Wawkalak

Have you ever wondered what happens to people who piss off the devil?
No! I have, and it seems I’m not alone. *looks into cyber world. . . rolls eyes.*
Okay I’ll tell you.

Russian lore tells what happens to a man cursed by the devil. He’s doomed to live his life as a wolf, among his family.

His family recognizes him and they care for him, and feed him. He’s not like our current thoughts on werewolves, suffering from blood rage. The Wawkalak is gentle, he even licks the family that cares for him. But, the Wawkalak, can’t accept a good thing. He constantly needs change and wanders from village to village.

Cover Reveal:: Devil in Duke’s Clothing by Nina Mason

At the beginning of the year I read a novel titled “The Queen of Swords” it was erotica, and that’s not my genre. I really don’t like reading erotica, but I’ve read some of my writing friends’ erotica and continued reading Queen of Swords. I loved it! Witches, Vampires, Magic everything I love, and so different from the novels I’m writing.

I decided I would read more from Nina Mason but that was her debut novel. I’ve been watching her, and now she has a new novel coming out in January. “Devil in Duke’s Clothing”. It’s the first in a trilogy! Yay more to read from her! It will be very erotic so if that isn’t your thing you won’t like it.

Anyways….
Here’s the cover reveal, doesn’t it look awesome.

Here’s the blurb…..
Maggie York, a convent-raised foundling, knows the Duke of Dunwoody’s sexual tastes are a shade or two darker than normal, but marries him anyway—partly because she has no other prospects and partly because, try as she might, she can’t seem to exorcize her desire for the dashing devil. Five years ago, he lured her from the garden of innocence into the orchard of forbidden fruit and she’s been hungry for more ever since.

Robert Armstrong, the duke, is a Roman Catholic whose extreme devotions as a child warped his desires as a man. He’s also a slave to the times in which he lives–and to his king. Everything he is, everything he holds dear, depends on staying in Charles II’s good graces. Unfortunately, Maggie isn’t the bride the king selected for him. Now, to make amends, the duke must choose between the lesser of two evils: whore his wife or be reduced to a penniless commoner.

Whose interests will Robert choose to serve, his own, the king’s, or the woman he loves?

There’s a YouTube trailer for 18+ and I’m sure it’s NSFW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js6w5vPC0NE
Note… there are some very interesting picture, and it isn’t NSFW OR NSFF and definitely 18+

You can find Nina Mason here

Website
Blog

Facebook

Twitter
Goodreads

Google+
Watch my book trailers on YouTube!

She also has a series in the works that I’m really excited about! “The Knights of Avalon” I can’t wait for these.

Vampire-Werewolf

Since this month is dedicated to Werewolves. All of my columns will be about Werewolves. If you’ve been reading my blog for some time now, you’ve already seen that vampires and werewolves have more in common that just a hatred for each other (usually portrayed in movies and fiction). I really need to work on an article about that….

So here are a few vampire-werewolves, or Werewolf-vampires…

Priccolitsch

Romanian lore has a man, usually a shepherd that is a type of vampire werewolf called “Priccolitsh” (pray-co-litch). He shape-shifts into a wolf. The blood thirsty creature then attacks his own flock.

Pricolic Wolf

This Romanian creature is born through an incestuous relationship. Its born with a tail. The Pricolic wolf’s ability to shape-shift into a dog has been questioned.

It’s unknown whether it’s a natural talented or a gift from the devil.

In dog form The Pricolic mingles with other wolves.

Soon the human from realizes that it’s spending large amounts of time in the company of wolves. Until it shape-shifts one final time and joins the pack.

Leaving food offering will keep the pricolic from attacking family and livestock.

Manducation

Is the act of a corpse chewing of eating its burial shroud is called Manducation.

There are a lot of vampires that eat their burial shroud after being buried.

Most of the vampires that are shroud eaters must eat all or part of their shroud before leaving the grave.

Most German vampires participate in manducation. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries experts agreed the Devil used the chewed shrouds as proof that the deceased family members led immoral lives. He’d do this to cause the living to hate the dead.

Photo Credit:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/116/1168324p1.html

The North Berwick Witch Trials

The North Berwick Witch Trials

Back over to the east coast of Scotland this week, to North Berwick, a town about 30 miles south of Edinburgh. If you read my first guest post for Mari, you’ll recall me talking about King James VI of Scotland, who, it has to be said, had a bit of a downer on witches. He was the one who ordered hundreds of ‘witches’ to be executed on Castlehill in Edinburgh. This all started when he discovered that a coven in North Berwick had plotted to kill him and his wife, Anne of Denmark, as they sailed home to Scotland from Norway.

