-on-trial.html

Menta. A. 2021. ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ True Story: The Real Case of Arne Johnson. Decider. Available here: https://decider.com/2021/06/04/conjuring-devil-made-me-do-it-true-story-arne-johnson/

The Greek myth of the Underworld and the afterlife is a familiar one to modern readers, with many of its tropes passing into common usage. To enter the Underworld one must pay the ferryman Charon to transport you across the river Styx, a perilous journey from which it is just possible to escape.

But how to get to the Styx? Surprisingly, as with many of the features in the landscape in Greek myths this can perhaps be mapped to a real-life location. Based on the ancient stories it is believed that we can find the entrance to the “Kingdom of the Dead” in the Mani region of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece.

We can even narrow it down to a single cave, known as the Alepotrypa cave. The curious explorer in you might be seeking some plausible explanation right now, or at least asking the obvious question. What is in the cave?

What is the Alepotrypa Cave?

The Alepotrypa cave is located in the heart of the ancient Greek world, among the caves of Diros in the far southern tip of the Greek mainland. The geology of the area includes large deposits of Mesozoic carbonate rocks.

The rocks erode gradually due to the impact of water, thereby forming especially deep and winding caves such as Alepotrypa. The cave extends for over 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) long and has massive chambers with flat surfaces to stand on, creating a succession of terraces which seem to wind into the bowels of the Earth.

Alepotrypa therefore is a unique combination: a cave which seems to offer a path downwards and where the lower levels can be glimpsed but which are hard to access and even harder to retreat from. It makes perfect sense for the Greeks, investigating this cave, to see a one-way route to the Underworld here.

The biggest chamber in the cave measures about 100 x 60 meters (328 by 197 feet), and at the bottom is a lake measuring 14 meters (46 feet) in depth. Could this dark, still and deep water be the river Styx? Certainly there is no ferryman, and any attempt to cross without one would be perilous in the extreme.

Archaeological finds from the site have revealed that it had been used since the beginning of the early Neolithic era, around 5300 BC, and was in use for almost 2,000 years. The findings also reveal that the local farmers which used the cave mouth for shelter and storage must have developed a large village just outside.

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Evidence from the site near Alepotrypa cave reveals that early residents of the area consumed barley and wheat, usually evidence of a permanent settlement. On the other hand, remnants of animal bones alongside charred fruit also indicated that animal husbandry, fishing and hunting served as primary sources of diet. Some accounts put down the possibilities of farming as the immediate natural environment must not have supported agriculture.

I bet you want to see this with your own eyes, and indeed the Alepotrypa cave has long been a tourist attraction. However, the Greek government stopped the tourists to prevent damage to the site: its deep interior is now as mysterious to the average visitor as it was to the Greeks. On top of it, the site had to brave the dangers of private construction work before the Ministry of Culture began careful archaeological excavations in 1970.

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Secrets of the Cave

But Alepotrypa will not give up her secrets easily. The efforts by the Greek government to unravel the mysteries of Alepotrypa cave came to a halt almost as soon as they started.

Political complications played foul for the excavation campaign by Giorgios Papathanassopoulos in 1970, which was delayed for almost a decade. The excavation finally started in 1978 and continued at a deliberately slow and careful pace until 2005 before being stopped due to a lack of funding.

Subsequently, the Diros Regional Project was created in 2010 to conduct a regional survey. At the same time, the Alepotrypa excavation team started preparing the relevant findings for publication.

Archaeologists have discovered the tools, pottery, silver and copper artifacts in the cave. The earliest have been dated to the Neolithic: there have been people in Alepotrypa for a very long time.

According to Michael Galaty, an arachaeologist working at the site, Alepotrypa cave was used as a burial site before the Bronze Age in Mycenaean Greece. The findings also suggested that cave dwellers had also used the cave as shelter. As Galaty paints it, the place must have been similar to a prehistoric cathedral or a pilgrimage site.

On top of it, the excavations also unraveled that the cave had been occupied and abandoned many times. The cave had the perfect strategic positioning at the southern tip of Greece for intercepting sea trade from Africa ranging to the eastern Mediterranean.

