Inside The Legend Of The Crossroads

CROSSROADS MYTHOLOGY

"If you want to learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and your go to where the road crosses that way, where a crossroads is. Get there be sure to get there just a little ' fore 12 that night so you know you'll be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself…A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I learned to play anything I want."

- Tommy Johnson

THE MYSTERIOUS ROBERT JOHNSON

“Basically without him none of the music you [Dean] like would even exist.”

  Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) is among the most famous Delta Blues musicians and arguably the most influential. Considered by some to be the "Grandfather of Rock-and-Roll," his vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style influenced a range of musicians, including Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, U2, and Eric Clapton, who called Johnson "the most important blues musician who ever lived."

  Of all the great blues musicians, Johnson was probably the most obscure. All that is known of him for certain is that he recorded 29 songs; he died young; and he was one of the greatest bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta. There are only five dates in Johnson's life that can undeniably be used to assign him to a place in history, everything else about his life is an attempt at reconstruction.

“So, Robert Johnson sells his soul at the crossroads, records a bunch of killer songs about it, and the legend keeps growing. I mean everyone’s heard his story…”

  Johnson's peculiarities added to the rumors. Some fans thought that he had the "evil eye". Actually, he suffered from a small cataract. Also, it has been reported that Johnson turned from the audience while playing, and would leave suddenly from a performance, sometimes even during breaks in his set. While today such actions are not considered odd, In those days they were. Many people took it to mean that he was a man with something to hide.

LIVING A LIFE OF THE BLUES

“Ol’ Johnson regretted the deal as soon as he made it. You can hear it in his music, the forlorn wailing of a condemned sinner. His music was full of hints and references about his dealings with the devil.”

  Robert Johnson was born in the Mississippi Delta (Hazlehurst, Mississippi) sometime around May 8, 1911, the 11th child of Julia Major Dodds, who had previously born 10 children to her husband Charles Dodds. Born illegitimate, Johnson did not take the Dodds name. Johnson’s real father was a a field worker named Noah Johnson. While in his teens, Johnson learned who his father was, and it was at that time that he began calling himself Robert Johnson.

By 1930, Johnson had married and become serious about playing the guitar. During the time that he was married, he lived with his sister and her husband. But his wife died in childbirth at the age of 16. In 1931, he married for a second time. By then, his fellow musicians were beginning to take note of his precocity on the guitar.

  Johnson began traveling up and down the Delta, travelling by bus, hopping trains, and sometimes hitchhiking. When he arrived in a new town, he would play on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. He played what his audience asked for—not necessarily his own compositions. Anything he earned was based on tips, not salary. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted. Also working in his favor was an a bility to establish instant rapport with his audiences.

Around 1936, Johnson met H. C. Spier in Jackson, Mississippi, who ran a music store and doubled as a talent scout. Spier put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. At the recording session, Johnson was too shy to perform in front of the musicians in the studio, so played facing the wall. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played 16 selections. When the recording session was over, Johnson presumably returned home with several hundred dollars in his pocket—probably more money than he had ever had at one time.

  Interestingly, six of Johnson's blues songs mention the devil or some form of the supernatural.

His death came on August 16, 1938, at the approximate age of 27 at a little country crossroads near Greenwood, Mississippi. He had been playing for several weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles from Greenwood when, by some accounts, he was given poisoned whiskey at the dance by the husband of a woman he had been seeing.
The actual cause of his death has recently been discovered to be marfan's syndrome, which is a connection tissue disorder, the most obvious symptom of this on Johnson was his long fingers, legs and arms, other symptoms are curved backline, eye problems (johnson was said to have 'one bad eye') and a slim body

MEETING WITH THE DEVIL OUT AT THE CROSSROADS

  Here, in its entirety, as published by the Crossroads Blues Society is the “vision, with a V” of bluesman Henry Goodman:

Robert Johnson been playing down in Yazoo City and over at Beulah trying to get back up to Helena, ride left him out on a road next to the levee, walking up the highway, guitar in his hand propped up on his shoulder. October cool night, full moon filling up the dark sky, Robert Johnson thinking about Son House preaching to him, "Put that guitar down, boy, you drivin' people nuts." Robert Johnson needing as always a woman and some whiskey. Big trees all around, dark and lonesome road, a crazed, poisoned dog howling and moaning in a ditch alongside the road sending electrified chills up and down Robert Johnson's spine, coming up on a crossroads just south of Rosedale. Robert Johnson, feeling bad and lonesome, knows people up the highway in Gunnison. Can get a drink of whiskey and more up there. Man sitting off to the side of the road on a log at the crossroads says, "You're late, Robert Johnson." Robert Johnson drops to his knees and says, "Maybe not."