The story began in 1590 when the deputy bailiff of Tranent in East Lothian, David Seaton, found out that his maid Gilly Duncan was leaving the house at night without permission. He also discovered that she was known locally to possess skill in healing. Seaton suspected witchcraft and when the maid wouldn’t answer his questions, used torture. Gilly, under duress, said her power of healing was inspired by the Devil and that she was a member of a witches’ coven.

The coven met on St. Andrews Auld Kirk Green, now part of the modern-day North Berwick Harbour area. Are you noticing a pattern with these ‘old kirks’? (Sadly, only the entrance porch now survives). As Gilly was subjected to more torture she went further – confessing to a conspiracy to murder King James VI. The coven had assembled on the pier at Leith before the Firth of Forth estuary, using their arts to raise a storm against a lone ship which they supposed to be that of the King. The vessel was sunk but this was not the royal ship, which returned safely to Scotland.

The alleged architect of this plot was Francis Hepburn, 5th Earl of Bothwell: cousin to the King and heir apparent if James died without son or daughter. Clearly he fancied the crown for himself! Coveting the crown, and being prepared to do murder for it, seems to have run in that family. If any of you know the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, mother of James VI, you’ll know that the 4th Earl of Bothwell was her third husband. He arranged the murder of her second husband in order to marry her! He was uncle to this 5th Earl who was now plotting to kill her son. (This kind of thing went on all the time in Scotland). Anyway, back to the witches…

Four other suspected conspirators were seized for questioning: a schoolmaster named Dr John Fian, Euphemia Maclean, Barbara Napier and a midwife called Agnes Sampson who was known for her herbal remedies. Dr Fian was tortured and eventually confessed he was “clerk to all those that were in subjection to the Devil’s service”. Fian was burnt at Castlehill, Edinburgh in January 1591.

James VI now took a personal hand in the investigations. Agnes Sampson was brought before the King at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, where he questioned her. She was fastened to the wall of her cell by a witch’s bridle, an iron instrument with four sharp prongs forced into the mouth, so that two prongs pressed against the tongue, and the two others against the cheeks. She was also kept without sleep. Only after these ordeals did Agnes Sampson confess to the fifty-three indictments against her. Agnes was unrepentant, she spoke of a witches’ gathering at Prestonpans where a small effigy of the King was produced, and cursed.

**I’d like to call your attention to the “Devil” he’s kind of cute looking.**

The King at first was sceptical. As the claims became more fanciful he lost patience and accused Agnes of being a liar. Agnes said she knew something that would prove her story. She was allowed to draw close to the King and, it was said, whispered into his ear certain words that had passed between James and Anne of Denmark when the couple were alone on their wedding night.

The King was astonished; he was now convinced of the guilt of Agnes. Both Euphemia Maclean and Agnes Sampson were found guilty of witchcraft and executed at Castlehill. Barbara Napier was also condemned but strangely enough was later released. Bothwell fled to Naples; he would eventually die in poverty in 1624.
This case started a wave of witch hunting across Scotland and indeed, the whole of Britain. While it does seem that the North Berwick witches did have evil intentions, most of the people executed were simply innocent healers or clairvoyants. If you were being subjected to tortures such as the bridle described above, ‘pricked’ with long pins to discover so-called ‘devil’s marks’, and ‘ducked’ in freezing ponds to see if you sank (innocent) or floated (witch), then you would confess to anything – if you hadn’t drowned from being ducked, of course. Not a good chapter in our history. Eventually this all stopped, when the law making witchcraft a capital offence was repealed in 1736, but for 150 years being termed a ’witch’, for any reason, was a very dangerous thing indeed.

So what’s coming next week? Well, I couldn’t leave out our most famous tale of witches, by our very own Robert Burns: Tam O’ Shanter. And what about the witches in Scotland who weren’t persistently trying to summon the devil or kill the king, those poor healers and seers who got caught up in it all? I’ll be talking a little bit about those. Writing this series has made me realise how many more stories there are to tell, so who knows, I may be back with another set of guest posts in the future, if Mari’ll have me…

Karen, you have an open invitation to come by and share whenever you like. I’m looking forward to all you are willing to share with us. Thank you again so much for agreeing to spend time here. 😀

The Logie Witches

I’m so honored to have Karen Soutar here again. This post is amazing, and I can’t thank her enough for sharing her homeland’s witches with us.

I so want to go and hangout at Carly Crag. One day I will, and Karen and I will cause chaos and mass hysteria with out love of witches on their own ceremonial land. 