The settlements at the cave must have abruptly come to an end after an earthquake, which had buried the cave dwellers alive. Archaeologists had discovered bones of around 170 different persons alongside two adult human skeletons, traced back to the 4th millennium BC. In addition, the cave also had a Mycenaean ossuary, a container of bones dating back to around 2nd millennium BC.

Entrance to the Underworld

It is easy to see how the ancient Neolithic burial site morphed over time into the legend of the entrance to the Underworld. Evidence of burning animal dung at the site and occult practices also point out why it could have been associated with Hades.

The other things found in the cave include painted and incised pottery, stone axes, shell beads and blades of obsidian. All the items found in the cave indicate that it must have been the place where the supposed “Age of Heroes” in Greek mythology started from.

The presence of silver jewelry in the cave also indicates that the people living at the site must have been wealthy. Silver was rare in the Bronze Age and especially in Neolithic Europe. Greek Mythology suggests that people had to pay silver coins for passage through the River Styx to Charon, the ferryman who carried souls to the Underworld.

Anyone imagining the place lit with torches of fire and people gathered around for burials, or occult practices would develop a dark impression of the place. However, the comparisons to mythology depend on the individual perceptions of different experts. At the same time, collective cultural memory might have ensured that people believed it to be the gate to Hades.

The historical significance of Alepotrypa cave is evident in how it served as a site for early human civilizations. The myth behind the cave might connect it to Greek mythology, while the reality of the place connects back to the roots of mankind and European civilization.

Top Image: At the bottom of Alepotrypa cave the ferryman Charon awaits to take you to the Underworld. Source: Daniel Eskridge / Adobe Stock.

By Bipin Dimri

References

Papapostolou, A, 2012. Hades’ Mythical Cave Holds The Legend. Available at: https://greekreporter.com/2012/12/01/hades-mythical-cave-holds-the-legend/

Choi, C, 2012. Killer Cave May Have Inspired Myth of Hades. Available at: https://www.livescience.com/25091-greek-hades-cave-burial.html

On the evening of the 3rd of December, 1926, famous mystery novelist Agatha Christie disappeared. What happened in those 11 days of disappearance remains a mystery worthy enough to be the plot of one of Christie’s novels. Why did Christie suddenly disappear, and why did she never talk about those 11 days?

By June 1926, Agatha Christie had published six of her most famous works and was considered a promising author of mystery novels starring her Belgian detective Poirot. Her formula of a mystery, told by a bemused associate of a brilliant detective echoed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Doctor Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Mrs. Christie was therefore a well-known figure when she disappeared, and the mystery gripped the literary world and the public with intrigue. Media coverage and police attention revolved around the case for quite some time. As the author remained missing, the sensation around the case grew.

The police threw a huge amount of resources into the search for Agatha Christie, using 1,000 policemen, hounds, and even airplanes for aerial searches. Civilians also joined the elaborate manhunt for Mrs. Christie, only have the search end suddenly eleven days later with Agatha showing up at a hotel and spa in Harrogate, a town in northern England.

While Mrs. Christie seemed completely fine, initially, it was reported that she suffered from a complete loss of memory. However, later she claimed to have regained her memory, and to this day, people wonder whether it was amnesia, depression, or something else that made Agatha disappear the way she did at the end of 1926.

Agatha Christie never discussed the circumstance and happenings of her disappearance in detail, and the event remains mysterious to this day. The public is only left with the irony that one of the world’s best-known mystery authors would herself be subject to a mystery plot playing out in real life.

So, what are the facts in this case? What can be pieced together about the mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie?

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JRR Tolkien was a master storyteller, famous for creating his very own fantasy world with such depth that entire franchises are built from the smallest passing suggestions in the mountain of notes and records he left when he died. His world is populated by both wonderful and terrible creatures, cross-country wizards and brave rangers who luckily turn out to be long-lost kings.

Much of what Tolkien wrote drew on existing tradition, of which this professor of Anglo Saxon was perhaps as well versed as anybody in the world. But, in searching for his principle “evil” race, it seems that Tolkien unexpectedly drew on his own creative reserves.

Commonly attributed as having been invented by Tolkien, orcs now appear in a wide range of modern fantasy books, films, and popular games. But were these terrible creatures solely a creation of the storyteller’s imagination? Or was he inspired by earlier mythology?

