Folklore Friday | Vampire Legends & Dark Folklore for Halloween

Hello, my spookies.

It's your old buddy Enrique Couto here, and I have a special guest and I would say a brand new friend of the show. I think you guys are going to get a real kick out of all the insights she's bringing. We'll call this a Folklore Friday kind of deal because we're going to be talking about folklore and especially folklore that has kind of a deeper dive, something you might not find just by Googling or what have you.

So I'm joined by D.L. Wainwright.

She is the author of the Hollow Sun series with a very strong background in folklore and religions, having studied them.

What would you say it's safe to say most of your life? Oh, well, yes.

And my degree is in world religions and religious studies.

Yep.

Yes.

And it's fascinating because the religion versus folklore thing. I mean, it's kind of like religion versus cult. It's based on how widespread is it, how much real estate is involved, as to when something becomes a religion versus stays folklore, for instance.

That's an interesting way of putting it, how much real estate it has. I mean, because a lot of folklore is, yeah, very local. And a lot of folklore, things that we call folklore now, were part of a religion previously. And they might have been like, Kind of sort of suppressed or changed and stuff as like Christianity spread and stuff.

And so then these things that used to be the local deities and things now just become sort of lesser entities and just part of a local superstition.

Yeah. Cause I always like to, I like to think, I like to have fun, you know?

So I like to think as a treat to myself, like what if, what if like, let's use one that everybody knows to some extent, like what if Krampus, what if the people who first started believing in Krampus, like for fun or for, you know, celebration purposes, what if there was a famine and for some reason, the people who were really into celebrating Krampuschnacht ended up surviving the famine and And then it became like, no, we celebrate Krampusnacht like we do. And then you get like 500 years and now it's like a religion. Because, you know, it just happenstance pushed it to be like, no, no, this is why we all lived. We keep doing it.

We keep doing it. Like, that's kind of how a lot of faiths seem to happen.

But honestly, you actually got Krampus backwards because Krampus probably was a local nature deity.

Oh, yeah.

So it was probably celebrated as some type of actual god-like kind of figure, but not like the actual god. Yeah.

And stuff.

And then, you know, a lot of times people don't want to give up their cool traditions whenever the Christianity comes in and tries to erase everything. And so Christians have to make some Sort of trade-offs. Some would be like, okay, fine, you can keep your Krampus, but we've got to make it somehow Christian.

Well, and Krampus and a lot of those are really, it's extra fascinating because they're always from like, when they're from like the Alps and stuff, really hard places to live too. Where the stories are basically like, if you don't do your chores and you don't gather up the food, you die. He comes and kills you. Because it's like a child understands much better. A guy comes and kills you.

Then you will slowly starve. We will starve.

We will freeze. A kid's like, duh. But then you're like, monster, eat shit. They're like, ah. You know, it's a fascinating element.

That's actually touching on a very common thing in folklore. A lot of like the spooky things in the folklores are sort of cautionary tales and stuff like that's why. Pretty much every single culture around the world has some type of creepy water monster that will drown you and kill you if you go swimming in it as a child and stuff. Because it's to keep kids from going unsupervised around water.

Because it's like, no, don't go there.

Because there's going to be this, that, or the other that's going to just pull you down under and stuff. Or don't wander out in the woods because this or that and stuff will be there. So it's just things to scare kids into not doing things that will get them killed.

You're talking to a kid who grew up and his boogeyman was La Llorona. Like that was my boogeyman. So no, and that was, we lived in a, in a tenement building. Like we lived in a very unsafe area and I was, my, my stepdad told that story so well.

Oh.

With so many perfectly evil lies.

For a child, you know, to hear the version he told La Llorona had two boys. Cause I was a little boy. And I was the only boy, little boy in the house. You know, he kept telling me about the stream behind our apartment building. Years later, I found out there was not even a stream there. There was not even a stream.

He just made it up.

Yeah. Yeah. To scare me more, you know?

And, and, and then this whole element of like, you know, you'll, you'll, if you leave your bedroom and you walk around at night, you'll, you'll hear, you'll hear beautiful singing and you'll, you'll be so drawn to it.

You'll want to know. who's singing so beautifully? What is the tune? And then you'll leave and you'll go to the stream and that's when you'll see a lady there. And by the time you see her face, it's too late. You realize she's weeping. She's weeping, Ricky. And then she gets you too. And I'm just laying in bed like, oh my God. So I'm like five years old sitting in bed going, do I just pee in here? Do I just pee the bed? Because I don't want to die.

I don't want this monster to get me. I think you did it too well. Yeah, that's too well.

And I think you just kind of made me realize, I think my older siblings created a folklore monster for me. They said if I didn't brush my teeth, the cavity man would crawl in through my window in the middle of the night and drill holes in my teeth, and that haunted me. my entire childhood scary that yeah like you should picture of like this yeah.

You should write a creepy pasta like as soon as we're as soon as we're done you should write that creepy pasta before somebody else does it because that is a the cavity man well first of all that sounds extra scary when you're an adult too you're like what what what That has a lot of meanings. But the idea like he drills your teeth while you're asleep is frigging mortifying.

It was mostly like the crawling through my window part that I think always like creeped me out and stuff. Because we, yeah, even though we lived in Florida, we didn't have air conditioning.

So I always had my windows open.

Of course.

So that would make it even easier for him just to crawl in.

Of course, yeah.

He's able to drill holes in my teeth.

Drill those teeth.

Well and that's that's an interesting thing like as as somebody who's looked into folklore a lot like deeply do you find it wild how the internet is so into lore like it's their favorite thing even if it's you know all made.

Up yeah well no i actually i i do find that fascinating because it just shows that uh humans are always still coming up with their own folklore like I'm fascinated by things like Slender Man and stuff. We know we can trace back to where it was invented, like on that something awful thread and stuff. And you can see the inception of this, this creation of this concept, but it has just grown and evolved and become its own thing. And like, you know, back rooms and all those other things, like we just keep coming up with new folklore that becomes part of our culture and stuff.

And I just, I, I, Just think that's fascinating and a really cool glimpse into like human nature.

Yeah.

It's like we just we just crave that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I love that we're at a point where we don't even mind knowing it's fiction.

Yeah.

It's just that we love this idea because it was kind of missing. you know, this, this idea that, you know, here's this thing and here are the rules and here's why. And, and all these things, cause that was the kind of stuff you would, you know, whisper about. Like when I was a kid, I feel like our folklore were kind of the, the most urban legend, the.

Urban legends, you know, can thing on the door.

Yeah.

Or even, or even the more like devious ones, like, um, you know, like, uh, Was it the flashier high beams, you know, because there's a gang initiation?

Oh, gosh, yeah.

I remember that. There were so many. So many of them.

And some of them would kind of like the vanishing hitchhiker. That one, you could trace it back super far. There's so many interesting stories about it. As long as there has been a way to hitch a ride, there have been people who hitch a ride and vanish.

Yes.

But then you look at gang initiation, and that's a very clear fear of urban change and playing on those fears. Because it was always like your aunt or somebody would just share that because they thought they were protecting you. So you have all these elements of folklore kind of bleeding into modern life where we kind of feel, especially I feel like back then, we kind of felt like we were above it. But then all of a sudden, you know, the chain letters would circulate no problemo.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. And I had like, I had a coworker once who got like a chain letter email thing and was like, should I, should I send it? Because this says that the person who didn't before her like died.

And I'm like, that's fake. It's all me. But she was so.

Concerned and stuff because yeah, it gets, it taps into, I think our like, our brains and like that little imagination thing. But what if it's real? Like, I know it's probably not, but what if?

Yeah.

Like, and yeah.

And what if is, is everything, especially because what you're talking about at the end of the day, imagination and imagination is all what if all the time. This is why I've, you know, put myself through seven years of weekly spooky, uh, telling scary stories, but then sharing, you know, true crime, but like in folklore, because when I first launched the show, we had what I call the flagship, which was the Wednesday Weekly Spooky, which is a narrated short story. Oh, cool.

And that was the beginning. That was the impetus for the first hundred weeks. That was all we did.

And as the show started to expand, I started doing what I called Terrifying and True, which is Mondays, which it was true crime and folklore, things like that. Things that people have believed was true or still believe is true. You know, that was kind of the rule of it. And the reason I made it folklore and true crime is I am a sweet summer child, and I get really depressed if all I talk about is true crime.

I am not an adorable little white lady who can handle all that murder. I am a grown 40-year-old man with muscles, and it makes me sad, and I don't like only talking about that.

No, I'm with you. So my day job is in logistics, and I will sit there and I'll be listening to documentary things. And if I'm listening to too many of the true crime ones back to back, I'm just like, why are people so mean?

I need.

To listen to something happier now. And my other co-workers are like, why are you such a little kid about it?

I'm like, because it's.

Yeah yeah it's it but i but and i get the entertainment value obviously because i still do them and uh the impetus really is you know to to bring interesting things to light but the folklore part would always kind of like like i was mentioning like grab the imagination for me and make me excited to talk about you know um la mancha negra i don't know if you know about la mancha negra the the uh black goop that was coming out of the ground in South America and nobody could figure out what it was. It's, it's, it's, they're all kinds of like, it's kind of folklore, kind of more unsolved mysteries. Cause it is like only from like the fifties, sixties, but like stuff like that, where people are talking about like, what the hell was that?

I love those little bits. So that was what I started chasing, you know, as we expanded the show. And then when the show would expand a little bit more, with uh like one-offs or whatever I realized like most of what I wanted to do was either talk about you know scary movies because my my day job is in film yes so I want to talk about scary movies because I've always loved scary movies I wanted to talk about folklore and why things freak me out or what have you because one of my favorite things was like those long dark car rides.

When you were young oh yeah and and it would.

Be like dude did you hear about like There was a janitor at our school and he died. He died in the volleyball court, man. He died there. And they left him for like a week or something. My cousin told me all about it. His ex-girlfriend, she saw it. You know, like that guy, it's like.

Yeah, it's always a friend of a friend who like really there.

Yeah.

But like, I, I found those things even, even when I was young, I found them fun. Even if I didn't believe in them, I was like, I'm still like, oh man, but like that creeped me out.

That like made my hairs raise. And that's the vibe I chase my whole life. Yeah.

So, and, and my favorite thing about Halloween season, cause this is coming out during our busiest season, spooky season, of course, um, One of my favorite things about Halloween was it felt like everybody, I think this is what a lot of people feel like that love Halloween and love the scarier, spookier stuff.

It feels like everybody else got the memo.

To join you in like being a little bit more willing to be spooked out and have the macabre be around.

Yes, because I watch horror movies pretty much almost daily. And I grew up on reading horror books. I write spooky books. And I'm pretty gothy in my daily life. So I'm like, Halloween is with me all year round. I keep the Halloween spirit alive and stuff.

Oh, yeah.

That's why, yeah, October is my favorite month because it's like, hey, now everybody else gets to join me and we all get to be spooky.

When I was a kid, I was born in September.

And when I was a kid, I used to always feel like it was awesome because I had my birthday. And then it was but that was like the prelude to October. I always felt poetic to me.

I was like, oh, man.

So now I celebrate my birthday. And now next up is Halloween. Like, let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Yeah, same.

My birthday's in October, so I always had Halloween birthday parties and stuff.

Oh, that's so good. See, that would be too perfect. I can't have that. But I find solace in the idea that I was likely conceived at Christmastime because that just warms my heart. Because I'm a holiday guy in general, too. I think that any opportunity to celebrate, you should just grab it because you don't know.

You know, what tomorrow will bring.

You don't know when that'll be. I, you know, not even to be super cryptic, like not even your last, you know, Christmas or Halloween or whatever, but somebody else's that you always saw as being there, a friend, a family member, whatever you don't know. So, you know, never, never say, the two things I say is like celebrate every chance you get every opportunity, you know, even if you're, I mean, don't celebrate Christmas if you don't like it, but like, if you think the lights are cool and the tree is cool, but you're not religious, well, don't be religious. Nobody's going to make you just be like, I like the tree. I like the gifts. I like the candy. Like nobody's, you know, the, they're not going

to come in and start an inquisition in your house. You'll be all right. You know, make it yours. Cause you're allowed.

Right.

