The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures

If you have not yet discovered Lore, I highly recommend it. This is a podcast, turned in to an Amazon show, by Aaron Mahnke. He researches the creepy Lore of the World, and then tells us the story. I came across Lore thanks to Amazon. I’m not much of a podcast listener, preferring books (obviously).

But I did enjoy the show on Amazon, so when I was browsing through my local bookstore and I saw that Aaron Mahnke had written a series of books based on his show, I bought one. At the time, one was what I could afford. And that is this week’s book of the week.

So far, I am digging this. There is something akin to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark in this series. But whereas that series was geared towards children, this is a bit darker. Not saying children should not read it. I would never make that judgment call, and my own parents did not care what we were reading, as long as we were reading. But it is a bit dark.

First up, the dead walk again. Not just the typical vampire lore, although there is certainly that, Mahnke reconstructs how this lore developed. Yes, Vlad the Impaler is discussed. But he goes beyond that, tracing the draugr from Norse myth, Empusa from Greek myth, zombie from Haitian lore, revenants, and how to combat each of these, and showing how collectively, they helped to create The Vampire.

In addition to the typical stake through the heart, it was believed if you removed the heart, burned it, and made a tonic out of it, the afflicted could be healed. And recently too. Mahnke unearthed (pun alert!) a story of active vampirism from 2003. In Romania! 2003!

This section does not just focus on the vampires, but also on the hunters. And not just vampire hunters. Discussed too are the witch hunters of the 16th and 17th centuries. And with this comes the typical caution of watch what you hunt, lest you become the monster. It is an accurate warning. Too many people become consumed with the power, turning in to the very evil they hope to combat.

I am keeping my reviews necessarily brief on this, mostly because the stories have been very well intertwined, and frankly, Mahnke tells the story very well in his own voice, on his podcast. But I am very much enjoying The World of Lore.

Well now this is fun. As a modern-day heathen and fully superstitious witch, I tend to believe in the little people to begin with. But in this section, Aaron Mahnke connects global folk lore on the matter of The Others. And it seems, this IS a global phenomenon.

Not just the Scots Irish, but Hindu, Native American, Scandinavian, Greek…everyone has lore regarding The Others. Generally, they are small (although in Scandinavia they are thought to be tall). And they can hinder or help a person, depending on how respectful you are.

I especially loved the introduction of gremlins. See, the concept of a Gremlin is relatively new. It is only about one hundred years old and came about with mans discovery of flight. Seriously, there is a section dedicated to the remembrances of WWI and WWII fighter pilots, a fair number of whom reported seeing these small creatures, who were wreaking havoc with the airplanes while they were flying! The stories are totally twilight zone and since they feed into my own beliefs, I tend to think of them as air sprites, who were none too pleased with mans advances towards the heavens.

I think what I am loving so much about this book, is the universality of the folk lore discussed. And it’s fascinating, because you can see the threads of folk lore being picked up by modern day horror fiction authors, like Larry Correia, Patricia Briggs, and Laurel K. Hamilton. Universality is what contributes to the mass appeal of these authors, myself included in that appeal. I remember reading Monster Hunter International for the first time, and then forcing my husband to read it, and then my family, pulling the entire clan in to this wonderful world of monster hunting.

The belief structure is already there, in folk lore handed down generationally. Then these authors put a modern spin on it, carry us into the realm of what if? What if these creatures ARE real, and the government is just hiding it? Or what if we just acknowledged they were real, and let them walk among us as free citizens?

But this week’s book of the week is not about how modern fiction authors are spinning modern tales based on ancient folk lore. It’s about the story telling capabilities of Aaron Mahnke, and those capabilities are strong. I did check the bibliography, and story includes full cites for his source material, referencing blogs I’ve never heard of, and books that are out of print but still relevant to the topic at hand.

And this section on A Little Problem is especially interesting because it’s not just eye-witness accounts. There are unsolved mysteries about small bodies turned in for autopsy that go missing. Bodies that help tie together local legend and make them real.

Mahnke often claims that of course, we know better in the 21st century. But do we really? What if The Others have just gotten better at hiding? And it’s that possibility that still makes the things that go bump in the night so very frightening to modern humans. No matter how far technology advances, some primeval part of our brains is aware that we are not always the apex predator. And sometimes, we really should be scared.

While I always knew that tribal cultures the world over, from Native Americans, to Celts, to Norse, to Mongolians, to Greco-Romans, to the multitude of African tribes, held that their peoples had spirit animals, I did not know that The Wolf was the most popular spirit animal. Until I read this book, that is.

