Jock Brocas On Spiritual Life: supernatural

Showing posts with label supernatural. Show all posts

Monday, 21 September 2026

The Mystery of Edward Mordake and his ‘Devil-Twin’

Watching 2011’s American Horror Story: Freak Show the other evening, my attention was drawn to the peculiar character of Edward Mordake, played by Wes Bentley.

Edward Mordake or Mordrake* was said to have been born sometime in the latter half of the 19th century, the heir to a wealthy English peerage with a life of ease and/or adventure in front of him. However, he was afflicted with a ‘devilish’ female face at the back of his head, which would whisper, simper, giggle or weep, contrary to Mordake’s own prevailing moods. Mordake pleaded with physicians to remove the face, claiming it whispered bad things to him at night. Mordake died by suicide at the age of 23. Can’t really blame him, to be absolutely honest.

* Mordrake is pop culture spelling

[[File:Edward Mordake (illustrazione).jpg|Edward Mordake (illustrazione)]]

George Gould and Walter Pyle wrote about Mordake in their 1896 book Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. Contained within is the story of Edward Mordake, supposedly taken from lay sources:

“One of the weirdest as well as most melancholy stories of human deformity is that of Edward Mordake, said to have been heir to one of the noblest peerages in England. He never claimed the title, however, and committed suicide in his twenty-third year. He lived in complete seclusion, refusing the visits even of the members of his own family. He was a young man of fine attainments, a profound scholar, and a musician of rare ability. His figure was remarkable for its grace, and his face—that is to say, his natural face—was that of an Antinous (the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian).

But upon the back of his head was another face, that of a beautiful girl, ‘lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil.’ The female face was a mere mask, ‘occupying only a small portion of the posterior part of the skull, yet exhibiting every sign of intelligence, of a malignant sort, however.’ It would be seen to smile and sneer while Mordake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of the spectator, and the lips would ‘gibber without ceasing.’ No voice was audible, but Mordake avers that he was kept from his rest at night by the hateful whispers of his ‘devil twin,’ as he called it, ‘which never sleeps, but talks to me forever of such things as they only speak of in hell. No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me. For some unforgiven wickedness of my forefathers I am knit to this fiend—for a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you to crush it out of human semblance, even if I die for it.’

Such were the words of the hapless Mordake to Manvers and Treadwell, his physicians. In spite of careful watching he managed to procure poison, whereof he died, leaving a letter requesting that the ‘demon face’ might be destroyed before his burial, ‘lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave.’ At his own request he was interred in a waste place, without stone or legend to mark his grave.”

Edward Mordake

However, the story of Mordake actually first appeared in an 1895 article by fiction writer Charles Lotin Hildreth, which was published in the Boston Sunday Post. Hildreth created references to a non-existent ‘Royal Scientific Society’ to make his fictional horror story appear real. Gould and Pyle were either in on the hoax, or were suckered by Hildreth, who didn't live to see the success of his creation. He died in August 1896, at the age of 39, just before the publication of Gould and Pyle's Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine.

Many were introduced to the story of Mordake by an old photograph that circulated online for many years. It's in reality a photo of a wax replica created by an artist to demonstrate what Mordake could have looked like.

Besides American Horror Story: Freak Show, Mordake has also appeared in contemporary popular culture as the subject of the song, “Chained Together For Life” aka “Poor Edward” by Tom Waits and the opera Mordake by Erling Wold.

Tom Waits - Chained Together For Life

Mordake by Erling Wold

Medically, it’s not impossible, as the phenomenon of Craniopagus Parasiticus, happens when "a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body is attached to the head of a developed twin." Mordake if he existed could also possibly have been a case of Diprosopus, known as craniofacial duplication, resulting from abnormal protein activity. In 2008, Lali Singh, a female child with two faces, was born in India and survived for six weeks (see Sources for further details),

Anyway, with regard to Mordake, cases of craniopagus parasiticus always involve monozygotic (or identical) twins, which means the pair are always of the same sex. Mordake could not have had the face of a female on the back of his head.

American Horror Story Freakshow - Edward Mordrake's Backstory

Other instances of Edward Mordake’s condition include Ashley Barrett’s “Second Face” from The Boys (2019-26)

And further back:

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) - an advertising executive has a nervous breakdown and grows a talking boil on his shoulder, a manifestation of the cynical and unscrupulous side of his personality.

Futakuchi-onna

Takehara Shunsen (竹原春泉, Japanese, *?, †?), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In many Japanese stories, the soon-to-be futakuchi-onna (two-mouthed woman) is the spouse of a miser and rarely eats. A second mouth mysteriously appears on the back of the woman's head. This often mumbles spiteful and threatening things to the woman and demands food. If not fed, it screeches obscenities and causes tremendous physical pain. After a while, the woman's hair begins to move like a pair of serpents, allowing the maw to help itself to the woman's meals. While no food passes through her normal lips, the mouth in the back of her head consumes twice what the other one normally would.

