Deadly nightshade

“ And all the Land did be full of grim and monstrous roarings, and odd-wise lower sounds, very deadly. And once I did hear the noise of giants running. And all the night to be Evil. And, in verity, how I did not be slain by some dread Force, I not to know, unless that I did be burned free of all weakness that an Evil Power should have chance to harm me through; for, indeed, I had been dealt a bitter training a monstrous time.
And lo! there to be again the deep and dreadful baying of the Night-Hounds unto the South-East, and to be nearer ”

“ To prevent the risk of any avaricious follower or serf, or any other promiscuous pilferer, uncovering his body during the night, in order to possess himself of the glittering prize, his surviving friends circulate the story that his ghost, frowning fearfully, as such ghosts are wont, is seen nightly to guard the tumulus, girt in the golden armour. Terror fills the superstitious minds of the inhabitants of the district, and no man for his life will venture to approach the Carnedd after sunset. ”

“ I even slept, for I remember that I started to find the cold gray light of an early winter’s day was on my face, and stealing around the room from between the heavy curtains of the window.
Shuddering, but urged by the impulse that rivets the gaze of the bird upon the snake, I turned to see the Horror of the night. Yes, it was no fevered dream, no hallucination of sickness, no airy phantom unable to face the dawn. In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it? ”

“ Corpses by day, spirits of evil by night, roaming abroad in their own forms or in the forms of bats or unclean beasts, killing body and soul of their victims—for whoever dies of the repeated “kiss” of the vampire, which leaves its mark on the throat and draws the blood from the body, becomes a vampire also—of such beings I had read.
And, horror of horrors! In that last cursed day at the office, I remembered reading of these vampires— these undead—that in their nocturnal flights they had one limitation—they could not cross running water. ”

“ They have talked so much about ghosts, and they know so well all the tricks of which these malicious spirits are capable, that they fear them scarcely at all. It is especially at night that all of them—grave-diggers, hemp-dressers, and ghosts—do their work. It is also at night when the hemp-dresser tells his melancholy stories. ”

“ Ghost then asks for revenge by touching his dagger, and pointing towards the sky. He acts the murder in the garden, showing the serpent who stung him by gliding about the stage on his chest, like the boneless man. He shows his murderer to be of his own blood by walking up and down as himself, and then in the same way, but with a slight limp, as if he were his brother. ”

“ The northern sky grew lighter, a finger of flame appeared to stretch across it, to be followed by waving shrouds of white, like the vestments of an army of ghosts. They danced recklessly and rapidly across the vault of the night, and changed their colors to a riot of red, with here and there a somber spread of crimson and blue. They took fantastic shapes, as if rendering more unreal their dance of death. They threw, as if purposely, a background of light behind the three peaks above me, so that I might fully realize their dread presence, and see the cruel, malevolent, devilish face of rock. ”

“ The ghost, having tasted his blood, would not leave him till it had drained him to the very last drop. He was a lost man; no medical aid could be of any use; nourishing food, wine and tonics might prolong his agony a few days longer and no more. He was doomed to a sure death. Daily—as if in a decline—he saw himself wasting away, for the vampire would suck the very marrow of his bones. ”

“ They will cover their heads in terror lest the same doom overtake them. Hau! Even this night will that doom begin.”
“This night?” echoed the victim, feeling well-nigh dead with an awful fear. “This night? Now, my father, thou hast promised—hast sworn—I shall be allowed to depart.”
“I did but mean the night of death,” replied the other, his head on one side, his eyes glittering with satanic mirth. “That may be when thou art old and tottering, Nompiza, or it may mean this night, for what is time but a flash, even as that of the summer lightning? The night of death will surely come.” ”

“ The demons who, in the darkness of night, come out by the million from the bowels of the earth, glide away as soon as the sun mounts the sky and the world is ablaze with its light. Though they feast in the night time, as darkness is congenial to their nature, they fast during the day, for light is destructive to their being. When the light of Hvarekhshaeta breaks through the darkness of night, it drives away, not only darkness, but defilement, disease, and death. Like the moon and the stars, it grieves the sun to shine upon a defiled person. [384] Ahura Mazda has the sun for his eye. ”

“ For some seconds I was spellbound, and could not even collect my thoughts sufficiently to frame a reply to the piteous entreaties of the Holkitts, who kept banging on the door, and imploring me to tell them what was happening. Never in the hideous excitement of nightmare had I experienced such a terror as the terror that room conveyed to my mind. Though nothing was to be seen, nothing but the candle, the light of which was peculiarly white and vibrating, I felt the presence of something inexpressibly menacing and horrible. It was in the light, the atmosphere, the furniture, everywhere. ”

“ For when the black pestilence of the blast that engenders monsters has crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending ravished bodies; then Hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the waters of Styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back hither, crushed by her own guilt, shall appease our dust ”

“ Twenty times in the evening, when the cold blast came creeping along the floor and wound round my ankles, did I imagine it was the chill hand of some corpse, thrust up from beneath, that was seizing me in order to drag me downwards—and a hundred times, as the long flame from the candle flared up tremulously, and shook the deep shadows that encompassed me around, did I fancy that there were very hideous faces indeed mouthing at me amidst the gloom—and my own gigantic shadow—it was a vast horror of itself personified! ”

