Supernatural Topic:Abominable/Golem/Vampire/and Generally Spooky Stuff

Rusty

Rusty

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OK - On the " Am I doing something wrong " topic, Steelwolf had been chopping up a storm when he ran into some heartwood that made even his HI khuk try to bounce off of it. My first reaction was to think "Ta Dah! Vampire killer extraordinaire, etc."

Snide aside: fashion a wooden blade and ship over for the kamis to make a steel handle for. Yeah, sure...

Then second thought. Would kamis take it in stride, like my Hungarian and Transylvanian forefathers would? "Oh... Well, long as it isn't a N.I.M.B.Y. ( Not In My Back Yard ), I suppose we can whup up sumptin for ya.

So I split this off the other thread to discuss the things that go bump in the night. What do the Nepalis have? Besides the Yeti.
Out west the Paiutes have stories about the waterbabies. This is the scary tales thread. Imagined and even certified really happened to someone you know.
 
You're up too late, Rusty. You had better go to bed.

But whatever you do, don't look in the closet. I'm sure there's nothing in there, but better safe than sorry.

Have a good night's sleep.
 
Tigers. Well, India is close to Nepal...
smile.gif


Read Peter Hathaway Capstick's "Death In The Silent Places" for some tales that will raise hairs, specifically about Colonel Jim Corbett's tracking of a man-eating tiger (maybe leopard, been a while since I read it..). Numbers escape me now, but I believe this beast had upwards of 500 kills before it was taken down.

Quick cut to a brief bio : Bio

Nick



[This message has been edited by chetchat (edited 06-14-2000).]
 
I gather that the American Indian waterbaby is not the sweet and innocent stream dweller of English literature!
Sounds more like the Kelpie...a Scottish water wight which may appear as a man or a horse, in which guise he may offer a human a ride, and take him into the water for a dousing, or worse, drowning.

Country rich in fens, bogs and swamps seems to generate legends of many such creatures, who may play tricks, lead travelers astray, seduce them, and drown them in bottomless pools or quicksand. Even the Lady of the Lake who gave Excaliber to Arthur was one of this kith.
Obligatory knife content: The denizens of the Unseelie Court (bad faeries) are all averse to the touch of cold iron...so a kukhuri is a good defense against their wiles and strategems...
wink.gif


Ken

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The sword cannot cut itself, the eye cannot see itself.
 
Khuks are obviously the ideal weapon to carry in vampire invested areas -- in an emergency you can use the khuk to hammer the sheath, which is made of hide-covered wood, into the heart of the vampire, after which the khuk is used to behead the blood-sucker.
 
Now I've got interested in a khuk with silver inlay...



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Did you enjoy today?
\(^o^)/ Mizutani Satoshi \(^o^)/
 
Another question is, in Nepal, do they sharpen with yeti fur?
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Tom
 
I always carry at least two or three knives, and I haven't been bothered by any Unseelie lately, so knives must be good protection.
smile.gif


-Dave

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"...not men, not women, not beasts, but this."
 
The gal who tried to teach me Paiute ( couldn't keep up in the class that year on the rez ) told of finding a waterbaby cache and taking a pretty stone from it which her grandmother asked her about as soon as she walked in the door. Grandmother made her put it back before very big nasty stuff happened. As I recall, dead numa ( people ) babies were taken down ( in their packboards ) to the lake and sent off on their journey - what connection to the waterbabies this has I'm not sure. But no, these were definitely not Sesame Street cutesy things. Reservations are weird. Some other white guys, one a corporation president and preacher's kid running an outward bound type rehab school, had been chasing a runaway kid and stumbled across one part of the res at night they palpably could feel the dead around them. No signs of anything but desert. Got out of there and asked one of the Indian trackers what was back there and were told, oh, that's an old old burial ground. The strongest mystic experiences I've had from precognition of a heart attack 5 days before it happened to ecstatic out-of-body stuff was on the rez.

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"They asked would I fight for my country, I answered the FBI, yea!
"I will point a gun for my country but, I won't guarantee you which way!"
Woody Guthrie


Himalayan Imports Website
 
A lot of stuff goes on out there in the real world that doesn't fit into that newfangled religion called "science."

Still, "ain't sayin" is my general response when people I don't know too well want to know what _I_ think.

Especially them educated folks...

-Dave
 
Now that you mention it, Sir Richard Burton translated a work of Hindu storytelling called "Vickram and the Vampire" a hundred and thirty years ago. King Vickram encounters a supernatural being (the vampire) and one of them ends up telling stories ( a la Sheherazade and the one thousand and one nights) to the other. I don't remember the details of which one tells the stories or why. I'll have to dig through the quaint and curious volumes on some midnight dreary to find it.

Sir Richards translation of the thousand and one nights also contain many tales of India, albeit from a Persian perspective. Lots of supernatural critters in there. The unexpurgated collection runs many volumes, 16 or 18? I was lucky enough to find the whole privately printed set in a junk store for a few dollars.

Did I ever tell you what the beautiful human wife of the evil Genii forced two young male travelers to do, just to spite her husband. Well … oops, we have youngsters in the audience. You'll just have to read some of Sir Richard's translations to find out.
 
Ah Yes, thank you for reminding me Bill.
DOUBLE DIPPED DISCLAIMER = LISTEN UP EVERYBODY!!!

1) It's all true folks, just that some of it's truer than others.

2) Everyone who knows Rusty well knows not to take him seriously unless he's joking.
Sometimes it's just funnin' and sometimes Rusty's dead serious, only usin' a nearly unforgettable punchline to implant the story into the brain while you're ROTFLMAO 'cause it's so true!

3) There's a distinction between what's real, and what's really real. For example, Julian of Norwich is quoted telling us that:

" All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. "

You can "get real" and have no choice but to disbelieve the statement based on overwhelming evidence that entropy increases. I've been there.

Or you can "get really real" and have noetically experienced the statement's utter truth and certitude. I've been there too.

The western mind sometimes reasons either/or. The eastern mind may reason both/and. And my mind reasons that a man has to believe in something, so I believe I'll buy you a Heineken, Uncle Bill.
 
From Burton’s preface,

“The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five (tales of a ) Baital (in Sanskrit, Vetala-pancha-Vinshati. Baital is the modern form of “Vetala.”) – a Vampire or evil spirit which animates dead bodies—is an old and thoroughly Hindu repertory. It is the rude beginning of that fictitious history which ripened to the Arabian nights Entertainments, and which, fostered by the genius of Boccaccio, produced the romance of the chivalrous days, and in its last development, the novel—that prose epic of modern Europe.”

Vickram’s need for a quality khukuri is illustrated by this passage, where Vickram is trying to get the Baital out of a tree.

“… he hurried up the tree, and directed a furious blow with his sabre at the Vampire’s lean and calfless legs. The violence of the stroke made its toes loose their hold of the bough, and when it touched the ground, Dharma Dhwaj’s blade fell heavily upon its matted brown hair. But the blows appeared to have lighted on iron-wood—to judge at least from the behavior of the Baital, who no sooner heard the question, “ O wretch, who art thou?” than it returned in loud glee and merriment to its former position.”
 
Did you know that a khukuri was used to behead Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's book?

Go take a look, last chapter, the last few pages of the book.
 
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