In another story, the extra piehole is formed when a stingy woman is ‘accidentally’ hit in the head by her husband's axe whilst chopping wood, and the wound never heals and becomes a extra orifice. Some stories cast the woman as a mother who has let her stepchild die of hunger while keeping her own daughter nourished. The spirit of the waif possesses the stepmother or the surviving child to exact revenge.

In the folk tales of Japan’s eastern regions, futakuchi onna are most often thought to be shape-changed yama uba (supernatural creatures) posing as young women. In the west of the country they are frequently shape-changed kumo - magical spider monsters. In the other tales they are the result of curses brought about by wicked deeds, a punishment upon a greedy man or woman for evil and extreme parsimony.

Pasqual Piñón

See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Pasqual Piñón (1889–1929), popularly known as Pedro The Two-Headed Mexican, was discovered by a sideshow huckster for the Sells-Floto Circus in the early 1900s, his attention caught by a large benign cyst or tumor at the top of the chap’s noggin. A phony wax face placed on the growth, demonstrating Piñón really had two heads.

When the circus arrived in Gardner, Massachusetts, Dr. James Waters was called to check on Mr. Pinon, who was unable to leave his bunk on the circus train due to severe headaches. Dr. Waters attended to Piñón, then ordered him to the Henry Heywood Memorial Hospital, where it was decided the tumor had to be severed in order to save the man’s life. During the operation, Piñón remained conscious, numbed by Novocain. He didn’t suffer brain damage, as separate from the tumor. But he did lose his career. After regaining his health, Pasqual Piñón returned home to Mexico and retired from the circus.

Jack Delano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

SOURCES

An English noble with two faces, a literary creation: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/22/fact-check-two-faced-edward-mordake-literary-creation/7985429002/

A Mystery Solved: https://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/edward_mordake

An apocryphal case of craniopagus parasiticus: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-014-2581-6

The Man Who Allegedly Had One Head And Two Faces:https://allthatsinteresting.com/edward-mordrake

The True But False Story of Edward Mordrake: https://www.weirdhistorian.com/edward-mordrake/

Edward Mordrake, the Two-Faced Hoax: https://www.ripleys.com/stories/edward-mordrake-hoax

Futakuchi onna: https://yokai.com/futakuchionna/?srsltid=AfmBOor1CBXA_uI-yEbbWGB_fO59t8W6ICSFYpEnlMnqZbZmqA5MKWiq

PASQUAL PINON – The Two Headed Mexican: https://web.archive.org/web/20130805140701/http://thehumanmarvels.com/39/pasqual-pinon-the-two-headed-mexican/fake-freaks

Girl with two faces just fine as she is, say parents: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/07/india

'Miracle baby' is feted in India: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7340091.stm

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Cube - Two Heads Are Better Than One

Thursday, 16 July 2026

Cleopatra’s Needles: Cursed Obelisks in London & New York

A pair of obelisks, together named Cleopatra's Needles, were taken in the 19th century from the ruins of the Caesareum of Alexandria in Egypt; one to the London Embankment and the other to New York’s Central Park.

Inscribed by Thutmose III and later Ramesses II of the Egyptian New Kingdom, the obelisks were first moved in 12 BC to Alexandria, remaining there for over 1,800 years.

Cleopatra's needles and the Tower of the Romans, drawn c.1798,

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cleopatra’s Needle - London

Cleopatra's Needle and the Victoria Embankment by Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The obelisk that was eventually re-erected in London was presented to the Prince Regent in 1819 by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali, a gift to mark British beating the French at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and in 1801’s Battle of Alexandria.

The obelisk remained in Alexandria until 1877 when anatomist and dermatologist Sir William James Erasmus Wilson sponsored its transportation to London at the cost of £10,000, around £1,553,000 in today’s money.

The 224 ton artifact was encased in a iron cylinder, 92 feet long and 16 feet wide, dubbed Cleopatra, commanded by one Captain Carter, towed to London by the ship Olga, under Captain Booth. On October 14th 1877, a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay caused the Cleopatra to list uncontrollably, forcing the tow ropes to be cut. The Olga launched a rescue boat with six volunteers but the boat capsized, and all crew members died. Captain Carter his five shipmates aboard Cleopatra were eventually rescued though.

The paddle tug Anglia was then commissioned to tow the Cleopatra to London where it arrived in January 1878 and set up with some pomp at the Embankment on September 12th 1878.

Cleopatra's Needle is flanked by George John Vulliamy’s two faux-Egyptian bronze sphinxes, made at the Eccleston Iron Works in Pimlico in 1881. The sphinxes bear hieroglyphic inscriptions that say “netjer nefer men-kheper-re di ankh”, meaning "the good god, Thuthmosis III given life". Oddly, they are looking at the Needle rather than guarding it - or are they?