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We have all been kept awake as children fearing a boogie man or a vampire sneaking into the house. These creatures have been a part of folklore in every country and have been turned into many movies and television shows, which seek to explore this fear.

Many cultures have such legends, but one of the most primeval and outright terrifying of them all comes out of Irish legend. The vampiric or zombie Abhartach (sometimes spelled Avartagh) is however a little different.

Abhartach is the Irish word for dwarf, a very different description of a zombie or a vampire. And the frightening Abhartach may have even been the origins of the character of Count Dracula.

The Legend of the Abhartach

Like many legends, there are two versions of the story of the Abhartach. The first was recorded in the 1870 book The Origins and History of Irish Names of Places by Patrick Weston Joyce.

The legend, as recorded by Joyce, states that The Abhartach was a chieftain in the town of Errigal who was known as a magician and a vicious tyrant. After many years of Abhartach inflicting cruelty on the people, he was killed by a neighborhood chieftain. The accounts vary, and the name of the chieftain is not mentioned or has been attributed to Fionn Mac Cumhail (Finn McCool).

The Abhartach was buried in a “standing position,” a traditional way of burial in Ireland based on Saint Patrick being buried standing in 432 AD. But something was amiss here, and the following day the Abhartach “appeared in his old haunts” and was crueler than ever.

The chieftain returned, killed the Abhartach, and the body was again buried in a standing position. The next day, the Abhartach was again seen walking around, which terrified the entire country.

This time, the chieftain spoke with a druid who advised how to keep the Abhartach underground. The chieftain killed the Abhartach for the third time and buried him upside down to “subdue his magical powers”, preventing his ability to come back from his grave again.

To ensure the Abhartach would not return, a large stone monument (known as a “laght”) was placed over his grave. This seemed to work, for the cruel Abhartach did not return, but remained trapped beneath the stone.

The second version of the Abhartach story is much more gory. According to this legend, the Abhartach was not trapped but would come back from the dead to drink blood. This version also replaces the character of the druid with “an early Christian saint” who describes the Abhartach as the undead or “neamh-mairbh”.

According to this version, the Abhartach can only be defeated if the chieftain kills him with a wooden sword, buries the Abhartach upside down, and places a large stone on the grave, which thorns must surround.

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The Origin of the Abhartach

The story of the Abhartach comes from deep Irish folklore, and while it was first recorded in Joyce’s book the story, like all legends, had been around for centuries. In the 12th century, Ireland belonged to England and the fear of creatures “of the walking dead” was common in England.

These zombies were known as revenants or animated corpses that have returned to life to haunt or harm the living. Along with revenants, the concept and legends about vampires too have been found in many different countries, going back to Biblical times.

Legends and folklores are typically told to children for entertainment but also to instill fear of something that could harm them. A typical example of a folktale like this would be Hansel and Grettle, which warns children when lost it is better to stay where you are than it is to enter the home of a stranger.

In any of these legends, the “monster” or “villain” is typically imaginary, but young children haven’t generally learned to read or have the ability to differentiate what is true and what is fiction. Such cautionary tales serve to keep the children safe until they are old enough to trust their own judgement.

Did the Abhartach Inspire Bram Stoker’s Dracula?

Without having read the novel Dracula, many people can tell you that it is about a vampire “inspired by Vlad the Impaler”. This could have given Stoker the idea of driving a wooden stake through the vampire would kill it.

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This assumption is not confirmed however, and the Dracula character appears to draw from several sources. Stoker had never been to Eastern Europe, to places like Wallachia where his novel takes place. Instead of sticking to the usual claim that Vlad the Impaler was Dracula’s inspiration there is another to consider. The claim that the Abhartach inspired Stoker.

Bram Stoker was born in 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. When he was younger he suffered from a medical condition that made him unable to walk, and left the boy bedbound where he read books constantly. Additionally, he worked as a theater critic for a Dublin newspaper that was co-owned by the Irish horror author Sheridan le Fanu.

Le Fanu was the author of the vampire story Carmilla, a novel that was published over twenty years before Stoker published Dracula. There were also books about Wallachia and Moldova as well as figures like Vlad the Impaler and the Blood Countess, Elizabeth Báthory. And could Stoker have had the old Irish legend of the Abhartach in mind, too?