And not surprisingly, that lore has rolled over to at least the 20th century, where several eyewitnesses, specifically in Wisconsin, reported seeing a wolf-like creature walking on two legs, along Bray Road in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

And here Mahnke breaks down the various legends of a werewolf. Is it a curse? A gift from the gods? A condemnation from God? And here he breaks away from strict lycanthropy, to talk a little bit about curses. Having just spent two months in the worlds of Stalin and Hitler, I did find this interesting:

“Tamerlane was buried…and a large jade slab was placed over his tomb as a safeguard. The stone was inscribed with words of warning, though: “When I arise from the grave, the world will tremble.” ….In 1941, Joseph Stalin sent a team of Soviet archaeologists to look for Timur’s tomb. On June 21, 1941, the tomb of Tamerlane was opened, and his skull was removed. The following day, Hitler’s forces crossed into the Soviet Union…It’s unclear why, but in November 1942 the Soviets decided to return Timur’s body to the tomb, complete with a proper Islamic burial. Days later, the German invasion was repelled at Stalingrad…” (pp 101-102)

Now, I don’t know if that’s true. I know Hitler was fascinated by Astrology, and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich covers this fascination during the chapter covering the last days, talking about how Hitler’s astrologists predicted this moment, and Germany’s subsequent rise. But I had not heard that Stalinist Russia believed in curses and superstitions. But it makes a grand legend.

And Mahnke spends some time going over the Wendigo, and how this legend differs from European legends of werewolves. And there are key differences. While both are seen as curses, the Wendigo can be transmitted by the wind, and proximity to the original afflicted.

And the ocean. It is crazy that we know more about the surface of Mars, then we know about the waters that cover 70% of our own planet. But along with the fairly universal legend of mermaids, there is the Gloucester Sea Serpent. I read this and, again heathen here, it reminded me of Jormungandr, the Norse World Serpent. And I was reminded of The Iron Druid series, and Väinämöinen’s communicating with a Sea Serpent. So, there’s that connection to fiction again, and how legend feeds modern references. I hope there are Sea Serpents out there. Nothing about them seems scary. Other than their size.

And of course, he touches on the Mothman Legend. I don’t think any book touching on Americana legends would be complete without Mothman. Mothman, while enjoying a resurgence in the early 21st century thanks to Hollywood, links back to at least 1894 West Virginia.

This book is making my brain spin with what if’s?

The shortest part of the book, I though this was going to focus entirely on haunted dolls, dip into vodou dolls. And it sort of did. The first two stories were definitely haunted or cursed dolls, including Robert the Doll and Annabelle, who is kept in a case at a museum behind glass with a sign that reads “Warning: Do Not Open.”

Apparently, there are entire books about cursed dolls, but this one only contained these two stories. The rest of this section had to do with The Jersey Devil, which has been lurking around the Pine Barrens of New Jersey for several hundred years. And a similar devil like creature that was attacking women in London starting in 1790 and continuing up through the 1830’s. But as neither of these were even reported as being human like, I wasn’t quite sure of the connection to Our Other Halves. Unless this section was meant to just be like An OTHER stories category?

But still, there was some good spookiness going on. I liked the stories on portents of things to come, messengers who seem to appear before catastrophe strikes.

Part 5—Beyond the Veil

Now, Part 5 was easily the longest part of the book. Humanity has a long history of ghost stories. And the chapter starts out with the familiar Fox sisters (remember them, from last weeks Book of the Week?)  But then Aaron Mahnke dives into a bunch of ghost stories that are not as easily debunked as the Fox sister were, with their owning up to fraud in 1888.

There is the Phelps family in Connecticut, Mining accidents while building railroads, houses haunted by suicidal maids and murdered slaves. He discusses haunted ships and haunted coastlines, and at least one instance where ghostly testimony was accepted in a court of law (really!)

Then he rounds out the chapter with hints of good old-fashioned witchcraft and devil worship. And here…at the very end of the book…is where I had a problem. In fact, it was with the very LAST story in the book.

“In 1671, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a devil of a problem on their hands—quite literally.” (p. 280).

And he talks about one of the first instances of witchcraft in the colonies, a full 20 years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials. In Groton, the minister was Samuel Willard, and his housemaid, Elizabeth Knapp, began to complain about aches and pains. In fact, many of the attacks she claimed, would be mirrored in 20 years, just up the road in Salem. Now, I don’t necessarily believe she was bewitched, which is what Willard believed. But nor do I think she was a woman finding her voice, however briefly, which is the spin Mahnke gives it. He paints her as the poor illiterate housemaid. Unfortunately, as I learned from reading American Nations several months ago, literacy was extremely high among Puritan communities. Like, nearly 100%. See, the Puritans believed that in order to know the Word of God, you had to be able to read. And so, they taught EVERYONE to read, men and women. That they might be closer to God. So, while obviously no one can swear she was literate, the odds are in my favor on this.

So most likely, she did something she was not supposed to. And to avoid getting in trouble for this, she faked the fits. What makes me say that? During the Salem Witch trials in 1692, Mary Warren, who was the servant of John Proctor, started having fits. When Proctor suggested a solid thrashing would set the girls straight, Warren was miraculously cured. And as soon as she stopped acting out, the other girls accused her of being a witch, too. So, while I don’t generally advocate beating children, sometimes that can spare a whole lot of heart ache down the road. Human nature being what it is, lying to avoid punishment, is something children have been doing for an awfully long time.

This review of The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Mahnke was originally posted on YouTube on October 10, 2021, but the review is now available on Rumble and PodBean.