Possibly their role was NOT to stop harm from coming to the obelisk but rather to prevent anything supernatural from escaping, a task in which they appear to have singularly failed.The Embankment boasts other Egyptian touches, such as the well-endowed winged female sphinxes gracing the armrests of nearby benches.

A time capsule was concealed in the front part of the pedestal, containing twelve candid photographs of the most attractive English women of the day, hairpins, cigars, tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby's bottle, children's toys, a razor, a hydraulic jack and some samples of the cable used in the erection, a 3-foot (90-centimetre) bronze model of the monument, and a complete set of contemporary British coins.

A rupee, a portrait of Queen Victoria, a history of the transport of the monument plans, a translation of the inscriptions, the Bible in several languages, a copy of John 3:16 in 215 languages, Whitaker's Almanack, a Bradshaw Railway Guide, a map of London, daily newspapers and finally, a twenty-four inch metal ruler, were also squirrelled away in the capsule.

It has been posited that the pictures of women and a razor amongst the items deposited beneath the monolith emitted waves of evil occult energy that eventually resulted in the crimes of Jack the Ripper decades later.

As The Ripper puts it in Alan Moore’s From Hell (1999): “They call it Cleopatra’s Needle. He who’d wield it would the BEST of tailors be, to do its work, increase the Sun God’s sovereignty … encoded in this city’s stones are symbols thunderous enough to rouse the sleeping Gods submerged beneath the sea-bed of our dreams.”

In 1977, my school Nower Hill High secreted a time capsule, which was (typically) forgotten about until accidentally rediscovered in 2013.

Cleopatra’s Needle: Shades of Ancient Egypt Gather

Soon, eerie unexplained events began to unfold around London’s Cleopatra monument, including the following;

The Spectral Seaman

The ghost of a naked man has been seen on a number of occasions, leaping from out behind the obelisk and throwing himself into the River without making a splash. The first sighting of this apparition occurred only a few weeks after the installation of the obelisk, leading many to conjecture it was the shade of one of the sailors who drowned in the Bay of Biscay. Or it was simply a ‘flasher’ with a taste for the theatrical?

Aleister Crowley Was ‘Ere

It is said that the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley performed dark rituals late one evening at the base of the obelisk in order to release the trapped spirit of the Pharoah Rameses. The ceremony supposedly involved animal blood and a human skeleton. Crowley failed in his endeavour, which was accompanied by the sound of Rameses mocking guffaws. File under: unlikely.

Suicide Isn’t Painless

Cleopatra’s Needle soon became a site associated with suicide. A policeman claimed a hysterical woman approached the officer, urging him to come to the banks of the Thames by the obelisk to prevent someone from hurling themselves into the water. As he left her and reached the area, he saw the same woman leap into the river, cackling as she did so.

The Laughing Man-Fish

In Elliott O’Donnell’s Haunted Waters (1957) he recounts, “the spot where Cleopatra’s Needle stands was well-know to be haunted. None of the outcasts would venture near it. Two of them told me that one night they saw a tall, nude, shadowy figure, with a pear-shaped head and a body covered with what looked like scales, suddenly appear by the needle, wave a long arm at them and leap over the wall into the river. They said that they sometimes heard unearthly groans and hellish, mocking laughter in the river.”

The Ancient World in London - Egyptomania in London

Near where I used to live in Islington:

Cleopatra’s Needle - New York

Ingfbruno, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

New York’s Needle was gifted in May 1877 to United States Consul General by Cairo Judge Elbert E. Farman, as thanks from the Khedive for the US remaining a friendly neutral as France and Britain vied for control of Egypt and the Suez Canal. Transportation costs were largely paid by the railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The obelisk was transported seven miles to Alexandria and then put into the modified hold of the steamship SS Dessoug, which set sail June 12th, 1880. The Needle and its accompanying 50-ton pedestal arrived at the Quarantine Station in New York a month later. The ground was flattened so the obelisk could be rolled out of the ship and transported to an interim location off Fifth Avenue. Finally a steam engine pushed the object across a specially built trestle bridge from Fifth Avenue to Greywacke Knoll, just across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It took a mammoth 112 days to move the obelisk from Quarantine Station to its current location.

Jesse B. Anthony, Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, presided as the cornerstone for the obelisk was laid in place with full Masonic ceremony on October 2nd, 1880. Over 9,000 Masons paraded up Fifth Avenue from 14th Street to 82nd Street. The official ceremony for erecting the obelisk was held January 22, 1881. A time capsule buried beneath the obelisk contains an 1870 U.S. census, a Bible, a Webster's Dictionary, the complete works of William Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence.

A small chest was also placed in the capsule, but its contents remain unknown to this very day.