There are certainly similarities between the Abhartach and the character Count Dracula. Both the Abhartach and Dracula are of high birth, and are dead but can re-animate and emerge from a grave or coffin. Both characters terrify the town/country they reside in.

Based on the alternative version of the Abhartach story, both characters can only finally be killed and remain dead after being impaled with a wooden stake or “killed with a sword of wood”. Both the Abhartach and Dracula were known to consume human blood as well.

There is a strong chance that the Abhartach and other fiction books young Stoker read could have had an influence on the development of the Count. Stoker’s vampire seems to come from several places, but the Abhartach is certainly the same species of villain as Dracula.

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The Vampire

So much for specific inspiration, but where does the concept of the “vampire” arise? It did not originate in Slavic countries but is found in many cultures’ legends and myths.

The ways one can become a vampire include more than being bitten by a vampire. In many countries, like Greece where the belief in vampires (vrykolakas – the Slavic word for “werewolf”) was so intense that in the 18th and 19th centuries, certain practices were done to prevent a vampire. It isn’t only Greece, many countries have traditional ways one becomes a vampire or how to kill/trap a vampire.

Based on vampire stories from across the globe, here are some ways someone becomes a vampire: being born with a caul (a membrane that can cover the head and face of a newborn), having a tail, more than two nipples, and not being baptized are grounds for vampirism. Violent deaths/suicide, being excommunicated, a woman remaining unwed, or animals bothering a grave are also signs.

The animal aspect stems from Slavic folklore and the practice of leaving a recently deceased in the home or on the floor for three days before burial. Many of these others are clearly due to a fear of the unknown.

Not all vampires are the regal Count Dracula or the handsome Lestat from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. In Southern Slavic folklore, a vampire can be described as a blob of jelly-like material that rolls through the countryside letting cows out of the pasture.

The Eastern Slavic (Russian) vampires do not consume blood, rather they cause trouble at night by letting cows out of the pasture, and jumping on the top of your house. Next time you hear a scratching or sounds outside, or anything else that goes bump in the night, you might wonder if there is a Slavic vampire on your roof.

Killing vampires also varies across folklore, and there are methods like burying a corpse upside down, as seen in the legend of the Abhartach. Pouring seeds (often mustard seeds) in front of a vampire’s grave causes them to stop and count every seed, preventing their predatory blood consumption.

Another method is exhuming a family member who is thought to be a vampire. Then, the remains are burned down to ash, which is put into a drink. All living family members must drink the vampire’s ashes to prevent any future vampires in the bloodline.

Many cultures place objects in the mouth of the recently deceased, ranging from coins, bricks, communion wafers, and lemons, to stop vampires. Burying or growing bulbs of garlic next to the vampire’s grave or burying communion wafers around the gravesite traps the creature.

Whatever the truth, there are clearly many stories about vampires. Elements like these are why scholars can not definitively say that the character of Count Dracula was based on Vlad the Impaler or the Abhartach. Perhaps it was both, after all.

Top Image: Did Bram Stoker find inspiration for Count Dracula in the Irish Abhartach? Source: Durriya / Adobe Stock.

By Lauren Dillon

References

Joyce, Patrick. 1870. The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places. Boston College Library. Dublin University Press. Available at: https://archive.org/details/originhistoryofi00joyc/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater

Bane, T. 2010. Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology. McFarland & Company, Inc.

McCully, M. 2015. Derry Folk Tales. The History Press.

Donnelly, D. 2020. Abhartach The Irish Vampire. Your Irish Culture. Available at: https://www.yourirish.com/folklore/abhartach-irish-vampire

Looney, S. 2017. The Evolution of Dracula. La Salle University, La Salle University Digital Commons. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/honors_projects/27/

The Masons are a secret society which still prefers to keep its secrets. Although much is now known about their practices, they have gone to extraordinary lengths over their long existence to remain hidden, lengths which even appear to extend to murder.

William Morgan’s death is still debated nearly two hundred years after the event. There is still no impartial and unbiased view of the story, and what survives is tinted with characterization and judgement.

There have been many articles and books written dating from the 19th century depicting Morgan as a degenerate in society. A man who was a drunk, of low moral character and often as a thief. Some claim that the freemasons killed him for being anti-freemason, whilst they claim that they had nothing to do with him. It is hard to know which is the truth.

