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The History of The First Thanksgiving Day

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Ecris les adjectifs suivants au SUPERLATIF

Superlatif = A is the biggest = A est le plus grand

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Listen and watch how to tell a thrilling story

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The Legend of Stingy Jack- A  Children's Spooky Story

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Aunt Marge

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Aunt Marge

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Harry Blows Up Aunt Marge | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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The Magic Finger by the Great Roald Dahl

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The Magic Finger by the Great Roald Dahl

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Watch the cartoon with a special attention to your extract (8:00-8:48)

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Statue of Death, personified as a human skeleton dressed in a shroud and clutching a scythe, at the Cathedral of Trier in Trier, Germany

Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other beliefs hold that the spectre of death is only a psychopomp, a benevolent figure who serves to gently sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies. Death is most often personified in male form, although in certain cultures death is perceived as female (for instance, Marzanna in Slavic mythology, or Santa Muerte in Mexico). Death is also portrayed as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Most claims of his appearance occur in states of Near-death.

As is the case in many Romance languages (including French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian), the Spanish word for death, muerte, is a feminine noun. As such, it is common in Spanish-speaking cultures to personify death as a female figure. A common term for the personification of death across Latin America is "la Parca" ("The Robe"), a figure similar to the Anglophone Grim Reaper, though usually depicted as female and without wielding a scythe.

In Aztec mythology, Mictecacihuatl is the " Queen of Mictlan" (the Aztec underworld), ruling over the afterlife with her husband Mictlantecuhtli. Other epithets for her include "Lady of the Dead," as her role includes keeping watch over the bones of the dead. Mictecacihuatl was represented with a fleshless body and with jaw agape to swallow the stars during the day. She presided over the ancient festivals of the dead, which evolved from Aztec traditions into the modern Day of the Dead after synthesis with Spanish cultural traditions. Mictlāntēcutli, is the Aztec god of the dead and the king of Mictlan, depicted as a skeleton or a person wearing a toothy skull. He is one of the principal gods of the Aztecs and is the most prominent of several gods and goddesses of death and the underworld. His headdress was shown decorated with owl feathers and paper banners and he wore a necklace of human eyeballs, while his earspools were made from human bones. He was not the only Aztec god to be depicted in this fashion, as numerous other deities had skulls for heads or else wore clothing or decorations that incorporated bones and skulls. In the Aztec world, skeletal imagery was a symbol of fertility, health and abundance, alluding to the close symbolic links between life and death. There was also the goddess of suicide, Ixtab. She was a minor goddess in the scale of Maya mythology. She was also known as The Hangwoman as she came to help along those who had killed themselves.

La Calavera Catrina, one of José Guadalupe Posada's Catrina engravings (1910-1913)

Our Lady of the Holy Death (Santa Muerte) is a female deity or folk saint of Mexican folk religion, whose popularity has been growing in Mexico and the United States in recent years. Since the pre-Columbian era, Mexican culture has maintained a certain reverence towards death, as seen in the widespread commemoration of the Day of the Dead. La Calavera Catrina, a character symbolizing death, is also an icon of the Mexican Day of the Dead.

San La Muerte (Saint Death) is a skeletal folk saint venerated in Paraguay, northeast Argentina. As the result of internal migration in Argentina since the 1960s, the veneration of San La Muerte has been extended to Greater Buenos Aires and the national prison system as well. Saint Death is depicted as a male skeleton figure usually holding a scythe. Although the Catholic Church in Mexico has attacked the devotion of Saint Death as a tradition that mixes paganism with Christianity and is contrary to the Christian belief of Christ defeating death, many devotees consider the veneration of San La Muerte as being part of their Catholic faith. The rituals connected and powers ascribed to San La Muerte are very similar to those of Santa Muerte; the resemblance between their names, however, is coincidental.

In Guatemala, San Pascualito is a skeletal folk saint venerated as "King of the Graveyard." He is depicted as a skeletal figure with a scythe, sometimes wearing a cape and crown. He is associated with death and the curing of diseases.

In the African-Brazilian religion Umbanda, the orixá Omolu personifies sickness and death as well as healing. The image of the death is also associated with Exu, lord of the crossroads, who rules cemeteries and the hour of midnight.

In Haitian Vodou, the Gede are a family of spirits that embody death and fertility. The most well-known of these spirits is Baron Samedi.

Separately, in Korean mythology, death's principal figure is the "Netherworld Emissary" Jeoseungsaja (, shortened to Saja (사자)). He is depicted as a stern and ruthless bureaucrat in Yeomna's service. A psychopomp, he escorts all - good or evil - from the land of the living to the netherworld when the time comes. One of the representative names is Ganglim (강림), the Saja who guides the soul to the entrance of the underworld. According to legend, he always carries Jeokpaeji (적패지), the list with the names of the dead written on a red cloth. When he calls the name on Jeokpaeji three times, the soul leaves the body and follows him inevitably.

The relates that the Japanese goddess Izanami was burnt to death giving birth to the fire god Hinokagutsuchi. She then entered a realm of perpetual night called Yomi-no-Kuni. Her husband Izanagi pursued her there but discovered his wife was no longer as beautiful as before. After an argument, she promised she would take a thousand lives every day, becoming a goddess of death, as well as giving birth to the gods, Raijin and Fūjin, while dead. There are also death gods called shinigami (死神), which are closer to the Western tradition of the Grim Reaper; while common in modern Japanese arts and fiction, they were essentially absent in traditional mythology.

Yama, the Hindu lord of death, presiding over his court in hell

The Sanskrit word for death is mrityu (cognate with Latin mors and Lithuanian mirtis), which is often personified in Dharmic religions.

In Hindu scriptures, the lord of death is called King Yama (, Yama Rāja). He is also known as the King of Karmic Justice ( Dharmaraja) as one's karma at death was considered to lead to a just rebirth. Yama rides a black buffalo and carries a rope lasso to lead the soul back to his home, called Naraka, pathalloka, or Yamaloka. There are many forms of reapers, although some say there is only one who disguises himself as a small child. His agents, the Yamadutas, carry souls back to Yamalok. There, all the accounts of a person's good and bad deeds are stored and maintained by Chitragupta. The balance of these deeds allows Yama to decide where the soul should reside in its next life, following the theory of reincarnation. Yama is also mentioned in the Mahabharata as a great philosopher and devotee of the Supreme Brahman.

The Canaanites of the 12th- and 13th-century BC Levant personified death as the god Mot ( "Death"). He was considered a son of the king of the gods, El. His contest with the storm god Baʿal forms part of the Ba'al Cycle from the Ugaritic texts. The Phoenicians also worshipped death under the name Mot and a version of Mot later became Maweth, the devil or angel of death in Judaism.

A European depiction of Death as a skeleton wielding a scythe

"Death" (Nāve; 1897) by Janis Rozentāls

Latvians named Death Veļu māte, but for Lithuanians it was Giltinė, deriving from the word gelti ("to sting"). Giltinė was viewed as an old, ugly woman with a long blue nose and a deadly venomous tongue. The legend tells that Giltinė was young, pretty, and communicative until she was trapped in a coffin for seven years. Her sister was the goddess of life and destiny, Laima, symbolizing the relationship between beginning and end.

Like the Scandinavians, Lithuanians and Latvians later began using Grim Reaper imagery for death.

Bunworth Banshee, "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland", by Thomas Crofton Croker, 1825

In Breton folklore, a spectral figure called the Ankou ( or Angau in Welsh) portends death. Usually, the Ankou is the spirit of the last person that died within the community and appears as a tall, haggard figure with a wide hat and long white hair or a skeleton with a revolving head. The Ankou drives a deathly wagon or cart with a creaking axle. The cart or wagon is piled high with corpses and a stop at a cabin means instant death for those inside.

Irish mythology features a similar creature known as a dullahan, whose head would be tucked under their arm (dullahans were not one, but an entire species). The head was said to have large eyes and a smile that could reach the head's ears. The dullahan would ride a black horse or a carriage pulled by black horses, and stop at the house of someone about to die, and call their name, and immediately the person would die. The dullahan did not like being watched, and it was believed that if a dullahan knew someone was watching them, they would lash that person's eyes with their whip, which was made from a spine; or they would toss a basin of blood on the person, which was a sign that the person was next to die.

Gaelic lore also involves a female spirit known as Banshee (Modern Irish Gaelic: bean sí pron. banshee, literally fairy woman), who heralds the death of a person by shrieking or keening. The banshee is often described as wearing red or green, usually with long, disheveled hair. She can appear in a variety of forms, typically that of an ugly, frightful hag, but in some stories she chooses to appear young and beautiful. Some tales recount that the creature was actually a ghost, often of a specific murdered woman or a mother who died in childbirth. When several banshees appeared at once, it was said to indicate the death of someone great or holy. In Ireland and parts of Scotland, a traditional part of mourning is the keening woman (bean chaointe), who wails a lament - in Irish: Caoineadh, caoin meaning "to weep, to wail."

In Scottish folklore there was a belief that a black, dark green or white dog known as a Cù Sìth took dying souls to the afterlife. Comparable figures exist in Irish and Welsh stories.

In Welsh Folklore, Gwyn ap Nudd is the escort of the grave, the personification of Death and Winter who leads the Wild Hunt to collect wayward souls and escort them to the Otherworld, sometimes it is Maleagant, Arawn or Afallach in a similar position.

In Greek mythology, Thanatos, the personification of death, is one of the offspring of Nyx (Night). Like her, he is seldom portrayed directly. He sometimes appears in art as a winged and bearded man, and occasionally as a winged and beardless youth. When he appears together with his twin brother, Hypnos, the god of sleep, Thanatos generally represents a gentle death. Thanatos, led by Hermes psychopompos, takes the shade of the deceased to the near shore of the river Styx, whence the ferryman Charon, on payment of a small fee, conveys the shade to Hades, the realm of the dead. Homer's 16.681, and the Euphronios Krater's depiction of the same episode, have Apollo instruct the removal of the heroic, semi-divine Sarpedon's body from the battlefield by Hypnos and Thanatos, and conveyed thence to his homeland for proper funeral rites. Among the other children of Nyx are Thanatos' sisters, the Keres, blood-drinking, vengeant spirits of violent or untimely death, portrayed as fanged and taloned, with bloody garments.

Hel (1889) by Johannes Gehrts, pictured here with her hound Garmr

In Scandinavia, Norse mythology personified death in the shape of Hel, the goddess of death and ruler over the realm of the same name, where she received a portion of the dead. In the times of the Black Plague, Death would often be depicted as an old woman known by the name of Pesta, meaning "plague hag", wearing a black hood. She would go into a town carrying either a rake or a broom. If she brought the rake, some people would survive the plague; if she brought the broom, however, everyone would die.

Scandinavians later adopted the Grim Reaper with a scythe and black robe. Today, Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal features one of the world's most famous representations of this personification of Death.

"Fairy tale", drawing by Taras Shevchenko. Death is depicted as a female skeleton with a scythe.

In Poland, Death - Śmierć or kostuch - has an appearance similar to the Grim Reaper, although its robe was traditionally white instead of black. Because the word śmierć is feminine in gender, death is frequently portrayed as a skeletal old woman, as depicted in 15th-century dialogue "Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią" (Latin: "Dialogus inter Mortem et Magistrum Polikarpum").

In Serbia and other South Slavic countries, the Grim Reaper is well known as Smrt ("Death") or Kosač ("Reaper"). Slavic people found this very similar to the Devil and other dark powers. One popular saying about death is: Smrt ne bira ni vreme, ni mesto, ni godinu ("Death does not choose a time, place or year" - which means death is destiny.)

Morana is a Slavic goddess of winter time, death and rebirth. A figurine of the same name is traditionally created at the end of winter/beginning of spring and symbolically taken away from villages to be set in fire and/or thrown into a river, that takes her away from the world of the living.

In the Czech Republic, the medieval Prague Astronomical Clock carries a depiction of Death striking the hour. A version first appeared in 1490.

In the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent in Belgium, the personification of Death is known as Magere Hein ("Thin Hein") or Pietje de Dood ("Peter the Death"). Historically, he was sometimes simply referred to as Hein or variations thereof such as Heintje, Heintjeman and Oom Hendrik ("Uncle Hendrik"). Related archaic terms are Beenderman ("Bone-man"), Scherminkel (very meager person, "skeleton") and Maaijeman (" mow-man", a reference to his scythe).

The concept of Magere Hein predates Christianity, but was Christianized and likely gained its modern name and features (scythe, skeleton, black robe etc.) during the Middle Ages. The designation "Meager" comes from its portrayal as a skeleton, which was largely influenced by the Christian " Dance of Death" ( Dutch: dodendans) theme that was prominent in Europe during the late Middle Ages. "Hein" was a Middle Dutch name originating as a short form of Heinric (see Henry (given name)). Its use was possibly related to the comparable German concept of "Freund Hein." Notably, many of the names given to Death can also refer to the Devil; it is likely that fear of death led to Hein's character being merged with that of Satan.

In Belgium, this personification of Death is now commonly called Pietje de Dood "Little Pete, the Death." Like the other Dutch names, it can also refer to the Devil.

Death from the Cary-Yale Tarot Deck (15th century)

In Western Europe, Death has commonly been personified as an animated skeleton since the Middle Ages. This character, which is often depicted wielding a scythe, is said to collect the souls of the dying or recently dead. In English and German culture, Death is typically portrayed as male, but in French, Spanish, and Italian culture, it is not uncommon for Death to be female.

In England, the personified "Death" featured in medieval morality plays, later regularly appearing in traditional folk songs. The following is a verse of "Death and the Lady" (Roud 1031) as sung by Henry Burstow in the nineteenth century:

Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside,
No longer may you glory in your pride.
Take leave of all sour carnal vain delight
I'm come to summon you away this night.

In the late 1800s, the character of Death became known as the Grim Reaper in English literature. The earliest appearance of the name "Grim Reaper" in English is in the 1847 book The Circle of Human Life:

All know full well that life cannot last above seventy, or at the most eighty years. If we reach that term without meeting the grim reaper with his scythe, there or there about, meet him we surely shall.

The " Angel of the Lord" smites 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp (II Kings 19:35). When the Angel of Death passes through to smite the Egyptian first-born, God prevents "the destroyer" ( shâchath) from entering houses with blood on the lintel and side posts ( Exodus 12:23). The "destroying angel" ( mal'ak ha-mashḥit) rages among the people in Jerusalem (II Sam. 24:16). In I Chronicles 21:15 the "angel of the Lord" is seen by King David standing "between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." The biblical Book of Job (33:22) uses the general term "destroyers" ( memitim), which tradition has identified with "destroying angels" ( mal'ake Khabbalah), and Prov. 16:14 uses the term the "angels of death" ( mal'ake ha-mavet). The angel Azra'il is sometimes referred as the Angel of Death as well.

Jewish tradition also refers to Death as the Angel of Dark and Light, a name which stems from Talmudic lore. There is also a reference to " Abaddon" (The Destroyer), an angel who is known as the "Angel of the Abyss". In Talmudic lore, he is characterized as archangel Michael.

La mort du fossoyeur (Death of the gravedigger) by Carlos Schwabe

In Hebrew scriptures, Death ( Maweth/ Mavet(h)) is sometimes personified as a devil or angel of death (e.g., Habakkuk 2:5; Job 18:13). In both the Book of Hosea and the Book of Jeremiah, Maweth/Mot is mentioned as a deity to whom God can turn over Judah as punishment for worshiping other gods. The memitim are a type of angel from biblical lore associated with the mediation over the lives of the dying. The name is derived from the Hebrew word mĕmītǐm (מְמִיתִים - "executioners", "slayers", "destroyers") and refers to angels that brought about the destruction of those whom the guardian angels no longer protected. While there may be some debate among religious scholars regarding the exact nature of the memitim, it is generally accepted that, as described in the Book of Job 33:22, they are killers of some sort.

According to the Midrash, the Angel of Death was created by God on the first day. His dwelling is in heaven, whence he reaches earth in eight flights, whereas Pestilence reaches it in one. He has twelve wings. "Over all people have I surrendered thee the power," said God to the Angel of Death, "only not over this one [i.e. Moses] which has received freedom from death through the Law." It is said of the Angel of Death that he is full of eyes. In the hour of death, he stands at the head of the departing one with a drawn sword, to which clings a drop of gall. As soon as the dying man sees Death, he is seized with a convulsion and opens his mouth, whereupon Death throws the drop into it. This drop causes his death; he turns putrid, and his face becomes yellow. The expression "the taste of death" originated in the idea that death was caused by a drop of gall.

The soul escapes through the mouth, or, as is stated in another place, through the throat; therefore, the Angel of Death stands at the head of the patient ( Adolf Jellinek, l.c. ii. 94, Midr. Teh. to Ps. xi.). When the soul forsakes the body, its voice goes from one end of the world to the other, but is not heard (Gen. R. vi. 7; Ex. R. v. 9; Pirḳe R. El. xxxiv.). The drawn sword of the Angel of Death, mentioned by the Chronicler (I. Chron. 21:15; comp. Job 15:22; Enoch 62:11), indicates that the Angel of Death was figured as a warrior who kills off the children of men. "Man, on the day of his death, falls down before the Angel of Death like a beast before the slaughterer" ( Grünhut, "Liḳḳuṭim", v. 102a). R. Samuel's father (c. 200) said: "The Angel of Death said to me, 'Only for the sake of the honor of mankind do I not tear off their necks as is done to slaughtered beasts'" ('Ab. Zarah 20b). In later representations, the knife sometimes replaces the sword, and reference is also made to the cord of the Angel of Death, which indicates death by throttling. Moses says to God: "I fear the cord of the Angel of Death" (Grünhut, l.c. v. 103a et seq.). Of the four Jewish methods of execution, three are named in connection with the Angel of Death: Burning (by pouring hot lead down the victim's throat), slaughtering (by beheading), and throttling. The Angel of Death administers the particular punishment that God has ordained for the commission of sin.

