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In the TV series Pluribus, scientists receive a coded message from space that ends up being a formula for a virus like substance that infects people upon contact. Within a short time nearly all of mankind is infected with a weird hive mind that both keeps people in constant telepathic contact with one another and suppresses individuality. The infected people talk as one voice and appear to be happy and considerate, not willing to harm any living things or the immune individuals who resisted the infection.
As a parapsychology journalist, I couldn’t help but compare that to the actual science. How does this scenario of all of mankind merging its consciousness into a single mind and how does it stack up against what we know of psychic ability and biology? Is it even possible to do something like this?
Let’s get into it:
The scenario given to us in this show necessitates a universe where consciousness is fundamental to reality because telepathy doesn’t exist in a material universe. While the show suggests that EM fields are responsible for the connection, this is a physical impossibility. The human body doesn’t emit waves strong enough to be received over many miles; only telepathy can serve this function because of its non local nature. A conscious universe also adds some dimensions to the telepathy that the show doesn’t and probably never will cover. This also requires the brain to operate as a filter of consciousness, not as a generator of it.
The Brain is Wired for Telepathy
It’s entirely conceivable that the brain could be wired for this kind of massive increase in telepathy. Counterintuitively, you don’t enhance parts of the brain to do this, you suppress them. Psychedelics do this, there are studies of people with specific brain damage and researchers have also induced temporary suppression of the left medial middle frontal lobe and that has been shown to increase psychic ability. But all this comes with serious caveats, which I will address later.
Since the series describes the conversion as reversible, we know that the virus thingy is suppressing, not destroying, that part of the brain. Since psychedelics already do something like this, it’s not entirely out of the question for some sci fi engineering feat to pull this off. The virus thingy also leaves the infected unable to cope with strong emotions. This is a realistic effect of increasing psychic ability. The virus thingy is massively reducing some filtering that the mind normally does, and it could conceivably have a side effect of removing the filtering (aka shielding) that we do with other people when they have strong unpleasant emotions, which could explain the hive’s strong reaction to Carol’s anger and pain.
Pluribus Veers Off into Sci Fi
When it comes to completely suppressing the personalities of all these people and disconnecting their consciousness from their bodies while also enhancing their psychic ability, that’s where things veer off into Sci Fi magic. Humans aren’t designed to operate with a hive mind like termites or bees. (In termites this is called Swarm Cognition. Some informal experiments suggest a psychic connection.) There are very few different types of hive minds in nature and all of those species survive by having a lot of different hives. Most insects, reptiles, birds, fish and mammals are hard wired to have individual agency which means that it’s a fundamental part of the wiring of the minds of most creatures. Hives are a different evolutionary track entirely. The Pluribus virus thingy would have no ancient part of the mind to alter. There’s never been anything there to tinker with.
In the show, the Hive members act like people with individual agency while not actually having it. They retain the memories and abilities of people who are disconnected from their bodies. According to theories where consciousness is fundamental to reality, the brain acts as a filter which means that the hive mind is using billions of consciousness filters, all with quite a bit of variety, as its input and somehow channeling this into a single overarching mind that processes all of it into a single thought pattern. This bit of sci fi magic reminds me of a quote from Time Magazine when Michael Okuda was asked how Heisenberg Compensators worked on Star Trek. He replied, “Very well, thank you.” It’s the same sort of thing on Pluribus.
This is a TV show though, and these things are absolutely allowed because the objective isn’t perfect scientific accuracy, it’s entertainment. What the show accomplishes is that it allows us to see science from a different angle by asking the question, “What if?” And then follow it up with the question, “Is this even possible?” And we can then have a look at what would happen in real life if something like the virus in Pluribus actually did exist and this is where it gets interesting.
Enhanced Connectedness and Telepathy
Does giving people extreme telepathy greatly enhance their feelings of connectedness? Are those things related? Is it joyful? There are people who have had near death experiences and others who have had intense psychedelic experiences who report back these types of experiences and feelings. There are also scientific theories such as Morphic Resonance that explore collective consciousness and experiments that show effects of collective consciousness. The show is not pulling this stuff out of thin air. But people also come back from these experiences with their individual agency completely intact.