You know, same, same thing. Like, uh, I go, I go eight, a friend of mine, uh, you know, has a Passover dinner. I go ape over the Seder. I prep for it. I cook things. I perform one of the roles for them because everybody else, like when they pass the little readings around, they get nervous, but I read out loud for a living.

So I have no problem.

So I'll sit there and, you know, announce the story of Passover and, and all this stuff.

I love it.

And I'm, you know, as far as I know, not Jewish, but it's a great excuse to celebrate with great people and have a great time.

None of them care.

I'm not Jewish, but, I mean, about half the people aren't that are that are at the dinner. So it's but those those moments to celebrate are great. And the other one that I always like harp on is, you know, never look at a good thing happening and say, but is this really good enough to really celebrate? Because if you if you judge that way, you'll wake up one day and be like, did I? I never celebrated anything, did I?

Crap.

So I, you know, if I get good news and it hasn't even come to fruition yet, I'll celebrate at least a little.

Yeah.

You know, because that moment is great. Even if later on it's like, ah, it didn't work out. It is what it is, you know, because like you, life is full of that. Life is full of like almosts and near misses and some of them are good, some of them are bad. And that's why, but this actually does relate to what we're talking about because, you know, right?

I am the king of digressions, but that's why I love folklore because folklore kind of makes things special. It makes them important. It can make the mundane important. Last year at Christmastime, we went ape on Black Peter and Frau Perchta and all these things. Things that were less as known as Krampus, but just as, not even just as, infinitely worse than Krampus, honestly.

I mean, way worse than Krampus.

We would look at those and that was when it first really hit me.

I was like, oh, wow.

No, this is all about like, if you don't do your chores, you'll die, which was true. It's just that it wasn't a witch lady that would do it to you. It was, you know, it was starvation or the cold or, you know, because I mean, they were living lives where it was like, if we don't get all the knitting done today, there's no sweater and then somebody dies. And it's very easy. We live, even in the worst of it, we live really comfortably.

Yes.

We're very, very fortunate.

And so it's hard to imagine, like, no, no, this story helped keep people motivated. And in a weird way, kind of made survival fun. It made it kind of a game. It wasn't, you know, do this because look at my ribs. Like, this is because you didn't do your chores. No, it became, oh, but like. We'll have a little cake to celebrate that she didn't come and do anything because we all worked so hard together.

That's kind of beautiful.

And that's the human experience, you know, is finding this odd, beautiful motivation in very painful reality.

That's a very beautiful way to put it.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

We do have a topic beyond just general folklore, but I also, I also, you know, it's weird with folklore. You either find somebody who's like super duper into it and you can nerd out or you'll like find it the most, like at the grocery store, you'll realize somebody you're making friendly chit chat with, like, you know, knows a million stories because they grew up in like a town where they just did that.

And you're like, Oh my gosh, you're like just some random dude.

I would never guess is going to be able to tell me all about the butter street monster in Germantown.

Ohio, you know?

Butter street monster let.

Me tell you something okay i did i had never heard of the butter street monster but this is a real thing in my area so dayton ohio is very much a city of suburbs of big suburbs we have about we have about 12 really large suburbs all around us and toward the south you get like germantown and farmersville which are like a bit more rural but they're still like towns with thing you know places you can go and stuff like that my mother grew up in farmersville after her family left kentucky so she was always in germantown to like go to the movies or get your hair did you know because that was where they had a Germantown's adorable, by the way. Like, if you ever want to, like, see this area, Germantown, they have

an adorable theater owned by a family that shows, like, fun movies and stuff.

They have great restaurants. And there's an area where the streets are all named after baking ingredients.

What?

Oh, that's why it's a butter street. Exactly. Oh, okay.

So, in the 70s, I believe, apparently somebody thought they saw, like, a dog man near Butter Street. And it spread like wildfire. And the reason I found out about it is I started doing TikTok reels about folklore around the Dayton area. And I had no idea that TikTok was becoming localized at that time. So it's kind of taken off, which I wasn't really, I was just doing what I do.

I just, you know, I was like, Hey, I'd already do this. So let's do reels as well. Cause I own the cameras. I own the microphones. I already have all the research done. So yeah, I mentioned butter street monster once and it blew up. I mean, everybody was talking about it and everybody had different memories of how the butter street monster, what it was. Some people thought, remember it as a Bigfoot. Some remember it as a werewolf.

Some remembered it as a giant snake. Like a few different people said that they were told it was a giant snake growing up.

Yeah.

So that's, that is horrible.

Fascinating. And, and definitely like reminds me of like, like folklore studies and stuff like that and how even in a small region.

There can be so many.

Variations, um, uh, Like I told you earlier, we might talk about the Virkuluk. The Virkuluk is one of my favorite Romanian folklore creatures, but it has, depending on who you ask, it is either a dragon, a group of dogs, a wolf thing with multiple mouths. Like, it is different depending on who you ask. And it causes eclipses by eating the sun and moon. And why it does that also varies depending on who you ask. Whether it's, like, you know, because it wants to bring darkness to the world or because it wants to make mankind face the darkness and the sin in their own hearts. And again, all of this in, like, a relatively small region has all these variations and stuff. So that your Butter Street Monster is like a modern day version of that kind

of concept of just like how wildly different each person's concept of it is.

And how much it travels too. Yeah.

Because my mother, when I told her, I was like, do you ever hear about the Butter Street Monster? Because you grew up right by that area. And my mom was like, no. And she's like, but I did almost buy a house on Butter Street in 84, like right before I was born.

Yeah.

And I was like, mom, you really screwed up. I could have had a Bigfoot buddy. And you just selfishly decided. They're all wins. You know, they're all wins. But I was like, wow. So mom was right there and never heard that legend. And there's a newspaper clipping. Like I found a newspaper clipping about a couple who thought they saw like.

What looked like a werewolf off of the side of the road. Now, the clipping was a little tongue in cheek.

It was October. It was toward the end of October. I feel like that's why they went with it. And they had a little illustration that was really very Lon Chaney. Um, but that's just makes it even better. But then, then the other fascinating thing is then you have like the immense deluge of people who would say like, I've lived there my whole life, never heard anything about it. Like what bull crap or whatever. And it's like, and I always sound like, dude, it's folklore. Take your blood pressure medicine, like calm down. Like, like I literally never said a monster showed up. I said, people have been saying a monster showed up on the street for 40 years. I never said a monster showed up 40 years ago. you know,

there's a humongous difference. Um, and you'd think they'd be able to catch it. I mean, their, their, their attention spans are short, but there's captions, you know, they're reading it as I'm saying it, you know, you think they'd, they'd catch it where it's like, people are saying this and this, but like, I've had people give me leads on folklore around here that I don't find any record of, you know, from any other compilation of folklore or any, whatever.

I recently started, uh, I added newspapers.com to my like, um, you know, toolkit. And now I'm finding a lot of extra stuff, you know, like really interesting stuff that just never ended up on the internet, you know, other than through, you know, behind a paywall or whatever. And, uh, it's been, it's been really fascinating, but yeah, I love when people like take it personally.

I'm like, I grew up on that street. I never heard.

It's like, maybe you didn't have cool friends that scared each other on, you know, at sleepovers, dude, I'm sorry. Like, I think you could probably calculate by like, how many s'mores did you eat as a kid will equal to how often, how many good stories you heard, you know? Um, but it's, but that's the other thing that really has, has been fascinating is I feel like I'm getting kind of a front row seat to folklore. And now because it's kind of taken off, there's one other lady around here, uh, Sarah Koshal.

I think I'm saying her name, right?

I feel as Enrique Kuto, I should be able to say, I should try to say names, right. But, uh, she's super, a super cool lady. And she's been writing these like haunted Dayton and like Dayton crime and Dayton history books.

And they're really good. I bought all of them. I love them.

And a lot of times if I can't find any other reference, it'll be because she wrote about it. Like that's the only way I could, you know, find research on it. But other than her, I feel like I've become this odd keeper of the Dayton folklore because I just keep, you know, because people will comment and tell me their stories and then I'll try to compile it and then I'll do a video where I'm like, I've been told by some viewers that there's a story about this or that or this or that. And then it either gets corroborated or shot down. If it gets corroborated, you just gotta keep digging. You gotta find out like, well then what are the other versions? Like, and some of them have really great, like somebody will say like,

I remember like there was a swamp creature in this area, but I don't remember anything else, but it was like, it lived in the swamp and it was, it was like had tentacles or something like, you know, whatever. And I'll literally say like a viewer gave me a really bizarre one. You know, it's this creature from a swamp in this area. And I'm like, has anybody ever heard a story like that? And sometimes, you know, 50 people will comment and be like, Oh my God, that was like the scariest story ever growing up. And, And, but like, it literally didn't exist because I already cross-checked the internet first before I would ever crowdsource it. I'd be like, go swamp monster near Dayton, Ohio, tentacles, zero results.

Yeah.

So it's, it's been like this fascinating thing because the funniest part was this one lady got, really angry with me because she was like you're they get mad about geography they'll be like that's not union that's fairborn ohio that's not whatever i'm like i dude they the person who knows about it said union i they could be wrong or it could be that it's kind of murky and then people would come and be like that's literally union school township like why like you could call it fairborn but like the kids go to you know so everybody's fighting about like basic geography. But this one lady got super mad. She was like, you need to really do your research. And I'm like, I, but I search everything before I do it. And there's no real way

to say like, is this random road that might have a bridge that's haunted? in this township or that, like, what am I, what do you want me to get a surveyor and go out because of like a bridge that like, or a bridge that isn't even there anymore. Like we're talking about like bridges that got torn down.

Like, yeah.

So finally I told her like, dude, I use, you know, basic internet searches and I crowdsource. And she was like, you crowdsource that stuff. That's really reckless. And I was like, that's, that's what folklore is. It's crowdsourced.

Oh my God.

Like, you know, and I get I get being on your heckles a little bit because like people are lying on the Internet a lot to try and like do whatever. But I don't have a tip jar. I'm not trying to sell a tea, although I should make a I want I want to make an I believe in the Butter Street Monster T-shirt because like and I love German.

I like legitimately love Germantown. I do movie screenings there and stuff. I've always loved that little town. So I was like, I'm going to eventually lean in on the Butter Street Monster. But now I'm like at this point, I'm like, man, after a year of doing those reels, I think I'm going to I don't know if I'll compile a book or if I'll, you know, whatever. But I'm going to do something for all these Dayton area legends that some of them are like in Haunted Ohio, which I'm sure you've at least scoped those a little bit because they're fascinating companions.

I need to know because I'm not local to Ohio. So I'm still learning about the things here. Like, isn't there a there's an abandoned town that's like hell?

Helltown.

Yeah.

I want to like go there and stuff.

There's so much.

Oh, yeah.

Ohio is a very weird state. We are. Well, for lots of reasons. But there's something in the water here. But for me, at least. But Ohio is the most we have the most evenly distributed population of any state in America.

Oh, wow.

Well, that isn't, you know, extremely small.

Yeah.

We have the most evenly distributed population. So and every single population hub in Ohio was established for a totally different reason. So you have Cleveland because of the Great Lake. You have Columbus because of the railroad. You have Cincinnati Dayton area because of the rivers. So they're all entirely separate.

And then like Toledo was related to the railroad and the Great Lake. And then so you have these little enclaves as well. But it was all because of different reasons. So Ohio to this day is one of the only states in America where if somebody leaves, decides to move for different opportunities, they have a higher chance of staying in their state than.

Leaving it because.

they'll be like, I'm in Cincinnati and I like, I've got nothing.

They'll go to Columbus or I'm in Columbus. I got nothing. They'll go to Cleveland or even I'm in Cleveland. I got nothing.

I'll go to Akron, like, you know, to try and find opportunities as opposed to like in, you know, like Indiana, if you're in Indianapolis, you're like, I got to go to Chicago or Columbus or, you know, Or if you're in Pittsburgh, you're like, I'm going to try Philadelphia or maybe I'll try Cleveland. You know, like there's just we have like a lot more options and we're a lot more spread out. But we have, you know, city centers right next to planes, right next to like we've become huge.

I mean, you work in logistics. We've become huge on logistics in Ohio because of our placement. You know, because then the highways also, you know, cut right through Columbus.