A peculiar mantle ("idra" - according to Levy, "Neuhebr. Wörterb." i. 32, a sword) belongs to the equipment of the Angel of Death ( Eccl. R. iv. 7). The Angel of Death takes on the particular form which will best serve his purpose; e.g., he appears to a scholar in the form of a beggar imploring pity (the beggar should receive Tzedakah)(M. Ḳ. 28a). "When pestilence rages in the town, walk not in the middle of the street, because the Angel of Death [i.e., pestilence] strides there; if peace reigns in the town, walk not on the edges of the road. When pestilence rages in the town, go not alone to the synagogue, because there the Angel of Death stores his tools. If the dogs howl, the Angel of Death has entered the city; if they make sport, the prophet Elijah has come" (B. Ḳ. 60b). The "destroyer" ( saṭan ha-mashḥit) in the daily prayer is the Angel of Death (Ber. 16b). Midr. Ma'ase Torah (compare Jellinek, "B. H." ii. 98) says: "There are six Angels of Death: Gabriel over kings; Ḳapẓiel over youths; Mashbir over animals; Mashḥit over children; Af and Ḥemah over man and beast."

Samael is considered in Talmudic texts to be a member of the heavenly host with often grim and destructive duties. One of Samael's greatest roles in Jewish lore is that of the main angel of death and the head of satans.

The Angel of Death, sculpture of a funeral gondola, Venice. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1951.

Talmud teachers of the 4th century associate quite familiarly with him. When he appeared to one on the street, the teacher reproached him with rushing upon him as upon a beast, whereupon the angel called upon him at his house. To another, he granted a respite of thirty days, that he might put his knowledge in order before entering the next world. To a third, he had no access, because he could not interrupt the study of the Talmud. To a fourth, he showed a rod of fire, whereby he is recognized as the Angel of Death (M. K. 28a). He often entered the house of Bibi and conversed with him (Ḥag. 4b). Often, he resorts to strategy in order to interrupt and seize his victim (B. M. 86a; Mak. 10a).

The death of Joshua ben Levi in particular is surrounded with a web of fable. When the time came for him to die and the Angel of Death appeared to him, he demanded to be shown his place in paradise. When the angel had consented to this, he demanded the angel's knife, that the angel might not frighten him by the way. This request also was granted him, and Joshua sprang with the knife over the wall of paradise; the angel, who is not allowed to enter paradise, caught hold of the end of his garment. Joshua swore that he would not come out, and God declared that he should not leave paradise unless he had ever absolved himself of an oath; he had never absolved himself of an oath so he was allowed to remain. The Angel of Death then demanded back his knife, but Joshua refused. At this point, a heavenly voice ( bat ḳol) rang out: "Give him back the knife, because the children of men have need of it will bring death." Hesitant, Joshua Ben Levi gives back the knife in exchange for the Angel of Death's name. To never forget the name, he carved Troke into his arm, the Angel of Death's chosen name. When the knife was returned to the Angel, Joshua's carving of the name faded, and he forgot. (Ket. 77b; Jellinek, l.c. ii. 48-51; Bacher, l.c. i. 192 et seq.).

The Rabbis found the Angel of Death mentioned in Psalm 89:48, where the Targum translates: "There is no man who lives and, seeing the Angel of Death, can deliver his soul from his hand." Eccl. 8:4 is thus explained in Midrash Rabbah to the passage: "One may not escape the Angel of Death, nor say to him, 'Wait until I put my affairs in order,' or 'There is my son, my slave: take him in my stead.'" Where the Angel of Death appears, there is no remedy, but his name ( Talmud, Ned. 49a; Hul. 7b). If one who has sinned has confessed his fault, the Angel of Death may not touch him ( Midrash Tanhuma, ed. Buber, 139). God protects from the Angel of Death (Midrash Genesis Rabbah lxviii.).

By acts of benevolence, the anger of the Angel of Death is overcome; when one fails to perform such acts the Angel of Death will make his appearance (Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa, viii.). The Angel of Death receives his orders from God (Ber. 62b). As soon as he has received permission to destroy, however, he makes no distinction between good and bad (B. Ḳ. 60a). In the city of Luz, the Angel of Death has no power, and, when the aged inhabitants are ready to die, they go outside the city (Soṭah 46b; compare Sanh. 97a). A legend to the same effect existed in Ireland in the Middle Ages (Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. 336).

Gustave Doré Death on the Pale Horse (1865) - The fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse

Death is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse portrayed in the Book of Revelation, in Revelation 6:7-8.

He is also known as the Pale Horseman whose name is Thanatos, the same as that of the ancient Greek personification of death, and the only one of the horsemen to be named.

Paul addresses a personified death in 1 Corinthians 15:55.

In some versions, both arms of this verse are addressed to death.

The Christian scriptures contain the first known depiction of Abaddon as an individual entity instead of a place.

In Hebrews 2:14 the devil "holds the power of death."

Conversely, the early Christian writer Origen believed the destroying angel of Exodus 12:23 to be Satan. The Grim Reaper, is stated to be destroyed by the Lake of Fire that burns with sulfur.

In Islam, Archangel Azrael is the Malak al-Maut (angel of death). He and his many subordinates pull the souls out of the bodies and guide them through the journey of the afterlife. Their appearance depends on the person's deeds and actions, with those who did good seeing a beautiful being, and those who did wrong seeing a horrific monster.

Islamic tradition discusses elaborately as to what exactly happens before, during, and after the death. The angel of death appears to the dying to take out their souls. The sinners' souls are extracted in a most painful way while the righteous are treated easily. After the burial, two angels - Munkar and Nakir - come to question the dead to test their faith. The righteous believers answer correctly and live in peace and comfort while the sinners and disbelievers fail and punishments ensue. The period or stage between death and resurrection is called (the interregnum).

Death is a significant event in Islamic life and theology. It is seen not as the termination of life, but rather the continuation of life in another form. In Islamic belief, God has made this worldly life a test and a preparation ground for the afterlife; and with death, this worldly life comes to an end. Thus, every person has only one chance to prepare themselves for the life to come where God will resurrect and judge every individual and will entitle them to rewards or punishment, based on their good or bad deeds. And death is seen as the gateway to and beginning of the afterlife. In Islamic belief, death is predetermined by God, and the exact time of a person's death is known only to God Allah.

The 1960 gospel blues song " Death Don't Have No Mercy", composed and first recorded by Blind Gary Davis, portrays death as an inevitable and periodic visitor. According to the musicologist David Malvinni, it "presents a terrifying personification of the instant, sudden possibility [of] death at any moment that could have come from the medieval era's confrontation with the plague".

The 1976 Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", recorded for their album Agents of Fortune, alludes to the Grim Reaper in the title and lyrics. The song encourages the audience not to fear death, but rather to think of it as something that immortalizes love.

The 1984 thrash metal song " Creeping Death", recorded by Metallica, references the angel of death, among other religious symbols. Written from the perspective of the Angel of Death, "Creeping Death" describes the tenth plague of Egypt. It is often thought of as one of the band's most popular songs and is currently the second-most-played song live by them. It is described by the writer Tom King as "a tale of righteous Biblical rage and devastation straight out of the Book of Revelations".

Death (Death with Interruptions or Death at Intervals)

Nobel laureate José Saramago's novel features an anthropomorphised death as its main character, who insists that her name be written lowercase. She is depicted as a skeleton who can shapeshift and be omnipresent and has a scythe, though she doesn't always carry it. Her jurisdiction is limited to the imaginary country where the story happens and to the human species. It is implied that other deaths with jurisdiction over different life forms and territories exist, as well as an overarching death and/or god. The book deals with how society relates to death, both as a phenomenon and a character, and likewise how death relates to the people she is meant to kill and with loneliness and love.

Death is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's series, and depicted as one of many Deaths. His jurisdiction is specifically the Discworld itself; he is only a part, or minion, of Azrael, the universal Death. Death has appeared in every Discworld novel, with the exception of The Wee Free Men and . Novel , published in 1987, is the first time Death appears as a leading character.

Death is the narrator of Markus Zusak's 2005 novel The Book Thief. He is a collector of deceased souls in the story. He tells the coming of age story about a girl he witnessed living in Nazi Germany and surviving World War II.

Death appears in "The Tale of Three Brothers" in J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of fairytales featured in her Harry Potter series. Three brothers avoid Death and Death, furious at being avoided, offers the brothers gifts. Two of these gifts, the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone, lead to the first two brothers' deaths. The third brother, gifted with the Invisibility Cloak avoids Death until old age, where he then goes with Death like an old friend. These gifts became the Deathly Hallows.

Death is a held office in Piers Anthony's 1983 novel On a Pale Horse. The character Zane becomes Death after a suicide attempt that ends up killing the previous Death. He is taught by his fellow Incarnations Time and Fate and must defeat the Incarnation of Evil, Satan. He is given several items to aid him on his job, including a watch to stop local time, jewels to measure how much good and evil is in a person for judgment, and his pale horse Mortis, who often takes the form of a pale car. Zane as Death appears in Anthony's following novels, notably Bearing an Hourglass.

Death is a career in Christopher Moore's . Charlie Asher is chosen to be a "Death Merchant" for retrieving souls and protect them from dark forces while managing his story and raising his newborn daughter.

Death first appeared in The Sandman vol. 2, #8 (August 1989), and was created by Neil Gaiman and Mike Dringenberg. She is both an embodiment of death and a psychopomp in The Sandman Universe, and depicted as a down to earth, perky, and nurturing figure. Death is the second born of The Endless and she states "When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."

Death also appears briefly in #11 (May 2003) titled "Bag O' Bones", where Jack Horner traps Death in a magical bag that never gets full. There has been no indication as to whether Fables has any connection to the Sandman universe.

The character first appeared in Captain Marvel #26 (Jun. 1973) and was created by Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin. Death is an abstract entity, the embodiment of the end of life in the Marvel Universe, and resides inside a pocket dimension known as the Realm of Death. The character can change appearance at will shown in a storyline of Captain Marvel where Thanos' scheme to conquer the universe, as the character becomes determined to prove his love for Death by destroying all life. However, she is commonly seen in a relationship with Deadpool.

Lady MacDeath is a Grim Reaper, the personification of Death who is responsible of going after all people whose time to die has come, although unlike a typical Grim Reaper, her body is not pictured as made of bones. She uses her sickle to kill people, by hitting them in the head, and then she takes their souls to the purgatory, for them to be judged and sent whether to hell or heaven (sometimes after much bureaucracy). She always carries a list with the name of the people she must kill on the day. Most of her stories feature a pursuit, sometimes punctuated with struggles faced every day by normal people. Maurício de Souza says that the purpose of creating her is "taking death less seriously, while it doesn't come to us".

Anime/Manga

After years of questioning why people fear him, Death takes on human form for three days so that he can mingle among mortals and find an answer. He finds a host in Duke Lambert after revealing himself and his intentions to the Duke, and takes up temporary residence in the Duke's villa. However, events soon spiral out of control as Death falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia. As he does so, Duke Lambert, the father of Grazia's mortal lover Corrado, begs him to give Grazia up and leave her among the living. Death must decide whether to seek his own happiness, or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.

The 1998 American film Meet Joe Black is loosely based on the 1934 film. While on Earth, Death, living under the name Joe Black, enlists the wealthy Bill Parrish to be his guide to mortal life, and in exchange guarantees that Bill will not die as long as he serves as "Joe's" guide. Joe falls in love with Bill's youngest daughter, Susan, a resident in internal medicine, and learns the meaning of both friendship and love.

Death is one of the main characters in 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film The Seventh Seal. The film tells the story of a knight encountering Death, whom he challenges to a chess match, believing he can survive as long as the game continues.

These scenes are parodied in the 1991 comedy film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, in which the title characters repeatedly beat Death playing a variety of family board games such as Battleship and Twister. Death goes on to accompany Bill and Ted for the remainder of the film as a major supporting character. The scene from "The Seventh Seal" is also parodied in a one-act play by Woody Allen called "Death," in which the personification of death agrees to play gin rummy and loses badly, altering his plans to "take" his opponent.

Throughout the film, Munchausen is pursued by Death, a skeletal angel with raven's wings, carrying a scythe in one hand and an hourglass in the other. At the end, Death, in the form of a grim physician, extracts Munchausen's glowing life force, and Munchausen is given a lavish funeral before boldly claiming it was "one of the many times I faced Death."

In each of the Final Destination films, one of the protagonists experiences a premonition of an impending disaster. When these visions come true, the protagonists manage to avoid harm, though many innocent people are killed. Their escapes alter the design intended by Death, which - while never portrayed as a physical entity - is described as an omniscient supernatural force. In each film, the characters learn that they can never truly escape from death, and that they are each doomed to be killed one by one.

In this film, Death (voiced by Tilda Swinton) resides in the afterlife. She is the sister of the Wood Sprite and is depicted as a Chimera.

Throughout the events of the film, the titular Puss in Boots is pursued by the terrifying black-cloaked Wolf (voiced by Wagner Moura), who wields twin sickles and announces his foreboding presence with haunting whistling. His sighting consistently evokes terror in the cat, following their first meeting in which Puss lost his sword to him and was wounded by a blade for the first time. Eventually, Wolf confronts Puss once again and reveals himself as the personification of Death. He states his disgust and anger at Puss's lack of respect for the concept of death and lack of value placed on his previous eight lives, as well as his intent to kill Puss once and for all. However, though he manages to partially disarm Death during their final duel, Puss acknowledges that he knows that he can never truly defeat him. Though Death is initially frustrated, he appreciates Puss's growth in character and tells him to live his last life well and departs as a new respect forged between them.

In 1987, the Australian government produced a controversial commercial featuring the Grim Reaper in order to raise public awareness about the danger of HIV/AIDS.

The Grim Reaper is one of the main characters of the 2000s Cartoon Network series The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, where he is usually referred to as Grim and is voiced by Greg Eagles with a pronounced Jamaican accent.

The Grim Reaper ("Death") appears in some early episodes of as a character voiced by Norm Macdonald in the first appearance and by Adam Carolla in later appearances.

The Showtime television series Dead Like Me features a small team of characters taking the role of the "grim reaper", removing the souls of people just prior to their imminent death. Unlike most depictions of Death, the show depicted "grim reaper" as a job title, held by multiple people at once.

In the British children's sketch television show Horrible Histories, Death (portrayed by Simon Farnaby) is a reoccurring character who appears the segment "Stupid Deaths" and later in its sixth series "Chatty Deaths".

In the TV show, Supernatural, Death was played by Julian Richings and appeared in five episodes. His first appearance was in season 5 episode 21 "Two minutes to midnight" (2010) and last appeared in season 10 episode 23 "Brother's Keeper" (2015). Death appear as one of the four horsemen and the leader of the Grim Reapers. The brothers Sam ( Jared Padalecki) and Dean ( Jensen Ackles) try to defeat the four horsemen when their seal was broken and they started to ravage the world to prevent the apocalypse. Although they managed to stop the other three, they were powerless in front of Death and made a bargain with him instead. It is shown that Death's main role is to kill those who's time is up and afterwards a grim reaper will lead them to their afterlife. Dean learned it the hard way the consequences of not killing people when their time is up when Death challenged him to do his job for 24h in exchange of retrieving Sam's soul stuck in Lucifer's seal in Hell. Death is depicted as one of the most powerful entity in the show, along with The Endless and God.

In American Horror Story: Asylum Death is depicted by Frances Conroy. She is depicted as an old woman in funeral cloths who kisses people when their time comes and sprouts wings. She frequently visits the characters, but particularly torments Sister Jude throughout her time at the asylum.

In the Disney Channel series, Pretty Freekin Scary, the Grim Reaper was a recurring character portrayed by Siobhan Murphy. She accidentally sent Frankie Ripp to The Underworld, but meant to send an old man named Theodore Snickering there. The Grim Reaper allowed Frankie to come back to life, as long as she did tasks for her. She is often nicknamed "G.R." by Frankie. Her mission was to fix her first mishap of accidentally letting Theodore cheat death and escape The Underworld. All the tasks she was assigning Frankie were meant to help her get Theodore back into The Underworld.

The personification of Death or the Grim Reaper is the leading male role in the 1992 Viennese musical, depicting the titular Empress of Austria-Hungary's fictionalised life and her entanglements and obsession with Death. Portrayals of Death varies between productions from androgynous to masculine, dressed at various times in all black or all white.

The personification of Death appears many times in many different games, especially Castlevania and . Nearly all iterations of a "Death" or "Grim Reaper" character feature most of the same characteristics seen in other media and pop culture: a skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe. Darksiders II has Death as the player character.

In League of Legends, death is personified in the form of Kindred, a duo of lamb and wolf.

Bender, A. P. (January 1894). "Beliefs, Rites, and Customs of the Jews, Connected with Death, Burial, and Mourning". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 6 (2): 317-347. doi:10.2307/1450143. JSTOR 1450143.

Bender, A. P. (July 1894). "Beliefs, Rites, and Customs of the Jews, Connected with Death, Burial, and Mourning". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 6 (4): 664-671. doi:10.2307/1450184. JSTOR 1450184.

Böklen, Ernst (1902). Die Verwandtschaft der Jüdisch-Christlichen mit der Parsischen Eschatologie. Göttingen: Vendenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Cantu, Dean (March 2018). "Memento Mori: The Personification of Death." TEDxTalk, University of Tulsa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnnqRy6ctI

Dillmann, August (1895). Handbuch der alttestamentlichen Theologie. Leipzig: S. Hirzel.

Gordon, Maurice Bear (December 1941). "Medicine among the Ancient Hebrews". Isis. 33 (4): 454-485. doi:10.1086/358601. JSTOR 330623. S2CID 41263628.

Hamburger, J[acob] (1884). "Tod". Real-Encyclopädie für Bibel und Talmud: Wörterbuch zum handgebrauch für Bibelfreunde, Theologen, Juristen, Gemeinde- und Schulvorsteher, Lehrer &c (in German). Vol. 1. Strelitz, Mecklenburg: Selbstverlag des Verfassers. pp. 990-992. OCLC 234124918.

Joël, David (1881). Der Aberglaube und die Stellung des Judenthums zu Demselben. Breslau: F.W. Jungfer's Buch.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Kaufmann Kohler and Ludwig Blau (1901-1906). "Angel of Death". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

Kohut, Alexander (1866). Ueber die Jüdische Angelologie und Dämonologie in Ihrer Abhängigkeit vom Parsismus. Leipzig: Brockhaus.

Lynette, Rachel (2009). The Grim Reaper. Monsters. Farmington Hills, MI: KidHaven Press. ISBN 978-0-7377-4568-9. OCLC 317921894.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost.