The Logie Witches

A few miles from my home stand the ruins of Logie Old Kirk (Kirk being the old Scots word for church). Situated just outside Stirling, a church was first dedicated in this ancient parish around 1173. The ruins date back to around 1592.

In 1720, the Old Kirk was said to be used by ‘The Witches of Logie’ for their rituals. It was probably already falling into disrepair at this time. The use of churches by those practising the ‘Black Mass’ is well documented. Old, often abandoned kirks frequently appear as the meeting place for covens in Scottish folklore.

Behind the Old Kirk is the hill known as ‘Carly Crag’ or ‘Witches Craig’. Carly, or carlin, is the old Scots word for witch, or old woman (from the Gaelic cailleach). It was on Carly Crag that the Logie Witches were supposed to meet with the devil himself, who took the form of a black dog with burning eyes. He would cavort among the witches with a blue torch attached to his hind quarters. Quite why he needed a blue torch there remains unclear! Also, the Evil One was running the risk of a singed bottom, as torches and lamps burned oil at that time. Maybe, being the devil, he was impervious to flame!
There are several documents pertaining to this local legend:

In David Morris’s (1935) essay on the local township, he told the common story that “an elder in (the new) Logie Kirk was of the opinion that the Carla’ Craig…was haunted.” At the end of the 19th century, Morris remembered a local lady known as ‘Ailie’, who was said by many old folk to be the traditional ‘witch of Logie’:

“Sickly children were brought to her for her blessing. Occasionally people came from as far as Stirling on this errand. Her method of giving the blessing was to blow her breath on the child, and this was supposed to ward off evil. It was also said that anyone buried in Logie Kirkyard on the first day of May, Halloween, or other days of that kind, without her blessing, would not rest in his grave…”

Another legend told to Morris stated that:

“Around 1720 witches were believed to rendezvous with the Evil One who would appear in the form of a large black dog.” This is clearly the most well-known tale relating to Logie Old Kirk and Carly Crag. Again, the devil appearing in the form of a dog crops up more than once in the folklore of Scotland.
Another account of the belief in witchcraft and animistic pre-Christian rites on the crag came from Charles Rogers (1853):

“About the second decade of last century, there lived in the parish of Logie several ill-favoured old women, to whom the reputation of witchcraft was confidently attached. They were believed to hold nocturnal dialogues and midnight revels with the Evil One, and Carlie Crag was regarded as one of their places of rendezvous. Satan, though he was believed to appear to them in various forms, was understood, in his interviews with the dreaded sisterhood, to appear most frequently in the aspect of a large shaggy dog, in which form it was alleged he had repeatedly been seen by the minister.”

I first heard the story of The Logie Witches when visiting the Witches Craig Caravan Park, where I was testing a new tent, believe it or not! I wondered how the park had got its name, and this led me to the local legend, and my explorations of Logie Old Kirk and the Carly Crag. Do the kirk, and the crag, feel spooky? A bit. Do they feel evil? No. The Old Kirk is now overlooked by several modern dwellings, though they do not detract much from its isolated location. There are several interesting gravestones in the Kirkyard, featuring masonic symbols and the macabre skull carvings which are common on grave markers of this era. There is now a new Logie Kirk, built in the early 1800s and still in use, closer to the nearby caravan park and visible from the modern road. The Old Kirk is further up into the hills, shrouded by trees, so it can’t be seen from the roadside.

I used the tale of The Logie Witches as inspiration for a short story, featuring a modern day version of the coven. I played around with the locations of the various landmarks a little (artistic licence!), as I thought it would be funny if my witches had to contend with the road and the caravan park. There will be more stories from my 21st century witches soon!

If you haven’t read this story yet…… what on Earth are you waiting for? The Zombie Apocalypse? Go read it…. here’s the pretty little link to take you there … I love this story. Abosolutely LOVE it…

The crag is a fine site for ritual magic, and its associated devil-lore may simply derive from Pictish shamanistic practices, remains of which have been found across the Scottish hills. These rites survived longer in the remote areas of Scotland than in other parts of Britain. On the other hand, maybe witches did indeed meet with the devil there. Maybe they still do..?

Next week: The witches who plotted to kill King James VI…

(References: Morris, David, B., “Causewayhead a Hundred Years Ago”, in Transactions of the Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1935. Roger, Charles,” A Week at Bridge of Allan”, Adam & Charles Black: Edinburgh 1853.)

 

Thank you again, Karen, for coming by. I can’t wait to read next week’s guest post.