The wonderfully named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, who supervised the movement of the obelisk, claimed the prime advantage of the Knoll was its "isolation", and it was elevated, with the foundation firmly anchored in local bedrock, supposedly preventing collapse if Manhattan suffered "some violent convulsion of nature."

The League of Shadows

In 1885 Gorringe died at the age of 43 as a result of injuries when he fell (or was he pushed?) from a moving train. 1885 was the year in which Gorringe published his book Egyptian Obelisks, which mainly explored his acquisition of Cleopatra’s Needle for Central Park. Gorringe was buried in Rockland Cemetery, Sparkhill, New York State. His memorial stone declares: “His crowning work was the removal of Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt to the United States, a feat of engineering without parallel.” In 1886, his friends erected a replica of Cleopatra’s Needle over his grave, the unveiling drawing 500 people. Like the original obelisk in Central Park – it stands on its own knoll, overlooking the Hudson River.

There are far less stories of ghosts and curses linked to the New York obelisk than its London sibling, attributed by some to the elaborate Masonic ceremonies that prepared the plinth for the monument’s arrival, which may have pacified any unquiet ancient spirits.

In 2011, the pollution-blighted Needle was inspected by Zahi Hawass (Minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities) who declared: “If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for the obelisk, I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artefact home and save it from ruin.” The London obelisk is in a better condition, but in 2018 Hawass also weighed in, “I went to see it yesterday and I was ashamed … If they don’t care, they should return it.”

Note: The 50-foot granite walls of Manhattan’s now demolished Croton Reservoir (completed in 1842) were constructed in the Egyptian style popular at the time.

unidentified illustrator of an article by T. Addison Richards, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cleopatra (1999)

Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising (1972); film director Donald Cammell was the god Osiris; Marianne Faithfull plays primordial she-demon Lilith:

LINKS

Cleopatra’s Needle – London & New York’s Cursed & Haunted Egyptian Obelisks: https://www.davidcastleton.net/cleopatras-needle-london-new-york-city-central-park-obelisk-cursed-haunted-ancient-egypt/

Hidden Alignments Documentary – NYC Masonic Obelisks: http://glasscapsule.com/2015/12/hidden-alignments-documentary-nyc-masonic-obelisks/

The Mystery of the Central Park Obelisk: https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/10/cleopatras-needle-and-secret-of-new.html

NYC – Cleopatra’s Needle: https://imagerysmith.wordpress.com/

How Cleopatra’s Needle came to London: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/how-cleopatras-needle-came-london/

The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle: https://hauntedpalaceblog.com/2022/06/07/the-curse-of-cleopatras-needle/

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Cover image of London’s Cleopatra Needle attribution: Canva Pro

Monday, 22 June 2026

You Are A Miracle Worker

You have the ability to create profound change in your life through a combination of spiritual tools such as daily prayer, healing affirmations, meditation, contemplation and metaphysical study. However, it’s important to know that transformation of consciousness for such radical shifts can take time. In this sense, you can limit and block yourself if you lack patience and tolerance in your desire and ability to shift those nuances, non-beneficial behaviors, and addictive patterns before breaking through the darkness and moving into the Light.

Through regular dedication to a daily spiritual practice and your own devotion and surrender to a Higher-Power, whether this divine source for you be known as God, the Light, the Creator, or even the Universe, will help you to build a great spiritual momentum towards real beneficial change.

When you take charge of your energy by becoming more self-aware and by paying attention to the subtle energetic shifts you experience through utilizing daily prayer power, and from the likes of regular meditation and visualization, these subtle energetic shifts begin to create profound miracles for you. A miracle is simply a shift in consciousness and a transformation of one type of energy into another. For example, transforming the non-beneficial energy of the feeling of fear into the beneficial energy of feeling safe and secure.

This energetic shift becomes a mini-miracle for you because when you shift your perspective from one of fear to feeling safe, then you also immediately help to rebalance your physiology and calm your nervous system. You are a miracle maker in the broadest spiritual sense as you are naturally imbued with creative power. It is your birthright and divine origin.

You also have the free will to transform what no longer serves you into something more appropriate. When you co-create with the Light through the act of spiritual surrender (prayer power), then you magnify your soul’s Light with a Source of Power that is greater than your own. You plug into the Creator and you Light-Up your health, life and the world around you.

Becoming a Mighty Miracle Maker

A miracle of the divine kind is the transformation of one kind of energy into another, such as when Jesus turned water into wine. You are capable of creating many miracles right now in the present moment, and whilst you may not be able to transform water into wine just yet, this phenomenal divine example is to show you that you really are unlimited in your potential for becoming a mighty miracle maker. You do so as you expand your spiritual consciousness and evolve your soul’s Light through spiritual growth to help you magnify your greater creative expression.

When you begin to perceive things differently and are able to let go of the emotional pain in your heart and soul, resentments that you carry, judgment and criticism of self and others, then you will naturally as well as intentionally start to shift old patterns, stories and limitations. You will begin to transform your consciousness from one of separation and fear into one of connection, compassion and unconditional love.

