Creatures of the Dark

Photo "Silhouette of Trees" by phanlop88, courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Halloween is a time when the seasons change and the darkness of winter grows and overpowers the warmth of the sun and the light of the day.  Since time immemorial, people have expressed a fear of the dark, referred to creatures of the night, creatures that existed since the times of Chaos, that primal darkness from which everything that exists came into being.  During the upheavals of millennia,  things came into being that were terrifying and evil, that could only exist in the darkness of night, that  thrived on the fear and vulnerability of humans.  These creatures became part of ancient myths and legends which still resound with people today and which, in our own times, populate films and computer games, books and other forms of art and expression.  The stories of the creatures of the dark fascinate us as much now as ever they did.  

Photo, "The Fantasy Tree" by Marcus 74id courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhoto.net

It has only been relatively recently that we have had the benefit of electric light.  Centuries ago, the night was poorly lit in towns by gas light, and in the countryside not at all, unless by a paltry sliver of moonlight.  So anyone travelling by night was especially at risk.  Their night was populated not only by highwaymen and bandits, but also by creatures that lurked on lonely roads, ready to take them unawares.

Creatures like the Welsh "bwgwl" or "object of terror", or, depending on where in England you lived, they were called bogles, bugaboos, boggarts, bucca-boos.  In France, these creatures that haunted lonely roads, hills, or woodland were known as bugibus, and in Germany, the creature was a Bogglemann.  Originally terryfingly sinister, pressaging the arrival of a screaming horde of demons and the souls of the dead, bogles gradually diminished in terror so that in more recent times they became seen more as a nuisance.

A natural creature of the night, "Owl on Black" photo by khunaspix courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bogles were dark and shadowy and could change shape at will, appearing as anything from a sack of grain to a savage black dog, set more on alarming and tricking the traveller than on destroying him.  There is a Northumbrian story that tells of a prank played on an elderly woman who had stayed out beyond twilight gathering twigs for kindling.  As she bent over to pick up some wood, she spotted a sheaf of straw at the edge of the path.  There being no-one else about, she gathered up the sheaf into her apron and made her way back home.  She walked slowly because of the weight of the kindling and the straw, and gradually all the light faded and the woods were plunged into total darkness.  The old woman's burden became heavier and heavier, so much so that she could walk no longer and she tipped out her apron to let her burden fall.  But instead of straw, out flapped a large, heavy creature, hooting and flapping about her, shrieking in laughter until it had disappeared among the trees.  This was the Hedley-kow, the bogle named after that particular place.

The Oshaert, also known in Belgium as the Kludde, image courtesy of  www.monstropedia.org

There were other, more sinister creatures lurking along lonely paths, much more malevolent, such as the Scottish Oschaert.  This creature would leap onto the back of a traveller, sinking its long claws into the traveller's flesh and hanging on while the traveller tried to dislodge it or to escape to the nearest village.  If the traveller was lucky, the breaking light of day would dislodge it, or the sound of a church bell would frighten it into loosening its hold.  But often the victim would die of exhaustion, heart burst at the effort of trying to escape.

The dark has always been sinister, and at Halloween, the Dark closes in.