“ One form of the zombi-belief—akin to certain ghostly superstitions held by various primitive races—would seem to have been suggested by nightmare,—that form of nightmare in which familiar persons become slowly and hideously transformed into malevolent beings. ”

“ The deep black shadows of night lay over the bodies of the slain, as if the Heavens compassionately wished to hide what human hands had done there. At dawn of day, even the clouds disappeared, as if they also were driven away by the horror of the sight beneath them; others came, and likewise fled, ever changing their shapes and forms; losing one to assume another,--everything is restless, except in Death, where eternal rest is found. ”

“ At night the entire picture of horror is something ghostly and fantastic. By daylight it is simply hopeless. Now you see for the first time the mass of corpses lying around on the lanes, between the fields, in the ditches, behind the ruins of walls. Everywhere dead bodies—everywhere. ”

“ One of them, a lady, told me that she had once stayed there and had been awakened every night by the sounds I had described—the sounds of heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs, of cries and groans, shrieks and oaths, coupled with the clashing of scabbards and sword blades, and the sound as of falling bodies.
Yet nothing was ever to be seen, saving the moonlight and shadows—plenty of shadows—shadows strangely suggestive of grotesque and fancifully clad people. ”

“ He then walks solemnly down to the nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All the young untried warriors swim between his legs. This is supposed to impart courage and strength to them. The following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of his house, fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead man, he returns to his house. The beating of flooring-boards and the lighting of fires is also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A day later his purification is finished. ”

“ And to keep the victim's ghost quiet while his body is being devoured, a cut from a joint is very considerately placed on a tree outside of the house, so that he may eat of his own flesh and be satisfied. At the conclusion of the banquet, the people shout, brandish spears, beat the bushes, blow horns, beat drums, and make all kinds of noises for the purpose of chasing the ghost or ghosts of the murdered and eaten men away from the village. But while they send away the souls, they keep the skulls and jawbones of the victims ”

“ Forty thousand people—men, women and children—cowered in terror for eight long hours, the intense blackness of the night, the swishing and lapping of the waves, the demoniac howling and shrieking of the wind and the indescribable and awful crashing, tearing and rending as the houses, hundreds at a time, were wrecked and shattered, ever sounding in their ears. ”

“ It fights and wrestles, pummels its adversary black and blue, it is huge and bloated and hideous, it tries to strangle men, and leaves finger-marks on their throats. If the ghosts are those of drowned men, they come home every night dripping with sea-water, and crowd the family from the fire and from the hall. ”

“ So, too, there are moments of midnight waking, when we lie on our bed as in a grave, and feel the awful thought of death borne in upon us with unutterable, intolerable horror. Then the darkness which shuts out those objects that in the day-time distract the attention of our outward eye, and of our mind, serves only to make our mental vision doubly keen, and to concentrate all our faculties, as to one inward focal point of light, on that hateful thought. Then do we seem to feel the earth rushing swiftly on its way, as if eager to hurry us to our own dissolution ”

“ Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.
I STOOD WITH THE DEAD I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill:
Soldier, soldier, morning is red." ”

“ And the aspect of each was that of some demon clock-face with one sinister hour always figured thereon - the dreaded, the doom-delivering hour of four.
Baffled in every attempt to shake off the circling and relentless delirium, I glanced once more toward the unshuttered window and beheld again the monster which had come from the grave. Horrible it had been before; indescribable it had now become. The creature, formerly of indeterminate substance, was now formed of red and malignant fire; and waved repulsively its four tentacled claws - unspeakable tongues of living flame. ”

“ Darkness everywhere. The beating rain on the window pane ran down in blinding rivulets. A vivid flash of lightning illuminated the garden and the house. Not a living thing was stirring. He turned toward the bed. The terrible picture had gone. With a muttered curse upon his weak, disordered nerves, he crept into bed and tried to sleep.
Suddenly the terrible writing glowed upon the wall again, and he fairly screamed with fright and horror:
MURDER! ”

“ The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! ”

“ Of Gray Cloud's lifeless body rolled in blood.
Fast through the village spread the news, and stirred
With mingled fear and wonder all who heard.
The oracles were baffled and dismayed,
And spoke with muffled tones and looks of dread:
"Some envious foeman lurking in the wood,
With medicine more strong than his," they said,
"Stole in last night and gave the fatal wound."
The warriors scoured the country miles around,
Seeking for sign or trail, but naught they found:
The murderer left behind no clue or trace
More than a vampire's flight through darkling space. ”

“ Tradition says that the ghost of the murdered man continues to visit the scene of the conflict, and during the silent hours of night it may be seen passing from the room with uplifted hands, and with the appearance of blood streaming from a wound in the breast. ”

“ THE POOL IN WALES THAT LURES PEOPLE TO DEATH I think there is very little doubt that two of the mediums through which the occult forces “get at” humanity are colour and locality. Red, for example, being the colour of blood, is made the medium for instilling thoughts of murder; green, in a similar manner, is used to suggest suicide by drowning ”

“ The only type I have now left for examination may be called the “Nightmare type.” It is [Pg 279] allied not so much to the stories of Melusina and the Lady of the Van Pool as to stories like that of the Croatian wolf-maiden. According to German and Slavonic belief the nightmare is a human being—frequently one whose love has been slighted, and who in this shape is enabled to approach the beloved object. It slips through the keyhole, or any other hole in a building, and presses its victim sometimes to death. ”