From this standpoint, life will begin to flow for you. Your health will become more vibrant and you will feel more peace and joy. Some things may shift quickly for you, while others may take more time. It really isn’t about speed and the quantity of shifts that you can experience. It’s more about the journey of spiritual growth, understanding and spiritual unfoldment.

Supernatural Potential Sits Dormant Within Us

Your daily spiritual practice and devotion to the Light enable you to expand your heart energy so that you can lead a miraculous life. So that you can make the most of your life by overcoming earthly struggles and gaining the spiritual muscles you need to support you through the tough times and manifest your heart’s desires.

Spiritual freedom is the result of many miraculous shifts in consciousness leading us to unlimited spiritual growth. We all have remarkable supernatural potential that sits dormant within us, and spiritual growth takes us one step closer to unfolding this hidden potential.

Freedom comes from allowing the Light to lead us, and from aligning our soul’s Light within the Larger Light of the Whole. The truth being that the more spiritually awake we become, the more powerful the Light within us emerges. This power within is able to align with and withstand a stronger vibrational current from the Universal Light of Creator. We can then draw on this supernatural power current to create heaven on earth. To help aid others in their own miraculous shifts, to help direct Light to the suffering of the world, and to bless our beautiful planet.

Three Spiritual Steps to Conscious Miracle Making

When you find yourself needing the miracle of a shift in consciousness to help you transform your energy or the energy of a difficult situation that’s bothering you, use the following three spiritual steps to help you become a conscious miracle maker.

Step One: Become Aware & Measure

Become aware of any limiting thought, action, or behavior you have without self-condemnation. Simply notice when you are out of alignment with the energies of unconditional love, peace or joy. These are the three ‘high-vibe’ energy frequencies to measure any of your thoughts, actions, and behaviors by. Ask yourself, are any of them in harmony with the high-vibe energies of unconditional love, peace, and joy. If not, then you have the power to transform them and to halt the negative effects from manifesting.

Step Two: Select Something

Select one low-vibe issue at a time that you’ve become consciously aware of. Let’s say it’s a self-critical thought such as ‘you hate your body.’ You may even come to realize that you think about this particular negative thought most of the time, which just locks in the low-vibe energies about your body and constantly triggers you. When you measure this, you obviously realize that it doesn’t measure up with the energies of unconditional love, peace, and joy (step one). The purpose of this measurement reference is to help you know that the limiting thought isn’t real. It’s simply false and is coming from the unhealed parts of you. Truth, however, is always in alignment with the energies of unconditional love, peace, and joy, which are aspects of the real divine you.

Shifting your perspective to the high-vibe truth energies can bring healing. Simply stated, if any of your thoughts, actions, and behaviors aren’t in harmony with the energies of unconditional love, peace, and joy, then you will know that they are false and not spiritually true for you. It is in this understanding of truth and of contemplating the real you, that you create miracle minded shifts in consciousness.

Step Three: Choose Anew

Choose a new thought, action or behavior that is in alignment with the energies of unconditional love, peace, and joy. In this example, the thought of ‘I hate my body,’ now can be transformed due to your understanding of truth (step two) into a more supportive thought, such as, ‘I love and accept myself.’ Whilst this may initially be weird for you to say after never thinking it previously, it is due to your current understanding of what is false and what is real – that the energy shift you’ve experienced will now help you to transform this new thought into being.

This is the time that you don’t give up on this practice, as the old low-vibe thought can present itself until the power of transformation has completely shifted. Remember that you need to get that momentum flowing towards to the high-vibe thoughts of truth, so you keep on using this three-step process to help you create long-lasting change. Continue to exchange any old negative thoughts with new ones you choose that are in harmony with truth.

Spiritual growth is easier than you think if you are willing to take the necessary steps to help yourself with some loving patience and compassion. You will expand your soul’s Light and your creative power in doing so and this is so worth the effort. You will bless your life and the lives of others in many ways by simply doing so!

Joanne Brocas is a world-renowned healer, intuitive and the number one bestselling author. Joanne’s spiritual purpose is to help people align with the Light and to expand their unlimited creative potential so that they may heal in all their ways. Visit Joanne’s website: www.joannebrocas.com

Note: This article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press which has since joined the PDN group.

Thursday, 18 June 2026

When Supernatural Monsters Like Vampires Stopped to Count

The Forgotten Folklore of Seeds, Salt, and Supernatural Weaknesses

Many supernatural monsters in folklore were believed to possess strange weaknesses. From vampires and witches to troublesome spirits and fairies, stories from around the world describe creatures that could be distracted or delayed by seeds, grains, salt, and other curious objects. These unusual beliefs reveal a lesser-known side of traditional monster folklore.

A Strange Detail That Wouldn't Go Away

The first reference occupied no more than a few lines.