  The man stands up, tall, barrel-chested, and black as the forever-closed eyes of Robert Johnson's stillborn baby, and walks out to the middle of the crossroads where Robert Johnson kneels. He says, "Stand up, Robert Johnson. You want to throw that guitar over there in that ditch with that hairless dog and go on back up to Robinsonville and play the harp with Willie Brown and Son, because you just another guitar player like all the rest, or you want to play that guitar like nobody ever played it before? Make a sound nobody ever heard before? You want to be the King of the Delta Blues and have all the whiskey and women you want?"

"That's a lot of whiskey and women, Devil-Man."

"I know you, Robert Johnson," says the man.

  Robert Johnson, feels the moonlight bearing down on his head and the back of his neck as the moon seems to be growing bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter. He feels it like the heat of the noonday sun bearing down, and the howling and moaning of the dog in the ditch penetrates his soul, coming up through his feet and the tips of his fingers through his legs and arms, settling in that big empty place beneath his breastbone causing him to shake and shudder like a man with the palsy. Robert Johnson says, "That dog gone mad."

The man laughs. "That hound belong to me. He ain't mad, he's got the Blues. I got his soul in my hand."

  The dog lets out a low, long soulful moan, a howling like never heard before, rhythmic, syncopated grunts, yelps, and barks, seizing Robert Johnson like a Grand Mal, and causing the strings on his guitar to vibrate, hum, and sing with a sound dark and blue, beautiful, soulful chords and notes possessing Robert Johnson, taking him over, spinning him around, losing him inside of his own self, wasting him, lifting him up into the sky. Robert Johnson looks over in the ditch and sees the eyes of the dog reflecting the bright moonlight or, more likely so it seems to Robert Johnson, glowing on their own, a deep violet penetrating glow, and Robert Johnson knows and feels that he is staring into the eyes of a Hellhound as his body shudders from head to toe.

The man says, "The dog ain't for sale, Robert Johnson, but the sound can be yours. That's the sound of the Delta Blues."

"I got to have that sound, Devil-Man. That sound is mine. Where do I sign?"

The man says, "You ain't got a pencil, Robert Johnson. Your word is good enough. All you got to do is keep walking north. But you better be prepared. There are consequences."

"Prepared for what, Devil-man?"

"You know where you are, Robert Johnson? You are standing in the middle of the crossroads. At midnight, that full moon is right over your head. You take one more step, you'll be in Rosedale. You take this road to the east, you'll get back over to Highway 61 in Cleveland, or you can turn around and go back down to Beulah or just go to the west and sit up on the levee and look at the River. But if you take one more step in the direction you're headed, you going to be in Rosedale at midnight under this full October moon, and you are going to have the Blues like never known to this world. My left hand will be forever wrapped around your soul, and your music will possess all who hear it. That's what's going to happen. That's what you better be prepared for. Your soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads. I put this "X" here for a reason, and I been waiting on you."

  Robert Johnson rolls his head around, his eyes upwards in their sockets to stare at the blinding light of the moon which has now completely filled tie pitch-black Delta night, piercing his right eye like a bolt of lightning as the midnight hour hits. He looks the big man squarely in the eyes and says, "Step back, Devil-Man, I'm going to Rosedale. I am the Blues."

The man moves to one side and says, "Go on, Robert Johnson. You the King of the Delta Blues. Go on home to Rosedale. And when you get on up in town, you get you a plate of hot tamales because you going to be needing something on your stomach where you're headed."

THE CROSSROADS CURSE!!!

  Popular rock musicians who have performed the song include Eric Clapton and Cream, The Allman Brothers Band, and Lynyrd Skynyrd; and Led Zeppelin has lifted several of Johnson’s more sexual allusions for use in their lyrics. The Crossroads Curse may have touched even Kurt Cobain, the founder of Nirvana. Each of these bands has been the target of intense professional and personal tragedies that make some wonder whether the Devil isn’t still taking his payment all these long years later…

  Eric Clapton and Cream recorded “Crossroad Blues” for their “Cream: Wheels of Fire” LP at the height of their fame. