Over on the Facebook site, Bill has shared this very interesting article about ‘Creatures & Mythical Beings from Philippine Folklore & Mythology’. The relationship between culture, nationality and folklore and is incredibly interesting.
One of my neighbours is from Trinidad and we often meet and discuss folk beliefs from each other’s cultures. She has taught me about the douen, Lagahoo (which is very crudely put the werewolf of Trinidad), and soucoyant. Having read Enid Blyton as a child, she arrived in Britain excited to find fairies and goblins and was disappointed by our dearth of lived folklore. I think my tales of will o’the wisps and black dogs in the Fenlands weren’t sufficient because they were never something I believed in and were not a part of my childhood ghost stories.
So, if you have any great Gothic folklore or mythology that shaped your childhood nightmares, please share them below!
As a child I was terrorised by my grandmother’s stories of the Cumbrian Cockertrice which inhabited a church in Renwick nearby. Later this was confused with stories of vampire bats but the legend pre-dates Stoker by quite a long way. I must write something on this for the blog and take some pictures of the church. You can read about it here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_m87AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT22&lpg=PT22&dq=cockertrice+cumbria&source=bl&ots=s4uPwJPC46&sig=re6FyOXijqNiNBUzG7_2nplC
It is very much believed in the area to this day by relatives of those who lived through it. I had not heard anything quite like it when it became known to me – this being a long time before books such as Harry Potter!!
That’s so interesting and bizarre. You have to post on it. It looks brilliant! I wish I had more spooky tales from my youth. But nothing of particular interest. (My dad had a weird experience with a Ouija board and always told me to never use one but that is all).
Yes, I have some old pamphlets on it that my Dad passed on to me it would make a great article. The possibility of coming face to face with a cockertrice was very real to me as a child!!
I’d just like to add that this website is, in fact, an encyclopaedic database of the folkloric creatures of the Phillipines, arranged alphabetically, and looks a valuable resource.