Was this down-and-out just another nobody who lived and died in obscurity? Or was he something else, something so dangerous that the Masons would consider murder just to keep him quiet?

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The macabre slaying of mystical healer Benny Evangelista and his family sent shockwaves through the city of Detroit in 1929. The unsolved case of the Detroit Occult Murder has become the most mysterious and strangest murders in the history of American crime. Who killed Benny and the Evangelista family?

Who Was Benny Evangelista?

Benjamino Evangelista, and his older brother Antonio, immigrated to the United States. The brothers arrived in America from Naples, Italy, in 1904. Like many immigrants, Benjamino Americanized his name to Benny Evangelista. The two were ready for a better future.

Benny and his brother moved to Philadelphia and lived together for a time. While there, Benny became interested in the occult and claimed to receive visions from God. As a devout Catholic, Antonio was disturbed by his brother’s visions which were not very Catholic in nature, and the two had a falling out.

Benny was sent by his brother to work in York, Pennsylvania. While in York, Benny became very good friends with another man from Naples, named Aurelius Angelino. The men began exploring the occult as a pair, investigating the world of dark magic and mysticism. However, this was to prove deadly when Angelino attacked his family and murdered his twin sons with an axe.

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With a name like The Hill of the Goblins, one might expect something exciting to be hidden within Bryn yr Ellyllon, near Flintshire, Wales. They’d be right.

When workmen accidently broke into the ancient burial mound in 1833, they couldn’t believe what they’d found. It turned out the site was a literal treasure trove of ancient artifacts, the most impressive of which was a solid gold artifact known as the Mold Gold Cape.

Ever since this impressive Bronze Age burial mound, has captured the imagination of archaeologists and historians alike. And yet at its heart lies an enduring mystery, one which we may never solve.

The Golden Treasure of the Hill of the Goblins

The Hill of the Goblins, or Bryn yr Ellyllon as it’s known in Welsh, is a burial mound found near the town of Flintshire, Wales. This ancient site is believed to date back to around 1900-1600 BC, making it close to four thousand years old. Unsurprisingly, over the years it has become a focal point for archaeological exploration.

This exploration began with un unexpected discovery in 1833 when workmen accidentally broke into the mound. Stories vary as to what they were doing, although the most widely accepted have them either filling a gravel pit or quarrying for stone. Either way, the mound quickly gained international attention with the discovery of the Mold Gold Cape, a breathtaking artifact of unparalleled craftsmanship.

The Mold Gold Cape was crafted from intricately hammered gold sheets and adorned with intricate motifs and designs. It is widely considered to be one of the most impressive pieces of prehistoric sheet gold working ever discovered and nothing quite like it has been discovered elsewhere, both its form and design are completely unique.

The cape was found on the body of someone who had been buried in a stone-lined grave known as a rough cist. Sadly, during excavation, both the body and cape were severely damaged.

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The cape itself was broken up and dispersed among several people and it took years for the cape to be restored. To this day it still isn’t whole with most of it being split between the British Museum and a museum at the site itself.

It’s believed the cape was originally decorated with two to three hundred beads but only a single one survives today. However there have been other finds: along with the cape pieces coarse cloth and sixteen bronze sheet fragments have also been found. Archaeologists suspect that the cloth and bronze were attached to the Mold Gold Cape as a kind of backing.

When whole the cape would have measured 458 mm (18.0 in) wide and was most likely designed to be worn by someone rather skinny, either a teenager or a slender woman. The sex of the body found with the cape is still unknown but other finds at the site point to it being a woman when compared to other Bronze Age burial sites in Britain.

Alongside the Mold Gold Cape, excavations at Bryn yr Ellyllon have uncovered a wealth of other artifacts, including pottery fragments, stone tools, pots filled with human ashes, and other remains. The quality of the items found at the site, especially the cape, indicates that the cape was made by a wealthy culture.

Historians suspect that whoever was buried at Bryn yr Ellyllon was connected to the nearby Great Orme mine in North Wales.

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Secrets of the Cape

The various discoveries at Bryn yr Ellyllon offer invaluable insights into the cultural, artistic, and religious practices of Bronze Age Wales. Of particular interest is the Mold Gold Cape which was beaten out of a single ingot of high-quality gold, a time-consuming and laborious process that would have taken a lot of skill.