I nearly skipped past it.

A vampire. A handful of seeds. And a suggestion that the creature would stop to count them.

That was all.

I made a note and carried on with whatever I had originally been researching. Folklore collections are full of odd details. Most turn out to be local curiosities that never seem to appear anywhere else.

At least, that is what I assumed.

Then the same idea surfaced in another source.

Not exactly the same story. Not even the same country.

But close enough.

A supernatural being confronted with a collection of small objects and somehow compelled to count them.

I started keeping notes.

Finding examples was not as straightforward as I expected. Many references were brief. Others appeared almost in passing, tucked away among discussions of completely different subjects. Still, the list slowly grew.

The subject of Vampires and their behavior drifted into the background for a while until recently, when I attended a talk on vampire folklore and the sometimes surprising measures communities once used to protect themselves from suspected vampires.

The old note came back to mind.

So did the seeds.

The Supernatural Monster Who Had To Count

Today there is a word for an obsessive need to count.

Arithmomania

The term belongs to modern psychology rather than folklore, but it provides a convenient label for something that appears surprisingly often in traditional stories.

The details vary.

The creatures vary.

Yet the basic idea remains remarkably consistent.

Present certain supernatural beings with enough objects to count and they become distracted from whatever they were doing.

For a modern reader, it feels like an odd weakness.

For the people who preserved these stories, it was often a useful one.

Salt appeared frequently in protective folklore. Beyond its practical value, scattered grains could also become a challenge for troublesome spirits and other supernatural visitors.

supernatural monsters: Vampires — In parts of Eastern Europe, poppy seeds and other grains were sometimes scattered to distract vampires, buying precious time until dawn.

A Handful of Seeds and a Vampire

The clearest examples tend to involve vampires.

Across parts of Eastern Europe, particularly within Slavic traditions, seeds were sometimes associated with protection against the undead. Poppy seeds appear frequently, although millet and other grains can also be found in the stories.

The reasoning was simple.

Scatter enough seeds and the vampire begins counting.

One grain.

Then the next.

Then another.

And another.

It is not how most of us picture a vampire.

Popular culture has given us elegant aristocrats, dark castles, flowing capes, and dramatic confrontations.

Traditional folklore could be much stranger.

The vampire remained dangerous, but it also seemed constrained by peculiar rules. In some stories, seeds were scattered over graves suspected of harboring the restless dead. In others, they might be thrown behind a fleeing traveler.

The goal was not necessarily victory.

A delay could be enough.

A few minutes might help somebody reach shelter.

A few hours might carry the night toward dawn.

And dawn was often the thing a vampire feared most.

Nets, Knots, and Other Problems

The more examples I found, the more often another object appeared.

Fishing nets.

At first they seem unrelated.

Then the connection becomes obvious.

A net contains countless openings.

According to some traditions, a supernatural intruder confronted by a fishing net would become occupied counting every gap before proceeding.

Similar ideas appear elsewhere.

Knots.
Threads.
Tangled cords.

Sometimes the creature is counting. Sometimes it is untangling. Sometimes it is simply trapped in an endless repetitive task.

The details change.

The principle remains familiar.

Keep the creature busy.

Let time do the rest.

Witches at the Threshold

The same motif appears in traditions concerning witches.

In parts of Italy, sieves and colanders occasionally acquired a protective role. Left near a doorway or entrance, they supposedly forced a witch to stop and count the many holes before entering.

Every hole mattered.
Every hole had to be counted.
By then, the night might be nearly over.

As with much folklore, it is difficult to know how literally such stories were taken. What matters is that the idea survived.

Versions of the belief later appeared in parts of Appalachia after European traditions crossed the Atlantic. Details shifted from place to place, but the central theme remained recognizable.

The witch encounters something that demands counting.

The counting becomes the trap.

According to some traditions, witches could be delayed by objects containing numerous holes, such as sieves or colanders, forcing them to count until sunrise.

Fairies Were Not Always Friendly

The fairies found in older folklore can be surprisingly unpleasant.

Many were blamed for spoiled milk, missing household items, frightened livestock, and various forms of everyday mischief.

People responded accordingly.

In several traditions, grains, flax seeds, or salt could be scattered around places frequented by troublesome spirits. The being would supposedly become occupied counting rather than causing trouble.

One note in particular caught my attention.

It concerned a mischievous spirit from Spain known as the Trasgu.

Descriptions vary from region to region, but the creature is usually portrayed as an energetic household nuisance. It moves objects, creates disorder, and generally makes life difficult for the people sharing its home.

One recurring detail is especially curious.

The Trasgu is often described as having holes in its hands.

As a result, small objects slip through its fingers. Certain tasks become impossible to complete.

Stories frequently place the spirit in situations where this weakness works against it. It is assigned impossible jobs, repetitive tasks, or challenges involving tiny objects that continually escape its grasp.

The result is less a confrontation than an exercise in frustration.

Why Salt Appears Everywhere

At a certain point I began noticing another recurring feature.

Salt.

It turns up repeatedly in folklore.

On thresholds.
Across windowsills.
Around doorways.
Within protective rituals.

That probably should not be surprising.

For most of human history, salt was far more valuable than many of us appreciate today. It preserved food, supported trade networks, and helped communities survive difficult seasons.

People depended on it.

Folklore tends to attach meaning to things that matter.

Salt also appeared to resist corruption. Food preserved with salt lasted longer. Decay slowed. Spoilage could be delayed.

Then there is the counting element.

Unlike a stone or a piece of iron, salt can be scattered into thousands of individual grains.

A protective substance.

A symbolic purifier.

And, according to some traditions, a counting challenge.

All in the same handful.

supernatural monsters — Salt appeared frequently in protective folklore. Beyond its practical value, scattered grains could also become a challenge for troublesome spirits and other supernatural visitors.

More Than Just Superstition

A bag of seeds is a curious thing to carry as protection.

Yet the idea appears often enough that it must have appealed to people for a reason.

The stories may differ, but they all arrive at roughly the same place.

The creature can be delayed.

The night can be bought a little time.

That is what interests me most.

Not whether vampires counted poppy seeds.

Not whether witches paused outside a doorway to count holes in a sieve.

But the way these stories impose rules on something frightening.

The supernatural threat remains dangerous.

Yet it becomes predictable.

A weakness exists.

A loophole can be found.

Sometimes that loophole is nothing more than a handful of seeds dropped onto a dark road.

The Last Grain

I originally assumed the reference was a local oddity.

It turned out not to be.

A vampire distracted by seeds.
A witch counting holes in a sieve.
A troublesome spirit trapped by an impossible task.

The stories are separated by geography, language, and centuries.

Yet somehow they arrive at the same strange conclusion.

Give a monster enough things to count and, for a while at least, it may leave you alone.

Today most people know vampires through novels, movies, and television. They recognize the fangs, the coffins, and the dramatic entrances.

Few remember the seeds.

Yet the seeds remained in the stories long after many other details changed.

That, perhaps, is worth counting.

Wednesday, 3 June 2026

Meet Puck, the Mischievous Sprite of Olde (and maybe current) England

Puck, The Naughty Sprite

As we approach Midsummer’s Eve...

To many, the naughty sprite Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow) is best known from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream (1596) as one of the main fairy characters that populate the play, significantly influencing events with his cheeky pranks such as replacing Nick Bottom's head with that of an ass.

Henry Fuseli, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Older readers may possibly recall Kipling’s novel Puck of Pook's Hill where Puck (“a small, brown... pointy-eared person”), who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", recounts various scenes of English history/fantasy to two children from nearby Burwash, in the High Weald of Sussex. Kipling's Puck is extremely critical of the modern image of a fairy: “Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't care to be confused with that pointy-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head set of imposters? Butterfly wings, indeed!”

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) by Rudyard Kipling

‘Pook’s Hill’ is thought to be the hill that can be seen to the south-west from the lawn at Bateman’s, Kipling’s charming rural residence. Its real name is Perch Hill.

Jonathan Whitesell played Robin Goodfellow in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2020):

Jack Gleeson (Joffrey from Game of Thrones) also essayed Puck in season two of The Sandman on Netflix last year.

Joseph Noel Paton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In Amazon’s appalling fantasy series Carnival Row (2019, 2023), the Puck are a race of ‘fae’.

But who was Puck - and was he in any way ‘real’?

Puck associated place-names in England are relatively rare when compared to those commonly said to possess Norse and Saxon stems and originate from Gloucestershire, parts of Sussex, and the South-West, suggesting a possible Celtic origin. Names such as South Gloucestershire’s Pucklechurch ("Puck's Church") and various Puck- and Poke- prefixed woods, hills, and wells survive from early-medieval times to the this very day. Looking further back, Puck has been linked to the Greek God, Pan. In Anna Franklin’s Midsummer: Magical Celebrations of the Summer Solstice (2002) she says, “Robin Goodfellow is sometimes described as having the head of a youth and the body of a goat. Like the god Pan, he has a lusty nature, small horns on his head, and carries musical pipes. It may be that he is the fairy remnant of the ancient horned god or nature spirits, since there originally seems to have been a race of pucks.”

There is also said to be a link between Puck, The Green Man and Robin Hood - all to an extent representing nature in its raw and wilful form. Mike Harding, author of A Little Book of the Green Man (1998), said in a 2010 letter to The Guardian:

Robin Hood and the woodland orgies

Of course there was no Robin Hood. The name is a corruption of Robin of the Wood or Robin in the Hood and refers to Robin Goodfellow/Puck, the spirit of the woods, a pagan nature god who lived on well beyond the Christianisation of this island (Robin is often quoted in witchcraft trials as the name the witches chose for their familiars). He was no "tricksy spirit" but a powerful green god – perhaps seen in one aspect in the images of the Green Man that adorn so many of our great medieval churches and cathedrals. Mayday (a movable feast dependent upon the first blossoming of the hawthorn) was the signal for all and sundry to hie them away to the woods for a mass orgy. Harsh winters and poor diet meant low fertility, so the best way to ensure a good stock of babies was for women to have as many sexual partners as possible.

Any children born of the woodland orgies that went under the name of the Robin Hood games became known as Robson, Robinson or Hudson (Robert Graves – The White Goddess). Men in tights might work very well for the film-makers and the tourist boards – green gods that encouraged fecund fornication probably wouldn't figure highly in the naming of airports. And Maid Marian? Mary the Virgin Mother, the maid, consort of the Green Man perhaps. Morris dancers? Well that phallic symbol the maypole was brought out of the woods accompanied by a gang of dancers – Morris men. (Mary's men?) Until Cromwell came along and did away with maypoles and bonking in the bower, England was a much more ribald and perhaps even merry place. Perhaps the Tories who want a Big Society and a return to merry England could revive the maypole and spontaneous and widespread woodland nookie – bit late to put it in the manifesto though.

Despite the comparative scarcity, at least 50 places in England feature the word "Puck," including:

Puckrup, Gloucestershire - the hamlet derives its name from Old English, meaning a "goblin-haunted farmstead". In local folklore, the locality is heavily associated with Puck (or Puca)

Puckaster Cove, Isle of Wight - mentioned frequently in local folklore regarding ‘fairy dances’.

Puckstye & Pockford, Surrey - relating to nearby fields and a centuries-old goblin/sprite-haunted pathway

Puckham Woods, Gloucestershire - associated with medieval witchcraft

Puckshipton, Wiltshire - strongly associated with sightings of goblins etc

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898): Puck/Robin Goodfellow is both a "drudging fiend", and merry domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical jokes. During late evenings Puck will sometimes perform small services for the family over which he ‘presides’. The Scots call this kind of domestic spirit a brownie; the Germans, Kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. Scandinavians called it Nissë God-dreng.

According to his mood, Puck would undertake minor housework, some fine needlework or butter-churning. He would assist housewives with their chores, in expectation of an offering of some fresh crusty white bread and creamy milk. If this were neglected, he would steal that which he believed was owed and enact other petty acts of retribution upon the householders.

After the Protestant Reformation, Puck became the subject of negative texts written by Protestant proselytisers, along with, of course, other supernatural entities. Edmond Bicknoll claimed he was born from the ‘fruit of infidelity’ and was a conspirator of the devil, whilst Reginald Scot referred to Puck as the ‘great and ancient bullbeggar’ and Edward Dering blamed the sprite for the ‘idle superstitions’ of medieval religion.

Contrary to the attacks from Protestant authorities, the belief in Robin Goodfellow and his fairy companions remained significant in early modern popular life, particularly in the realm of household. Indeed, in Bedfordshire, where I currently abide, local rustic families supposedly still give offerings and venerate the ‘Little Folk/Hobs/Lubber Fiends’ who will minister to their domiciliary needs, if appropriately placated.

The fear Puck could engenderer also led to other customs which were designed to prevent his punishments from occurring. For example, people would often leave out pails of water for the creatures to wash themselves. In 1731, George Waldron argued that this belief was still important, saying “a person would be thought impudently profane” to go to bed “without having first set a tub, or pail full of clean fresh cool water”, in order for “these guests to bathe themselves in”.

Which is nice. Maybe this accounts for the pails of water left by cottages in my locality; unless of course it’s meant for the squirrels and birds during the current heat wave.

Puck was portrayed as a cocky trickster who could also shape-shift to toy with the people he met, stating, “sometimes I meet them like a man, sometimes an oxe, sometimes a hound, and to a horse I turn me can.” His jolly japes ranged from ruining dinner parties by annoying guests, spooking people in their sleep and when in the mood, swapping human children for hideous elf-changelings.

Joshua Reynolds, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Puck, as Robin Goodfellow, even appears in an 1856 speech by Karl Marx: "In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor profits of regression, we recognize our brave friend Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer – the Revolution."

In 1952, a woman named Mrs. C. Woods reported encountering a 3-foot-tall "elf" or sprite whilst yomping on Dartmoor. Apparently she initially mistook the peculiar little figure for an animal, but realized it was a "tiny man in brown" wearing a smock when she approached closer.

The Red Sprite, a form of upper-atmospheric lightning, is sometimes referred to as "Puck", a reference to mischievous nature spirits, inspiring the phenomenon's name. Whilst extremely rare, Red Sprites have been photographed and witnessed in the night skies of England during severe thunderstorms.