So right through Columbus is a major distribution hub.

And it makes sense.

But I feel like that's why we distribute spooky, weird stuff on top of, you know, your toothpaste that you need next day. That's, you know, the Ohio way. Things move quickly and they bounce between cities. And the Haunted Ohio books are actually written by Chris Woodyard and very, very mysterious person. doesn't do interviews but the craziest part is I think there's like 11 or 12 of them and they're great you definitely and you can grab them secondhand they've been published for years you can get tons of them secondhand uh for cheap but the craziest part for me was I've been reading those books forever and I was like I should try and get a hold of of Chris Woodyard so I opened up one of my I have like a dozen of them I opened

one of them up and I look at for like info on the publishing self-published all of them or nearly all of them in the 90s when it was really hard Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

I find the address of the publisher, Beaver Creek, Ohio. It's like 15 minutes from me. So they were actually coming from this area too. Not even of all the places I would have guessed Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati would not have guessed, you know, suburban Dayton, Ohio. So it, uh, Yeah, it just always breaks my brain. Like all the folklore that gets out there and like the weird books are great.

You know, Weird New Jersey, Weird Pennsylvania. A buddy of mine actually wrote, I think he wrote Weird Pennsylvania or maybe it was Weird DC, but he wrote one of them. Like, you know, they're really fun compendiums of the strange, but then there's no shortage of it. Even like the show's name, Weekly Spooky. Spooky comes from Dutch settlers in America.

The word spooky?

Yeah.

What? Oh.

And the way you can really know that that's true is Spook's Hollow. There are Spook's Hollow in random places all over. When you go into places that were more Dutch, there are literally street signs that will say Spook's Hollow. It's not a nickname. There's actually a Spook's Hollow or Spook Hollow. And I never knew that there were roads actually called Spook Hollow. I thought that was just nickname until I was driving through upstate New York one time.

And my GPS, I just saw I was driving past Spook Hollow.

I was like, wait, wait, what? I'm literally driving past Spook Hollow.

So but even that, I mean, for whatever reason, that nomenclature went from a little thing that people in these very isolated communities said to each other to everything that has to do with Halloween, because spooky even connotates more of like a joyous, scary, a fun, scary, not, not a regular, cause we'd say scary if we're scared, but we say like, oh.

That's spooky.

That means like, oh, it's scary, but you want to go like, you want to go over there. You want to see that you want to buy that that's spooky. So it's, I love it. It's like my favorite part about being human is like the way stories. They, they transfer and the way, like what we're doing right now, the way we can sit down and with our words, um make make each other feel all these emotions about like i know about that too and yeah that and that and that i uh this is the last thing last part of the digression i was getting a loan for my car so i'm at the bank and i'm talking to my loan officer who i've known for forever uh like i've been at that bank for 20 some years and she has an apprentice in there like learning

you know how to do stuff so we're talking whatever she brings up my podcast and my tiktok she's And, you.

Know, she mentions that, oh, yeah, I heard you did a thing about the Butter Street Monster. That's so cool.

And he's like, oh, yeah, I've never heard of it. And I was like, oh, yeah, I did that one. And I just did one on Morningstar Road and Betty Lane.

And his eyebrows go. He's like, we talked about Betty Lane all the time when I was a kid. Oh, wow.

Like, it's just, and that's the thing, like, that's the thrill, too, is, like, when you click and all of a sudden you're talking the same primal language about, like, that was scary, that's scary, but need no more. Like, tell me more, you know, caveman kind of thing. And Betty Lane's really interesting because there was literally a secret rocket lab at Betty Lane and it caused a million... Oh, we had a bunch of Manhattan Project side elements in Dayton.

Oh, my God.

Like refining like super radioactive stuff and doing secret experiments.

Well, there you go. That's where the Butter Street Monster comes from.

It's some type of mutant.

Right?

It's got to be out there. People have got to... There's got to at least be fan fiction about that. So....

Um, but so you decided to bring us a particularly delicious piece of, uh, of Romanian folklore, hopefully as delicious as their food, um, which is excellent.

I am a, I'm a fan.

Um, but, uh, but I didn't, uh, when you mentioned, what was the, uh, the wolf thing that might not be a wolf, but then it would be a wolf with more fate with more mouths.

What was it called?

The Virkuluk. The Virkuluk.

I think I actually talked very briefly about the Virka Luke. Uh, we do it on Thursdays. We do a thing called Thursday thrills. And the rule of Thursday thrills is I always create it the day before Thursday. Like it's the only podcast I can't record ahead because it's always about what's going on right in that moment. Like I want to like know what, what people are talking about, whether it's a cryptid or a creepypasta or whatever. And it was the, it was when, uh, uh, Europe had its, uh, um, Eclipse.

Oh.

And the Virgalook came up as one of the things about eating the sun. Because there were a bunch of stories about eating the sun. And I'm almost certain one of them was a wolf. And I'm almost certain it was the Virgalook.

It might have been.

It might have been the Virgalook.

Yeah.

Because that is a popular one. That's in Europe.

But there are eclipse monsters in cultures all over. And there's actually a similar thing. So here's a fun, this is one of my, I'm going to go on a little tangent now.

Please.

One of my favorite little things to show kind of like the evolution of like folklore and concepts. So in China, there's a thing called a Cheng Gao, which is a black dog in the sky that eats the sun or the moon to cause eclipses. And it's a sort of an omen usually of bad things, especially war. Okay. Now, That term and the writing, the characters for it, are what traveled over into Japan. And you get tengu, which is not that thing at all, is it? Are you familiar with what a tengu is?

I might be.

All right. So for you and for anybody else listening who's not familiar, so a tengu in Japanese lore, there's like two forms of it. But essentially, it's kind of a bird person. And so typically you'll see it and they've got kind of like a crow-like or a hawk-like kind of like head, but sometimes it'll be like an old man with like a big bulbous nose, but it's a bird person. And so how do you get from the black dog that eats the sun and the moon to...

A bird person. Well, that's because of the introduction of Buddhism, which brought in the concept of the Garuda, which itself is an evolution of the Hindu Garuda, which the Garuda was initially a specific entity that was like the bird person-like thing that's a steed for Shiva, eventually becomes like a sort of species in Buddhism. There are Garuda. There are multiple things that are that and stuff. So the concept of that bird person, Garuda gets mixed up with the Chang'e and you get the Tengu.

I love the travel though. I love the travel.

I love the way, the way, you know, they, they take a piece and they keep a piece and they change a piece and it just kind of, uh, it all fits together.

History is great like that.

Yeah. And it's still weird because Tengu, again, it's a bird person, but the characters are still mean, basically like heavenly dog, like sky dog, um.

Yeah yeah.

They're like oh it's slang you know you know it's yeah it's one of those things sometimes i'll say english words and realize i've been saying them for so long i've never thought about like why why the pieces are there or like how like well that clearly doesn't sound like what i'm talking about though the poetic speaking in every language uh is it's one of the things that makes language so hard To learn is that especially English because we speak poetically constantly. I had a friend who was Romanian and I've had a lot of fun. I mean that legitimately. They were fun, but they were kind of like a little just a little crazy. But I've had a few Romanian friends who they would be like, that's the only thing they saw.

They're like, you guys speak in like in poem all day long. And I was like, we do. I guess we do. I guess we do.

Like, I just, you know, I guess we said, I was like, oh, no, no. You're just a rattlesnake chasing a jackrabbit through a mound of grass.

And he'd be like, ah. And I'd be like, I'm awful.

I'm just messing with you. That's not even his thing. But I love that they literally say Sky Dog, right?

Was it Sky Dog? Yeah, because John is like heaven. It's the character for like the heavens. And then the gu part is also inu in Japanese. It's dog.

So it's heaven dog.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But it's not.

But it's a bird person now.

Yeah.

So that's the kind of stuff I eat up. I love, I love that.

Cause that's the kind of stuff that you can't really find just by like surfing, you know, the web for folklore. That's why, that's why I think that like, you know, folklore books and folklore podcasts are so great is because you get like a, a curated experience because you know, it's, it's not like, like movies, you know, I mean, I, I prefer, I'd prefer to be curated from a person, but you know, the algorithm will start to figure out what I'm watching and, and kind of make, maybe make a good suggestion.

But with folklore, it's like, I didn't even know I wanted to know about the sky dog. That's actually a bird person.

How would I have ever known that? You know, I wouldn't even know where to look. I don't even know what I don't know. So no, that's, that's a, that's a great example. So with Romania, yes.

Yes.

Oh, and Romanian always confuses me too, because it's so similar to Spanish in reality.

Cause it's a, it's a, also one of the romance languages.

Yeah.

Which, uh, my, my girlfriend, uh, when I told her, uh, that Romania, Romanian is very similar to Spanish because it's a romance language. She was like, she was like, really in that part of Europe. And I was like, think about their name.

Roman.

Yeah.

Roman is the first part. Again, a word you say a million times and never think about like, what is it? And she was like, she just gave me the, like, when I, you know, when I pointed that out, but, uh, So I remember the first time I heard somebody speaking in Romania, I was like, what is, what?

I'm picking up some of it, but not much of it. Yeah.

Because it's like a fascinating, it feels like kind of like an interesting combination of, yeah, like Spanish or Italian mixed with like kind of like a Slavic Russian-y kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah.

But then listen to native Portuguese speakers from Portugal, and some people think they're speaking Russian because of the shh sounds and the hh sounds. And they couldn't be further away. They're literally, their neighbor is the Atlantic Ocean. They could not be further from the Balkans than they are. But yet here we are going, hh, shh, hh, shh. So what was the name of this? I'm never going to nail it.

Strugoi. Strigoi.

Strigoi. And if you want to talk a fun language thing about Strigoi. So the etymology of Strigoi, so we'll go back into sort of the Roman.

Roots of this.

It comes from Strix, which is a Greco-Roman sort of night monster that's like an owl thing.

And it basically means like to scream.

And so that's why a lot of owl species names have Strix in it as their scientific name. I think most, except for like barn owls, will have Strix somewhere in their thing, which is odd. I don't know why barn owls get the exception. And then interestingly enough, language-wise, they kind of.

So in Italy.

Strix kind of evolved into sort of strege, which becomes like a witch concept in Italy. And again, for a long time retained that owl and night monster sort of concept.

It was like a owl creature that would sort of.

Sneak in at night and sort of suck out all of the insides of a baby. and maybe stuff it with straw and then just a little straw stuff. Of course.

So you, so you knew, you know, I was like, why would I take the whole baby when I could leave you a horrifying reminder?

Well, so then you won't notice at first that the baby has been all like tribbled up into it. It's like, Oh no, I've got to just stuff that back and it's fine. It's just, you know, geez. Um, and then those also, then they evolved into other kinds of like witch concepts. Like a lot of times, uh, they would be like, um, like a wet nurse that also would feed upon the child or be poisoning the child instead of giving them actual milk. It's like poison from the, yeah.

And another thing, so that's a strega in Italy. So their concept of a witch is a lot different than what you'll like see up in like England and stuff. But then, uh, you go off into more of the Balkans and stuff. This Strix Streghe evolved into two concepts in the Balkans.

You have the Stregoi in the Strega.

And so the Strega is something more similar to the Italian one where it's like a witch thing. Um, and then the Stregoi is what we would now call a vampire. Um, so like they didn't use the term vampire and stuff like that back then, just like, um, there were vampires in America that we didn't call vampires. Um, but if you look at how they were treated and like how we dealt with them and stuff like that, that it was a vampire. Um, and so if we just term term wise, um, I think it's an important thing to note that, uh, historically, like people wouldn't have the term vampire, like what we have now, like that came about later and now we just use it as sort of a classification. Um, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, of course, that's how I use it.

Yeah.

No, well, yeah, well, it makes sense because vampire really, that term really grew from, you know, Bram Stoker's Dracula becoming, you know, the entire world that helped a lot with kind of the basic concept.

Well, I mean, it came before him.

But like the term vampire itself was more a Western European term, even though it supposedly came from Eastern European concepts. um, but it was more kind of like sort of, uh, and there's no like clear consensus on this, but there's like different arguments about like different potential words, either in Turkish or Serbian and stuff that got kind of, uh, sort of almost bastardized by, uh, Western European, uh, speakers. And, and you eventually get like this term vampire, which might've been something more like vampire or something like that. Um, but, uh, Still a very similar concept to what a stragoi is and stuff.

So this stragoi is a.

Romanian thing that Bram Stoker and others like him borrowed from, but is still going to be vastly different, which might be a fun thing to talk about.

Yeah, that's the most exciting part.

Yeah.

So let's play it as a game.

Yeah.

Okay?

I'm going to say a vampire, like a traditional vampire thing.

Yes.

And then you can tell me if it applies, doesn't apply or kind of applies. I think this will be fun because as a lifelong monster kid, I'm like, you know, I know vampires.

I know them. So we'll go with the most obvious first drinking blood.

So, yes, but also, they would feed off of not just blood, but they could feed off of the life force of people. So if you, like, people start feeling, like, sick and drained and stuff like that, they.

So quick caveat, there are live type and dead type strugoi. Oh, okay.

Yeah, so live type are people who are living, but whenever they die, they're going to rise again as the strugoi. You're basically kind of, for one reason or the other, either you're born in a cowl or something like that, that gets you cursed, so you're going to be a strugoi someday. And then dead type, of course, are the reanimated ones. But there was a lot of concepts of live type ones, especially lady live type ones, who could also sort of take out the power of things. And that could be like one instance, example was this one lady who's really good at baking. She was the best bread maker in her entire village. And that's because she was a who took all of the bread power from all of the other women.

So she was, better.

Yeah that sounds like that might have been a little a little mindset left over from feudalism you know because they lived in the zero-sum game for hundreds of years where it was like you don't own anything it's all belongs to this guy who you'll only see when he needs money.

Or food well no no no it was it was like the actual power like like like because they would also take the power from bees and it would make it so the bees can't produce honey anymore but they've got now power They've taken the energy from them. But with this particular lady, she just used that power to make the best bread.

I mean, why wouldn't you?

What I mean is more so the idea that if you have something, if you're good at something, it's taking from something else.

That's what I meant about relating to feudalism.

Because feudalism is where kind of a lot of zero-sum thinking in human history, I think, comes from, is the idea that like, oh, well, if he has something, it's only because it was taken from me because that's all they knew for the longest time was that, you know, if somebody was powerful, it was strictly from extraction.

There was no.

Yeah. Like we both can't be good at something. You, I, the only reason I suck is because, is because you took my, my ability from me.

Exactly.

Otherwise, you know, we're all on evil, even playing ground or playing field, but you, you just stole it from me.

So that's, but that's really interesting.

The idea that you would be taking, I mean, bread making in particular, I love, I mean, but again, we laugh, but like, uh, it was pretty important to make some good bread, you know, back in the day.

And it might be the only thing.

You're eating and uh if it tasted a little bit better maybe maybe you'd live a little longer uh so or or you know or maybe uh it was the other people's really crappy bread that made them hallucinate that this woman was stealing their bread um But, you know, that's a whole other concept. So, okay, so occasionally drinks blood, but also just takes energy, power, strength.

Strength and would eat people. They also like to dig up corpses and eat their hearts.

Oh, okay, just the heart? Yeah.

I like that.

Well, I like that because that also ties into, like, because there's heart stuff in later vampire folklore.

So, okay. So they kind of drink blood, but with, you know, bonuses.

Mm-hmm.

Any aversion to sunlight?

So they don't, nothing that I saw says that they die in sunlight. They just disappear or sink into the earth.

Okay.

I mean, it's kind of how I feel like doing sometimes, you know, when I'm not ready for summer. I'm like, I'm just going to sink into the dirt.

But no, okay. So I like that the aversion is there.

Yeah.

And I think that comes from more of like this concept of sort of the dark and the nighttime is for the bad things, the dark, creepy things. And then everything goes away. In the light of day kind of thing. All of the things that scared you at night are now gone once the sun has risen and stuff.

So that's, I think, what that ties into.

So again, I never encountered any stories where the Sturgoy is hurt by the sun or dies because of the sun.

It just disappears or just sinks.

It just kind of disappears. They just got to F off. You know, they got to get lost.

They just got to go away.

Yeah.

Which is perfect.

Yeah.

Unless, of course, they're a live type. If they're a live type, then they just walk around like everybody else.

They're just chilling.

Yeah.

Because they're still a human being.

Yeah.

They just walk around in the sun going, huh, you made some pretty good bread. And then they get the big Della Lugosi eyes, you know. My bread will be so much better now than in the original Romanian bread.

All right. So, okay. So, let's go religious iconography. Okay. So, no.

Well, yes and no.

Okay.

So, crosses, no, because a lot of times they hang out in church arts. But there is one particular story where a vampire was actually killed by a portrait of a saint falling on him.

So... Okay.

Which is rare because it's usually very difficult to dispatch a Sturgoy.

Like, there's specific things you have to do.

But this was just, he chased his ex-girlfriend into the church and she hid behind, like, a portrait of a saint and it fell down onto the Sturgoy and he died.

See, it's funny because, you.

Know, when you think of vampires, you think of a Bela Gosi movie, but this was more like a Buster Keaton movie. He just stumbles in and then the thing falls right on him and that's it.

But that's also very cinematic, poetic.

Because I'm sure at that time period, most of the murals and big art pieces you would see were church stuff and related to saints and stuff. So you'd be like, well, yeah, that's the kind of thing that would fall on them. The only thing that would work like that otherwise would be a statue of a saint falling on them would be a very similar kind of concept. So, okay, so since we started on that, we'll dive right into, so how do you kill, for all of our listeners in Romania who are currently hiding under their blankets with a loaf of very poorly made bread, try and figure out what they could possibly do.

So how to kill a strogoi.

So there is some variations, but almost all of them, you have to cut out the heart, at least the heart. Sometimes it's the heart and the liver. And cut it up and burn it. And you can either scatter the ashes in like a river or more likely you would mix the ashes with some water and give it to people who have been affected by the vampire recently.

And it would cure them of it.

But then in some of the other versions, you have to then chop up and burn every piece of the body afterwards. Because if even a sliver of bone is left, that vampire will grow back.

Oh.

So, yeah. Yeah.

Not ideal.

No. So, yeah.

So that's the only way really to completely dispatch Sturgoy.

That's fascinating because everything you said I've heard like kind of in a vampire legend from somewhere. From like a book or a movie or something.

Except.

The consuming the ashes of the heart. I've never heard that.

I've heard of versions where it's like you have to take the vampire's heart and burn it or cut it up or whatever. And of course, staking them and blah, blah, blah. But I've never heard of consuming a vampire to cure before.

I haven't.

I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but that's really fascinating.

Oh, so no, it is.

It is incredibly common. Like I said, it was the most common way to do it. And like I have, I brought it. I mean, you're not showing video, but I have with me here Food for the Dead by Michael E. Bell. If you ever want to learn about the New England vampires that we had here in America, which again, we didn't call vampires, but it's the same way.

The same way they were dispatched would be digging them up, cutting out the heart, burning it, mixing that ash with water and giving it to like family members who are affected and stuff. And because it was, So one of the things about Strigoi and about these New England vampires and other vampires pretty much everywhere is they're actually to explain plagues and stuff. So digging up a corpse and playing with it isn't honestly the best way to prevent more plague, but they didn't know that.

No, I mean, the germ theory was they were way before germ theory. They were probably a century before germ theory.

Right.

But so consuming part of that corpse was thought in some way to be able to cure the curse and stuff that had fallen upon you because.

Kind of like a vaccine.

Yeah, kind of like a vaccine, but not because they're not doing it quite right.

Yeah, because it's not before either.

Yeah. You already have the plague or tuberculosis. It's not really going to help you.

It's like Oregon Trail, but with a Romanian vampire creature. Yep.

So.

wow, that's, that's why we're actually, we're working on a show for terrifying and true in November about the new England vampire thing, because I felt like it was kind of festive because it's up by where, you know, up by where the pilgrims landed.

So why not?

Uh, Because last year we did a special that was like the real hardships of Thanksgiving, like the true fear of death and murder and all these things. And then the next one was the believed threats. So it was like spiritual things like ghost stories, monsters, cryptids, whether it was the pilgrims or the natives. We tried to like kind of do one and then the other. So it was like the real hardships. and the spiritual or, or, uh, folkloric hardships. It was really fun, but, uh, it kind of tapped me out on a lot of the stuff we can do about Thanksgiving time. So I was like, all right, well, we'll go, we'll go by Plymouth and see what the vampires were doing at some point. Yeah.

Well, but I've heard it's a fascinating thing.

Oh yeah.

And Rhode Island is where there's like the most famous. Right.

Yeah.

Um, but New England is homogenized.

Um, But I was going to say, because you did mention staking. So staking through the harder navel was usually just a way to prevent the corpse from rising.

It wasn't a way to kill the vampire after it's already been doing that.

I haven't heard that.

Yeah, it was more of a preventative measure. There were various different kinds, things like that, or sticking a nail in the back of the neck or in the eyes and other places, putting a nail under the tongue, etc. um yeah it's uh so there's lots of different there's like one it was one region like i think wrapped uh was it like rose vines or some type of vines around like the casket there's all sorts of just ways to prevent the corpse.

From rising yeah they were you know it seemed like they were always bouncing between either uh worrying about the corpse rising or worrying about uh nobody knowing that the person was not actually a corpse they kind of you know, it kind of juggled between those two things. But also I think that that might be one of the reasons that they got scared is that they may have exhumed at one and saw evidence that they weren't dead yet.

Well, that was, well, yeah, because it was actually very common to, uh, exhume the corpses after a certain amount of time, just in general, just to check, to see if anybody was, uh, instead of going of some kind and stuff. And so there's different things to look for, um, in that corpse and things would be like, uh, coloration, which, uh, uh, So I guess I'm skipping ahead in the game. Vampires aren't pale. They were usually red, very ruddy skinned. And that's probably because whenever blood settles in a corpse, there's discoloration.

But people back then wouldn't really... know what that meant. They just think, oh, look, it's flush with blood. It must be because it's consuming a lot of blood and feeding off of its family. Things like if its legs have been moved, so it shows signs that it had been turning around and stuff. And then other things like a little hole next to where the grave is, about a size for a snake to go.

Through because that was.

That's what it would believe that the the vampire would travel up through that hole to get in and out of its casket um and but yeah and also if it hadn't decomposed too too much and like let's say it's been like three years and you dig it up and really the only thing that's rotted has like been the nose and everything else looks pretty okay then that's probably a vampire. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if it's just bones, then you put holy water and wine on it and you do a little ritual over and bury it back.

And it's all fine.

Like making a good pot roast, you know?

Yeah, but if it's still fleshy, then that's probably Strogoy. You got to cut out his heart and do that whole process.

Got to do it. That's wild.

We've got the pale skin is a no. They got how you kill them. They drink blood. What about, I mean, this one, I feel like we got to wonder, what about fangs? Did they have any kind of protrusion of teeth or what was their method for extracting when they were consuming blood?

So nothing is really talked about with that. And from any of the stuff that I've read, that might be more of an invention later with like the Victorian romantic fangs. like writings because that also became they started to get obsessed with like the whole neck biting thing which it wasn't really that wasn't really necessarily where they were feeding off of you as Turgoy and stuff like that but it's more sexy Oh, yeah.

Well, in the Victorian era, you know, I mean, that was the era of VD.

So, I mean, no, I mean, you know.

And I... But, I mean, because, like, Dracula and other, like, stories that came out at the time, they are, like, gothic romanticism kind of things and stuff. So they are supposed to be a little sexy. And so that's why the whole little biting on the neck thing. But before then, it wasn't really, like, the only... Physical characteristics besides the red skin would be guy, a storgoy would usually be bald and they would grow a tail and cloven hooves.

That would be noticeable.

Yes, it would be noticeable.

A lot more so than fangs.

Yes.

Oh, can I tell a quick little story?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay. Absolutely. All right. So there's different variations of this story. But basically the gist is that there was like a party going on with a bunch of young people from a village. And these, sometimes it's one, sometimes it's more than one, but so we'll go with one. One young, handsome gentleman showed up and all of the girls like just loved talking with him. He was fun and witty and just everyone was laughing, except for this one girl who just wanted to like knit or whatever, do her little cross stitch over and not pay attention to him because she thinks he's kind of douchey. And he keeps trying to get her attention. She's like, no, no, no.