The cape was then decorated with repousse (an advanced metalworking technique) concentric rings of ribs and bosses. Decoration covers almost every inch of the cape with next to no “plain” gold remaining. While stunning, no one is sure what the cape’s design represents although it has been suggested it’s meant to mimic strings of beads or the folds of a cloth cape.

The design appears to have both local and continental influences. Similar designs can be found in the bronze age metalwork of eastern France and Central Europe as well as Scotland and Wessex gold pieces.

The cape’s intricate design also makes it the last major piece of second-millennium BC sheetwork discovered, a relic from a civilization which disappeared soon after. Later found goldwork is much less intricate and is mainly found in the form of chunky solid bracelets and rings.

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Moreover, the presence of other artifacts, such as pottery fragments and stone tools, provides clues about daily life and technological advancements during the Bronze Age. Pottery shards offer insights into cooking techniques, food storage, and social customs, while stone tools shed light on hunting, agriculture, and craftsmanship.

The burial of these artifacts alongside human remains underscores the significance of Bryn yr Ellyllon as a ceremonial site and burial ground. It suggests a belief in an afterlife or spiritual realm, where the deceased were accompanied by cherished possessions or symbols of status into the next world.

Why Were They There?

The presence of such remarkable artifacts at Bryn yr Ellyllon raises intriguing questions about the motivations behind their placement within the burial mound. While the exact reasons remain speculative, several theories offer insight into the possible significance of these offerings.

One hypothesis posits that the artifacts, including the Mold Gold Cape, were buried alongside individuals of high status as symbols of wealth, power, and prestige. This theory suggests that these items served to affirm the social standing of the deceased in the afterlife, ensuring their continued status and influence beyond the grave.

Another interpretation suggests that the artifacts held ritual or ceremonial significance, possibly used in religious practices or funerary rites. The intricate designs and motifs adorning the Mold Gold Cape hint at a connection to spiritual beliefs or cosmic symbolism, implying a role in rituals honoring the deceased or invoking divine favor.

Furthermore, the placement of pottery fragments and stone tools alongside human remains suggests a belief in the importance of the afterlife and the provision of necessities for the journey beyond. These offerings may have been intended to accompany the deceased on their passage to the next world, ensuring their comfort and well-being in the afterlife.

Whatever the interpretation, Bryn yr Ellyllon stands as a poignant reminder of Wales’s rich and enigmatic past. Through the discovery of artifacts like the Mold Gold Cape, we catch fleeting glimpses of the lives, beliefs, and rituals of our ancient ancestors.

As we continue to study and preserve these treasures, we honor the enduring legacy of Bronze Age Wales and the ingenuity of those who came before us. The Hill of the Goblins serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of preserving and understanding our archaeological heritage for future generations.

Top Image: The Mold Gold Cape on display at the British Museum. Source: David Monniaux / CC BY-SA 3.0.

By Robbie Mitchell

References

Editor. 2013. Mold gold cape: Bronze Age site’s ‘exciting’ new finds. BBC News. Available here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-24179680

Harris. E. 2023. Bring Mold gold cape back to Wales plea after 2,000 artifacts stolen from British Museum. Daily Post. Available here: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/bring-mold-gold-cape-back-27603919

Editor. 2019. Mold Gold Cape. Atlas Obscura. Available here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mold-gold-cape

The world we live in is changing. Rising sea temperatures are leading to the deaths of entire ecosystems. Enormous fires tear through ancient forests, vast and extreme weather causes havoc through entire countries, and according to some models we have less than 20 years before the pressures on our global economy cause widespread collapse.

So what will this new world look like? Well, we may learn something from a look into our past, and what has happened when the climate changed rapidly before. In wondering what will happen to our world, lessons may be learned from the Younger Dryas Period.

If the history of our planet was a book, the Younger Dryas Period would be one of its shortest but most climatic chapters (literally). After a period of global warming that saw life beginning to thrive once again the Younger Dryas Period was a time of sudden and rapid cooling.

While the period was relatively short lived, it reshaped landscapes and ecosystems, leaving a lasting imprint on our planet that can still be felt today. From its mysterious origins to its profound impacts, the Younger Dryas offers valuable insights into the dynamic nature of Earth’s climate system.