The reality of kludging a hive mind onto a human brain is that it would never work as flawlessly as it does on the show if it could be done at all. As I mentioned earlier, humans have no built-in biological mechanism to support that kind of suppression of self within a greater consciousness, and we would therefore expect all sorts of weird reactions to it because a substantial number of people would never completely disassociate from their bodies.
Our consciousness and our bodies are arguably fine tuned for each other and some of the individuals that make up the collective would almost certainly resist the suppression of their agency. This would probably occur without outside assistance.
The show does a good job of showing the downsides of the entire human race acting with one (very passive aggressive) mind. The fate of the entire human race in Pluribus depends on a mind with 100% intelligence and 0% wisdom. (An interesting choice by the showrunners. The Hive cannot harm any living thing. As all creatures require the consumption of things that live or lived to survive, this poses the problem of starvation in the show.)
The Wisdom Problem in Pluribus
It is a problem that people with agency would easily solve, but the Hive mind does not seem to be able to manage it. Wisdom is a holistic, right-brained type of intelligence; it requires the ability to take a step back and see the big picture, weigh priorities and make hard decisions. The Hive mind however, can’t refuse any request from the uninfected no matter how destructive, leading to the conclusion that it can’t use the collective wisdom of the entire human race to perform basic reasoning tasks.
Perhaps the show is deliberately demonstrating a serious drawback of removing consciousness from it’s tether to individual bodies. Or perhaps this collection of individual minds cannot cope with hearing everyone and feeling everything all at once. That is a known problem of connectedness. While a lot of people seek out feelings of overwhelming connectedness, there are a not an insignificant number of people out there struggling to turn it off.
The hive mind is necessarily made up of the minds of all of humanity because otherwise it would not have access to everyone’s memories, experience and expertise. The people are still “in there” so to speak, so it stands to reason that they are going to react in different ways to being part of the Hive.
Now I finally come back to the problem of having truly strong telepathic ability: it comes with some very interesting side effects. Telepathy has no material basis; it is not a signal like EM waves. It appears to be instantaneous and does not appear to be affected by distance or obstructions. This is why current theories are consciousness, not material based. It demonstrates a deeper reality beyond time and space where information, not objects, are fundamental to reality. The reason I bring this up is that this doesn’t stop at telepathy. Precognition, psychometry, mediumship, ghosts and other non physical beings and the like all come into play. The hive mind would be aware of discarnate souls and non human telepathic beings. Once psychic ability is going full blast it’s far more than mere telepathy, it’s the whole ball of wax.
The Real Telepathic People
We have a group of people right now that communicate telepathically with each other. They are non speaking autistic people, who are intelligent, but lack much control over their bodies and whose paths to communication are otherwise very limited. Some of them use spelling boards, (which I’ve discussed in this article) and what they have to say tells us quite a lot about all the things that come with telepathy. This all comes to us via Ky Dickens and her wildly popular Telepathy Tapes podcast.
I think that this is what makes Pluribus popular. It speaks to a reality that deep inside we already know about. On the one hand we want to be part of it, but on the other hand it comes with the existential fear of losing ourselves in it. We are drawn in by the joy of the deep connectedness, but it is also the death of the self. Personally, I am fascinated by this show and its metaphysical implications.
The word Vardøger (pronounced var-deh-ay-gr) originated in Norway, and means “the premonitory sound or sight of a person before they arrive”. Thus a person may be seen, or the sounds of their arrival heard- their footsteps on the path, their key turning in a lock, or their passage along the hallway- but when the person who has heard these sounds, or believes they have witnessed the apparent arrival of said individual and then goes to greet them, they find that there is nobody there. Some time later, the same sight or sounds are repeated, but are this time indicative of the actual physical arrival of the individual.