And she drops what she's like working on, bends down to get it. And that's when she sees he's got hooves. So then she knows this is a stragoi.

This is not a normal guy.

And so then she tells like her friends, I'm sorry, I'm just going to go to the bathroom for like a minute.

I'm just going to duck out and stuff. And so she slips away. And the stragoi guy is like, what happened?

Where is she?

And stuff. Because he notices she's not there anymore. And they're like, I don't know.

She'll be back.

But she never shows back up.

So he kills everybody in the party. streams their guts up like streamers and stuff like that and positions their heads in the windows with the lips cut off to look like they're laughing. So anyone walking by just thinks it's a fun party and then he chases after her.

That is the sickest thing i've ever heard.

That's wild and so he chases after her and like she does things like like uh because vampires are ocd she she throws crumpled linen in his way and he has to stop and he has to straighten out and fold the linen and things like that and um So she does all these things to try to, like, keep him away. And, like, one variation gets even wilder in that she, like, finds this little house. And there's, like, this guy that's, like, sleeping on the hearth. And she, like, goes in there to, like, try to, like, just keep away from the strogoy. But then it turns out the guy on the hearth is also a strogoy. And then when the first strogoy comes, they both, like, fight each other.

And she's just like, oh, no. And she just, like, leaves.

And then the sun shows up and they disappear.

Yeah.

That's like the earliest precursor to Twilight I've ever heard.

And then the other Storgoi, and then they fight. But then the sun comes up.

But yeah, there's lots of variations of that party story. But inevitably, everyone in the party ends up dying and, of course, getting just decorated. Yeah, useless decorations.

That one's epic for so many reasons.

Well, first of all, it also gives you a better concept of kind of like what the fear of the Storgoi was because... I mean, you're talking vicious, but also morbid. Like, there's a lot there.

Well, so one of the fun history things about that is, so the whole cutting the lips away to look like they're laughing is actually something that came out of, because, you know, there's a lot of conflict between, like, Turkey and that region and Romania and stuff.

And that was one of the things that was done.

I genuinely forget which side did it, but one side did it to demoralize the other, where they would take the the heads of the troops and they would cut away the lips to look like they're just like this vicious grin and stuff um and so i think that just kind of got into like the psyche into the cultural mindset of like oh that's messed up and so that worked its way into their folklore and this is something that the struggle i would do.

No that makes that makes a ton of sense and you know regardless of which side it is i'm sure both sides were really lovely to each other you know just just i mean war is bad enough but let's do war like you know a thousand years yeah i'm sure they were it was fine they were all super duper nice.

And friendly and it was really they were just playing chess and they were just having a good.

Time yeah it's different but it's nice.

Yeah it's fine they were just yeah and then they're like well it's nighttime we're just all gonna go back and go sleep now okay we'll see you.

Tomorrow I also love that she sees the hooves, which immediately made me think of the Deer Woman legends. How, you know, the times where the Deer Woman wouldn't get to trample a guy to death for being a jerk were because he would spot the hooves and remember the stories from when he was a kid.

And then he would be like, I have to. Run this way really fast, you know, like I gotta go.

So, but I love that because I love when like there's intersection that literally can't really, they can't really inform each other, but we have those moments of spontaneous creation throughout all of human history where people completely unrelated who maybe could never communicate at all in any way, let alone directly, would just have almost the same concept come about.

I love that stuff too.

I just think that's so so interesting it says something about you know us at a species level that like we find similar things scary or similar things threatening without any relation beyond being the same species so man uh all right so we we did the drinking blood they're not a vd parable like the other vampires i strongly believe that that you know dracula was like a vd parable i really really.

Do I mean, they were, besides being plague explanations, they also were stranger danger ones. Like that story with the party.

So even though it's not about, you know, VG, it's still.

About, hey, young ladies, don't go off with random guys because they might be a sort of guy kind of thing.

And they might be, I mean.

Yeah, they might be an actual monster, you know.

Anything with garlic?

Garlic?

Yes.

So that's one of the few things. So garlic does repel strigoi. It also repels the strega. So both of the strixy thingies. In fact, there's evidently a little song. So the strega like to project themselves as like little dancing lights and they like all like hang out with each other and stuff. And one of the songs they sing is about how they'll never, never go in a house that has garlic.

Yeah.

That's just, that's just a great, that's just great in every way.

I'd like to think even though, you know, back then there weren't like major corporations, I like to think that it was, it was just all a scheme from big garlic. There was just like one garlic company that sold to all of Eastern Europe. That was like, we got to write a jingle. This is the Sturgoy, hate garlic.

But then they would. And so like there's certain times of the year where Sturgoy are more active and stuff. And you were supposed to basically just like kind of rub, uh, every entranceway and stuff and like your cows and everything with garlic. So rub garlic all over your windows and, um, your, your key holes and around your chimney. Cause that's where they like to come in is through the key holes, through the chimneys and stuff and put it on your livestock and things so that they won't bite your cows and eat your cows.

And yeah. Yeah. Don't bite my cows guy.

No. Well, that was one of the signs that there was a stragoi in the areas that your livestock.

Was dying off.

Yeah.

Which makes so much sense, too, because that just happens.

Yeah.

I mean, that just happens when you have a farm, a big farm, especially and especially, you know, in the days when, you know.

And the disease.

Yeah.

And again, spreading diseases.

And you don't know why all your animals are starting to die because you don't know how diseases work back then and stuff.

Yeah.

So it must be because one of the recent people who died must be a suragoi and they're coming and eating your cattle, the jerk.

Yeah.

Yeah, really.

First thing I would do if I had like five cows dead is I'd be like, I'm baking a loaf of bread right now. And then if it tastes like shit, I'm going to the cemetery right now. And I got some lighter fluid. I got my ginsu knives. I'm taking care of this today. i don't care that it's saturday i'm.

Doing it oh no that's actually the best day oh really yes can't rise on a saturday that's the one day they can't ride so that is the best day to go dig up and dispatch a.

That makes me a little nervous though Because that sounds like a little shade of anti-Semitism in there.

Well, there's lots of seven-day advent and stuff.

Yeah, that's true.

And I think in Europe, they had kind of a different concept of the week and stuff than we do.

So I think it's more of lingering of that. It's the final day of the week. It's the day of rest.

Yeah, that's fair, too. There are every now and then you'll read something and be like, it sounds a little bit like... Because it's also, it's not about what Jewish people actually did. It's about what people who didn't understand them thought.

Yeah.

Yeah, and to be fair, a lot of the Victorian era stuff, the changes that they made did have elements of the anti-Semitism and stuff on it because there was a lot of xenophobic fear and stuff that was happening at that time. And that bled over, of course, into its thing because, as you know, with a horror person, cultural fears and stuff... work their way in to the modern horror and stuff. Yeah.

It's like, we don't even realize that we're trying to understand, like when we're writing the stories that we're actually trying to understand what we're afraid of to some extent, um, or, or at least, you know, a burden, a burden shared is, you know, I'll share what I'm afraid of with everybody. Then now it's all everyone's problem. My, my fear of the, the, the dog with the three mouths, that's everybody's problem. Now I just shared it. Like I told you all about it.

That's everybody's now. But that's really fascinating, though. So Saturday is a good day to do it, which is good because most people are off work, too. So, you know, go take care of that. So I'd heard a story about I don't know if it was specifically Romania. It might have been it was in that area that there were that there were eras where they would, you know, put a bulletin saying, like, we're pretty certain there's some kind of vampire there. Like we found evidence or whatever, you know, so, you know, prepare and do this and that and this and that. And then I guess later on, some researchers found that there actually may have been a difference in context that later in history, it may have not actually been that that village believed straight up in

like some kind of vampire. it may have become a reason to throw parties and spend time together and cook food. And that it was actually more tongue in cheek, like not always, but like, but they, cause they would find this, this evidence of like, you know, Oh, this had been published all over this village, like the vampires loose.

And they'd be like, Oh, it's kind of late in the era. Like, I guess they were cavemen.

And then years later, somebody was like, What we're finding is suggesting that when they thought there was a vampire, they would all cook garlicky food and throw a dance. And it was a really good time to meet a future husband or wife. And I just love that, too, because, again, humans are just humans. So as time went on and there was no vampire ripping everybody apart, they'd be like, hey, this is kind of fun.

And, I mean, it might have evolved out of.

So, again, they are more active during certain parts of the year, and I forgot which holiday it is. But there is a particular holiday that they're usually very active on. And what villagers would do is they would stay up all night telling each other stories. Because as long as you're telling a story, then the strogoy can't get to you. Oh, okay.

And so I could see it being something like that where there's this particular holiday where everybody would get together and like, you know, swap stories or have a dance or do some other kind of thing where it's people gathered together. And strength in numbers, therefore, you know, the bad thing can't get you. And that evolving into, like, a fun local festival that would happen every year. Like, that would make sense.

That would, yeah.

And knowing the Eastern European friends that I've had, I wouldn't be surprised if as, like, the actual fear of the Strigoi or things like that diminished, it started to become, you know. Like the grandmothers of the village or whatever, noticing like, it's been a while since we had some marriages.

Maybe we should have a, an event.

Maybe we should have one of those events, a mixer, basically, you know, just get everybody together, tell some fun stories, eat some food, have a big fire, play music.

And, uh, we got it.

Cause we got to get these kids. We got to get kids. We got to get kids in this village. Like it's, you know, like we got it.

Now I will say, I don't think like, so it has diminished some, but it's not fully, uh, uh, exterminated this concept of the strugoi and stuff over there. So I have a friend who is a forensic pathologist. And back when she was in school, her professor got got a request from somewhere over in Romania that was like, hey, we have this corpse we think is a vampire.

Can you come and verify? And he's like, no, I don't need to. It's not a vampire.

Wow.

Which is exactly what somebody who's in the pocket of vampires would say, by the way.

You work for big vampires. Yeah, you work for big vampires. Which I guess is just Dracula, but you know.

No that's that no i mean i i believe that i mean like superstitions are a weird thing um because some people can fully believe them some people can believe them um half-heartedly or ironically or for the amusement and or the joy of their culture which is kind of what i was thinking like um it's kind of like halloween became um in some ways because i've thought about this a lot um how Halloween is, because it's really a relatively new, the literal Halloween is a relatively new thing, but all the stuff it kind of conglomerated is, you know, very old.

Similar to Christmas.

The kind of Christmas we know is relatively new, but like, you know, a lot of those celebrations were being done in different ways. You know, whether they were originally Christian or they were elsewhere, there were a lot of things that people were doing around those times of year or when they thought was the time of year, you know, then stuff like that, which I always found fascinating. But then with Halloween, especially, I had a weird realization because when I was growing up, At Halloween, like the coolest places to go, the most awesome places to be were all church things. They had all of the best haunted houses.

They would do the thing, you know, where you put your hand through the curtain and you touch spaghetti and it would be worms and, you know, and peeled grapes were eyeballs. That was the era I grew up in was that you would go to these churches and they'd have like in the rec center, they'd have like something scary and people would dress up and it was really goofy.

And then a few years later, I noticed like I had friends who would say like, oh, the religious people hated Halloween around here.

And I'd be like, really? Yeah.

Where I was, it was like the Methodist church was like the first place you went if you wanted to have some fun on Halloween.

So I started thinking about it more and looking into it more.

And then as I'm doing Weekly Spooky, I, of course, the number one folklore I want to learn about is Halloween because Halloween is a state of mind. It's who you are in your heart. And then you get to let it blow out of you and make everybody happy. at least in October without scaring anybody. So I was, I was looking into it some more and I found some like booklets of how to celebrate Halloween from like 1920, 1930.

We actually read one on a, on an app on a show. And it was hilarious because we started to notice it kept mentioning crepe paper and And then all of a sudden I realized it was literally distributed by a crepe paper company. And it was, it was leaned heavily on crepe paper, but it wasn't everything was crepe paper.