Olyan, Saul M. (1993). A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism. Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum, 36. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. ISBN 978-3-16-146063-0. OCLC 28328810.

Schwab, Moïse (1897). Vocabulaire de l'Angélologie d'Après les Manuscrits Hebreux de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Paris.

Stave, Erik (1898). Ueber den Einfluss des Parsismus auf das Judenthum. Haarlem: E. F. Bohn.

Weber, F. W. (1897). Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften, gemeinfasslich dargestellt. Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke.

Hunter, Dave. Reapers inc.

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Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul.

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Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel . He is considered the prototypical and archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Vlad Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant.

One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and infecting them with the vampiric disease. Other characteristics have been added or altered in subsequent popular fictional works, including films, cartoons and breakfast cereals.

Stoker's creation

Bram Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities, and weaknesses are narrated by multiple narrators, from different perspectives.

Count Dracula is an undead, centuries-old vampire, and a Transylvanian nobleman who claims to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun. He inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. Unlike the vampires of Eastern European folklore, which are portrayed as repulsive, corpse-like creatures, Dracula is handsome and charismatic, with a veneer of aristocratic charm. In his conversations with Jonathan Harker, he reveals himself as deeply proud of his boyar heritage and nostalgic for the past, which he admits has become only a memory of heroism, honour, and valour in modern times.

Details of his early life are undisclosed, but it is mentioned that

he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist. Which latter was the highest development of the scientific knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse... there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

Dracula studied the black arts at the academy of Scholomance in the Carpathian Mountains, overlooking the town of Sibiu (also known as Hermannstadt) and has a deep knowledge of alchemy and magic. Taking up arms, as befitting his rank and status as a voivode, he led troops against the Turks across the Danube. According to his nemesis Abraham Van Helsing, "He must indeed have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man: for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the land beyond the forest." Dead and buried in a great tomb in the chapel of his castle, Dracula returns from death as a vampire and lives for several centuries in his castle with three terrifyingly beautiful female vampires beside him.

Cover of Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories, a collection of short stories authored by Bram Stoker

In "Dracula's Guest", the narrative follows an unnamed Englishman traveller as he wanders around Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night and the young Englishman foolishly leaves his hotel, in spite of the coachman's warnings, and wanders through a dense forest alone. Along the way, he feels that he is being watched by a tall and thin stranger.

The short story climaxes in an old graveyard, where the Englishman encounters a sleeping female vampire called Countess Dolingen in a marble tomb with a large iron stake driven into it. This malevolent beautiful vampire awakens from her marble bier to conjure a snowstorm before being struck by lightning and returning to her eternal prison. The Englishman's troubles are not quite over, as he is dragged away by an unseen force and rendered unconscious. He awakens to find a gigantic wolf laying on his chest and licking his throat. It keeps him warm and protects him until help arrives. When the Englishman is finally taken back to his hotel, a telegram awaits him from his expectant host Dracula, with a warning about "dangers from snow and wolves and night".

In Dracula, the eponymous vampire has decided to move from Transylvania to London. He summons Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer. Dracula at first charms Harker with his cordiality and historical knowledge, and even rescues him from the clutches of the three female vampires in the castle. In truth, Dracula wishes to keep Harker alive long enough to complete the legal transaction and to learn as much as possible about England.

Ruins of Whitby Abbey in Whitby. As a creature resembling a large dog which came ashore at the Whitby headland, Count Dracula runs up the 199 steps to the graveyard of St Mary's Church in the shadow of the abbey ruins

Dracula leaves his castle and boards a Russian ship, the Demeter, taking along with him 50 boxes of Transylvanian soil, which he needs to regain his strength and rest during daylight. During the voyage to Whitby, a coastal town in northern England, he sustains himself on the ship's crew members. Only one body is later found, that of the captain, who is found tied up to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. Dracula leaves the ship in the form of a dog and runs up the 199 steps to the graveyard of St Mary's Church in the shadow of the Whitby Abbey ruins.

Soon, the Count begins menacing Harker's fiancée, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray, and her friend, Lucy Westenra. There is also a notable link between Dracula and Renfield, a patient in an insane asylum overseen by John Seward, who is compelled to consume spiders, birds, and other creatures-in ascending order of size-to absorb their "life force". Renfield acts as a kind of sensor, reacting to Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Dracula visits Lucy's bed chamber on a nightly basis, draining her of blood while simultaneously infecting her with the curse of vampirism. Not knowing the cause for Lucy's deterioration, her three suitors - Seward, Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris - call upon Seward's mentor, the Dutch doctor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing soon deduces her condition's supernatural origins, and tries to keep the vampire at bay with garlic. Nevertheless, Dracula attacks Lucy's house one final time, killing her mother and transforming Lucy herself into one of the undead after which Van Helsing and her suitors help lay Lucy's soul to rest by driving a stake through her heart.

Harker escapes Dracula's castle and returns to England, barely alive and deeply traumatized. On Seward's suggestion, Mina seeks Van Helsing's assistance in assessing Harker's health. She reads his journal and passes it along to Van Helsing. This unfolds the first clue to the identity of Lucy's assailant, which later prompts Mina to collect all of the events of Dracula's appearance in news articles, saved letters, newspaper clippings and the journals of each member of the group. This assists the group in investigating Dracula's movements and later discovering that Renfield's behaviour is directly influenced by Dracula. They then discover that Dracula has purchased a residence next door to Seward's. The group gathers intelligence to track down Dracula and destroy him.

After the undead Lucy attacks several children, Van Helsing, Seward, Holmwood and Morris enter her crypt and destroy her to save her soul. Later, Harker joins them, and the party works to discover Dracula's intentions. Harker aids the party in tracking down the locations of the boxes to the various residences of Dracula and discovers that Dracula purchased multiple real estate properties throughout London under the alias 'Count De Ville'. Dracula's main plan was to move each of his 50 boxes of earth to his various properties in order to arrange multiple lairs throughout and around the perimeter of London.

The party pries open each of the graves, places sacramental wafers within each of them, and seals them shut. This deprives Dracula of his ability to seek safety in those boxes. Dracula gains entry into Seward's residence by coercing an invitation out of Renfield. As he attempts to enter the room in which Harker and Mina are staying, Renfield tries to stop him; Dracula then mortally wounds him. With his dying breath, Renfield tells Seward and Van Helsing that Dracula is after Mina. Van Helsing and Seward discover Dracula biting Mina and forcing her to drink his blood. The group repels Dracula using crucifixes and sacramental bread, forcing him to flee by turning into a dark vapour. The party continues to hunt Dracula to search for his remaining lairs. Although Dracula's 'baptism' of Mina grants him a telepathic link to her, it backfires when Van Helsing hypnotizes Mina and uses her supernatural link with Dracula to track him as he flees back to Transylvania.

The heroes follow Dracula back to Transylvania, and in a climactic battle with Dracula's Romani bodyguards, finally destroy him. Despite the popular image of Dracula having a stake driven through his heart to kill him, Mina's narrative describes his decapitation by Harker's kukri while Morris simultaneously pierces his heart with a Bowie knife (Mina Harker's Journal, 6 November, Dracula Chapter 27). His body then turns into dust, but not before Mina sees an expression of peace on his face.

"Listen to them-the children of the night. What music they make!".

- Count Dracula to Jonathan Harker, referring to the howling of the wolves. Dracula, Chapter 2.
Although early in the novel Dracula dons a mask of cordiality, he often flies into fits of rage when his plans are frustrated. When Dracula's brides attempt to seduce Jonathan Harker, Dracula physically assaults one and ferociously berates them for their insubordination.

Dracula has an appreciation for ancient architecture prefers purchasing old houses, saying "a new home would kill me" and that it takes a century to make one habitable.

Dracula is very proud of his warrior heritage, proclaiming his pride to Harker on how the Székely people are infused with the blood of heroes. He also expresses an interest in the history of the British Empire, speaking admiringly of its people. He has a somewhat primal and predatory worldview, pities ordinary humans for their revulsion to their darker impulses, feels human emotions and often says that he can love.

Though usually portrayed as having a strong Eastern European accent, the original novel only specifies that his spoken English is excellent, though strangely toned.

His appearance varies in age. He is described early in the novel as thin, with a long white moustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth. It is also noted later in the novel (Chapter 11 subsection "The Escaped Wolf") by a zookeeper who sees him that he has a hooked nose and a pointed beard with a streak of white in it. He is dressed all in black and has hair on his palms. Harker describes him as an old man, "cruel looking" and giving an effect of "extraordinary pallor".

I saw... Count Dracula... with red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.

-  Jonathan Harker's journal, Dracula, Chapter 4

As the novel progresses, Dracula is described as taking on a more and more youthful appearance. After Harker strikes him with a shovel, he is left with a scar on his forehead which he bears throughout the course of the novel.

Dracula also possesses great wealth, and has Romani people in his homeland who are loyal to him as servants and protectors.

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in 1931

Count Dracula is portrayed in the novel using many different supernatural abilities, and is believed to have gained his abilities through dealings with the devil. Chapter 18 of the novel describes many of the abilities, limitations and weaknesses of vampires and Dracula in particular. Dracula has superhuman strength which, according to Van Helsing, is equivalent to that of 20 strong men. He does not cast a shadow or have a reflection from mirrors. He is immune to conventional means of attack; a sailor tries to stab him in the back with a knife, but the blade goes through his body as though it is air. He can defy gravity to a certain extent and possesses superhuman agility, able to climb vertical surfaces upside down in a reptilian manner. He can travel onto unhallowed ground, such as the graves of suicides and those of his victims. He has powerful hypnotic, telepathic and illusionary abilities. He also has the ability to "within limitations" vanish and reappear elsewhere at will. If he knows the path, he can come out from anything or into anything regardless of how close it is bound or even if it is soldered shut.

Dracula has amassed cunning and wisdom throughout centuries and is unable to die of senescence. He can command animals such as rats, owls, bats, moths, foxes and wolves. His control is limited, as seen when the party first enters his house in London. He summons thousands of rats to swarm and attack the group and Holmwood summons his trio of terriers to battle them. The dogs prove very efficient rat killers. Terrified by their onslaught, the rats flee of their own volition.

Dracula can also manipulate the weather and, within his range, is able to direct the elements, such as storms, fog and mist.

Dracula can change form at will, able to grow and become small, his featured forms in the novel being that of a bat, a wolf, a large dog and a fog or mist. When the moonlight is shining, he can travel as elemental dust within its rays. He is able to pass through tiny cracks or crevices while retaining his human form or in the form of a vapour; described by Van Helsing as the ability to slip through a hairbreadth space of a tomb door or coffin. This is also an ability used by his victim Lucy as a vampire. When the party breaks into her tomb, they open the sealed coffin to find her corpse is no longer located within.

One of Dracula's powers is the ability to turn others into vampires by biting them. According to Van Helsing:

The vampire bite itself does not cause death. It is the method vampires use to drain blood of the victim and to increase their influence over them. This is described by Van Helsing:

The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger, and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil.

Victims who are bitten by a vampire and do not die, are hypnotically influenced by them:

Van Helsing later describes the aftermath of a bitten victim when the vampire has been killed:

As Dracula slowly drains Lucy's blood, she dies from acute blood loss and later transforms into a vampire, despite the efforts of Seward and Van Helsing to provide her with blood transfusions.

He is aided by powers of necromancy and divination of the dead, that all who die by his hand may reanimate and do his bidding.

Dracula requires no other sustenance but fresh human blood, which has the effect of rejuvenating him and allowing him to grow younger. His power is drawn from the blood of others, and he cannot survive without it. Although drinking blood can rejuvenate his youth and strength, it does not give him the ability to regenerate; months after being struck on the head by a shovel, he still bears a scar from the impact.

Dracula's preferred victims are women. Harker states that he believes Dracula has a state of fasting as well as a state of feeding. He tells Mina exerting his abilities raises a desire to feed.

Vampire's Baptism of Blood

Count Dracula is depicted as the " King Vampire", and can control other vampires. To punish Mina and the party for their efforts against him, Dracula bites her on at least three occasions. He also forces her to drink his blood; this act curses her with the effects of vampirism and gives him a telepathic link to her thoughts. Hypnotism only work before dawn. Van Helsing refers to the act of drinking blood by both the vampire and the victim "the Vampire's Baptism of Blood".

you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin, my bountiful wine-press for a while, and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn, for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me. Now you shall come to my call. When my brain says 'Come!' to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding.

The effects changes Mina physically and mentally over time. A few moments after Dracula attacks her, Van Helsing takes a wafer of sacramental bread and places it on her forehead to bless her; when the bread touches her skin, it burns her and leaves a scar on her forehead. Her teeth start growing longer but do not grow sharper. She begins to lose her appetite, feeling repulsed by normal food, begins to sleep more and more during the day; cannot wake unless at sunset and stops writing in her diary. When Van Helsing later crumbles the same bread in a circle around her, she is unable to cross or leave the circle, discovering a new form of protection.

Dracula's death would release the curse on any living transformed vampire. Van Helsing reveals that even were he to escape, his continued existence would ensure whether or not he victimized Mina further, she would become a vampire upon her eventual natural death.

Dracula is much less powerful in daylight and is only able to shift his form at dawn, noon, and dusk (he can shift his form freely at night or if he is at his grave). The sun is not fatal to him, as sunlight does not burn and destroy him upon contact, though most of his abilities cease.

Later interpretations of the character, and vampires in general, would amplify this trait into an outright fatal weakness, making it so that even the first rays of sunrise are capable of reducing a vampire to ash.[citation needed ]

He is also limited in his ability to travel, as he can only cross running water at low or high tide. Owing to this, he is unable to fly across a river in the form of a bat or mist or even by himself board a boat or step off a boat onto a dock unless he is physically carried over with assistance. He is also unable to enter a place unless invited to do so by someone of the household, even a visitor; once invited, he can enter and leave the premises at will.

Dracula is commonly depicted with a bloodlust which he is seemingly unable to control. Adaptations sometimes call this uncontrollable state 'the thirst'.

There are items which afflict him to the point he has no power and can even calm him from his insatiable appetite for blood. He is repulsed by garlic, as well as sacred items and symbols such as crucifixes and sacramental bread.

...at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

-  Jonathan Harker's journal, Dracula, Chapter 2

Placing the branch of a wild rose upon the top of his coffin will render him unable to escape it; a sacred bullet fired into the coffin could kill him so that he remain true-dead.

Mountain-ash is also described as a form of protection from a vampire, although the effects are unknown. This was believed to be used as protection against evil spirits and witches during the Victorian era.

The state of rest to which vampires are prone during the day is described in the novel as a deathlike sleep in which the vampire sleeps open-eyed, is unable to awaken or move, and also may be unaware of any presence of individuals who may be trespassing. Dracula is portrayed as being active in daylight at least once to pursue a victim. Dracula also purchases many properties throughout London 'over the counter' which shows that he does have the ability to have some type of presence in daylight.

on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep. I could not say which, for eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death, and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor. The lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain... I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by the window.

He requires Transylvanian soil to be nearby to him in a foreign land or to be entombed within his coffin within Transylvania in order to successfully rest; otherwise, he will be unable to recover his strength. This has forced him to transport many boxes of Transylvanian earth to each of his residences in London. He is most powerful when he is within his Earth-Home, Coffin-Home, Hell-Home, or any place unhallowed.

Further, if Dracula or any vampire has had their fill in blood upon feeding, they will be caused to rest in this dead state even longer than usual.

While universally feared by the local people of Transylvania and even beyond, Dracula commands the loyalty of the Romani people, as well as a band of Slovaks who transport his boxes on their way to London and to serve as an armed convoy bringing his coffin back to his castle. The Slovaks and Romani appear to know his true nature, for they laugh at Harker when he tries to communicate his plight, and betray Harker's attempt to send a letter through them by giving it to the Count.

Dracula seems to be able to hold influence over people with mental disorders, such as Renfield, who is never bitten but who worships Dracula, referring to him over the course of the novel as "Master" and "Lord". Dracula also afflicts Lucy with chronic sleepwalking, putting her into a trance-like state that allows them not only to submit to his will but also seek him and satisfy his need to feed.

Dracula's powers and weaknesses vary greatly in the many adaptations. Previous and subsequent vampires from different legends have had similar vampire characteristics.

Christopher Lee starred as Dracula in numerous British horror films produced by Hammer Films. Shown here is the 1958 film Dracula. Lee fixed the image of the vampire bearing dual elongated fangs in popular culture.[47][48]

Dracula has been portrayed by more actors in more visual media adaptations of the novel than any other horror character. Actors who have played him include Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Christopher Lee, Francis Lederer, Denholm Elliott, Jack Palance, Louis Jourdan, Rudolf Martin, Frank Langella, Klaus Kinski, Gary Oldman, Leslie Nielsen, George Hamilton, David Niven, Charles Macaulay, Keith-Lee Castle, Gerard Butler, Duncan Regehr, Richard Roxburgh, Marc Warren, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Billington, Thomas Kretschmann, Dominic Purcell, Luke Evans, Claes Bang, Nicolas Cage and Javier Botet. In 2003, Count Dracula, as portrayed by Lugosi in the 1931 film, was named as the 33rd greatest movie villain by the AFI. In 2013, magazine ranked Lee's portrayal as Dracula the 7th Greatest Horror Movie Character of All Time.

The character is closely associated with the western cultural archetype of the vampire, and remains a popular Halloween costume.

Count Dracula appears in Mad Monster Party? voiced by Allen Swift. This version is shown to be wearing a monocle. Count Dracula is among the monsters that Baron Boris von Frankenstein invites to the Isle of Evil to show off the secret of total destruction and announce his retirement from the Worldwide Organization of Monsters.

Sesame Street character Count von Count is based on Bela Lugosi's interpretation of Count Dracula and Jack Davis' design for Dracula from Mad Monster Party?.

Count Dracula appears in Mad Mad Mad Monsters (a "prequel of sorts" to Mad Monster Party?) voiced again by Allen Swift. He and his son are invited by Baron Henry von Frankenstein to attend the wedding of Frankenstein's monster and its mate at the Transylvania Astoria Hotel.

Dracula is the primary antagonist of the Castlevania video game series, the first two seasons of the Castlevania Netflix series, and the main protagonist of the Lords of Shadow reboot series.