I first read about the Vardøger phenomena at the age of 10, in a book that was once part of my Mother’s collection, and is now on my own bookshelf, tattered and dog-eared from repeated reading. The book, by prolific American author Brad Steiger, is titled “Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Minds”, and was the first serious non-fiction book about the paranormal I’d ever read. As my interest at the time was more to do with traditional ghost stories, I quickly lost interest in the chapter about Vardøgers as it contained nothing even remotely ghostly, and moved on to the next chapter. However, the passage of time brings about broader perspective, and different curiosities so when I picked up the book again, some 2 decades later as an adult, I found myself curious about that unread chapter.
Etymology and cultural beliefs
At its grammatical root, the word Vardøger is likely derived from the Old Norse word “Varohygi”, which in turn is itself from the words “voro”, which means “guard, watchman, or warden”, and “hugr”, meaning “mind” or “soul”. The Vardøger phenomena is quite commonly believed in Norway, and has been reported there often- indeed, the word Vardøger itself was likely coined there to describe the phenomena, indicating how common the belief in the Vardøger is in Norwegian culture.
Norway is not alone in its belief in Vardøgers, however. In Scotland they are known as “fetchers”or “co-walkers”, and in Icelandic culture and folklore the Vardøger is known as a “fygjla”, and is considered a guardian spirit. Finland has its own word for the Vardøger also; there it is called “etiainen”. Across all cultures who share a belief in the phenomena, the Vardøger, unlike the doppelgänger, is considered a benign entity, without the sinister connotations associated with the other "double", with which it could easily be confused.
Vardøgers in print
Outside of the aforementioned cultures, the Vardøger is given little consideration in psychical or paranormal research, and thus little mention of them is to be found in English language. However, there are still some to be found. On page 149 of her classic book “The Night Side of Nature”, author Catherine Crowe mentions cases which, although classified as doppelgänger encounters, I believe could equally fit the description of a Vardøger, as they seem to indicate intent:
"The landrichter, or sheriff, F——, in Frankfort, sent his secretary on an errand. Presently afterward, the secretary re-entered the room, and laid hold of a book. His master asked him what had brought him back, whereupon the figure vanished, and the book fell to the ground. It was a volume of Linnaeus. In the evening, when the secretary returned, and was interrogated with regard to his expedition, he said that he had fallen into an eager dispute with an acquaintance, as he went along, about some botanical question, and had ardently wished he had had his Linnaeus with him to refer to."
"Dr. Werner relates that Professor Happach had an elderly maid-servant, who was in the habit of coming every morning to call him, and on entering the room, which he generally heard her do, she usually looked at a clock which stood under the mirror. One morning, she entered so softly, that, though he saw her, he did not hear her foot. She went, as was her custom, to the clock, and came to his bedside, but suddenly turned round and left the room. He called after her, but she not answering, he jumped out of bed and pursued her. He could not see her, however, till he reached her room, where he found her fast asleep in bed. Subsequently, the same thing occurred frequently with this woman."
"An exactly parallel case was related to me, as occurring to himself, by a publisher in Edinburgh. His housekeeper was in the habit of calling him every morning. On one occasion, being perfectly awake, he saw her enter, walk to the window, and go out again without speaking. Being in the habit of fastening his door, he supposed he had omitted to do so; but presently afterward he heard her knocking to come in, and he found the door was still locked. She assured him she had not been there before. He was in perfectly good health at the time this happened."
I’ve also found accounts of possible encounters with Vardøgers in one of the groundbreaking early works in psychical research- “Phantasms of the Living”, which was compiled by two of the founding fathers of the Society for Psychical Research- Frederic William Henry (F.W.H.) Myers, and Edmund Gurney (with the assistance of Frank Podmore).
The first account, from a Mrs. Amy Powys, can be found on page 515, and is related as follows:
"I was expecting my husband home, and shortly after the time he ought to have arrived (about 10 p.m.) I heard a cab drive up to the door, the bell ring, my husband's voice talking with the cabman, the front door open, and his step come up the stairs. I went to the drawing-room, opened it, and to my astonishment saw no one. I could hardly believe he was not there, the whole thing was so vivid, and the street was particularly quiet at the time. About 20 minutes or so after this my husband really arrived, though nothing sounded to me more real than it did the first time. The train was late, and he had been thinking I might be anxious.”
