The New Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil first started interesting me way back when the X-Files did an episode about it. Of course in that episode, it was a mostly human creature and the Devil most people talk about in the sightings of today is a totally different creature with huge wings, the head of a horse, glowing red eyes, cloven hooves of a deer and the body of a serpent. Most people claim it to be more than seven feet tall as well and it had been noted in police reports that the its weight is estimated to be 200 to 400 pounds from the footprint impressions left in the snow at one particular sighting.

It's interesting to note that although New Jersey is a very densely populated state, it has some very unpopulated and thickly forested areas. One of these is called the Pine Barrens, located in the southern part of the state.

So what is the Jersey Devil, really? Lets go back to the original myth which goes back to colonial days. Legend has it that this all started with a kind of self-imposed curse. An English woman, Mowas Leeds, had married a Pine Barren businessman and became pregnant with her thirteenth child in as many years. Finding herself sick of children and the whole child bearing process, she prayed to God "Lord, I don't want anymore children. Let this one be a devil". Perhaps it was out of an awful depression from hormones that never had a chance to return to normal with all those births so close together. Perhaps it never happened at all, but usually a folklorist or an historian will tell you no to discount oral histories as they were a closely guarded way to hand down a peoples family history.

Anyway, as the story goes, the newborn was horribly deformed. It looked at its mother with horrible eyes, spread its wings and flew up and our of the chimney to roam the Pine Barrens where it is reported to remain to this day.

People who have seen the Jersey Devil do report a feeling of fear for their lives and a sense of dread. Their adrenalin kicks in and they run from it, feeling their life is in danger. An age old response to threat. We can then assume this devil does mean harm. There have been expeditions to find it, but no one has come up with any evidence of its existence. I've been told that the TV show MONSTER QUEST did a show on it where some of the people who have seen it took polygraph tests administered by a retired NYPD polygraph expert. They passed with flying colors so it is safe to say that there is probably something out there. It bears further study. We'll keep watch on this one.

Ellizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess

Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), was a Hungarian noblewoman, born into one of Hungary's most influential families. As with most European aristocratic families the Bathory family had its share of mental illness due to years of inbreeding. Elizabeth herself began having epileptic fits at approximately age of four.

Elizabeth was a very spoiled child who was raised by nannies who's only job was to to cater to her every need. Despite her odd personality, no one could deny that Elizabeth was a very intelligent young woman.

At the age of eleven , Elizabeth became engaged to Count Fernencz Nadasdy, a famous war hero whose sadistic nature would ultimately earn him the nickname of "The Black Hero of Hungary."

Since Her husband was frequently away, Elizabeth became quite bored and looked for ways to busy herself. Now in her early twenties, Elizabeth, discovered that torturing servants filled this void for her. There really is no clear reason to support why the Countess enjoyed tormenting others and taking pleasure in their pain the way she did. But once she got a taste of it, she was unstoppable. It seemed that her preferred prey was the female teenage population of her village.

She devised hideous tortures for them such as ripping their bodies apart and setting them on fire. On days when she felt kinder, she would delight in humiliating girls by forcing them to strip naked and perform their duties in front of men.
When her husband returned home from war, he often "played" with his wife and joined in with the torture, but even he with his dark reputation could not equal her brutality. As Elizabeth got older, it seems she only got worse and developed even more cruel tortures. One such was what she called her "honey torture" where she would strip a young girl and cover her complete with honey then tie her outside to leave her to be eaten by bugs and other prey. A slow and horrible death. Another such death was saved for winter months when a young girl again would be stripped naked and then buckets of water would be poured over her, over and over again until the girl eventually froze to death within her ice prison.

One day, some of her associates - witches really, known as Dracula, Helena Jo and Dorka, told her that bathing in the blood of virgins was virtually the fountain of youth, Elizabeth really flipped and a horrifying ritual began. Girls by the hundreds were kidnapped, brought to the castle, and drained of their blood. Oftentimes, Elizabeth would bite their necks and breasts herself, drinking the blood and eating the flesh from their open wounds. This is why, years later, the story of Elizabeth Bathory inspired Bram Stoker to write his famous Dracula novel.

The countess' story doesn't end there, she didn't stop until she killed somewhere around 650 young women and annihilated the peasantry and had to move to the aristocracy. At this point

she was brought to trial along with her accomplices. They were executed for their crimes but due to her noble birth, Elizabeth's life was spared execution in that form. She was ordered to live out her live in her castle, with no visitors, totally alone. She was escorted to her room and was then sealed in, with only a small hole left for the passage of food and air. She died there three years after the beginning of her sentence. The tower room where she was imprisoned is still standing as part of the ruins of Csjethe castle.