Count Dracula appears in the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes episode "Spatula, Prinze of Dorkness", voiced by S. Scott Bullock. He relates a tale of how he once gave Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen a serum to transform tomatoes into vampire tomatoes. Though the doctor refused, Zoltan overheard their conversation and, mistaking the word serum for syrup, ingests the serum himself and renaming himself "Spatula, Prinze of Dorkness" who can turn people into vampires by kissing them in the neck (a stipulation that the Censor Lady put into place in fear of showing the biting and bloodshed associated with vampires on a Saturday morning cartoon). This spread to the other tomatoes and the entire town. When the Sun came up and disabled the vampires, Count Dracula in sunblock appears and deemed that the town is not worthy to be vampires. He then gives Chad Finletter the antidote to the vampirism and advises that the tomatoes be squashed immediately.

Dracula appears as the lead character of Dracula the Un-dead, a novel by Stoker's great-grand nephew Dacre presented as a sequel to the original.

In the Supernatural episode "Monster Movie", a shapeshifter that Sam and Dean Winchester fight considers his form of Count Dracula (portrayed by Todd Stashwick) his favourite form. It is in this form that Jamie killed him with Sam's gun loaded with silver bullets.

Count Dracula is the main character of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, voiced by Adam Sandler in the first three movies and by Brian Hull in the fourth movie.

Dracula, going by an inversion of his name, "Alucard", serves as the main character of the anime and manga series Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate, where he serves Integra Hellsing, Abraham's great-granddaughter, as an anti-vampire warrior devoted to the British Crown.

Dracula is the primary antagonist of the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, portrayed by Christian Camargo. This version of the character is the brother of Lucifer and, thus, a fallen angel.

Full-size portrait of Vlad Țepeș in the "Gallery of the Ancestors" of the House of Esterházy, 17th century, Forchtenstein Castle

Already in 1958, Cecil Kirtly proposed that Count Dracula shared his personal past with the historical Transylvanian-born Voivode Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia, also known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Țepeș. Following the publication of In Search of Dracula by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally in 1972, this supposed connection attracted much popular attention. This work argued that Bram Stoker based his Dracula on Vlad the Impaler.

Historically, the name "Dracula" is the family name of Vlad Țepeș' family, a name derived from a fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon, founded by Sigismund of Luxembourg (king of Hungary and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor) to uphold Christianity and defend the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Vlad II Dracul, father of Vlad III, was admitted to the order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks and was dubbed Dracul ( dragon or devil), thus his son became Dracula (son of the dragon). From 1431 onward, Vlad II wore the emblem of the order and later, as ruler of Wallachia, his coinage bore the dragon symbol.

Shakespearean actor and friend of Stoker's Sir Henry Irving is widely considered to be a real-life inspiration for the character of Dracula.

Stoker came across the name Dracula in his reading on Romanian history, and chose this to replace the name ( Count Wampyr) that he had originally intended to use for his villain. Some Dracula scholars, led by Elizabeth Miller, have questioned the depth of this connection as early as 1998. They argue that Stoker in fact knew little of the historic Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler, and that he used only the name "Dracula" and some miscellaneous scraps of Romanian history. Also, there are no comments about Vlad III in the author's working notes.

While having a conversation with Jonathan Harker in Chapter 3, Dracula refers to his own background, and these speeches show elements which Stoker directly copied from An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them by William Wilkinson. Stoker mentions the Voivode of the Dracula race who fought against the Turks after the defeat in the Battle of Kosovo, and was later betrayed by his brother, historical facts which unequivocally point to Vlad III, described as "Voïvode Dracula" by Wilkinson:

Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! (Chapter 3, pp. 19)

The Count's intended identity is later commented by Professor Van Helsing, referring to a letter from his friend Arminius:

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, pp. 145)

This indeed encourages the reader to identify the Count with the Voivode Dracula first mentioned by him in Chapter 3, the one betrayed by his brother: Vlad III Dracula, betrayed by his brother Radu the Handsome, who had chosen the side of the Turks. But as noted by the Dutch author Hans Corneel de Roos, in Chapter 25, Van Helsing and Mina drop this rudimentary connection to Vlad III and instead describe the Count's personal past as that of "that other of his race" who lived "in a later age". By smoothly exchanging Vlad III for a nameless double, Stoker avoided his main character being unambiguously linked to a historical person traceable in any history book.

Similarly, the novelist did not want to disclose the precise site of the Count's residence, Castle Dracula. As confirmed by Stoker's own handwritten research notes, the novelist had a specific location for the Castle in mind while writing the narrative: an empty mountain top in the Transylvanian Kelemen alps near the former border with Moldavia. Efforts to promote the Poenari Castle (ca. 200 km away from the novel's place of action near the Borgo Pass) as the "real Castle Dracula" have no basis in Stoker's writing; although it bears much similarity to the fictional Castle Dracula, no written evidence shows Stoker to have heard of it. Regarding the Bran Castle near Brașov, Stoker possibly saw an illustration of Castle Bran (Törzburg) in Charles Boner's 1865 book on Transylvania, Transylvania: Its Products and Its People. Although Stoker may have been inspired by its romantic appearance, neither Boner, nor Mazuchelli nor Crosse (who also mention Terzburg or Törzburg) associate it with Vlad III; for the site of his fictitious Castle Dracula, Stoker preferred an empty mountain top.

Stoker's detailed notes reveal he was well aware of the ethnic and geopolitical differences between the Roumanians/Wallachs/Wallachians, descendants of the Dacians, and the Székelys/Szeklers, allies of the Magyars or Hungarians, whose interests were opposed to that of the Wallachians. In the novel's original typewritten manuscript, the Count speaks of throwing off the "Austrian yoke", which corresponds to the Szekler political point of view. This expression is crossed out and replaced by "Hungarian yoke" (as appearing in the printed version), which matches the historical perspective of the Wallachians. Some take this to mean that Stoker opted for the Wallachian, not the Szekler interpretation, thus lending more consistency to his count's Romanian identity. Although not identical to Vlad III, the vampire is portrayed as one of the "Dracula race".

Clive Leatherdale (1985) Dracula: the Novel and the Legend. Desert Island Books.

Bram Stoker (1897) Dracula. Norton Critical Edition (1997) edited by Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal.

Senf, Carol. Dracula: Between Tradition and Modernism (Twayne, 1998).

Senf, Carol A. Bram Stoker. University of Wales Press, 2010.

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Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel . He is considered the prototypical and archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Vlad Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant.

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Frankenstein's monster, also referred to as Frankenstein, is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus as its main antagonist. Shelley's title compares the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein, to the mythological character Prometheus, who fashioned humans out of clay and gave them fire.

In Shelley's Gothic story, Victor Frankenstein builds the creature in his laboratory through an ambiguous method based on a scientific principle he discovered. Shelley describes the monster as 8 feet (240 cm) tall and emotional. The monster attempts to fit into human society but is shunned, which leads him to seek revenge against Frankenstein. According to the scholar Joseph Carroll, the monster occupies "a border territory between the characteristics that typically define protagonists and antagonists".

Frankenstein's monster became iconic in popular culture, and has been featured in various forms of media, including films, television series, merchandise and video games. The most popularly recognized versions are the film portrayals by Boris Karloff in the 1931 film Frankenstein, the 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein, and the 1939 sequel Son of Frankenstein.

The actor T. P. Cooke as the monster in an 1823 stage production of Shelley's novel

Mary Shelley's original novel does not give the character a specific name. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein variously refers to his creation as the "creature", "fiend", "spectre", "dæmon", "wretch", "devil", "thing", "being", and "ogre". Frankenstein's creation referred to himself as a "monster" at least once, as did the residents of a hamlet who saw the creature towards the end of the novel.

As in Shelley's story, the creature's namelessness became a central part of the stage adaptations in London and Paris during the decades after the novel's first appearance. In 1823, Shelley herself attended a performance of Richard Brinsley Peake's Presumption, the first successful stage adaptation of her novel. "The play bill amused me extremely, for in the list of dramatis personae came, -------- by Mr T. Cooke," she wrote to her friend Leigh Hunt. "This nameless mode of naming the unnameable is rather good."

Within a decade of publication, the name of the creator, "Frankenstein", was used to refer to the creature, but it did not become firmly established until much later. The story was adapted for the stage in 1927 by Peggy Webling, and Webling's Victor Frankenstein does give the creature his name. However, the creature has no name in the Universal film series starring Boris Karloff during the 1930s, which was largely based upon Webling's play. The 1931 Universal film treated the creature's identity in a similar way as Shelley's novel: in the opening credits, the character is referred to merely as "The Monster" (the actor's name is replaced by a question mark, but Karloff is listed in the closing credits). However, in the sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), the frame narration by a character representing Shelley's friend Lord Byron does refer to the monster as Frankenstein. Nevertheless, the creature soon enough became best known in the popular imagination as "Frankenstein". This usage is sometimes considered erroneous, but some usage commentators regard the monster sense of "Frankenstein" as well-established and not an error.

Modern practice varies somewhat. For example, in Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, first published in 2004, the creature is named "Deucalion", after the character from Greek mythology, who is the son of the Titan Prometheus, a reference to the original novel's title. Another example is the second episode of Showtime's Penny Dreadful, which first aired in 2014. Victor Frankenstein briefly considers naming his creation "Adam", before deciding instead to let the monster "pick his own name". He is also referred to as Adam in the 2014 film I, Frankenstein, where the Queen of the Gargoyles Leonore gives him the name after understanding Victor never gave him one. Thumbing through a book of the works of William Shakespeare, the monster chooses "Proteus" from The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It is later revealed that Proteus is actually the second monster Frankenstein has created, with the first, abandoned creation having been named "Caliban", from The Tempest, by the theatre actor who took him in and later, after leaving the theatre, named himself after the English poet John Clare. Another example is an attempt by Randall Munroe of webcomic to make "Frankenstein" the canonical name of the monster, by publishing a short derivative version which directly states that it is. In The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, the 2017 novel by Theodora Goss, the creature is named Adam.

Shelley's plot

Charles Stanton Ogle in the 1910 film version

Close-up of Charles Ogle as the monster in Thomas Edison's Frankenstein (1910)

Victor Frankenstein builds the creature over a two-year period in the attic of his boarding house in Ingolstadt after discovering a scientific principle which allows him to create life from non-living matter. Frankenstein is disgusted by his creation, however, and flees from it in horror. Frightened, and unaware of his own identity, the monster wanders through the wilderness.

He finds solace beside a remote cottage inhabited by an older, blind man and his two children. Eavesdropping, the creature familiarizes himself with their lives and learns to speak, whereby he becomes an eloquent, educated, and well-mannered individual. During this time, he also finds Frankenstein's journal in the pocket of the jacket he found in the laboratory and learns how he was created. The creature eventually introduces himself to the family's blind father, who treats him with kindness. When the rest of the family returns, however, they are frightened of him and drive him away. Enraged, the creature feels that humankind is his enemy and begins to hate his creator for abandoning him. However, although he despises Frankenstein, he sets out to find him, believing that he is the only person who will help him. On his journey, the creature rescues a young girl from a river but is shot in the shoulder by the child's father, believing the creature intended to harm his child. Enraged by this final act of cruelty, the creature swears revenge on humankind for the suffering they have caused him. He seeks revenge against his creator in particular for leaving him alone in a world where he is hated. Using the information in Frankenstein's notes, the creature resolves to find him.

The monster kills Victor's younger brother William upon learning of the boy's relation to his creator and frames Justine Moritz, a young woman who lives with the Frankensteins, as the culprit (causing her execution afterwards). When Frankenstein retreats to the Alps, the monster approaches him at the summit, recounts his experiences, and asks his creator to build him a female mate. He promises, in return, to disappear with his mate and never trouble humankind again, but threatens to destroy everything Frankenstein holds dear should he fail or refuse. Frankenstein agrees, and eventually constructs a female creature on a remote island in Orkney, but aghast at the possibility of creating a race of monsters, destroys the female creature before it is complete. Horrified and enraged, the creature immediately appears, and gives Frankenstein a final threat: "I will be with you on your wedding night."

After leaving his creator, the creature goes on to kill Victor's best friend, Henry Clerval, and later kills Frankenstein's bride, Elizabeth Lavenza, on their wedding night, whereupon Frankenstein's father dies of grief. With nothing left to live for but revenge, Frankenstein dedicates himself to destroying his creation, and the creature goads him into pursuing him north, through Scandinavia and into Russia, staying ahead of him the entire way.

As they reach the Arctic Circle and travel over the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean, Frankenstein, suffering from severe exhaustion and hypothermia, comes within a mile of the creature, but is separated from him when the ice he is traveling over splits. A ship exploring the region encounters the dying Frankenstein, who relates his story to the ship's captain, Robert Walton. Later, the monster boards the ship, but upon finding Frankenstein dead, is overcome by grief and pledges to incinerate himself at "the Northernmost extremity of the globe". He then departs, never to be seen again.

Frankenstein's monster in an editorial cartoon, 1896, an allegory on the Silverite movement displacing other progressive factions in late 19th century U.S.

Shelley described Frankenstein's monster as an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) creature of hideous contrasts:

His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

A picture of the creature appeared in the 1831 edition. Early stage portrayals dressed him in a toga, shaded, along with the monster's skin, a pale blue. Throughout the 19th century, the monster's image remained variable according to the artist.

Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) in a variation of the classic 1931 film version with an assist from make-up artist Jack Pierce. Karloff had gained weight since the original iteration and much of the monster's hair has been burned off to indicate having been caught in a fire. Some of the hair was gradually replaced during the course of the film to simulate it beginning to grow back.

The best-known image of Frankenstein's monster in popular culture derives from Boris Karloff's portrayal in the 1931 movie Frankenstein, in which he wore makeup applied and designed by Jack P. Pierce, who based the monster's face and iconic flat head shape on a drawing Pierce's daughter (whom Pierce feared to be psychic) had drawn from a dream. Universal Studios, which released the film, was quick to secure ownership of the copyright for the makeup format. Karloff played the monster in two more Universal films, Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein; Lon Chaney Jr. took over the part from Karloff in The Ghost of Frankenstein; Bela Lugosi portrayed the role in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man; and Glenn Strange played the monster in the last three Universal Studios films to feature the character - House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. However, the makeup worn by subsequent actors replicated the iconic look first worn by Karloff. The image of Karloff's face is currently owned by his daughter's company, Karloff Enterprises, secured for her in a lawsuit for which she was represented by attorney Bela G. Lugosi (Bela Lugosi's son), after which Universal replaced Karloff's features with those of Glenn Strange in most of their marketing. In 1969, the New York Times mistakenly ran a photograph of Strange for Karloff's obituary.

Since Karloff's portrayal, the creature almost always appears as a towering, undead-like figure, often with a flat-topped angular head and bolts on his neck to serve as electrical connectors or grotesque electrodes. He wears a dark, usually tattered, suit having shortened coat sleeves and thick, heavy boots, causing him to walk with an awkward, stiff-legged gait (as opposed to the novel, in which he is described as much more flexible than a human). The tone of his skin varies (although shades of green or gray are common), and his body appears stitched together at certain parts (such as around the neck and joints). This image has influenced the creation of other fictional characters, such as the Hulk.

In the 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein, Christopher Lee was cast as the creature. The producers Hammer Film Productions refrained from duplicating aspects of Universal's 1931 film, and so Phil Leakey designed a new look for the creature bearing no resemblance to the Boris Karloff design created by Jack Pierce. For his performance as the creature Lee played him as a loose-limbed and childlike, fearful and lonely, with a suggestion of being in pain. Author Paul Leggett describes the creature as being like an abused child; afraid but also violently angry. Christopher Lee was annoyed on getting the script and discovering that the monster had no dialogue, for this creature was totally mute. According to Marcus K. Harmes in contrasting Lee's creature with the one played by Karloff, "Lee's actions as the monster seem more directly evil, to judge from the expression on his face when he bears down on the helpless old blind man but these are explained in the film as psychopathic impulses caused by brain damage, not the cunning of the literary monster. Lee also evokes considerable pathos in his performance." In this film the aggressive and childish demeanour of the monster are in contrast with that of the murdered Professor Bernstein, once the "finest brain in Europe", from whom the creature's now damaged brain was taken.

The sequels to The Curse of Frankenstein would feature Victor Frankenstein creating various different Frankenstein monsters, none of which would be played by Christopher Lee:

The film The Revenge of Frankenstein has Victor Frankenstein placing the brain of a hunchback named Karl (portrayed by Oscar Quitak) into a makeshift body (portrayed by Michael Gwynn). Though the procedure works, Karl starts to redevelop his deformities and later dies in front of Victor.

The film The Evil of Frankenstein reveals that Victor Frankenstein had made a prototype version of his monster which was kept in a frozen cave. After being thawed out and reanimated, the Monster (portrayed by Kiwi Kingston) has his brain awakened by a hypnotist named Zoltan (portrayed by Peter Woodthorpe). When Frankenstein's lab went off the cliff, it apparently killed Victor and the Monster.

The film Frankenstein Created Woman has Victor Frankenstein surviving the lab's destruction and making a female monster from the remains of a cowardly innkeeper's half-disfigured daughter Christina Kleve (portrayed by Susan Denberg) after she threw herself in the river following the death of Victor's ally Hans. He and Dr. Hertz transferred Hans' soul into Christina's body causing her to become possessed by him. After coming to her senses, Christina commits suicide by drowning herself in the river.

The film Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has Victor Frankenstein making a monster out of the remains of the asylum's administrator Professor Richter (portrayed by Freddie Jones) that involves placing the brain of Victor's former assistant Dr. Frederick Brant (portrayed by George Pravda) into Professor Richter's body. The Monster later drags Victor into the burning house.

The film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell has Victor surviving the fire and making a monster from the hulking ape-like asylum inmate Herr Schneider (portrayed by David Prowse) while also giving him a new brain and new eyes. During its plans for revenge, the Monster is killed by a mob of asylum inmates.

In the 1965 Toho film Frankenstein vs. Baragon, the heart of Frankenstein's monster was transported from Germany to Hiroshima as World War II neared its end, only to be irradiated during the atomic bombing of the city, granting it miraculous regenerative capabilities. Over the ensuing 20 years, it grows into a complete human child, who then rapidly matures into a giant, 20-metre-tall man after he is rediscovered. Frankenstein escapes a laboratory in the city after being agitated by news reporters using flash photography on him, and goes to fend for himself in the countryside, only to be accused of attacking villages and killing people, actually the victims of the underground monster Baragon. The two monsters face off in a showdown that ends with Frankenstein's monster victorious, though he falls into the depths of the Earth after the ground collapses beneath his feet. The film's sequel War of the Gargantuas would see pieces of the monster regenerate into the titular Gargantuas, two hairy giants consisting of the malicious green sea monster Gaira and the friendly brown mountain monster Sanda.

In the 1973 TV miniseries Frankenstein: The True Story, in which the creature is played by Michael Sarrazin, he appears as a strikingly handsome man who later degenerates into a grotesque monster due to a flaw in the creation process.

In the 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the creature is played by Robert De Niro and has an appearance closer to that described in the original novel, though this version of the creature possesses balding grey hair and a body covered in bloody stitches. He is, as in the novel, motivated by pain and loneliness. In this version, Frankenstein gives the monster the brain of his mentor, Doctor Waldman, while his body is made from a man who killed Waldman while resisting a vaccination. The monster retains Waldman's "trace memories" that apparently help him quickly learn to speak and read.

In the 2004 film Van Helsing, the monster is shown in a modernized version of the Karloff design. He is 8 to 9 feet (240-270 cm) tall, has a square bald head, gruesome scars, and pale green skin. The electrical origin of the creature is emphasized with one electrified dome in the back of his head and another over his heart, and he also has hydraulic pistons in his legs, with the design being similar to that of a steam-punk cyborg. Although not as eloquent as in the novel, this version of the creature is intelligent and relatively nonviolent.

In 2004, a TV miniseries adaptation of Frankenstein was made by Hallmark. Luke Goss plays the creature. This adaptation more closely resembles the monster as described in the novel: intelligent and articulate, with flowing, dark hair and watery eyes.

The 2005 film Frankenstein Reborn portrays the creature as a paraplegic man who tries to regain the ability to walk by having a nanobots surging through his body but has side effects. Instead, the surgeon kills him and resurrects his corpse as a reanimated zombie-like creature. This version of the creature has stitches on his face where he was shot, strains of brown hair, black pants, a dark hoodie, and a black jacket with a brown fur collar.

The 2014 TV series Penny Dreadful also rejects the Karloff design in favour of Shelley's description. This version of the creature has the flowing dark hair described by Shelley, although he departs from her description by having pale grey skin and obvious scars along the right side of his face. Additionally, he is of average height, being even shorter than other characters in the series. In this series, the monster names himself " Caliban", after the character in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the series, Victor Frankenstein makes a second and third creature, each more indistinguishable from normal human beings.

As depicted by Shelley, the creature is a sensitive, emotional person whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself. The novel portrayed him as versed in Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and The Sorrows of Young Werther, books he finds after having learnt language.

From the beginning, the creature is rejected by everyone he meets. He realizes from the moment of his "birth" that even his own creator cannot stand the sight of him; this is obvious when Frankenstein says "...one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped...". Upon seeing his own reflection, he realizes that he too is repulsed by his appearance. His greatest desire is to find love and acceptance; but when that desire is denied, he swears revenge on his creator.

The creature is a vegetarian. While speaking to Frankenstein, he tells him, "My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment...The picture I present to you is peaceful and human." At the time the novel was written, many writers, including Percy Shelley in A Vindication of Natural Diet, argued that practicing vegetarianism was the morally right thing to do.

Contrary to many film versions, the creature in the novel is very articulate and eloquent in his speech. Almost immediately after his creation, he dresses himself; and within 11 months, he can speak and read German and French. By the end of the novel, the creature is able to speak English fluently as well. The Van Helsing and Penny Dreadful interpretations of the character have similar personalities to the literary original, although the latter version is the only one to retain the character's violent reactions to rejection. In the 1931 film adaptation, the creature is depicted as mute and bestial; it is implied that this is because he is accidentally implanted with a criminal's "abnormal" brain. In the subsequent sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, the creature learns to speak, albeit in short, stunted sentences. However, his intelligence is implied to be fairly developed, since what little dialogue he speaks suggests he has a world-weary attitude to life, and a deep understanding of his unnatural state. When rejected by his bride, he briefly goes through a suicidal state and attempts suicide, blowing up the laboratory he is in. In the second sequel, Son of Frankenstein, the creature is again rendered inarticulate. Following a brain transplant in the third sequel, The Ghost of Frankenstein, the creature speaks with the voice and personality of the brain donor. This was continued after a fashion in the scripting for the fourth sequel, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, but the dialogue was excised before release. The creature was effectively mute in later sequels, although he refers to Count Dracula as his "master" in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The creature is often portrayed as being afraid of fire, although he is not afraid of it in the novel, even using fire to destroy himself.

Scholars sometimes look for deeper meaning in Shelley's story, and have drawn an analogy between the monster and a motherless child; Shelley's own mother died while giving birth to her. The monster has also been analogized to an oppressed class; Shelley wrote that the monster recognized "the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty". Others see in the monster the dangers of uncontrolled scientific progress, especially as at the time of publishing; Galvanism had convinced many scientists that raising the dead through use of electrical currents was a scientific possibility.

Another proposal is that Victor Frankenstein was based on a real scientist who had a similar name, and who had been called a modern Prometheus - Benjamin Franklin. Accordingly, the monster would represent the new nation that Franklin helped to create out of remnants left by England. Victor Frankenstein's father "made also a kite, with a wire and string, which drew down that fluid from the clouds," wrote Shelley, similar to Franklin's famous kite experiment.

1930s Universal's art director Karoly Grosz (illustrator) designed this offbeat 1935 advertisement

In discussing the physical description of the monster, there has been some speculation about the potential his design is rooted in common perceptions of race during the 18th century. Three scholars have noted that Shelley's description of the monster seems to be racially coded; one argues that, "Shelley's portrayal of her monster drew upon contemporary attitudes towards non-whites, in particular on fears and hopes of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies."

Karloff in 1935 teaser ad

In her article "Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril", Anne Mellor claims that the monster's features share a lot in common with the Mongoloid race. This term, now out of fashion and carrying some negative connotations, is used to describe the "yellow" races of Asia as distinct from the Caucasian or white races. To support her claim, Mellor points out that both Mary and Percy Shelley were friends with William Lawrence, an early proponent of racial science and someone whom Mary "continued to consult on medical matters and [met with] socially until his death in 1830." While Mellor points out to allusions to Orientalism and the Yellow Peril, John Malchow in his article "Frankenstein's Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain" explores the possibility of the monster either being intentionally or unintentionally coded as black. Malchow argues that the monster's depiction is based in an 18th-century understanding of "popular racial discourse [which] managed to conflate such descriptions of particular ethnic characteristics into a general image of the 'Negro' body in which repulsive features, brute-like strength and size of limbs featured prominently." Malchow makes it clear that it is difficult to tell if this alleged racial allegory was intentional on Shelley's part or if it was inspired by the society she lived in (or if it exists in the text at all outside of his interpretation), and he states that "There is no clear proof that Mary Shelley consciously set out to create a monster which suggested, explicitly, the Jamaican escaped slave or maroon, or that she drew directly from any person knowledge of either planter or abolitionist propaganda." In addition to the previous interpretations, Karen Lynnea Piper argues in her article, "Inuit Diasporas: Frankenstein and the Inuit in England" that the symbolism surrounding Frankenstein's monster could stem from the Inuit of the Arctic. Piper argues that the monster accounts for the "missing presence" of any indigenous people during Waldon's expedition, and that he represents the fear of the savage, lurking on the outskirts of civilization.

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Frankenstein's monster, also referred to as Frankenstein, is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus as its main antagonist. Shelley's title compares the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein, to the mythological character Prometheus, who fashioned humans out of clay and gave them fire.

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The Yeti () is an ape-like creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia. In Western popular culture, the creature is commonly referred to as the Abominable Snowman. Many dubious articles have been offered in an attempt to prove the existence of the Yeti, including anecdotal visual sightings, disputed video recordings, photographs, and plaster casts of large footprints. Some of these are speculated or known to be hoaxes.

Folklorists trace the origin of the Yeti to a combination of factors, including Sherpa folklore and misidentified fauna such as bear or yak. The Yeti is commonly compared to Bigfoot of North America, as the two subjects often have similar physical descriptions.

Description

The Yeti is often described as being a large, bipedal ape-like creature that is covered with brown, gray, or white hair, and it is sometimes depicted as having large, sharp teeth.

Etymology and alternative names

Tibetan lore describes three main varieties of yetis-the Nyalmo, which has black fur and is the largest and fiercest, standing around fifteen feet tall; the Chuti, which stands around eight feet tall and lives 8000 to 10000 feet above sea level; and the Rang Shim Bombo, which has reddish-brown fur and is only three to five feet tall.

Other terms used by Himalayan peoples do not translate exactly the same, but refer to legendary and indigenous wildlife:

Other names and locations

In Russian folklore, the Chuchuna is an entity said to dwell in Siberia. It has been described as six to seven feet tall and covered with dark hair.[citation needed ] According to the native accounts from the nomadic Yakut and Tungus tribes, it is a well built, Neanderthal-like man wearing pelts and bearing a white patch of fur on its forearms. It is said to occasionally consume human flesh, unlike their close cousins, the Almastis. Some witnesses reported seeing a tail on the creature's corpse. It is described as being roughly six to seven feet tall.[citation needed ] There are additional tales of large, reclusive, bipedal creatures worldwide, notably including both " Bigfoot" and the "Abominable Snowman."

The Abominable Snowman

The name Abominable Snowman was coined in 1921, the year Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition, which he chronicled in Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. In the book, Howard-Bury includes an account of crossing the Lhagpa La at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) where he found footprints that he believed "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like those of a bare-footed man". He adds that his Sherpa guides "at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of 'The Wild Man of the Snows', to which they gave the name 'metoh-kangmi'". "Metoh" translates as "man-bear" and "kang-mi" translates as "snowman".

Confusion exists between Howard-Bury's recitation of the term "metoh-kangmi" and the term used in Bill Tilman's book Mount Everest, 1938 where Tilman had used the words "metch", which does not exist in the Tibetan language, and "kangmi" when relating the coining of the term "Abominable Snowman". Further evidence of "metch" being a misnomer is provided by Tibetan language authority Professor David Snellgrove from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (ca. 1956), who dismissed the word "metch" as impossible, because the consonants "t-c-h" cannot be conjoined in the Tibetan language. Documentation suggests that the term "metch-kangmi" is derived from one source (from the year 1921). It has been suggested that "metch" is simply a misspelling of "metoh".

The use of "Abominable Snowman" began when Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta, writing under the pen name "Kim", interviewed the porters of the "Everest Reconnaissance expedition" on their return to Darjeeling. Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy", substituting the term "abominable", perhaps out of artistic licence. As author Bill Tilman recounts, "[Newman] wrote long after in a letter to The Times: The whole story seemed such a joyous creation I sent it to one or two newspapers".

History and sightings

Pre-19th century

According to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre- Buddhist beliefs of several Himalayan people. He was told that the Lepcha people worshipped a "Glacier Being" as a God of the Hunt. He also reported that followers of the Bön religion once believed the blood of the "mi rgod" or "wild man" had use in certain spiritual ceremonies. The being was depicted as an ape-like creature who carries a large stone as a weapon and makes a whistling swoosh sound.

Yeti was adopted into Tibetan Buddhism, where it is considered a nonhuman animal () that is nonetheless human enough to sometimes be able to follow Dharma. Several stories feature Yetis becoming helpers and disciples to religious figures. In Tibet, images of Yetis are paraded and occasionally worshipped as guardians against evil spirits. However, because Yetis sometimes act as enforcers of Dharma, hearing or seeing one is often considered a bad omen, for which the witness must accumulate merit.

19th century

1937 Frank S. Smythe photograph of alleged Yeti footprints, printed in Popular Science, 1952

In 1832, James Prinsep's Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson's account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan.

An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell's Among the Himalayas. Waddell reported his guide's description of a large apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell thought were made by a bear. Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures but wrote that "none, however, of the many Tibetans I have interrogated on this subject could ever give me an authentic case. On the most superficial investigation, it always resolved into something that somebody heard tell of."

20th century

The frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.

Purported Yeti footprint taken by C.R. Cooke in 1944

In 1925, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, writes that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft (4,600 m) near Zemu Glacier. Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 to 300 yd (180 to 270 m), for about a minute. "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the creature's prints, described as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped."

Purported Yeti footprint taken by C.R. Cooke in 1944

During the autumn of 1937, John Hunt and Pasang Sherpa (later Pasang Dawa Lama) encountered footprints on the approaches to and at the Zemu Gap above the Zemu Glacier that were thought to belong to a pair of Yetis.

In June 1944, C.R. Cooke, his wife Maragaret, and a group of porters encountered very large bipedal prints in soft mud at 14,000 ft just below the Singalila Ridge, which the porters said were of the "Jungli Admi" (wild man). The creature had come up through bushes on the steep hillside from Nepal and crossed the track before continuing up to the ridge. Cooke wrote "We laid Maragaret's sunglasses beside each print to indicate its size and took photographs. These prints were strange and larger than any normal human foot, 14 inches heel to toe, with the great toe set back to one side, a first toe, also large, and three little toes closely bunched together."

Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. These photos have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow.

Peter Byrne reported finding a yeti footprint in 1948, in northern Sikkim, India near the Zemu Glacier, while on holiday from a Royal Air Force assignment in India.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more sceptical about its existence.

Purported Yeti scalp at Khumjung monastery

During the Snowman Expedition of 1954, the mountaineering leader John Angelo Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kanchenjunga in the course of which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at Tengboche gompa. Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were identifiable. However, there were many large footprints which could not be identified. These flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles.

Dr. Biswamoy Biswas examining the Pangboche Yeti scalp during the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition of 1954

On 19 March 1954, the Daily Mail printed an article which described expedition teams obtaining hair specimens from what was alleged to be a Yeti scalp found in the Pangboche monastery. The hairs were black to dark brown in colour in dim light, and fox red in sunlight. The hair was analysed by Professor Frederic Wood Jones, an expert in human and comparative anatomy. During the study, the hairs were bleached, cut into sections and analysed microscopically. The research consisted of taking microphotographs of the hairs and comparing them with hairs from known animals such as bears and orangutans. Jones concluded that the hairs were not actually from a scalp. He contended that while some animals do have a ridge of hair extending from the pate to the back, no animals have a ridge (as in the Pangboche scalp) running from the base of the forehead across the pate and ending at the nape of the neck. Jones was unable to pinpoint exactly the animal from which the Pangboche hairs were taken. He was, however, convinced that the hairs were not from a bear or anthropoid ape, but instead from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal.

Sławomir Rawicz claimed in his book The Long Walk, published in 1956, that as he and some others were crossing the Himalayas in the winter of 1940, their path was blocked for hours by two bipedal animals that were doing seemingly nothing but shuffling around in the snow.

Beginning in 1957, the Texas oil businessman and adventurer Tom Slick led an expedition to the Nepal Himalayas to investigate Yeti reports, with the anthropologist prof. Carleton S. Coon as one of its members. In 1959, supposed Yeti feces were collected by one of Slick's expeditions; fecal analysis found a parasite which could not be classified.[citation needed ] The United States government thought that finding the Yeti was likely enough to create three rules for American expeditions searching for it: obtain a Nepalese permit, do not harm the Yeti except in self-defense, and let the Nepalese government approve any news reporting on the animal's discovery. In 1959, actor James Stewart, while visiting India, reportedly smuggled the so-called Pangboche Hand, by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to London.

In 1960, Sir Edmund Hillary mounted the 1960-61 Silver Hut expedition to the Himalayas, which was to collect and analyse physical evidence of the Yeti. Hillary borrowed a supposed Yeti scalp from the Khumjung monastery then himself and Khumjo Chumbi (the village headman), brought the scalp back to London where a small sample was cut off for testing. Marca Burns made a detailed examination of the sample of skin and hair from the margin of the alleged Yeti scalp and compared it with similar samples from the serow, blue bear and black bear. Burns concluded the sample "was probably made from the skin of an animal closely resembling the sampled specimen of Serow, but definitely not identical with it: possibly a local variety or race of the same species, or a different but closely related species."

Up to the 1960s, belief in the yeti was relatively common in Bhutan and in 1966 a Bhutanese stamp was made to honour the creature. However, in the twenty-first century belief in the being has declined.

In 1970, British mountaineer Don Whillans claimed to have witnessed a creature when scaling Annapurna. He reported that he once saw it moving on all fours.

In 1983, Himalayan conservationist Daniel C. Taylor and Himalayan natural historian Robert L. Fleming Jr. led a yeti expedition into Nepal's Barun Valley (suggested by discovery in the Barun in 1972 of footprints alleged to be yeti by Cronin & McNeely). The Taylor-Fleming expedition also discovered similar yeti-like footprints (hominoid appearing with both a hallux and bipedal gait), intriguing large nests in trees, and vivid reports from local villagers of two bears, rukh bhalu ('tree bear', small, reclusive, weighing about 150 pounds (70 kg)) and bhui bhalu ('ground bear', aggressive, weighing up to 400 pounds (180 kg)). Further interviews across Nepal gave evidence of local belief in two different bears. Skulls were collected, these were compared to known skulls at the Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History, and British Museum, and confirmed identification of a single species, the Asiatic black bear, showing no morphological difference between 'tree bear' and 'ground bear.' (This despite an intriguing skull in the British Museum of a 'tree bear' collected in 1869 by Oldham and discussed in the Annals of the Royal Zoological Society.)

21st century

In 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the journal , mentioned the Yeti as an example of folk belief deserving further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth."

In early December 2007, American television presenter Joshua Gates and his team ( Destination Truth) reported finding a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of Yeti. Each of the footprints measured 33 cm (13 in) in length with five toes that measured a total of 25 cm (9.8 in) across. Casts were made of the prints for further research. The footprints were examined by Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who believed them to be too morphologically accurate to be fake or man-made, before changing his mind after making further investigations. Later in 2009, in a TV show, Gates presented hair samples with a forensic analyst concluding that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence.

On 25 July 2008, the BBC reported that hairs collected in the remote Garo Hills area of North-East India by Dipu Marak had been analysed at Oxford Brookes University in the UK by primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells. These initial tests were inconclusive, and ape conservation expert Ian Redmond told the BBC that there was similarity between the cuticle pattern of these hairs and specimens collected by Edmund Hillary during Himalayan expeditions in the 1950s and donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and announced planned DNA analysis. This analysis has since revealed that the hair came from the Himalayan goral.

A group of Chinese scientists and explorers in 2010 proposed to renew searches in the Shennongjia Forestry District of Hubei province, which was the site of expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.

At a 2011 conference in Russia, participating scientists and enthusiasts declared having "95% evidence" of the Yeti's existence. However, this claim was disputed later; American anthropologist and anatomist Jeffrey Meldrum, who was present during the Russian expedition, claimed the "evidence" found was simply an attempt by local officials to drum up publicity.

A yeti was reportedly captured in Russia in December 2011. Initially the story claimed that a hunter reported having seen a bear-like creature, trying to kill one of his sheep, but after he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest on two legs. The story then claimed that border patrol soldiers captured a hairy two-legged female creature similar to a gorilla that ate meat and vegetation. This was later revealed as a hoax or possibly a publicity stunt for charity.[citation needed ]

In April 2019, an Indian army mountaineering expedition team claimed to have spotted mysterious 'Yeti' footprints, measuring 81 by 38 centimetres (32 by 15 in), near the Makalu base camp.

Proposed explanations

The misidentification of Himalayan wildlife has been proposed as an explanation for some Yeti sightings, including the chu-teh, a langur monkey living at lower altitudes; the Tibetan blue bear; or the Himalayan brown bear or dzu-teh, also known as the Himalayan red bear.

Similarly, it is possible that sightings have been deliberate hoaxes. James Randi notes that convincing costumes of gorillas or other apes have been used in films, which are more convincing than any representations of the Yeti provided by believers. Randi also argues that there would need to be many creatures in order to maintain the gene pool, and given the proposed size of the Yeti, it is hard to imagine that they have been so elusive if they are real.

A well publicized expedition to Bhutan initially reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal. Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a brown bear ( Ursus arctos) and an Asiatic black bear ( Ursus thibetanus).

In 1986, South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed in his autobiography My Quest for the Yeti that the Yeti is actually the endangered Himalayan brown bear, Ursus arctos isabellinus, or Tibetan blue bear, U. a. pruinosus, which can walk both upright or on all fours.

The 1983 Barun Valley discoveries prompted three years of research on the 'tree bear' possibility by Taylor, Fleming, John Craighead and Tirtha Shrestha. From that research the conclusion was that the Asiatic black bear, when about two years old, spends much time in trees to avoid attack by larger male bears on the ground ('ground bears'). During this tree period that may last two years, young bears train their inner claw outward, allowing an opposable grip. The imprint in the snow of a hind paw coming over the front paw that appears to have a hallux, especially when the bear is going slightly uphill so the hind paw print extends the overprint backward makes a hominoid-appearing track, both in that it is elongated like a human foot but with a "thumb" and in that a four-footed animal's gait now appears bipedal. This "yeti discovery", in the words of National Geographic Magazine editor Bill Garrett, "[by] on-site research sweeps away much of the 'smoke and mirrors' and gives us a believable yeti".

This fieldwork in Nepal's Barun Valley led directly to initiating in 1984 Makalu-Barun National Park that protected over half a million acres in 1991, and across the border with China the Qomolangma national nature preserve in the Tibet Autonomous Region that protected over six million acres. In the words of Honorary President of the American Alpine Club, Robert H. Bates, this yeti discovery "has apparently solved the mystery of the yeti, or at least part of it, and in so doing added to the world's great wildlife preserves" such that the shy animal that lives in trees (and not the high snows), and mysteries and myths of the Himalayas that it represents, can continue within a protected area nearly the size of Switzerland.

In 2003, Japanese researcher and mountaineer Dr. Makoto Nebuka published the results of his twelve-year linguistic study, postulating that the word "Yeti" is a corruption of the word "meti", a regional dialect term for a "bear". Nebuka claims that ethnic Tibetans fear and worship the bear as a supernatural being. Nebuka's claims were subject to almost immediate criticism, and he was accused of linguistic carelessness. Dr. Raj Kumar Pandey, who has researched both Yetis and mountain languages, said "it is not enough to blame tales of the mysterious beast of the Himalayas on words that rhyme but mean different things."

Some speculate these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the extinct giant ape Gigantopithecus. However, the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, and most scientists believe Gigantopithecus to have been quadrupedal, and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape (like the hominids), walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the orangutan.

In 2013, a call was put out by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Lausanne for people claiming to have samples from these sorts of creatures. A mitochondrial DNA analysis of the 12S RNA gene was undertaken on samples of hair from an unidentified animal from Ladakh in northern India on the west of the Himalayas, and one from Bhutan. These samples were compared with those in GenBank, the international repository of gene sequences, and matched a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago. The result suggests that, barring hoaxes of planted samples or contamination, bears in these regions may have been taken to be yeti. Professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge Bill Amos doubted the samples were of polar bears in the Himalayas, but was "90% convinced that there is a bear in these regions that has been mistaken for a yeti". Professor Bryan Sykes whose team carried out the analysis of the samples at Oxford university has his own theory. He believes that the samples may have come from a hybrid species of bear produced from a mating between a brown bear and a polar bear. A research of 12S rRNA published in 2015 revealed that the hair samples collected are most likely those of brown bears. In 2017, a new analysis compared mtDNA sequences of bears from the region with DNA extracted from hair and other samples claimed to have come from yeti. It included hair thought to be from the same preserved specimen as the anomalous Sykes sample, and showed it to have been a Himalayan brown bear, while other purported yeti samples were actually from the Tibetan blue bear, Asiatic black bear and a domestic dog.

In 2017, Daniel C. Taylor published a comprehensive analysis of the century-long Yeti literature, giving added evidence to the ( Ursus thibetanus) explanation building on the initial Barun Valley discoveries. Importantly, this book under the Oxford University imprint gave a meticulous explanation for the iconic Yeti footprint photographed by Eric Shipton in 1950, also the 1972 Cronin-McNeely print, as well all other unexplained Yeti footprints. To complete this explanation, Taylor also located a never-before published photograph in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, taken in 1950 by Eric Shipton, that included scratches that are clearly bear nail marks.

In popular culture

2016 Kyrgyz envelope and stamps dedicated to yeti[89]

The Himalayan nation Nepal selected Yeti as the mascot for the Visit Nepal 2020.

The Yeti has regularly been depicted in films, literature, music, and video games.

Films and television

Pekka ja Pätkä lumimiehen jäljillä (1954), or Pete and Runt on the Trail of the Abominable Snowman, a Finnish comedy film directed by Armand Lohikoski, as an entry into the 13 films long Pekka Puupää series.

The Creature (1955), television play written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Later remade by Hammer Horror in 1957 as The Abominable Snowman.

, or Beast Man Snow Man (1955), film directed by Ishiro Honda

The Abominable Snowman, a 1955 episode of Colonel March of Scotland Yard in which members of a British mountaineering club are being menaced by a Yeti.

The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961), animated short film directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble

Bumble is the Abominable Snow Monster from the 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He later influenced the portrayal of the yeti who appeared near the end of the film Monsters, Inc.

Jonny Quest, episode 25 Monsters In the Monastery (1965), animated science fiction adventure television series

In the serials The Abominable Snowmen (1967) and The Web of Fear (1968), multiple robotic yeti are used as servants of the Great Intelligence, the main antagonist of both stories.

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century, a 1977 Italian-Canadian giant monster film directed by Gianfranco Parolini (as Frank Kramer), co-written by Parolini, Marcello Coscia, and Mario di Nardo

Ajooba Kudrat Ka (1991), film directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay

Monsters, Inc. (2001), animated film directed by Peter Docter, when the main characters are stranded in the Himalayas and are rescued by a friendly Abominable Snowman (voiced by John Ratzenberger) who was among the monsters exiled from Monstropolis.

Yeti: A Love Story (2006), film directed by Adam Deyoe and Eric Gosselin

Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon (2008), telefilm directed by Paul Ziller

Yoko (2012), film directed by Franziska Buch

The Disney XD Series Pair of Kings episode "Yeti, Set, Snow" features a tribe of Yetis who live on the snow-capped mountains of Kinkow and are one of the known tribes there.

In 2016 the Travel Channel released, in the series Expedition Unknown, a special four-part episode titled "Hunt for the Yeti":

In the Bengali film Yeti Obhijaan, there is a prologue of gigantic teeth which, as of Yeti, is a primary plot point. Also there are different sightings and PoVs (like Tintin in Tibet) of Yeti is shown through the movie.

(2018), animated film directed by Karey Kirkpatrick and Jason Reisig, is focused on the Yetis. This depiction of the Yeti has them at 20 ft with no visible noses and horns on their heads.

Abominable (2019), animated film directed by Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman, has a young Yeti named Everest (vocal effects provided by Joseph Izzo) as a central character. The adult Yetis are shown to around 30 ft.

Missing Link (2019), animated film directed by Chris Butler, features a kingdom of Yeti that live in the Himalayas that are led by a paranoid Yeti elder (voiced by Emma Thompson).

Literature

Alternate history author Harry Turtledove has written stories as part of the "State of Jefferson Stories" titled "Visitor from the East" (May 2016), "Peace is Better" (May 2016), "Typecasting" (June 2016) and "Three Men and a Sasquatch" (2019) where Yetis, Sasquatches and other related cryptids are real. However, unlike common popular depictions of such creatures as less evolved primates, they are essentially another race of human beings, and have been integrated into society.

"Wild Man", a song by Kate Bush from her 2011 album 50 Words for Snow.

A Yeti serves as a pivotal character in Hergé's 1958-1959 comic book Tintin in Tibet, where it is depicted as an enormous, intelligent and sensitive ape-like creature who saves and protects the young Chinese who is the only survivor of a plane crash.

Goosebumps has a story called "The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena" where this Abominable Snowman was found in Alaska in a block of ice and can deal with the unmelting snow and ice as seen later in the story. While the Abominable Snowman was a neutral character that has brown fur, a half-human, half-gorilla face, and has the height of a hulking 11 year old, the version seen in the films Goosebumps and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween was shown to be 8 ft. with white fur and an ape-like face and is loyal to Slappy the Dummy. Both adaptions are shown to like trail mix.

Video games

In the video game , the title character goes through a series of levels before meeting his nemesis Mr. Blizzard who is a yeti.

In the 2006 video game Titan Quest, Yetis appear as beast enemies in Act III (Orient).

There is an expansion to the video game , named "Valley of the Yetis" dedicated to finding a relic in the Himalayas that turns people into Yetis.

by Chris Pirih features a yeti who can eat the player if the player reaches more than 2000m down the slope.

The 2006 GameCube game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess features a yeti couple who live in an abandoned manor atop a snow-covered mountain.

Mega Man Star Force 2 features a boss by the name of Yeti Blizzard.

Similar alleged creatures

General and cited references

Izzard, Ralph (1955) The Abominable Snowman Adventure. Hodder and Stoughton.

Further reading

Ann E. Bodie, The Exploding Cow Story: Concerning the History of the Yeti Throughout the Ages, New York: St.Martin's Press,1986

Adam Davies (2014). Manbests: A Personal Investigation. CFZ Press. Chapter 3. ISBN 978-1-909488-21-2.

Jean-Paul Debenat (2015). Asian Wild Man: The Yeti, Yeren & Almasty: Cultural Aspects & Evidence of Reality. Translated by Paul Leblond. Hancock House. ISBN 978-0888397-195.

Charles Howard-Bury, Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921, Edward Arnold, ISBN 1-135-39935-2.

John Angelo Jackson, More than Mountains, Chapters 10 (p. 92) & 11, Prelude to the Snowman Expedition & The Snowman Expedition, George Harrap & Co, 1954

John Angelo Jackson, Adventure Travels in the Himalaya Chapter 17, Everest and the Elusive Snowman, 1954 updated material, Indus Publishing Company, 2005, ISBN 81-7387-175-2.

Daniel Loxton; Donald Prothero (2013). Abominable Science: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. Chapter 3, written by Prothero. Columbia University Press. pp. 73-116. ISBN 978-0-231-15320-1.

Rupert Matthews (2014) [2008]. Sasquatch: North America's Enduring Mystery; Kindle locations 1624-1805, 2588-94. Arcturus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78404-107-6.

Reinhold Messner, My Quest for the Yeti: Confronting the Himalayas' Deepest Mystery, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000, ISBN 0-312-20394-2

Christopher Murphy (2009). Know the Sasquatch/Bigfoot: Sequel and Update to Meet the Sasquatch. Hancock House. pp. 278-83. ISBN 978-0-88839-689-1.

John Napier (MRCS, IRCS, DSC) (1972). Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality pages=34-66, 126-39 ISBN 0-525-06658-6.

Stonor, Charles (1955). The Sherpa and the Snowman. London: Hollis and Carter. Recounts the 1955 "Abominable Snowman Expedition" by the scientific officer of the expedition. This is a very detailed analysis of not just the "Snowman" but the flora and fauna of the Himalayas and its people.

Odette Tchernine (1961). The Snowman and Company. Robert Hale Ltd.

Sir Francis Younghusband (1926). The Epic of Mount Everest. Edward Arnold & Co.

External links

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The Yeti () is an ape-like creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia. In Western popular culture, the creature is commonly referred to as the Abominable Snowman. Many dubious articles have been offered in an attempt to prove the existence of the Yeti, including anecdotal visual sightings, disputed video recordings, photographs, and plaster casts of large footprints.

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The “surgeon’s photograph” of 1934, now believed to have been a hoax[1]

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Watch.

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Jack O Lantern | Dr. Binocs Show | Best Learning Video For kids | Peekaboo kidz | Halloween Stories

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Every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps in the United States and other parts of the world.Gourd-like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. The practice of decorating "jack-o'-lanterns"-the name comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack-originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.

The Legend of "Stingy Jack"

People have been making jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."

In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o'lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack-o'-lanterns.
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Every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps in the United States and other parts of the world.Gourd-like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season.

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The Bogeyman (; also spelled boogeyman, bogyman, bogieman, boogie monster, boogieman, or boogie woogie) is a type of mythic creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. Bogeymen have no specific appearance and conceptions vary drastically by household and culture, but they are most commonly depicted as masculine or androgynous monsters that punish children for misbehavior. The Bogeyman or conceptually similar monsters can be found in many cultures around the world. Bogeymen may target a specific act or general misbehaviour, depending on what purpose needs serving, often based on a warning from the child's authority figure. The term is sometimes used as a non-specific personification or metonym for terror, and in some cases, the Devil.

The word bogey originated in the mid-19th century, originally as a quasi-proper name for the devil. It may derive from the Middle English bogge or bugge, meaning a terror or scarecrow. It relates to , from bug, meaning goblin or scarecrow, and , an imaginary demon in the form of a bear that ate small children. It was also used to mean a general object of dread. The word , with a similar pair of meanings, may have arisen as an alteration of bugbear.

While the description of the Bogeyman differs on a cultural level, there are often some shared similarities to the creatures. Many of the Bogeymen are depicted as having claws, talons, and sharp teeth. Along with that, the majority of Bogeymen are of the spirit variety, while the minority are demons, witches, and other legendary creatures. Some are even described to have certain animal features such as horns, hooves, and bug like appearances.

When looking at the personality traits of the Bogeymen, they are most easily divided into three categories; the kind that punishes misbehaved children, the kind that are more prone to violence, and the kind that protect the innocent. They all relate in the same way, being that they all exist to teach young children lessons. The large majority of Bogeymen are there to just frighten children with punishments, and not actually inflict much damage. The more vicious Bogeyman is said to steal the children at night, and even eat them. The last category is the Bogeyman who protects people and only punishes those guilty, regardless of age.

Because of the myth's worldwide prevalence, it is difficult to find the original source of the legends. The first reference to the Bogeyman would be considered the hobgoblins described in England, in the 16th century. Many believed that they were made to torment humans, and while some only played simple pranks, others were more foul in nature.

Bogeyman-like beings are almost universal, common to the folklore of many countries.

In many countries, a bogeyman variant is portrayed as a man with a sack on his back who carries naughty children away. This is true for many Latin countries, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and the countries of Spanish America, where he is referred to as el "Hombre del costal", el "hombre del saco", or in Portuguese, o "homem do saco" (all of which mean "the sack/bag man"), or el roba-chicos, meaning child-stealer. Similar legends are also very common in Eastern Europe (e.g. Bulgarian Torbalan, "sack man"), as well as in Haiti and some countries in Asia.

El Coco (also El Cuco and Cucuy, sometimes called El Bolo) is a monster common to many Spanish-speaking countries. The Cuca Fera (or Cucafera) monster is the equivalent in certain parts of Catalonia.

In Spain, parents will sing lullabies or tell rhymes to children, warning them that if they do not sleep, El Coco will come to get them. The rhyme originated in the 17th century and has evolved over the years, but still retains its original meaning. Coconuts ( Spanish: coco) received that name because the hairy, brown "face" created by the coconut shell's three indentations reminded the Portuguese sailers of "Coco".

Latin America also has El Coco, although its folklore is usually quite different, commonly mixed with native beliefs, and, because of cultural contacts, sometimes more related to the boogeyman of the United States. However, the term El Coco is also used in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela, although there it is more usually called El Cuco, as in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Uruguay, Panama and Argentina. Among Mexican-Americans, El Cucuy is portrayed as an evil monster that hides under children's beds at night and kidnaps or eats the child that does not obey his/her parents or go to sleep when it is time to do so. However, the Spanish American bogeyman does not resemble the shapeless or hairy monster of Spain: social sciences professor Manuel Medrano says popular legend describes el cucuy as a small humanoid with glowing red eyes that hides in closets or under the bed. "Some lore has him as a kid who was the victim of violence... and now he's alive, but he's not," Medrano said, citing Xavier Garza's 2004 book Creepy Creatures and other Cucuys."

In Brazilian folklore, a similar character called Cuca is depicted as a female humanoid alligator, or an old lady with a sack. There is a famous lullaby sung by many parents to their children that says that the Cuca will come to get them and make a soup or soap out of them if they do not sleep, just as in Spain. The Cuca is also a character of Monteiro Lobato's Sítio do Picapau Amarelo ("Yellow Woodpecker's Farm"), an acclaimed and creative series of short novels written for children which contain a large number of famous characters from Brazilian folklore.