Another account (on page 516) comes from a Mrs. Smith:
"My father and mother lived, when young, near St. Albans, in a house separated by three fields from the high road. My father had been staying in Warwickshire, and was returning by the night mail coach. My mother had risen early to be ready for his return, and after seeing that breakfast and a bright fire were ready for his reception, she took her work to the window and sat there awaiting my father’s return. She presently looked up and saw him approaching; she watched him until close to the house, when she went to the door intending to meet him, but he had vanished. Half an hour afterwards he really arrived. My mother was a Quakeress of exceeding truthfulness, and possessing to the full the perfect self‐command and self‐repression inculcated by her sect."
A mention of the phenomena, albeit only in passing, can be found in a series of letters between the Scottish poet, novelist and collector of folk and fairy tales Andrew Lang, and Sir William Craigie, a philologist (scholar of literature and language) and lexicographer, and the third editor of the Oxford Dictionary. Both men, it seems, had an interest in the phenomena, and the following letters from Andrew Lang caught my attention:
Andrew Lang to William A Craigie, 8 Gibson Place, St Andrews, Feb 29 [1912]
"Dear Craigie, Very nice Viardogr, but they are as common here as in Norway. The psychs call them "arrival cases". Kirk (1693) called the V, the Co-walkers. As I read your paper lots of parallels, privately known to me, came into my mind. I remembered that my father had a V. which I never knew till one of my brothers told me what he heard. At that time I had no knowledge at all of these things. A case so chronic as your cobbler's I have not met, I admit. Mrs Purdie once saw a V. It is odd indeed that you have not heard of plenty in this country."
8 Gibson Place, St Andrews, March 4 [1912]
"Dear Craigie, I grant that the V. seems either much more common in Norway, or there it attracts more attention. That is proved by its possessing a name in ordinary talk, whereas Myers for the same thing here had to invent a term. Yet for Mr Kirk, in his Secret Commonwealth* (about 1690,) the thing had a name, the Co-walker.”
“Whether this co-walker is from the Gaelic or not, I don't know. But I get firsthand cases of the V. from Rev. Mr MacInnes, Glencoe. My brother John writes today that he remembers my father's V. very well. "The step on the gravel and up the stone stairs to the front door, and then the latch key. It was not I alone who heard it, many did so."
“His recollection is that he "went out more than once to look". I have any number of cases in my memory; but I don't mean that the V. is as common in practice as in Norway; and here people who come across it think but little of it. But in Glencoe it is quite recognised, whether it has a Gaelic name or not.”
“..Myers invented an explanation of the V; not North but general. One of your informants talks of the "fore-walker". Much like Kirk's "Co-walker" who "goes to his own herd" when his owner dies.”
Are there no "fetchers" in the sagas? Mr MacInnes told me that his brother and another lad were expected in the glen, to which they were walking. There was heavy snow and they were late but their V's knocked at the door, breakfast was made ready, and the owners of the V's, when they came, were glad to get it."
Vardøgers Throughout History
(* refers to “The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies”, a manuscript written by a Scottish minister, Robert Kirk, dating back to around 1690. At his death in 1692 it remained unpublished, and is a detailed study of Scottish folklore, fairies, and supernatural phenomena like the "second sight". Although the text itself was written in 1690/91, the first printing only occurred in 1815.)
The Greek word at the root of both the terms Myers uses- ψυχορραγῶ - means “to let the soul break loose”. Myers posits that those who can easily manifest their double have been born with Psychorrhagic diathesis, and believes that:
“That which “breaks loose” on my hypothesis is not (as in the Greek use of the word) the whole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some psychical element probably of very varying character, and definable mainly by its power of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more persons, in some portion or other of space”.
In slightly more modern parlance, Myers is seemingly explaining that it is not the entire soul that is perceived by an experient in such cases as those mentioned here, but merely a fragment, and this (for my mind at least) perhaps indicates the possibility that the fragment which has temporarily broken loose is the aspect of the agent’s subconscious that is occupied with daydreams, the aspect that is woolgathering- and has the intent of being elsewhere than where the agent’s conscious mind and physical being currently is.
In 1968, Brad Steiger wrote “Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Minds’, which, as previously mentioned, was the very first serious, non-fiction book about paranormal phenomena I would ever read. In this book, Steiger wrote of his own experiences with Vardøgers- those of his own parents:
"As I would be sitting upstairs in my room reading, I would be certain that I heard my parents returning from town. I would hear the door open and close, the sound of feet shuffling- all the normal sounds that a man and woman would make upon entering their home. When I would call down my goodnight and receive no answer, I would find that the house was empty and I was alone. Often, while I was still calling to my parents to answer my goodnights, I would see their car lights coming down the lane of our farm home and realise that I had been fooled and frightened once again by the Vardogr."
In the Journal of Scientific Exploration (J.S.E. Vol. 16, pp. 621-634, 2002), an article by David Leiter details two sightings of his own Vardøger, one of which was reported to him by his own wife and son:
“I was working for a company in Phoenixville, PA, nearly 30 miles due west of my home in willow Grove, PA. It was springtime 1979, or perhaps 1980. I did not make a written record at the time of this first experience because, at that time, I had essentially no background or specific interest in parapsychology, and no clear idea what the experienced phenomena was, except for its being very strange. The portion of my daily commute (via private automobile) closest to my home (about 20 miles worth) was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a well-known high-speed toll-road. There is a reason for all this detail, as will be seen shortly.
On the day in question, I was driving home alone, although I frequently car-pooled with a colleague. It was a beautiful, warm spring day, and the pressures of my job were quite low at the time, so I was very relaxed. Also, at that time, I had been working for that employer for 3 or 4 years, and thus was very familiar with the route. Finally, traffic was light that day.
Anyone who has driven under similar conditions, i.e., an extremely familiar route, under very relaxed driving conditions, is familiar with a specific state of mind that often occurs, best described as “autopilot”, a distinct, altered state of consciousness. In other words, driving an automobile is almost like riding as a passenger on a train or bus, except the view is a lot better. Under such conditions, the mind wanders easily to the scenery and surroundings, and to daydreaming. I’ve always had a strong tendency to daydream when physical and mental circumstances will permit it. Daydreaming also often served me well in my R&d pursuits.
In any event, I came to my normal exit on the turnpike, at Willow Grove, and drove the half-mile or so final leg of the commute, over local town streets. I parked in my normal spot in the driveway in front of our house, took my briefcase and sports jacket out of the car, and entered through the front doorway, which was always unlocked during the daytime (with two teen-aged children running in and out constantly).
My wife was at her usual spot in the kitchen preparing supper. Up to this point, it was a scenario that had occurred thousands of times before during our marriage of almost 20 years. She heard me come in, came out of the kitchen, and asked “what are you doing coming in again?” I answered with my own question, something like “what are you talking about?” She replied, “you came in about 10 minutes ago and just went upstairs”. At this point, I began to get somewhat irritated with her seemingly irrational questions and statements, and said basically “Hon, what are you talking about? I just now shut down the car and came in!”. She responded with mounting confusion and agitation, insisting that I’d come in a little while earlier and had simply gone upstairs. Then to support her contention, she called upstairs to our son, who was in his bedroom with the doors closed, and asked “[Son’s nickname], did you hear your father clump up the steps a little while ago?” He responded with a muffled “Yeah, Mom”.
A work colleague of Leiter’s also reported seeing him in the parking lot of their mutual workplace, dressed in formal attire, which was rather unusual considering he (Leiter) normally wore more casual garb to work. Upon going out to the parking lot, the colleague found Leiter’s parking spot empty, and nobody in the lot. Leiter was in fact not expected at work that day, and was quite some distance away at the time “he” was sighted, attending a funeral. Given this information, the clothing the Vardøger was described as wearing thus now makes sense.
Perhaps the most unusual Vardøger case comes from “The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits” (1992, 2nd ed. 2000), by the late author Rosemary Ellen Guiley. The case dates back to 1955, and concerns an art dealer by the name of Erikson Gorique.
A Vardøger Books a Room
Gorique, living in New York, had always wished to visit Norway. In July of 1955, due to his job, he was fortunate enough to finally be able to make the journey, in order to purchase Norwegian glassware. After landing in Oslo, he went to reserve a room at a large hotel. He was astonished when the receptionist greeted him by name, and told him that his room had been booked. Gorique asked who had made the reservation, and the receptionist informed him that he had done so, in person, a year ago.
Things got stranger still. The following day Gorique went to meet with the wholesaler, a Mr Olsen. He had never met Olsen but, like the hotel receptionist, Olsen greeted Gorique by name and told him he was delighted to see him again. He said he hoped that this time Gorique's visit would be longer, as last time he had been in a rush.
When Gorique made it clear that he had never set foot in Norway before, Olsen introduced him to a university professor, who speculated that it was Gorique's Vardøger, visiting the country beforehand.
These encounters, for my mind, are of the greatest interest as they detail multiple interactions in the form of actual conversations, seemingly denoting an intelligence, or a non-local consciousness, that is perhaps separate from the “owner” of the Vardøger, who of course had no idea the encounters had taken place!
A further story of an encounter with a possible Vardøger hails from somewhere much closer to yours truly- my home country, Australia. In his book “The Ghost Guide to Australia” (Davis 1998, pp. 207-8) author Richard Davis writes about a curious occurrence that took place in the tiny town of Birregurra, near Colac, in Victoria’s West, in previous years.
In 1996, a series of ghostly goings-on had been reported at the town’s 130-year-old Vicarage. But the most interesting account connected to the Vicarage comes from almost half a century earlier, from a Mrs. Flavel, who had lived there in the 1960’s. Upon waking one morning, she found an elderly woman busily arranging flowers on a small table in her bedroom. The woman turned to Mrs. Flavel and apologized for disturbing her, saying “I didn’t think anyone lived here any more”, before suddenly vanishing, along with the flowers. Weeks after the strange experience, at the centenary celebrations for the church to which the Vicarage was attached, Mrs. Flavel was introduced to the widow of a former reverend who had presided over the church in the 1930’s. She was certain that it was the same woman she’d seen in her bedroom, arranging flowers!
Regarding an explanation, or a definition, as to what a Vardøger is- as with any phenomena classed as unexplained, there is no definitive answer as yet. It appears that one possible prerequisite for a Vardøger to be manifested is intent-theindividual to whom it belongs, the "agent" if you will, is occupied (albeit not necessarily consciously) with thought of a location they intend to be at, or with the people in that location- those who then perceive the Vardøger. The possibility habits or memories, as denoted by its interactions with its environment. Telepathic interaction between the minds of the agent and the percipient seems viable also- with the agent's distracted or preoccupied mental state also serving as a crucial element; a sort of altered state of consciousness reached when one is on autopilot, daydreaming- woolgathering.
References made in the series of letters above make mention of Myers’ invented term for the mechanism behind a Vardøger, and his explanation for such manifestations. These can be found in Volume 1 of his classic 1903 publication “Human Personality: And Its Survival Of Bodily Death”, in the terms Psychorrhagia, and Psychorrhagic Diathesis.
The Greek word at the root of both the above terms Myers uses- ψυχορραγῶ - means “to let the soul break loose”. Myers maintains as well that those who can easily manifest their double have been born with what he calls Psychorrhagic diathesis, and believes that:
“That which “breaks loose” on my hypothesis is not (as in the Greek use of the word) the whole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some psychical element probably of very varying character, and definable mainly by its power of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more persons, in some portion or other of space”.
A Fragment of A Soul
In slightly more modern parlance, Myers is seemingly explaining that it is not the entire soul that is perceived by an experiencer in such cases as those mentioned here, but merely a fragment, and this (for my mind at least) indicates the possibility that the fragment which has temporarily broken loose is the aspect of the agent’s subconscious that is occupied with daydreams, the aspect that is woolgathering- and has the intent of being elsewhere, or of doing something else- than whatever circumstance is currently occupying the agent’s conscious thoughts and/or actions.
Whether or not the Vardøger could be classified as a Phantasm of the Living, an unwittingtelepathic process, or an indicator of the reality of non-local consciousness, remains an unanswered question. As the phenomena is spontaneous in nature, there is a lack of replicability. However, in some cultures, the existence of Vardøger phenomena is widely accepted, as is starting to occur now with the existence of Psi phenomena.
Perhaps someday neither will be classed as paranormal at all, but as just another function of our consciousness. This relatively obscure but deeply fascinating phenomena is assuredly worthy of further attention and study.
Over recent years the Festive Season has seen an uptick in interest in Austria’s Krampus - the mythic ‘Anti-Santa’ who punishes wicked children and generally acts as a primal, early Yuletide supernatural entity:
Throughout Europe there are indeed many other nasty Christmas demons, including the Kallikantzari, Frau Perchta, Hans Trapp, Gryla and her Yule Cat, Knecht Ruprecht, La Befana, the Yule Lads, Père Fouettard and Zwarte Piet, all of whom can be explored in Further Reading below.
But the focus of this investigation is the UK, where there is a relative scarcity of similar Yuletide fiends - with two exceptions; the menacing horse-skulled Mari Lywd of South Walesand the demonic Dorset Ooser.
Mari Lywd
The Mari Lwyd is a wassailing (a pagan Winter fertility festival) folk custom in South Wales, led by a hobby horse with a nag’s skull mounted on a pole, carried under a white sheet. The custom was first recorded in 1800, carrying on into the early twentieth century, before retreating to remote villages before its revival in recent decades.
The Mari Lwyd was performed at Christmas time by groups of men who would carry the unnerving symbol to local houses, requesting entry through song. The householders would be expected to deny them entry, again through song, with this back and forth ‘Sing Off’ carrying on interminably in typical Welsh fashion. When inhabitants eventually gave in, the team would be let in and given food and drink.
Folklorists believed that the tradition had once possibly been a pre-Christian religious rite, in keeping with British hooded animal lore —such as the Hoodening of Kent, the Broad of the Cotswolds, and the Old Ball, Old Tup, and Old Horse of northern England. Or perhaps, a link to the sixteenth and seventeenth-century craze for hobby horses among the social elite, which the lower orders mocked with their antics? As Mary Lwyd most often targeted wealthier homes, this is one theory.
An account from Gower stated the horse’s skull was buried throughout the year, only being dug up for use during the Christmas season, when the fun began at dusk and lasted late into the night.
Welsh writer and folklorist Marie Trevelyan (1853-1922) posited the name Mari Lwyd derived from "Grey Death", a symbol of "the dying or dead year". Fellow folklorist Iorwerth Peate (1901-1982) claimed it the horse was, “a survival of a pre-Christian tradition" once spread across Britain and Europe, and surviving the Christianization of Britain, renamed Mari Lwyd as homage to the Virgin Mary. He theorized the original custom had been "horrific in origin and intention". Scholar Ellen Ettlinger (1902–1994) believed the Mari Lwyd was a "death horse", symbolized by the white cloth worn by its carrier, and began as pre-Christian ritual to mark the festival of Samhain.
My personal theory is that Mari Lywd may owe something to those who inhabited the region at various times throughout the ages, as the Celts, Romans and Vikings all sacrificed horses as part of their religious practices. A syncretic folk memory survival perhaps?
From December 2024: Alister Bailey travels to a remote Welsh town to help inspire his latest book, however what he finds is more than simply inspiring. (IMDB)
The Dorset Ooser
The Dorset Ooser is a demonic wooden head which was part of the folk culture of the Dorset village of Melbury Osmond, in southwestern England, the fabled ‘Wessex’ of Thomas Hardy*. The head was hollow, possibly used as a mask, with a hinged jaw which creepily enabled the mouth to open and close. Sometimes used to scare people for practical jokes, the Ooser was part of local charivari custom "skimity riding" aka "rough music", where immoral behaviour was punished.
*Thomas Hardy's mother lived in Melbury Osmond as a child; the village appears as "Little Hintock" in his novel The Woodlanders. The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge contain brief references to the Dorset Ooser.