Some Vampire Talk - The Sampiro

With the success of the Twilight books and movies of late, there seems to be a renewed interest in all things vampire. For my next few posts, I thought I put a few interesting things I've found while doing research, and would love it if you would comment and share what you know on the subjects so we can all learn more.

Most fans of things supernatural realize there are more than one type of vampire, but one of the more lesser known types is the Sampiro. Although it sounds frightening and I wouldn't want to run into one on a dark and foggy night, they do have a bit of a comical air to them (OK, maybe only if you have a macabre sense of humor like me!).

According to Albanian folklore, the Sampiro rises from its grave shortly after it's internment, about 3-4 hours. It rises dressed in its grave shroud, and is described in all of the folklore wearing high heels (no, I don't know where the high heels come from....and yes, the Sampiro can be female or male!) with large, bright glowing eyes (sometimes as large as headlights).

The Sampiro cannot walk too well on the high heels so "toddles" after it's victim (which in the beginning of it's "career" tends to be close family members or other loved ones) in an unbalanced kind of way. If they are lucky enough to catch their victim, then it means certain death. If their victim gets away, they have been known to stop at cottages and homes along the way and peer into windows. It is said that if the gaze of their strange glowing eyes falls on any people in that home, those people will come down with an illness, sometimes a fatal one, within days. In this way, the Sampiro is in fact more virulent than other vampires since they can make entire households fatally ill just by walking after one victim and then walking back to return to their grave site.

The Albanian people at one time believed at one time that any person with any Turkish blood in them would become a Sampiro. Another interesting note, it was said that a Sampiro was able to flush out a "real" vampire so sometimes people that were half Albanian/half Turkish made a living by being "vampire hunters", believing that after death, they would become a Sampiro. Usually they had arrangements made for decapitation special burial rites with their village priest for the time of their death to save them from this fate and ensure their way to heaven.

Robert The Doll!

Wow, this is an interesting story that I had not heard about before I saw it on a TV show the other night. I would really like to hear some feedback from you on this, especially from any of you that might have actually visited Robert at his home in the museum, so let me know what you think.

Robert's story begins with Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Otto in the year 1896. One particular servant who was assigned to take care of their son, Robert Eugene Gene, ( called Gene by the family)had a reputation for dabbling in voodoo. She decided she had enough of the Otto's cruelty and decided she would do something about it. She constructed a doll for Gene that was about 3'tall and stuffed with straw. People were amazed at it's very life-like features and the fact that the doll became the immediate constant companion of Gene. He named the doll "Robert".
Servants and family members as well as visitor to the house said that they often heard Gene upstairs talking to the doll. What scared them was when they would hear the boy answering himself back in an entirely different voice than his own.

Strange things began to happen in the Otto household. Neighbors claimed to see Robert move about from window to window, when the family were out. Gene began to blame Robert for things that would occur. People claimed to hear the doll giggle, and swear they caught glimpses of him running about the house.
Gene began to have nightmares and would scream out in the night. When his parents would enter the room, they would find furniture over turned, their child in a horribly terrorized state with Robert at the foot of the bed "Robert Did It".... was all the boy could say. The doll was retired to the attic when they couldn't take any more nighttime upheavals and he remained there for many years.
When Gene's inherited the house after his parents death, Robert was rediscovered in the attic and it appeared that the doll's hold on Gene was just as strong as it was years before. Gene's wife thought the doll was unsettling and put him back in the attic but Gene would have none of it. Gene decided Robert needed a whole room of his own and he put Robert in the turret room, by a window. It wasn't long after that Gene's sanity was questioned.

It wasn't long before the people of Key West heard about Robert, and his reported evil ways. Many people walking by the home reported that the doll watched from the turret room, and made faces at them as they passed... School children were afraid to walk past the house alone. Gene reported that he found Robert in the rocking chair by the turret room window, displeased with his accommodations...home. Finally Gene himself had enough of
But Robert had other plans. Visitors that entered the house could hear something walking back and forth in the attic, and strange giggling sounds. Guests no longer wanted to visit the Otto home.
Gene Otto died in 1972 and the house was sold to a new family. Robert was found again, this time by the 10 year old daughter of the new owners. . It was not long before Robert unleashed his displeasure on the child... The little girl claiming that the doll tortured her, and made her life a hell.. Even after more than thirty years later, she steadfastly claims that " the doll was alive and wanted to kill her."
Robert is still dressed in his white sailor's suit and is clutching his stuffed lion. He lives at the Key West Martello Museum. Employees at the museum continue to give accounts of Robert being up to his old tricks still today, and some visitors claim the expression on his face changes from time to time, and that you can see visible signs of aging in Robert's features.

Some people account for Robert by saying the old voodoo mistress cursed the doll while making it by placing an evil human soul inside which she possessed from some previous voodoo spell. No one that I have read about really knows, so I'd love some feedback on this from you.