I mean, it had just, you know, party games and stuff like that. And occasionally you'd like make a decoration. It would recommend you use crepe paper for it. So it was like, it was a little, yeah, a little guide for celebrating Halloween. Cause it was relatively new, but the funniest thing though, cause I've, I've known people who, you know, don't love Halloween, you know, for religious reasons or whatever. And I'm always like, that's so weird because it's like silly. When you look at how they celebrated Halloween in like the 20s and 30s, it was super occult-y.

It was everything was seances. Everything was like communing. Everything was like you look in the dark in the mirror and you summon a spirit and then they'll show you like the face of your future husband. Everything, everything was actually pretty like weirdly occult-y you know I grew up it was like yeah please.

Well there was like the spiritualism thing and stuff like that that was like.

Yeah yeah yeah so that was at its height then.

Yeah it was so that was that makes sense that they would have like.

Seances and things like that.

And then it started to make me realize like now I get why if you grew up like then you might be like all they do is worship dark stuff when they when they do Halloween because it's like I never went to a Halloween party where we like did weird seances and stuff.

Like we didn't do that.

I think it also is like a regional thing too, because where I lived in central Florida, I never encountered anyone with an issue with Halloween. But when I moved to the mountains of North Carolina, there were friends that weren't allowed to dress up or do anything Halloween related and stuff like that because it.

Was It's the devil.

But down in Central Florida, my friend brought me to her Baptist church for the Halloween thing and stuff.

It was the coolest.

Yeah. I mean, the only thing is that the church thing, you weren't allowed to dress as any type of demon or witch thing. And one year I did go as Elvira. I was a little kid, but it was after I had watched her movie.

Lost.

And so I went there in a child-appropriate Elvira costume. And whenever one of the church people was like, what are you dressed as? I was like, I know it's a witch, but she's a good witch. So it's okay.

She was a good witch.

That was the whole point of the movie. I was like, no, you have to watch the movie. She's a good witch.

It's okay. That's so cute. No, but more so, why do you have those balloons in here?

No, I said it was child appropriate. I know.

I mean, if it was Elvira, she would make that joke. So you got it.

That's true.

But it's just been wild to think about the like the dichotomies of like, you know, I like the idea that some people grew up and like all they saw was like. Ouija boards and like handholding and candles and stuff. And I'm like, I don't even think of that as even vaguely related to Halloween. I just think of like Garfield TV specials and candy, stomachaches and stuff.

It became more commercialized, kind of.

Oh, sure.

Like child targeted and stuff, I think, by the time we were kids. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Well, and there's and there's a this is one of those things I love to talk about because it's so painfully nuanced about holidays, especially is sometimes when I'll hear somebody say, like, I hate, you know, Christmas, it's become so commercial or I hate this because it's become so commercial.

I'm like, commercial is secularized.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, so it's like, you know, a lot of people who would say that to me, I'd be like, do you should I demand you be Catholic? I don't think that's what because, you know, they're never religious people that are saying it's too commercial to me.

I mean, my friend group.

So I'm always like, I think that that's the point is you can just you and anyone else can go to Target and buy the candy canes like it's not it's for everybody.

Versus, you know, being very, you know, niche.

Yeah, it makes it more inclusive and stuff as opposed to, yeah.

But it's a double-edged sword. I mean, you know, you know they're trying to get your money, but they're also trying to sell you fun. So you kind of have to balance it. I mean, life is all about balance.

And no one says that just because, you know, it is commercialized that you can't have in your family your own traditions and stuff like that to keep it special in your own way and stuff.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And a lot of that, too, is like, you know, being an elder millennial. I'm older than you. No, you're not. I don't buy it. And I'm not just trying to gas you up. I just don't buy it.

I was born in 1983.

What?

Okay.

So you and my, my buddy, Michelle, uh, we do a talk thing on here called monthly spooky at the end of every month where we like read news, creepy news stories and stuff. Uh, you both, I'm angry cause you're both like the exact same age. And I think you both look, uh, I think you both look, you know, about four years younger than me. So I'm a little mad and I don't think I look that old. I mean, as I, as I move, as I move the gray on my beard to kind of, uh, But, but no, uh, wow.

Okay. Well that, well that helps though for like, uh, uh, you know, context too. Yeah.

Well, I'm not going to sit there. This is our first like long form conversation outside of the audience. I was not going to be like.

How old are you? Tell me your age right now. But, uh, you know, you just don't want to be rude, but you know, uh, people want to know how old I am. They can do what I do. Go on Wikipedia.

I forget how the dates work sometimes, but, uh, I've done that in my, in my thirties, there was a time where I was really like, I was like, that's what I'm thinking. I'm like, I'll just check Wikipedia. But, uh, I, I just love, uh, seeing like, uh, seeing how everything has changed. I get that, you know, there is that sense of like, oh, they're just selling us things. But then when you go to like, I remember when I was in my late twenties, early thirties, and I had a lot of friends who were, um, frustrated with holidays and stuff.

And rightfully so.

I mean, it can be really hard, you know, if you don't have a family unit you're close with, or if you don't have a unit you're close with. But a lot of the friends that were, they had a family they were just kind of like annoyed with. And I'd tell them, I'd be like, you know that you're like, you're the adult in the room, believe it or not.

Like you can walk in and be like, look, I brought a pizza because that's what we do on this holiday now. And if you don't like it, I'm bigger than you. You know, and then you just start eating your pizza. That's what that's what Christmas Eve is now, guys, because that's what I can I can fit in because I work retail and you don't or whatever it is, whatever reason it might be. And I think that it's easy to kind of forget that. um, that we are kind of in control. That's kind of what I was talking about, but like celebrate every holiday, make it your own.

It's fine.

Everybody else did. That's the best part about learning this kind of stuff is everybody else made it their own. It took a while, but you know, eventually somebody had to say like, nah, I'm doing it this way. And then somebody else was like, oh man, I like that. And then, you know, and then nobody remembers who actually did it. It's just, everybody does it now. And, and that's just about as human as it gets.

Exactly.

So is there anything else about the Strigoi that we desperately.

Need to know?

They don't turn into bats.

Do they turn into any kind of animal or have a familiar?

Yes. So there are tales of them turning into cats, dogs, horses, and owls, and death's head moth. If you see a death's head moth in your house, that is probably a strogoy. But not bats. And that makes sense because the only bats that are the vampire bats are from the Americas, so people in Europe wouldn't have been... The only bats that the Europeans would have been exposed to would be bats that eat bugs and things like that. There'd be little harmless things that you're not going to think are very scary, but owls are huge and terrifying and could definitely probably eat a baby.

And then leave a little weird pellet thing.

No, stuff the baby full of the straw and leave it in the crib.

LAUGHTER I like it's a little song to keep, you know, to remind you of the order of incidents.

Oh, I can just put this wrinkled little prune back in. I've got to just stuff it up. Tuck it in and no one will know the difference.

Not a one.

No.

So, yeah, so there's that. Oh, and they can also come into your house without needing to be invited.

Okay, that's important too.

Yes.

So, because like I said, they will come in through keyholes and chimneys. Also, a weird thing is. I read about how one of the ways to try to keep them out besides telling stories all night is putting your furniture upside down because evidently they can use your furniture. They can control it remotely, I guess, from outside to come and open the door for them.

So if it's.

Upside down, they can't make that chair walk.

Over to open the door.

So there are a few thoughts come to mind immediately about that concept that makes it infinitely funnier to me.

Number one.

Well, actually, I think actually they all feed into one thing, which is it sounds like some housewife who got, like, lazy or just didn't care, like, that she invented that idea. No, because hear me out. The bread doesn't taste good. That's a Strigoi's fault.

Yeah, it's totally.

I slammed my knee on this chair. That's upside down. In reality, she, she, uh, was, uh, the other.

Yeah.

But it's like, I hit my leg on this. Oh, the Strigoi moves furniture, dude. It's not that I was like, I moved it to sweep and then decided to go outside. Cause I was, you know, I wanted to, I don't know what people did back then other than clean and just work. Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's just funny to me. It's like, oh, it sounds like a lot of, like, minor domestic inconveniences. Because I'm not even trying to be mean. I don't even think she's, like, bad at her, like, her wifely duties. I'm just saying she's like, she's like, eh, I was slipping that week, so I went with a sturgoy.

Oh, yeah, gosh.

We've got a real problem with them around here. I don't know what's going.

On, man.

The furniture's moved around, uh, You know, the bread doesn't taste good. You know, I always have a headache at night. You know, it's just all Mr. Goy's fault. It's all Mr.

Goy's. Oh, sorry, please.

I was just trying to think of any other thing. Oh, yeah. I don't think I've encountered anything with mirrors. Okay. They could probably still see themselves in the mirror.

What about silver?

No. Oh, okay.

Yeah, nothing to do with silver.

That one surprises me. Yeah. And, like, I think even with werewolf, whenever I did werewolf research, the silver stuff was usually from.

Book stuff.

It's more from fiction later. Mistletoe and things like that are things that I would see in folklore to do with werewolves. But honestly, werewolves, more often than not, were a type of witch. Whenever they were convicted of lycanthropy, it was also of lycanthropy slash witchcraft. and killed because of that.

Yeah um so it was kind of like a combo of like familiars kind of thing and like in black magic and like uh making yourself a beast for whatever.

Reason yeah as opposed to like a curse or a disease.

Yeah although there is well no not not disease stuff in uh werewolf lore i know we're getting off of topic from but with uh Werewolves, because depending on the things, because there'd be some where you'd have to wear the skin of a wolf and you could turn into a wolf. There is, I think, a Greco-Roman story of a belt that did it and things like that. So there would be things like that. But oftentimes, like France at one point went through a big werewolf boom um, where they were just convicting everybody of being a werewolf. Um, yeah, they were like that.

Oh gosh.

Yeah. Um, uh, and, uh, I want to say it was like, oh gosh, golly, I'm trying to do math and trying to think, I know it.

Was maybe the 16 or 1700s.

I know, um, But, like, so if someone was, like, a serial killer or somebody was, like, some other type of, like, horrible killer, oh, they were probably a werewolf.

That's what it was. Of course.

You can't imagine, like, an actual human being doing these atrocities. So they have to be some type of beast thing. So therefore they were a werewolf. which also means that if you're a werewolf, then you are some type of witch, because that's the only way that you can turn yourself into that.

Yeah, how else would you be able to do that, you know? It's simple. It's just so obvious. Duh.

Although, honestly, a lot of the old werewolf stories, so just much like the Strogoy is to explain plagues, werewolf things, from what I read, it sounds a lot like how to explain how this, like a guy that always seemed nice just snapped and killed his family kind of thing.

That makes sense.

I mean, we still try to figure it out with BS to this day when bad things happen to good people.

I mean, that's kind of the old thing. You know, why do bad things happen to good people?

It's like, let's just invent, like, a 900 religions instead of answer instead of like trying to really answer that it's too hard like we'll just you know every religion will kind of answer it in its own way but that makes i mean that makes sense you know uh the idea of like a being beastly you know like if somebody killed somebody brutally it'd be like that's like an animal they must literally be becoming an animal no human.

Being would be capable of such an atrocity like it has to be some type of monster and stuff.

Yeah Well, and then as time went on, you know, uh, and, and things would change, you'd have to kind of alter it, you know, uh, like when, uh, I had a train of thought there, but it might've derailed. But like, uh, if you had like, say a group of people that were always seen as animalistic and then all of a sudden, as time went on, they became totally, you know, uh, congruous with the rest of the population. All of a sudden you just kind of, it would kind of the idea of like them being, you know, savage or, or, or, uh, untamed.

like leave their group entirely and now it's just a thing that happens to anybody it's like oh no that person turned into a monster because the witch did that or whatever because because that's you know my point was kind of like dehumanizing is a common thing when people commit lots of crimes or whatever to kind of you know say that they're an animal or they're evil or whatever so we have that kind of there and it's interesting when it's kind of isolated to just the criminal that did it yes to say like oh they must be an animal.

Then there were, you know, a lot of possession was often blamed as well.

Yes.

Which is also interesting seeing the evolution of that. So like the whole concept of it being like a demon possession is a far more like recent thing. there would be different types of spirit things that would like be able to possess you and stuff like that. And then eventually the spirits became demons and stuff, but it could be either like a, a ghost to someone either living or dead. Like there could be somebody that's like a witch type of thing that could be possessing you. That's still alive, like a living person that's doing it. Um, and, uh, or it could be, you know, uh, some type of, uh, angry ghost and stuff that is doing it from beyond the grave that's possessing you. But then, Christianity has a

tendency to like to demonize everything. So eventually that just kind of evolved into these must be all demons.