First brought to public attention in 1891, the head was owned by the Cave family of Melbury but Ooser went missing in 1897 when taken on a tour of Somerset. Folklorists and historians have debated the origins of the head; some believed that it was a representation of Satan designed to terrify people into obeying the local community's moral codes. Others suggested that it represented a pre-Christian god of fertility whose worship survived in Dorset into the Victorian era - or even later.
In 1975 a replica of the original Ooser was made, which has since been on display at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester. This mask is used in local Morris dancing processions and inspired copies used as representations of the Horned God in the modern Pagan religion of Wicca, both in the UK and United States.
It’s still unknown if the head was actually the Ooser, or whether it instead was designed as a mere depiction of an entity called the Ooser; folklore historian H. S. L. Dewar (1892-1976) connected it to the term Wurse, used for the Devil in Layamon's Brut (The Chronicle of Britain), or the 17th-century Italian term Oser, again meaning Devil.
Local tales say that the ‘real’ Ooser lies sleeping beneath the Hell Stone in Dorset’s Portesham parish, only woken by the clattering of hailstones. He then proceeds to stalk the locality looking for anyone mug enough to be out and about in the hailstorm. Interestingly, bearing in mind Mari Lwyd, the remains of another tomb, The Grey Mare and her Colts, is 1+1⁄4 miles (2 km) to the west of the Hell Stone.
It has also been suggested that Ooser or Osser is possibly derived from Wooset, a term used in the dialect around Wiltshire to refer to a pole upon which a horse's skull with deer's horns was affixed; recorded as having been paraded by unruly youths in the Marlborough district until the 1830s, where it was used to mock neighbors whose partners were suspected of marital infidelity, the horns being a traditional sign of cuckoldry.
The Ooser at Christmas
“In my childhood [the Ooser] was doing service – at Christmas mummings*, surely it was. Our Cerne Abbas nurse was quite up in all relating to the "Wurser", as I should spell it phonetically. I did not know of the horns, indeed in our embryo Latinity we thought the word an attempt at Ursa, if I remember rightly. What crowds of odd bits I could note if, alas, I did but "remember rightly" all nurse's folk-lore and folk-speeches." —H. J. Moule, Dorchester, 1892
*Mummings - traditional form of folk performance, particularly associated with the British Isles, involving groups of amateur actors known as mummers or ‘guisers’
In some Dorset villages such as Shillingstone, the Ooser mask (or a close relative) had become the ‘Christmas Bull’, a terrifying creature that roamed through the streets at the end of each year demanding food and drink from the locals.
In 2005, a Guardian journalist reported a dawn ceremony on May Day atop Giant Hill near Cerne Abbas, involving one member carrying the Dorset Ooser replica atop his head, with other Morris men dancing around him. After the frolics they proceeded, still dancing, to a local hostelry the Red Lion. Next Summer, the Wessex Morris Men took the replica to Melbury Osmond for the first time in over a century where they performed a dance for amused locals.
Daniel Patrick Quinn’s The Dorset Ooser (reproduced on www.wessexmorrismen.co.uk by permission of the author, September 2013):
Crom Dubh na Nollaig – the Dark Crooked One of Christmas
The coming of Crom Dubh na Nollaig or The Dark Crooked One of Christmas is heralded by the sound of wind howling in the chimney. This is to terrorize naughty children, in a legend not too dissimilar to Krampus.
On the Inner Hebridean Isle of Islay, Crom Dubh na Nollaig was once a notable element of the holiday season. Back in a 1969 interview, islander Peggy Earl said as a child she was was threatened with a terrifying Yuletide visit from The Dark Crooked One if she ever misbehaved or cheeked her parents.
Nice.
Crom Dubh derives from the Irish pagan god Crom Cruaich, who was associated with fertility and linked to the practice of human sacrifice.
The Dark Crooked One of Christmas is usually depicted as a goat-like entity boasting huge horns, razor-sharp fangs, with glowing demonic eyes; also akin to Krampus, he would whip wicked children frenziedly with birch branches, yowling with laughter as he laid into the weeping youngsters.
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