It may well be that the same thing does not happen to us this time: the circumstances and the causes are radically different. But as our climate goes through another period of dramatic change the lessons learned from the Younger Dryas are poignant than ever before.

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The Grand Grimoire, often known as the “Red Dragon” or the “Gospel of Satan”, is a medieval spellbook reputed to hold incredible power. It is said to be the work of a mysterious figure called Honorius of Thebes, who supposedly channeled the Devil to write it. It ranks as one of the most powerful occult books available and is said to include instructions on how to summon demons.

This spellbook is commonly considered to originate from the 16th century. However, during the 18th century’s French “grimoire craze”, a version of the Grand Grimoire was created and subsequently published in the next century. The original Grand Grimoire, or perhaps a duplicate, is reportedly stored in the Vatican Secret Archives, inaccessible to the public.

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Long before recorded history, in the caves of ancient Europe, our earliest ancestors may have bowed in reverence to a creature of terrifying power and majesty: the bear. While animal worship is a common thread woven through the tapestry of human cultures worldwide, the origins of the “Bear Cult” stretch back to the very dawn of humanity, and perhaps even further, to the enigmatic Neanderthals. Were these robust hunter-gatherers truly the first to elevate the bear from formidable prey to divine symbol, arranging their skulls in sacred circles? The mysterious relationship between ancient hominins and the mighty bear invites us to explore a lost world where survival and spirituality were inextricably linked.

Animal worship is nothing new. Cultures as geographically and structurally diverse as the Native Americans or the Pacific Northwest or the Japanese all revere animals in some form.

Similarly, the roots of such worship can be easily understood. Animals display traits in which they seem to have an advantage over humans, and those that worship that animal seek to be blessed with aspects of their physical form. The Chavin in Peru sculpted statues depicting themselves transforming into jaguars, gaining the strength, speed, agility and ferocity of the animal in the process.

But the worship of one particular animal in Europe seems to go back especially far. Bears, feared and respected for their strength and power, may have been worshipped in so-called “Bear Cults” far back into the dawn of human history, and even by human species other than our own.

Were there bear worshippers amongst the ancient Neanderthals? What can we know about their lost culture, and what did the bear mean to them?

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Bear Cults Around the World

Firstly, bears are an obvious choice for cult worship. For example, bears have always existed within the cultures of the Native Americans. Bears symbolized wisdom and great strength as the bears are known to continue fighting even when they are seriously injured.

Bears also used to play a significant role in various religious ceremonies. According to the Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States, the bears were believed to be one of the six “directional guardians”.

Indigenous groups like the Puebloan Zuni believed that bears were capable of healing people. So, bears were carved on the rocks in order to ensure the protection of the individuals. The warriors used to wear the claws of bears as necklaces with the belief that it would bring strength and power to the warrior.

Bears were similarly worshipped by the Ainu, a small group of people from several islands in the Japanese archipelago. For this group of people, the bears were very important, called “kamuy” in their language. The meaning of this term is God.

Ainu considered a number of animals as gods. However, among all the animals, bears were considered the most important. The people were of the belief that the gods disguised themselves with the fur and flesh of animals whenever they visited the face of the earth. So, the Ainu when they encountered a bear would kill and eat it, freeing the spirit of the god to return to its home in the process.

The Nivkh, a group of the indigenous ethnic group of Eastern Russia, also had a cult of bear worship, an offshoot and facet of their shamanism. According to the belief of the Nivkh, the bear is an earthly manifestation of the gods and ancestors. The local women used to capture the bears and raise them in a corral. The local women treated the bears in such a way as if they were their children.

The Nivkh bear festival, held in the deepest winter, was presided by a Nivkh shaman. In the festival, the bears were made to dress in a ceremonial costume that was specially created for them. A feast was then offered to the bear so that it would take it to the gods.

The tradition was meant to ensure that the gods showed kindness to the clans. After the banquet, the bear was killed and eaten by the people in the clan in an elaborate ceremony. It was believed that the spirit of the bear would return to the gods and bless the Nivkh people with bountiful forest. Such practices were suppressed by the USSR, and although it has been revived again in recent years the original shamanistic beliefs are long gone.

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Ancient Europeans: the Root of all Bear Cults?