You know, I get why they started with it because it's a good way to get you to think about the church. You know, a lot is to be like, you know, when you, you know, when you see a lady in a really nice blouse, you're evil. You better start praying instantly. The moment you think of sex or drinking or fighting or any, it's like, okay, so anything that's human, Yes, think about the church in that moment, the moment you are being in any way a human being.

Yes, sir. It's also like an us versus them thing and stuff, too.

Because that's why a lot of the deities and stuff from other religions eventually just become demonized in Christianity. And I did a whole thing, which if you ever want to... have me geek out about Satan. I can talk to him about the entire evolutionary.

I mean, that sounds like a pretty awesome offer.

Cause I did a, um, a, like a, a educational presentation at a convention about that and about the, um, the evolution of the ideas of the concept of Satan, um, the depictions of Satan and things like that, uh, because it was not a canonical thing. And so how it goes from being, a completely different concept in like Judaism and stuff to being what we in like modern times think whenever someone says Satan and stuff.

It's fascinating.

But a lot of that in that process is the demonization and incorporation of different characteristics of different deities and stuff to be like, no, it's bad.

It's the devil.

And there was a lot more flexibility in the earliest days of Christianity because people couldn't read. I mean, very many, many people couldn't read. It was the church was actually, if I'm remembering correctly, because you will know better than I do. My understanding, I always, the understanding I was given was that the Catholic church was the religion, not the book.

Yes.

And that's why they have such an intricate, like such an interest, intricate system is because they were the, the access to the faith, not the book because they.

Were like one of the earliest.

Yeah, there were, there's a lot of, I guess there was a lot of different types of Christianity, but that is like a huge one. Yes. That came about from the whole sort of spinoff movement of Judaism, the whole little Christian, the Jesus movement did eventually, yeah, there was the Catholic church that then had its schism and you've got the Orthodox church and so forth. But so yeah, they did, that particular branch did of course come up with a bunch of non-canonical theological concepts that they then go back and try to use elements of the scriptures to support. And as much as Protestants want to say that they are beyond that, they still have their own things because there are going to still be Protestants today

who think that Satan is a thing or that have all these concepts of these devils and demons and even think that Lucifer is a name for the devil and it's not.

So it's funny because, you know, as I get older and I kind of I kind of feel like I see things a little bit broader, you know, like I kind of look at like the Catholic church thing as like at least they kind of were aware that there's a human element, you know, that they would like let things change. I mean, they may not have seen it as a human element, obviously, but I mean, like, you know, they were aware that like as times change, things change, hence the pope. being the direct communication with the upstairs so that it, so that you could make a unilateral change.

And people often forget that like some of those unilateral changes were really good things. I mean, the Pope basically ended the North Atlantic slave trade, like, like straight up because he said, actually in the Bible, it says slavery is wrong.

That applies to just everybody, not just Christians. And then it was like, what? And it was like, yeah, you got to like stop everything. And they were like, oh crap.

Which is funny because, um, In America, there were Bibles that were specifically to support slavery. They were slave Bibles and stuff. They were Bibles that were given to slaves or used for the preaching with slaves and also spread by slave owners and things like that because it would be taking particular passages and taking certain things to show that, no, see, it's totally supported.

Buy them yeah so it didn't work out though the religious belief helped the slaves uh immensely anyway which is i mean which is just a fascinating another element of i keep saying this because i really mean it like another element of why i love humanity and the human experience though is like you hand them this thing you go look even the guy upstairs says like you're supposed to be in this lot and they turn it into something that moves them to greater lengths, you know, greater distances instead.

I love that.

It's like, no, what we make of it is what's going to happen. Not what you say, not what you hand us. I love that makes me so happy. I just want to hug being human sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of negatives, but I, I, I just think that, you know, I don't know, we're so vast and there's so many different types of people. You never know who you're going to meet in any given day. You never know when you're going to meet somebody and, and feel, uh, and be like, Oh, that was kind of a nice person.

And then 15 years later, be like, Oh, I guess that was the first time I met that person. And now like, if they weren't around, I would be heartbroken every day. Like, you know, life is that way, you know? Uh, You can really tell I just turned 40. Like I'm so, I'm looking back and I'm just like, oh yeah, this thing, this thing.

The middle age is finally hitting you.

Exactly. Oh dude, I frigging, I turned 40 on the 10th of September.

Happy birthday.

Thank you.

Seven days later.

Progressive lenses in the glasses seven days now I had put off my eye exam for four years which was my own fault I had to get a new eye doctor they just were impossible to schedule it wasn't me being lazy or cheap it was this one time it was just it was just that i i finally was like i'm going to a place where they just can see you in a day because i'm tired of waiting and whatever yeah they hand me the prescription i go home and type it in to like order some glasses online and it's just like wait what is this plus one oh.

I sent it to my mom and I was like, does this mean I need bifocals? And she was like, barely, but yes. And I was like, I feel old.

And my mom was like, join the club. She's loving, but she's also like, yeah, how old do you think I feel then? My youngest kid's 40. But no, these are the kinds of things I love to think about. One of my favorite, so it was like folklore, like history, folklore is the history that we tell each other. you know, instead of a literal history that like is supposedly written down.

It's a history where we're not really worried about accuracy so much. It's more about intent and moment and vibes. Let's go with vibes, you know, if you're really old. It's about vibes.

It's about the vibes, man.

Yeah.

Because if it's about the human experience, it's not quite as manipulative as if it's about like literally like, what did Mussolini do? You know, that if it's about vibes, you could really be lying and it would not be great.

And they did in that time period.

But like I like I've been thinking I'm really going way off the reservation. And I don't apologize because this is this is why I guess I can survive in this business is because you put a mic in front of me and I can never shut up. But it starts to make me think, you know, while history can give you a good concept of where we're going, folklore makes me kind of feel like I get a good concept of where we'll we will be feeling. I guess is a way to put it like how we will be vibing as a species. And I think that overall we're surprisingly sweet to each other, even though it doesn't always feel that way. Cause it's easy to notice when people are mean or cruel because we should, we should stop and look and go, wow, that is crazy.

That's not all right. Like that's cruel. That's hateful.

That's everything that I hate about. Everything is what I'm seeing right now, but it's so easy to walk by kindness and be like, yeah, that's just, that's Wednesday. Like that guy's being nice to that person. That person be nice. Like, it's not weird that people are being nice. So I'm not even going to stop and look. I'm not even like, you know, that's why a video of somebody doing something nice will go viral. But a video of somebody getting cruelty done to them will really go viral. It's because it's not, It breaks the system. It breaks the pattern as well. And I'm a vicious Pollyanna. I know that.

So when I look at folklore and I look at where the beliefs come from and things, I notice that often if you can get over the very human desire to worry and feel negative about everything, you find like, wow, there was a lot of good intent there or a lot of good result there. And that's something that I try to keep in mind because none of us, you know, that phrase, ends justify the means. I hate that phrase because, like, there's no ends. There's never ends. All we ever have are means until the day we die. So, you know, so if the means are going to be crap, that means that your life will be crap.

There's no ends. There's only means. So I don't know if I had a point. You should say something.

Some of what you said actually made me think of tricksters in folklore.

So, because.

uh if like to your point like uh there's things that we should normalize like like being nice is nice it's nice to be nice uh and we should all be nice to each other and it should stick out to us whenever somebody breaks um the norm and that's what tricksters a lot of times in different cultures are to do they are to show what you should not do in a society or like uh even sometimes to show maybe there's an aspect that is absurd and maybe not great currently in that society, and they push back on it. So they are there to be like a challenge, and to challenge but also to teach. And so it's either like, don't be like this, or hey, isn't that ridiculous and awful to be like that? We should instead

be nice. We should be like that. But that is one of the primary functions of tricksters in different cultures and stuff.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

And the subtext of folklore and stories is always fascinating because you know, as much what they put in there is as important as how it's interpreted throughout different times in history. You know, like it's kind of like I read Moby Dick every so often. And I feel like every time I read Moby Dick, I get something different from it. If I like wait six years, I'll like feel a totally different.

Feeling about it.

And I feel like that's, you know, another sign of like where the culture is going. Like, you know, now when people look at like a movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that's a great example because it's a movie that may not Because of its title, it doesn't sound like it has a lot to say about anything other than chainsaws in Texas and massacres. But when that movie was made, there were a lot of cultural fears. A lot of the fear was about automation. And the family in that movie is actually literally all displaced by technology. They don't have a job because the air gun replaces killing an animal with a hammer.

Which everyone in the.

Audience would agree, even if they eat meat every day, they would agree, I would rather it be an air gun than a hammer. Nobody's going to take the side of the cannibal family. But then the cannibal family, their attitude is, well, we got to make do. Everybody's got to make do. This is how we're making do. It's a pretty fascinating statement when there was such an upheaval in rural America versus the cities, and there was such an upheaval in in a working class versus, you know, white collar, blue collar. Um, the kids who are coming there, they're all college age. They probably, none of them have any, have worked very much in their lives yet. So, and they walk into a place they don't understand and they

expect it to be just like every other place they've ever been.

And it's not there.

So there's like all these places you could take it. And I, I, I love that about folklore. I love that about storytelling. That's, that's the thing is like, what can you get from it? And if it could be something beneficial, what can you get from it? You know, can they have a moral, like the trickster telling you, you know, don't, um, you know, don't switch somebody sweetened condensed milk for powder.

I don't know.

And I mean, uh, Oh gosh, my brain just went off the tracks for a second.

Oh, it's okay. You're the first, that's your first time.

Okay. I was going to say, uh, cause my brain was going in two different ways.

Cause you brought up like the good point again with the, with like how horror reflects our own, uh, personal and cultural fears but going back to the folklore element though um oh gosh hold on make my brain go back onto that track where you were talking about the things and the stuff hold on rewind all right you were talking about.

Texas chainsaw massacre social upheaval uh.

And oh, oh yes.

Context. Okay. So like, um, yeah, with folklore, just like with a lot of things, like, uh, heck, even with like, um, satire, like, uh, look at, um, Gulliver's travels kind of thing. Um, yeah. And, uh, like reading it out of historical context, you get a completely different, uh, you know, vibe of what it is and what it's saying and stuff versus looking at it within historical context. And the same can be true with, uh, folklore and with different like religious scriptures and anything like that once you take it out of its historical and its cultural context and you read it you've got your own interpretation what it means for you now and then you can also just look at it in history so like whereas we've been talking about the struggle and how

it has been used for.

Plague and for stranger danger.

But if you take it out of those contexts and you are reading a story about a vampire and things like that, it's a completely different thing for you. It's a spooky monster man. And, and it's like, yeah, but put it within its cultural thing. It's, it's telling you, you know, don't go off with strangers and also like why, you know, how to deal with this spreading disease and stuff like that. But it's a completely different thing for if, if you're not, if you're not used to, if you're not from that and stuff.

Um, so absolutely.

And that is an interesting thing. So that makes us that, so that each story has different layers to it. Um, and, and to your point, coming back to like the same movie or the same book, um, after years of like having initially consumed and stuff, there's like things that, in fact, I was just thinking the other day, I should rewatch this ties in kind of with what we were just talking about. The French, uh, have a whole werewolf boom.

There was a movie called Brotherhood of the Wolf that came out.

I remember Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Yeah. And like, I saw it back when I was like, what, 20 or something. Is that when it like came out?

We were like, that sounds right.

Yeah.

And I remember thinking it was really cool then, but that was also before I had all of this historical knowledge in this context. And now I really want to go find it and rewatch it again. knowing what i know now um and i'm like i'm i wonder i would get like because like before yeah it was a cool movie as itself like on the surface level but having the context i wonder if i'll be more like.

Oh whoa this is a reference to da da da and be like oh i get it now it makes so much more sense or if i'll be like uh that's like an inaccurate reference to such and such, which is actually supposed to be like da-da-da.

But either way, it'll be a new experience.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it'll either be pure camp or you'll be like, wow, I was not expecting that little extra stank on it that makes me love it more.