In the countries of central and Eastern Mediterranean, children who misbehave are threatened with a creature known as "babau" (or "baubau", "baobao", "bavbav", or "بعبع (Bu'Bu'" or similar). In Italy, the Babau is also called l'uomo nero or "black man". In Italy, he is portrayed as a tall man wearing a heavy black coat, with a black hood or hat which hides his face. Sometimes, parents will knock loudly under the table, pretending that someone is knocking at the door, and say something like: "Here comes l'uomo nero! He must know that there's a child here who doesn't want to drink his soup!". It is also featured in a widespread nursery rhyme in Italy: "Ninna nanna ninna oh, questo bimbo a chi lo do? Lo darò all' uomo nero, che lo tiene un anno intero." (English: "Lullaby Lulla Oh, who do I give this child to? I will give him to the Boogeyman, who's going to keep him for a whole year") L'uomo nero is not supposed to eat or harm children, but instead takes them away to a mysterious and frightening place.

Germanic folklore has dozens of different figures that correspond to the Bogeyman. These have various appearances (such as of a gnome, man, animal, monster, ghost or devil). They are sometimes said to appear at very specific places (such as in forests, at water bodies, cliffs, cornfields or vineyards). These figures are called by many different names which are often only regionally known. One of these, possibly etymologically related to the Bogeyman, is the , which can be of gnome-like or other demonic or ghostly appearance. Other examples include the Buhmann (who is mostly proverbial) and der schwarze Mann ("The Black Man"), an inhuman creature which hides in the dark corners under the bed or in the closet and carries children away. The figure is part of the children's game Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann?" ("Who is afraid of the bogeyman?").

Afghanistan - The Madar-i-Al is a nocturnal hag that slaughters infants in their cribs and is invoked to frighten children into obedience. Burning wild rue seeds and fumigating the area around the baby will offer protection against her.

Albania:

The Buba is a serpentine monster. Mothers would tell their children to be quiet or the Buba would get them.

The Gogol is a terrible giant that frightens children into being good.

The Lubia is a female demon with an insatiable appetite for the flesh of children, especially girls. She has many heads, from seven to a hundred, and like the Greek hydra if one head is severed then others will grow in its place.

Azerbaijan - The Div is a hairy giant that eats children. It was outsmarted and defeated by a clever young boy named Jirtdan, a popular hero in Azerbaijani fairy tales.

Belize - Tata Duende is a mythical goblin described as being of small stature, with a beard, wrinkles, backwards feet, a large brimmed hat, and lacking thumbs. It is a protector of the forests and animals and was used to scare children from going out to play at night or going into the jungle.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and North Macedonia - Babaroga (a South Slavic variant of Baba Yaga; baba meaning hag and rog meaning horn, thus literally meaning horned hag) is commonly attributed the characteristics of the bogeyman. The details vary regionally and by household due to oral tradition, but it always manifests as a menacing hag who hunts irreverent children. It is described as fond of trapping and eating caught children.

Brazil and Portugal - A monster more akin to the Bogeyman is called Bicho Papão ("Eating Beast") or Sarronco ("Deep-Voiced Man"). A notable difference between it and the homem do saco is that the latter is a daytime menace and "Bicho Papão" is a nighttime menace. Another important difference is that "Homem do Saco" ("Sack Man") usually kidnaps children who go to places without parents authorization, while "Bicho Papão" scares naughty children and hides under their beds, closets or roofs.

In Inuit mythology, there is a shapeshifting creature called the Ijiraq, that kidnaps children, to hide them away and abandon them. If the children can convince the Ijiraq to let them go, they can use inukshuk of stone to find their way home. Also from Inuit Mythology there is the Qalupalik, which are human-like creatures with long fingernails, green skin, and long hair that live in the sea. They carry babies and children away in their Amauti, if they disobey their parents and wander off alone. The Qalupalik adopt the children and bring them to live with them underwater.

Canada - In Quebec and French Canada the Bogeyman is called Bonhomme Sept Heures 'The Seven o'Clock Man'. Children are warned to go to bed by 7 o'clock (7 heure), lest Mister Seven O'Clock will come to catch them.

Cyprus - In the Cypriot dialect, the Bogeyman is called Kkullas (Κκουλλάς); a man (vaguely described as hooded and/or deformed) who will put misbehaving children in a bag and take them away from their homes.

Czech Republic - The equivalent of the Bogeyman in the Czech Republic is bubák (≈ imp) or (≈ ghost), but these are not typically connected with abducting children nor with discriminating between well and bad behaved ones. This is more often attributed to polednice and klekánice (Lady midday, or Lady evening), or to the čert (Krampus, or lit. devil) who, along with st. Nicholas and angel, traditionally visits families on December 5.

Egypt - The "Abu Rigl Maslukha" (ابو رجل مسلوخة), which translates to the "Man With Burnt/Skinned Leg". It is a very scary story that parents tell their children when they misbehave. The "Abu Rigl Maslukha" is a monster that got burnt when he was a child because he did not listen to his parents. He grabs naughty children to cook and eat them.

England:

In East Yorkshire, children were warned that if they stole from orchards they might be eaten by a goblin or demon called Awd Goggie.

Yorkshire children were also warned that if they were naughty the Great Black Bird would come and carry them away.

In Devon, local variations of Spring-Heeled Jack included a "bogeyman" that "danced in the road and leapt over hedges with the greatest of ease", with reported sightings in North Devon and locals describing "haunted" stretches of road in the South Devon towns of St Marychurch and Torquay, beginning in the 1840s.

The Gooseberry Wife was said to guard gooseberry bushes on the Isle of Wight and took the form of a large hairy caterpillar.

Churnmilk Peg in West Yorkshire was a female goblin who guarded nut thickets until they could be harvested and would always be seen smoking a pipe. Melsh Dick was her male counterpart and performed the same function.

Tom Dockin had iron teeth that he used to devour bad children.

Black Annis was a hag with a blue face and iron claws who lived in a cave in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. She ventured forth at night in search of children to devour.

Grindylow, Jenny Greenteeth and Nelly Longarms were grotesque hags who lived in ponds and rivers and dragged children beneath the water if they got too close.

Peg Powler is a hag who inhabits the River Tees.

Other nursery bogies include Mumpoker, Tankerabogus who drags children into his deep, dark pit and Tom-Poker who lives in dark closets and holes under stairs.

Finland - The equivalent of the Bogeyman in Finland is mörkö. The most famous usage of the word these days takes place in Moomin-stories (originally written in Swedish) in which mörkö (the Groke) is a large, frightening, dark blue, ghost-like creature. The children's game "Kuka pelkää Mustaa Pekkaa?" ("Who's Afraid of Black Peter?") was also commonly played among children through to the 1960s and '70s, especially in urban settings, as a backyard game (see Germany's "Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann?").

France - The French equivalent of the Bogeyman is le croque-mitaine ("the mitten-biter" or rather "the hand-cruncher"-mitaine means mitt in an informal way).

Germany - The Bogeyman is known as Der schwarze Mann ("the Black Man"). "Schwarz" does not refer to the color of his skin, but to his preference for hiding in dark places, like the closet, under the beds of children, or in forests at night. There is also an active game for little children which is called Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann? ("Who is afraid of the Black Man?"), and an old traditional folk song Es tanzt ein Bi-Ba-Butzemann in unserm Haus herum ("A Bi-Ba-Bogeyman Dances Around in Our House").

Greece - In Greek, the common translation of "Bogeyman" is "Baboulas" (Greek: Μπαμπούλας)), which is pronounced babʊlas. It is used by the parents to scare their children so they will not misbehave. This creature is supposed to be some kind of cannibal that eats the children. The most used phrase about the creature is "Greek: Ο Μπαμπούλας θα έρθει και θα σε φάει", which means "The Bogeyman will come and eat you".

Haiti - In Haiti the Boogeyman is known as Mètminwi (The Master of Midnight) it is depicted as a very skinny two story tall man who walks around late at night and eats anyone left on the streets. This story is told to the Haitian children to deter them from going out late at night.

Hungary - The Hungarian equivalent of the Bogeyman is the Mumus, which is a monster-like creature, and the Zsákos Ember, a man with a sack, which is the literal meaning of his name. A third creature is the Rézfaszú bagoly ("Copperpenis Owl"), a giant owl with a copper penis.

Iceland - The Icelandic equivalent of the Bogeyman is Grýla, a female troll who would take misbehaving children and eat them during Christmas Eve. However, as the story goes, she has been dead for some time. She is also the mother of the Yule Lads, the Icelandic equivalent of Santa Claus.

India - In India, the entity is known by different names. Urdu speaking population refer to the bogeyman-like creature by names such as , Bhoot, Jin Baba, which mean satan, ghost, Djinn respectively. Hindi speaking population refer to the bogeyman-like creature as Baba and Bhoot. Bihar - Parents use the demon name Bhakolwa for this purpose. The terms Petona and Kaatu are also used. In Rajasthan, parents use the demon name Haboo to terrify their children. South India - In Karnataka, the demon "Goggayya" (roughly meaning 'terrible man') can be treated as counterpart of the bogeyman. In the state of Tamil Nadu, children are often mock-threatened with the Rettai Kannan (the two-eyed one) or Poochaandi (பூச்சாண்டி), a monster or fearsome man with whom children are sometimes threatened if they are not obedient or refuse to eat. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, the equivalent of the bogeyman is Boochodu. In central Kerala, the bogeyman is referred to as "Kokkachi", who will "take away" children for disobeying their parents or misbehaving in any manner; and in South Kerala, the bogeyman is called "Oochandi". Among Konkani-speaking people of the Western Coast of India, "Gongo" is the Bogeyman equivalent. Among Marathi language speaking people (predominantly of Maharashtra), parents threaten the misbehaving children with a male ghost called "Bāgul Buā" (बागुल बुवा). In general, the "Buā" is supposed to kidnap children when they misbehave or do not sleep. In the eastern state of Odisha the bogeyman is referred to as "Baaya"(ବାୟା). Its usage is usually done to scare kids into following instructions of the elders. The term "Baaya" also designates a ghost.

Indonesia - In Indonesia, Wewe Gombel is a ghost that kidnaps children mistreated by their parents. She keeps the children in her nest atop an Arenga pinnata palm tree and does not harm them. She takes care of the children as a grandmother until the parents become aware of what they have done. If the parents decide to mend their ways and truly want their children back, Wewe Gombel will return them unharmed. This ghost is named Wewe Gombel because it originated in an event that took place in Bukit Gombel, Semarang.

Iran - In Iran, a popular children's folklore creature known as "لولو خور خوره", Romanised "Lulu Khor Khoreh" is a creature of mysterious origin. Perception of it varies widely but its commonly known to come out at night and eat children who misbehave ( which is generally the refusal to eat food ) .

Iraq's ancient folklore has the saalua, a half-witch half-demon ghoul that "is used by parents to scare naughty children". She is briefly mentioned in a tale of the 1001 Nights, and is known in some other Persian Gulf countries as well.

Italy - In Italy, "L'uomo nero" (meaning "the black man") is a demon that can appear as a black man or black ghost without legs, often used by adults for scaring their children when they do not want to sleep. In some parts of the country, it is known also as "babau".[better source needed ]
Marabbecca is a malevolent water monster from the mythology of Sicily that lived in wells and reservoirs and was said to come up and drag children that played too close down into the water to drown.

Japan - In Japan, a popular culture is the "Kami-kakushi". This is a phenomenon, not a character. Author Yanagida Kunio created "Kotorizo", "Kakushi-baba", etc. as boogeyman-like characters.

Lithuania - referred to as the Baubas, an evil spirit with long lean arms, wrinkly fingers, and red eyes. He harasses people by pulling their hair or stifling them.

Luxembourg - De béise Monni (the evil uncle), De Kropemann (the hookman), De Bö, and de schwaarze Mann (the black man) are Luxembourg's equivalents of the Bogeyman. Luxembourg's many variations of the bogeyman may be the result of its strong cultural attachment to its neighbour countries due to the country's small size. The Kropemann lives in the sewer and uses his hook to catch children by the nose if they stand too close to a storm drain, drawing them down to him. Parents warn their naughty children that the béise Monni alias Bö alias schwaarze Mann, will come to take them away if they don't behave.

Malta - Kaw Kaw or Gaw Gaw, was a grey, slimy creature that roamed the streets at night. It could smell a person's guilt and enter their homes, through cracks and fissures, by extending and contracting its snail-like body. Once it was inside their rooms, it would flash them a ghastly grin, with its huge, toothless mouth, scaring them witless.

Nepal - In Nepali, a popular bogeyman character is the 'hau-guji'. Among the Newars, the "Gurumapa" is a mythic ape-like creature who was supposed to enjoy devouring children. Itum Bahal of inner Kathmandu and the Tinkhya open space in front of the Bhadrakali temple in the centre of Kathmandu are associated with the fable of Gurumapa.

Netherlands -
The Bokkenrijders or "buck riders" are ghost thieves who ride flying goats.

Pakistan - The Mamma is a large apelike creature that lives in the mountains and ventures forth to kidnap young girls. He will carry them back to his cave where he licks their palms and the soles of their feet which makes them permanently unable to flee.

Panama - In Panama, children are warned that if they are naughty, La Tulivieja will come to get them. She was a spirit who was cursed by God for drowning her child, and transformed into a hideous monster with a pockmarked face, long and bristly hair, clawed hands, a cat's body, and hooved feet. She was also cursed to forever look for her drowned child.

Poland - is a witch living in the forest that kidnaps badly behaving children and presumably eats them. It is referred to in a children's game of the same name, which involves one child being blindfolded, and other children trying to avoid being caught.[citation needed ]. In some regions(mainly in western Poland) a more common creature is Bebok/Bobok which is a small, annoying demon.

Russia and Ukraine - Children are warned that Babay/Babayka, buka or Baba Yaga will come for them at night if they behave badly.

Saudi Arabia - Abu Shalawlaw (أبو شلولو) is a Bogeyman-like creature said by parents to come to eat children who are disobedient, e.g., by not going to sleep on time or not completing their homework.
Hejaz, Saudi Arabia - أمنا الغولة والدوجيرة or "Dojairah and Umna al Ghola", which means "Our mother the Monster", is used to scare children when they misbehave or walk alone outside.

Scotland:

Misbehaving children were warned that a goblin or demon known as the bodach would come down the chimney and take them.

The each-uisge is the Scottish version of the water horse, a monster that lives in seas and lochs and usually takes the form of a horse. A cautionary tale tells how the each-uisge persuaded seven little girls to get on its back before carrying them into the water to be devoured.

Serbia - Bauk is an animal-like mythic creature in Serbian folklore. Bauk is described as hiding in dark places, holes or abandoned houses, waiting to grab, carry away, and devour its victim; it can be scared away by light and noise.[citation needed ]

South Africa - The Tokoloshe or Tikoloshe is a dwarfish creature of Xhosa and Zulu mythology conjured up by sangomas (traditional healers). It wanders around causing mischief and frightening children. It is also described as a small, muscular, hairy witch-familiar with an unusually large penis. It may visit women in their dreams and sexually assault them.

South Korea - The "Net Bag Grandfather" (Mangtae Hal-abeoji, 망태 할아버지) is an imaginary old man employed by adults to frighten children into obedience. It is said that he kidnaps spoiled, misbehaving children and takes them away to the mountains, where they are never seen again. See Sack Man.

Spain
Catalonia - espantacriatures (lit. 'scare children' in Catalan/Valencian) is the general term for imaginary beings employed by adults to frighten children into obedience.

Switzerland - In Switzerland, the Bogeyman is called Böllima or (pron.ˈbøk) and has an important role in the springtime ceremonies. The figure is the symbol of winter and death, so in the Sechseläuten ceremony in the City of Zürich, a figure of the Böögg is burnt. In Southern Switzerland, people have the same traditions as in Italy.

Taiwan - Among Minnan Taiwanese, Grandmother Tiger (虎姑婆 / Hóo-koo-pô) is a figure used to scare disobedient children.

Trinidad and Tobago - Most Trinbagonians (mostly in the rural demograph) use folklore to scare disobedient children. The most common word that is used is Jumbie. Some "jumbies" are the Soucouyant, Lagahoo, La Diabless, Papa Bois, etc. "Bogeyman" is also used in the same context as its origin but by mostly urbanised citizens, and it can also can be called "The Babooman".

Turkey - The Öcü () is an equivalent monster in Turkish culture. Much like its English language counterpart, the form, powers, or even general temperament of the creature is undefined to the degree that it is unclear whether the word refers to a single being or a category or species of mythic creatures.

United States - The Bogeyman may be called "Boogerman" or "Boogermonster" in rural areas of the American South ("booger" being an American English equivalent of the British English "bogey"), and was most often used to keep young children from playing outside past dark, or wandering off in the forest. During the Corn Festival, young Cherokee males wearing caricature masks would make fun of politicians, frighten children into being good, and shake their masks at young women and chase them around. Male participants in this "Booger Dance" were referred to as the "Booger Men". In some Midwestern states, the boogeyman scratches at the window. In Eastern Iowa, they have the Korn Stalker. In the Pacific Northwest, he may manifest in "green fog". In other places he hides or appears from under the bed or in the closet and tickles children when they go to sleep at night, while in others he is a tall figure in a black hooded cloak who puts children in a sack. It is said that a wart can be transmitted to someone by the boogeyman.

The Jersey Devil, which originated in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in the early 18th century, was originally described as having a horse's head, bat wings, cloven hooves, and a serpent's tail. Regarding the famous Jersey Devil sightings of 1909, Loren Coleman and Ivan T. Sanderson offered the explanation that they were part of an elaborate real estate hoax, used by developers as a boogeyman figure to frighten residents into selling their property at lower prices.

Bloody Bones, also known as Rawhead or Tommy Rawhead, is a boogeyman of the American South. Rawhead and Bloody Bones are sometimes regarded as two individual creatures or two separate parts of the same monster. One is a bare skull that bites its victims and its companion is a dancing headless skeleton. Bloody Bones tales originated in Britain.

The Nalusa Falaya ("Long Black Being") is a ghost being of Choctaw mythology described as a tall spindly humanoid that can slither like a snake or become a shadow. It may frighten children from staying out too late and can bewitch hunters.

Cipelahq (or Chebelakw) is a dangerous bird spirit of Wabanaki folklore, used in stories to scare children into obeying their parents. Chebelakw has an unearthly cry and resembles a large diving owl, with only its head and talons visible. Similar monsters called Stinkini and Big Owl were found in Seminole and Apache mythologies, respectively.

Vietnam - In Vietnam Ông Ba bị, Ông kẹ or Ngáo ộp is a scary creature that is often used by adults to scare children if they disobey. The Ông Ba bị is described as having nine straps and twelve eyes (Ba bị chín quai mười hai con mắt).

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The Bogeyman (; also spelled boogeyman, bogyman, bogieman, boogie monster, boogieman, or boogie woogie) is a type of mythic creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. Bogeymen have no specific appearance and conceptions vary drastically by household and culture, but they are most commonly depicted as masculine or androgynous monsters that punish children for misbehavior.

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A White Lady is a type of female ghost, dressed in all white reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. While White Lady legends are found in many countries around the world, they are most prominent in parts of the United States, Ireland and Great Britain. Common to many of these legends is the theme of loss of a daughter, husband or father and a sense of purity before death (as opposed to the Lady in Red (ghost).

In popular medieval legend, a White Lady is fabled to appear by day as well as by night in a house in which a family member is soon to die. Also appearing within photos just before or after death. According to The Nuttall Encyclopædia, these spirits were regarded as the ghosts of deceased ancestors.

Called Dama Branca or Mulher de Branco in Portuguese, the Brazilian Lady in White is said to be the ghost of a young woman who died of childbirth or violent causes. According to legend, she appears as a pale woman in a long white dress or a sleeping gown, and although usually speechless, will occasionally recount her misfortunes. The origins of the myth are not clear, Luís da Câmara Cascudo's Dicionário do Folclore Brasileiro (Brazilian Folklore Dictionary) proposes that the ghost is related to the violent deaths of young white women who were murdered by their fathers or husbands in an "honor" killing. The most frequent reasons for these honor killings were adultery (actual or suspected), denial of sex, or abuse. Monteiro Lobato in his book describes a young woman starved to death by her husband because he suspected she was in love with a black slave and only gave her the stewed meat of his corpse for food.

A popular legend claims that the surroundings of the Montmorency Falls, near Quebec City are haunted by a white lady. It is said to be the spirit of a young Canadienne woman whose soon-to-be husband was killed while fighting against the British in the battle of Beauport. The young couple allegedly used to meet near the top of the falls and, accordingly, the grieving woman is said to have chosen the site to end her life by throwing herself in the raging waters while wearing the wedding dress that she had recently ordered to be made. A smaller waterfall in the vicinity now bears the name Chute de la Dame Blanche (White Lady Waterfall) in reference to this legend.

The best-known White Lady of the Czech Republic is the ghost of Perchta of Rožmberk at Rožmberk Castle. Perchta of Rožmberk (c. 1429-1476) was a daughter of an important Czech nobleman, Oldřich II of Rožmberk. She married another nobleman, Jan of Lichtenštejn (John of Liechtenstein) in 1449. The marriage was quite unhappy. One of the reasons might have been the fact that Perchta's father had been reluctant to pay the agreed dowry. Legend has it that as her husband was dying, he asked for her forgiveness for his treatment of her. Perchta refused, and her husband cursed her. This is why she haunts his holdings, which include Český Krumlov Castle, where she has been seen most often. During her married life, Perchta wrote many letters to her father and brothers with colourful descriptions of her unhappy family life. Some 32 of these letters had been handed down.

The most famous white lady of Estonia resides in Haapsalu castle. She is said to be the woman who a canon fell in love with. She hid in the castle as a choir boy, and remained a secret for a long time. But when the Bishop of Ösel-Wiek visited Haapsalu she was discovered, and immured in the wall of the chapel for her crime. To this day she is said to look out of the Baptistery's window and grieve for her beloved man. She can be seen on clear August full-moon nights.

A White Lady was first reported to be seen in the Berliner Schloss in 1625 and sightings were reported up until 1790. This castle is the residence of the kings of Prussia, so the Lady has been linked to several historical figures:

the guilt-ridden countess Kunigunda of Orlamünde, born Landgravine of Leuchtenberg (Oberpfalz), who, according to legend, murdered her two young children because she believed they stood in the way of her marriage to Albert of Nuremberg.

the unfortunate widow Bertha of Rosenberg from Bohemia, overthrown by the heathen Perchta.

There is a legend of a White Lady who was a prince's wife in the town of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Westphalia. The prince was away, fighting in the Thirty Years' War, and his wife took a wandering minstrel as a lover. The prince returned unexpectedly, caught the two lovers, and drowned the minstrel in the moat. He then took his wife and encased her behind a wall in his manor with some food and water, so that she wouldn't cheat on him again as he returned to the fighting. The prince died in battle, the food and water ran out, and his wife died. Her spirit now haunts the manor. When the manor was renovated, the new owner had his builders tear down the wall behind which she was immured. The next day, the worker who tore down the wall was working on the roof of the manor when he fell, broke his back, and died. The manor is called Haus Aussel.

In Hungarian mythology, a white lady was the ghost of a girl or young woman that died violently, usually young women who committed suicide, were murdered or died while imprisoned. The ghost is usually bound to a specific location and is often identified as a specific person (i.e. Elizabeth Báthory).

In Charles Fort (Ireland), there is the story of a white lady, the ghost of a young woman that died on her wedding night. Her death was a suicide which followed the death of her husband at the hand of her father.

The White Lady is the name of a female ghost that lives in Verdala Palace in the small forest of Buskett, Rabat, Malta.

Legend has it that many years ago, a woman was to be married to a man she did not love. Her father told her that she must always do as her fiancé said since he was soon to be her husband. On the day of her wedding, she committed suicide by jumping off a balcony. This is why she is to this day known as the White Lady, because she was wearing her wedding gown on the day of her death. It is said that she haunts the Verdala Palace and many people who attend the August moon ball confirm that she does indeed appear in the palace.

According to another Maltese legend, the White Lady of Mdina was killed by her lover after she was forced to marry another man. Many have claimed to see this spirit, always after eight o'clock in the evening. She usually appears to children under eight years old, heart-broken teenage boys, and elderly men. While she tells the children goodnight and bids them to return home, she advises the teenagers to "find another" or to join her and become a part of her "shadow" (her ghostly followers). She also attempts to lure elderly men into her "shadow".

Vrouwen in wit (plural of vrouw in wit), or " witte wieven" as these women are called in local dialects, are mythical creatures of Lower Saxon origin and so most known in the eastern and northern parts of the Netherlands. Sometimes referred to as witte joffers ('white maidens'), they can have both a benevolent as well as a malevolent nature. Often related with witches and/or ghosts, they show many similarities with the banshee, the fairy, and the elf. Understood as malevolent beings, they abduct or switch newborns, abduct women, and punish people who have treated them badly. As benevolent beings, they may aid in childbirth or offer good advice. Indeed, though the adjective wit means 'white', it may originally refer to the Germanic word wid, related to English 'wit' and 'wise', and so may be better understood as 'wise women', as they are known in Germany, where they are connected to the Völva.

They are believed to dwell in tumuli, the Hunebedden and on the moors. Wisps of mist and fog banks are sometimes called witte wieven.

The Schinveldse Bossen forest is also home to another White Lady story. Archival evidence suggests that the forest was once home to a castle farm that was built in 1396. In the 17th century (estimated 1667), this site was burned down killing the daughter of Lord Lambert Reynart. This historical event has spawned a few variations on a White Lady ghost story based around the death of the woman who burned with the castle farm. The most common versions of the tale involve the woman having two fighting lovers or of the site being burned on her wedding day by a jealous nobleman. However, all versions claim that she now wanders the forest as a ghost in a long white dress, some saying she only appears at midnight, and others saying she only appears on nights of the full moon. The site of the former castle farm is referred to as Lammendam after the ghost who supposedly haunts the area. The term is a Dutch adaptation of the French "La Madame Blanche". It is now protected as a cultural historical site.

In popular culture, Dutch singer Joep Rademakers mentions this ghost in his song: " t Sjilves Paradies". Dutch symphonic black metal band Carach Angren also has a full concept album dedicated to this version of The White Lady.

White Ladies, indigenously known as kaperosa, are popular ghost story topics in the Philippines. White Ladies are often used to convey horror and mystery to young children for storytelling. Sightings of White Ladies are common around the country. The most prominent one is the White Lady of Balete Drive in Quezon City. It is said that it is the ghost of a long-haired woman in a white dress who, according to legend, died in a car accident while driving along Balete Drive. Most stories about her were told by taxi drivers doing the graveyard shift, such as the one where a taxi crosses Balete Drive and a very beautiful woman is asking for a ride. The cabbie then looks behind and sees the woman's face was full of blood and bruises, causing him to abandon his taxi in terror.

In other instances, it is said that when solitary people drive on that street in the early morning, they briefly see the face of a white-clad woman in the rear-view mirror before she quickly disappears. Some accidents on this road are blamed on apparitions of the White Lady.

Many sources have said this legend was actually manufactured by a reporter in the 1950s, and also a possible combination of multiple stories from the area.

In Thailand, there is a story of teenagers going into a deserted house in Thawi Watthana, suburban Bangkok to look for ghosts and afterwards died from accidents. In each case, witnesses claim to have seen the presence of a mysterious long hair woman in a white dress. A medium claimed that this was a vengeful spirit named "Dao" or "Deuan".

Several tales out of the U.K. also suggest that the White Lady may be a victim of murder or suicide who died before she could tell anyone the location of some hidden treasure. Around 1800, the castle of Blenkinsopp in Northumberland was occupied by a family. One night the parents woke to their boy screaming "The White Lady!" By the time they arrived at his bedside, she had vanished, but the boy reported that the lady had been angry and tried to take him away after he refused to accompany her to a box of gold buried in the vaults below. She could not rest while it was there. The same events took place the following three nights. When the child began sleeping with his parents, the White Lady no longer disturbed him, but he never again traveled through the castle alone for fear of her. A second instance of treasure being involved exists in Welsh tradition. Near Bridgend, Glamorgan in Wales, "Dynes Mewn Gwyn", or the lady in white, appeared to guard a treasure located in the tower of Ogmore Castle. When a man had the courage to approach her, she rewarded him with half the treasure. In his greed, he took it all, but the White Lady retaliated, her fingers turning into claws. The man later wasted away and died.

The White Lady (also known as the "Running Lady") of Beeford, East Yorkshire resides on the "Beeford Straight", a stretch of road between Beeford and Brandesburton. Motorists have reported her apparition running across the Beeford Straight toward the junction of North Frodingham. Anecdotal tales also report a motorcyclist picking up a female hitchhiker on the same stretch of road. A few miles later the motorcyclist, upon turning around, noticed the passenger had vanished. In one instance, a car crashed into a tree killing 6 people. It is rumored to be the white lady's curse.

In another story a White Lady is seen retracing her steps as she was said to have jumped off the Portchester Castle while trying to retrieve her fallen child. Her spirit is said to haunt the castle to this day.

A White Lady who could also be called a woman in white who is said to haunt Durand-Eastman Park in Rochester, New York. Also known as the Lady in the Lake, the 19th-century White Lady wanders the park area, obsessively looking for the body of her daughter, who was slain by a boyfriend or group of hoodlums, depending on the story you hear. Legend has it that the human White Lady either killed herself in grief, or died alone and heartbroken.

"The Lady in White" or the "White Lady of Avenel", is the most commonly reported apparition at Avenel (Bedford, Virginia). The apparition is thought to be Mary Frances "Fran" Burwell, of the Burwell family of Virginia. "The legend has it that she stayed on the front porch waiting for her husband to come home from the Civil War, but he never did." says Adam Stupin, founder of SouthWest Virginia Ghost Hunters.

"The Ghostly Sphinx of Metedeconk" by Stephen Crane recounts the tale of a White Lady whose lover was drowned in 1815.

Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut has reported sightings of a white lady since the late 1940s, said to haunt the nearby Stepney Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut.

Tolamato Cemetery in St. Augustine, Florida, has been home to stories of a haunting by a "lady in white" since the 19th century. Legend states that the ghost is the spirit of a young woman who died suddenly on her way to be married, and who was buried in her wedding dress.[citation needed ]

In Mukilteo, Washington, there have been many alleged reports of a Lady In White vanishing hitchhiker just off of Clearview Drive in the forest or on the road near the treeline.[citation needed ]

The sightings of Resurrection Mary in Chicago, Illinois are also of both the White Lady and vanishing hitchhiker type legends.

In Madisonville, Louisiana there is a legend about a woman called "The Silk Lady". Her ghost is said to haunt Palmetto Flats by Highway 22. The story goes that back in the mid-1800s there was a woman who was riding back from town after seeing her lover off. She was riding down an old logging trail when a snake spooked her horse. She fell, hit her head, and died as a result of the injury. Several people have reported her as a woman dressed in a wispy, silky dress and that her feet don't touch the ground. When she sees someone she is said to cackle like a banshee.[citation needed ]

In Altoona, Pennsylvania she is known as the White Lady of Whopsy. Her ghost is said to haunt Wopsononock Mountain and Buckhorn Mountain in the western part of Altoona. It's said that she and her husband had an ill-fated crash over what's known as Devil's Elbow as you head into the city itself where both of them tumbled over the side of the mountain. According to legend, she is seen looking for her husband on foggy nights, has been picked up as a hitch hiker, and her reflection is not seen in the mirror but she always disappears around Devil's Elbow.

In Yermo, California at the Calico Ghost Town, author Lorin Morgan-Richards is said to have seen the ghost of a White Lady up close while it roamed the outskirts of town and he wrote about it in detail in his book Welsh in the Old West.

In Fremont, California there are White Lady (called the White Witch) ghost sightings in Niles Canyon. A woman named Lowerey was one of the first people in the area killed in an automobile accident. People claim to have seen her in a cemetery in the area with strange lights and local legend says you can see her walking the ridge between the Niles Hollywood-style sign and the canyon.

In Hattiesburg, Mississippi a Woman in White is connected with the history of Burnt Bridge Road. In the 1970s a woman was killed in a car accident while crossing a wooden bridge over a small gully. The resulting fire destroyed the bridge, which was later rebuilt in concrete, and gave the road its new name. The charred and decaying remains of the original bridge can still be seen near the new bridge.[citation needed ]

In Dallas, Texas at White Rock Lake Park it is reported that ghost of a twenty-year-old looking girl, known as "The Lady of White Rock Lake" described as wearing a water-soaked 1930s evening dress, who usually appears at night along the roadside of East Lawther Drive. Witnesses claim the phantom asks to be taken to her home on Gaston Avenue in Dallas before disappearing in the car during the ride leaving behind a waterlogged car seat. Legend claims the woman to be a drowning victim from a boating accident in the 1930s. Reports of the ghostly encounters were published in Dallas-area newspapers in the 1960s.

"Maidens of Uley" is an East Siberian legend of the west buryad people from the village Ulei (or Ungin), Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. The legend tells about young lady Bulzhuuhai Duuhai, which didn't want to be married. She was necessary been escaping the home, cause husband was treated her disrespectfully and locked her in a black yurt, not in the traditional white. Bulzhuuhai has been hanged herself in the barn after being singing and dancing on another's wedding for eight days and eight nights feeling the loneliness of being. After her death, she became a zayan-spirit and joined the other same spirit maidens (they were about 350 or even more), which haunts the fiances on their wedding day, mesmerizing them by the beauty and were taken to the underground world.

The pilot episode of the horror/drama TV series Supernatural features a White Lady though she is referred to as a Woman in White named Constance Welch. In the episode, her husband's infidelity drives Constance insane and causes her to kill their children. After realizing what she had done, Constance took her own life. In revenge against her husband, the Woman in White seeks out men who are traveling alone on a road near her old home. As a ghost, she tries to seduce the men and if they are unfaithful, she kills them. In this episode's case, the white lady is attempting to return home but is afraid of facing the ghosts of her children whom she drowned. (See La Llorona, the inspiration for this character)

A British children's TV series in the 1970s, The Ghosts of Motley Hall concerning the adventures of a group of ghosts from various periods of the past, featured Sheila Steafel as a character known only as "The White Lady". No one knew her past or how she died, including herself.

A White Lady is central to the plot of the 2006 movie from the Philippines called White Lady.

Emily, the main antagonist of the 1971 horror film Let's Scare Jessica to Death (played by Mariclare Costello), combines elements of the White Lady archetype with that of a vampire.

, a horror series by director Takashi Shimizu, is all about the hauntings of a woman in white; Kayako Saeki's ghost appears as a woman in white and her face is almost always hidden by her long dark hair.

Guild Wars 2 features a hidden quest in which the player is able to escort a Lady in White home. Upon reaching the courtyard of her home, she becomes hostile and attempts to kill the player.

The Mulher de Branco appears in AdventureQuest Worlds. This version is a recolored and redesigned version of the Siren. It is among the creatures that attack Terra da Festa before the Carnaval Party.

There is a White Lady parodied in Scary Movie 2, who is the wife of Hugh Kane the ghost, and upon her murder she also haunts the mansion. She kills Professor Oldman (Tim Curry), but in a comic twist she is seduced by Shorty and ends up his girlfriend.

The White Lady is mentioned on Blackmore's Night song "I Guess It Doesn't Matter Anymore", where the character in the song gives a lift to a lady dressed in white that doesn't speak to them, and disappears when they pull over.

The 1988 film Lady in White is based on the White Lady legend.

The 2008 album titled Lammendam by Dutch symphonic black metal band Carach Angren is an adaptation of a White Lady story from the Netherlands.

Two adventures of the Belgian comic book series Spike and Suzy are devoted to these white ladies: De Jolige Joffer and Het Witte Wief.

She is also shown in the movie The Curse of La Llorona.

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A White Lady is a type of female ghost, dressed in all white reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. While White Lady legends are found in many countries around the world, they are most prominent in parts of the United States, Ireland and Great Britain.

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The History of Halloween: Bet You Didn't Know

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The History of Halloween: Bet You Didn't Know

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Watch the video and play Hangman.

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Read the question and write the answer after watching the short video. ''Bet you didn't Know: Halloween''

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Bet You Didn't Know: Halloween | History