So it is clear that bears were an important animal, associated with gods and worshipped across the globe. But in Europe the cults may go back much farther.

Among them was the worshipping of bears by the Finns. Before Christianization in Finland, polytheistic Finnish paganism was quite popular among the people. In addition to worshipping the God of sky and thunder, the people in Finland used to respect and worship bears.

During ancient and medieval times, the people relied a lot on hunting for their survival. Among all the animals, bears were considered to be sacred. According to the beliefs of the Finns, the bears had come from the sky, and they were capable of reincarnating. So, the bears were treated with high respect by the Finns.

Whenever they killed and ate a bear, this formed a celebration known as Karhunpeijaiset. The main rationale behind the celebration was to reincarnate the soul of the bear back to the forest.

Bear worship survived also in a reduced form for the famous Scandinavian berserker warriors. Here the crazed fighters would wear the skin of the animal, believing that they took on some of the strength and ferocity of the bear when attacking. The fact that they looked terrifying in doing so probably didn’t hurt.

The people of the Spanish and French Pyrenees also worship bears to this day. In the communes and towns of the mountainous region, a number of bear festivals are held. The Prats de Mollo, a commune in the Pyrenees region, holds the “festival of the bear” (“festa de I’os”) on February 2. It is a ritual that involved men dressing up as a bear, waving sticks, and terrorizing the people on the streets.

But, most anciently and most interestingly, bears may have been the particular animal worshipped by European Neanderthals. A number of bear bones have been found in caves which show signs of Neanderthal inhabitation, apparently arranged in specific patterns.

It seems that the Neanderthals, grateful for the meat provided by a bear and aware of the difficulty in hunting and killing one, built up a respect for the animal which manifested in cult offerings and quasi-funeral arrangements.

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For example, in one of the caves in France at Saone-et-Loire, the skulls of the bears appear to be arranged in the form of a perfect circle. Such locations were of obvious importance to the Neanderthals, but as to how they were used, we cannot say.

However, the whole truth of the matter remains obscure. Some people still argue that if the Neanderthals were worshipping bears, evidence could be found throughout the settlements and camps and not just in the caves. They are of the belief that the bears could have taken shelter in the caves to protect themselves against harsh weather conditions and died there, the arrangements of the bones and skulls being a simple coincidence misinterpreted by modern archaeologists.

Whatever the truth behind the origin of such worship, bears continue to be revered as a symbol of strength and a valuable source of meat worldwide. Did these cults originate separately, or did they draw from one another? The question remains unanswered.

Top Image: Bear Cults can be found across the world and throughout history, possibly even in Neanderthal cultures. Source: yanik88 / Adobe Stock.

By Bipin Dimri

References

Culture Trip, 2022. The fascinating story of bear worship. Available at: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/russia/articles/the-fascinating-story-of-bear-worship/

ADSactly , 2019. ADSactly History: The Bear Cult of the Primitive People. Available at: https://hackmd.io/@JusBEIkJRsm6V21DfQJbGQ/Hy10foofH

Edwards, E, 2014. Bear Worship and Bear Cults. Available at: https://ericwedwards.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/bear-cults-and-bear-worship/

In 1867 the world of European history was thrown into confusion by the mysterious appearance of a manuscript. Known as the “Oera Linda” Book, this document, written in an Old Frisian, a West Germanic language, claims to include historical, mythical, and religious topics from the distant past, stretching back from the 9th century AD as far as the third millennium BC.

The document was initially hailed as a new source for Europe during the dark ages and before, filled with secrets. Jan Gerhardus Ottema (1804–1879), an expert on ancient Frisian, published a Dutch translation in 1872 and proclaimed the text to be genuine. However, from the first, there were doubts.

By the time the translation was available, the book was already at the center of a fierce debate as to its authenticity, as it had been since the document first became known to the general public in the 1860s. By 1879, everyone agreed that it was a recent invention, and today the document is considered a fraud or forgery by experts in Germanic texts.

Nonetheless, the book continues to fascinate. It was a centerpiece of Nazi occultism in the 1930s, and it is occasionally mentioned in esoteric fringe literature, sometimes associated with the legend of Atlantis.

Yet, the question remains: who orchestrated this elaborate hoax, and why did it successfully captivate nationalists and fundamentalist Christians for decades?

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