Um, no, that, that, yeah.

Revisiting stuff, especially from childhood is so much fun, especially if it ends up being way better than you remember. And you remembered loving it, uh, which doesn't always happen, but it does happen sometimes.

Sometimes.

Yeah.

When you, when you're really lucky.

Sometimes, sometimes you rewatch something that was like a really fun horror movie when you were a kid. And now you're like, well, that was a movie. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, it was definitely a thing that exists. Yeah.

And then, you know, like I revisit Monster Squad all the time.

Oh, nice.

Like that's one of my favorites.

And every time I watch it, I'm like, man, that script is oddly great. Like, like, and then, and then as I got older, cause I mean, like in my twenties, I'd be like, wow, it holds up pretty well. And then it got even older. I was like, oh, this is co-written by the guy who wrote Lethal Weapon. And, uh, and, um, oh gosh, what was the other one? Uh, and like Long Kiss Goodnight and stuff like he's written. And yeah, Shane Black, he's written a ton of great stuff. And, uh, and he co-wrote that with the director and, And I'm like, oh, yeah, they're just really good. Like, that movie, no wonder I liked that movie even as a kid. I didn't even know that it was great. I just liked the wolfman having nards. You know, I thought that was funny. So, yeah,

you always get to pull something new, and that feeds into the human element of storytelling. Yeah, it's the teller, and then more importantly, the interpretation, because the interpretation will live infinitely longer than any teller.

Yes. Unfortunately, it also affects, like... Now, you know, I'm well out of college since we established them in my 40s. But doing any continued research now, and if I start reading, like, the actual, like, you know, account, like, actual folklore stories from different things that I may not have the historical background knowledge in, and I'm sure you're aware of this, and to those listening, sometimes folklore stories don't make sense.

They are not... They don't, like, they.

People... people back in the day didn't always have what we have now as concepts of, of how narration works. And they, it'll start off one way and then it goes off on this other tangent. And like, maybe like, you know, there's an action that's happening, but then he gets sidetracked by like this old man in a hut.

And then he goes back to the main action. You're like, what was the old man in the hut thing having to do with anything? And maybe if you were familiar and from that culture or you knew the historical things, you would get whatever that side thing was, whatever that tangent was, but it's lost now.

On me now because I, I don't know.

So that would, unless I want to go down an entirely new rabbit hole and learn like the entire like history of like Nigeria or wherever it is that I'm reading the stuff.

Um, then yeah. So, ah, that's one of the great things.

But one of the frustrating things about folklore is that again, you take it out of its context.

It's what's happening.

Why is he in a hut now?

Yeah.

But then, you know, you're walking along, living your life, doing something totally unrelated and you learn something and then you realize it completely fixes the context of something you read like five years ago. So you have to go find it again because you're like, wait, wait, does that have to do with this?

What?

That's why the hut.

I remember telling a friend of mine years and years ago, I was like, you got to read Moby Dick. It all falls back to Moby Dick. But I was like, you got to read Moby Dick. And she came back to me and I was like, did you get a copy or something? She was like, well, I can only find abridged and I want the unabridged. Like, why would I want the abridged? And I had to tell her the unabridged is a literal whaling manual. Oh, wow. It's from that era when books were multi-purpose. It was literally a whaling manual. Like you would learn how to tie clove hitches and stuff from reading the book. So all the stuff that's cut out was from once books kind of hit their peak. relatively modern era where it was like, no,

I just want to read about Captain Ahab and the whale. I don't want to learn how to put a sail up. I don't want to learn how to set a sextant. That was all in there because, because a lot of, a lot of storytelling was used to get across really like literal important information, not just figurative, like how to, you know, cook something or how to survive on a boat or whatever it might be.

Like if you read, have you read like a really old cookbook, like from like 1800s? They're so weird.

They will, like, the friggin' recipe will say, like, first, prepare a pan with boiled water and onions, like I showed you. Then, and you're like, what? It's because you're meant to read it from start to finish. Like, you're not meant to go to, like, you're not meant to just flip around. You're supposed to, when you buy the book, you would open it up, read the beginning all the way to the end, and then go back for reference. So, it would, like, teach you basic things at the beginning, and then just reference the other ones.

Oh.

So you would just be like, wait, what? Like I showed you what the, what?

And it'd be like, yeah, it had a whole thing about how to boil the onions to get this effect. You're supposed to read it all. Like, so it's kind of like that. They would put it into the narrative.

But it's still better than what they do now with if you look up a recipe online and it's like a 10-page story before you.

Get to it. SEO story.

The SEO story.

My grandmother used to always tell me, you know, my grandmother used to always tell me that if you walk the moors at night, a werewolf will eat you. Anyway, this is plum pudding. You know, like what the, what? And it's, yeah, it's entirely for search engine optimization, I guess, because it doesn't make you like them.

That's for sure. Because you're sitting there.

You're just scrolling and scrolling. And I'm like, I just want to know how to make a meat pie.

Standing in the kitchen with dirty sticky hands slowly moving my phone through trying to find out how much olive oil the stove's already on how much olive oil you know this is getting really out of hand no it yeah that's that's see that's like a dissertation worthy thing like The, you know, whaling manual in Moby Dick versus the heavily SEO storied recipes.

Like, is this actually the same thing? I don't know.

Oh my gosh, it is.

It's all, Sue, you're talking about like how we have got modern day folklore stuff and are like urban legends. And now we've got modern day whaling manuals and online recipes. Everything that's old.

Yeah.

Everything that's old is new again.

I mean, we're literally doing a, an audio talk show for people who will listen to it with advertisements placed, you know, to support it.

And then people are going to be done with that. And then they're going to put.

On Tubi so they can watch free movies with commercials and be like, this is so great. I don't have to subscribe to anything more. And it's like, okay, this is 1964. Like everything that's old is new again. You know, it's, it's, that's how it all started. And now we're there again right now. Like that's, it's, uh yeah you know the more i think about it the more profound i find myself a lot less you know but but no i i uh and thank you sincerely so much for like hanging out and talking about this because there's so i know there's so much folklore as obvious by like when we first started nerding out about it it was so hard to even focus i'm glad we in advance knew we wanted to talk about one thing just so we

could land on it eventually yes but but like uh It's been like such a blast. And I hope you'll come back and do it again sometime. I'd be happy to have you. We could definitely talk all about Satan.

I think that would be really interesting.

Well, because not only, you know, because there's so many facets of that element, because you could talk about You know, the literal text where Satan, you know, where it first pops up. You talk about like the Satanism movements, which I have a lot of really funny and bizarre opinions about because I work in show business. You meet a lot of self-styled Satanists and it's never fun. It's always lame.

I'm sorry.

I mean, I'm sure there are Satanists that are totally cool folks. but I don't meet them. It's just not been my luck.

It makes sense because it's also like, cause again, I'm, I'm, I'm very gothy. And like one thing that a lot of people don't understand about a lot of goths is that we're just huge geeks and nerds.

Yeah.

And like, uh, I just remember distinctly this one time I went to like this, uh, goth party. And, um, is, uh, when I still lived in Atlanta, I had a lot of like, uh, people that were big in the scene, but also big in like the BDSM scene and stuff, because, you know, there's a big overlap. And, uh, what we ended up doing is just watching strong bads emails.

Like, Oh my God. We are, we are in the same generation.

Yeah.

I will never write a song about libby i will never write a song about libby.

Like like we're not doing any sort of creepy occult things and stuff like that all these like you know gothy people where it's just like.

Uh emails and like it was at a house that's like a huge anime geek and stuff like that and like we're just we're just we're not cool we're uh so yeah.

Yeah no we are cool that's the thing well you were awesome.

Yes we're cool and um but i mean like like to your point with like the the satanists and stuff that you they're not like cool people it was because no they're probably just huge geeks too or like.

I wish oh no they weren't even that they're clever i don't know they just think.

They're so smart all right now i know who you're talking about what kind of people okay because i also I would also encounter them in like the goth community and thought they were like too cool for school kind of thing those are not the fun goths if you like the I had an ex who was also like that who saw like I'm gothier than that and he would like try to out goth people and he also thought he was super duper smart and stuff and he was not and.

Whenever I see somebody who's like, let me show you how smart I am.

I'm like, okay, let me show you how good at talking I am. Because that's way more valuable if you want to look smart, but not be smart.

And a lot easier to have happen naturally.

But no, I mean, and I run in a lot of these like horror circles, obviously, and like Weekly Spooky's got this audience of people who love scary stuff all year long.

We're some of the most friendly, tender people.

People who love to talk about emotions and good things and bad things. We're totally not what somebody would expect to the point where when people think when I meet somebody who thinks horror people are kind of intense I'm confused because I've never known it to be that way so like I don't even understand the notion.

No because like horror is a way for us to like it's a catharsis so like I feel like people that are into things like and by the way I have to I have to say horror because if I say horror then my southerness will slip out I told you before I don't usually have an accent but for some reason whenever I say horror it just sounds like I'm talking about.

A lady of the evening.

So, uh, why we like horror is, uh, and it does help like to, to your point, like, like it helps us be able to like kind of process emotions and process things and stuff a lot better than other people who just kind of like keep it all in, um, and stuff. And, um, but yeah, I also, my experience with like fellow horror lovers and stuff is that.

Yeah, they're usually the nicest.

Oh, sure.

They're super friendly.

Yeah.

Super welcoming, uh, you know, cause, cause they're all, they were all like kind of outcasts at some point and then found their group.

Yeah. And their people, their people, people, cause like, uh, circling back again, like, uh, horror itself is about like, um, like, like, like our own person, like our, our fears, whether they're micro or macro. And I think there's something, um, very like, uh, like, community like very communal about like experiencing those those stories with others and stuff um like uh it's almost like a group therapy like you you you get to realize oh other people have these kinds of like anxieties these kinds of fears i'm not alone in this and stuff and not only the people who made this movie but other people who are watching it with me uh and stuff like we're all we're all in this together kind of thing and and i think that's pretty cool So.

I could not have done a better final soundbite than that.

Like, God damn.

So real quick, tell people where they can find you online, where they can find your books, you know, because if they don't like you by now, then they're never going to like you.

Oh, no.

But that's fair. That's OK.

So it would be the hollow sun, like H-O-L-L-O-W sun, S-U-N, like the like a sun in the sky that got hollowed out. theholosun.com and that's where it's got links to be able to buy the book and find different ways to interact with me online and stuff like that.

And also, if.

You liked the story of the stragoi that cut people's mouths off, that's actually in my first book. There's a serial killer that the media calls the Grin Reaper because that's how he.

Leaves his victims. And it's a stragoi with that M.O.

I love that. No, that's, that's so good. The link will be in the show notes, guys. Check out her work.

I'm assuming you have audio books available since or no. Oh, did I bring up a sore subject?

Yeah, I've always been too busy doing other people's work because I'm also a voice actor. But I have been taking a break from doing a lot of the work I used to do for this year and going into next year. So I'm going to be taking that little break to try to work on my own stuff, get those audio books out.

If it makes you feel any better.

I mean, I do this podcast so much. I have a few books I published that I worked with an author on. And it took me, there's still one or there's still two of them that don't have audio books. But like, it took me three years to do three of them. Like, even though I'm in the booth almost every day. So like, it's hard. It's hard when you're already worrying about clients and stuff. And the last thing you want to do with the remaining fun part of your day is choke down some slippery Dutch elm and try to get through one more hour, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

I already worked. I said sometimes like 14 hour days and stuff. So it's like, I just, yeah.

Well, we appreciate you taking some time out of your, out of your schedule to do this. And I hope we can do it again. Maybe we'll, uh, we'll talk all about Satan. Maybe, uh, December we'll talk about werewolves. Cause, uh, that new, uh, werewolf movie by, uh, Eggers, uh, the new, uh, the guy who did Nosferatu recently, he has a new werewolf movie coming out at Christmas time. So maybe we'll, uh, We'll do that and we can unwrap it for a little early Christmas present.

Well, that'd be fun.

We already talked a little bit about werewolves, but I'd be up for talking about even more different werewolf lore from all over.

Awesome. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Folklore Friday | Vampire Legends & Dark Folklore for Halloween

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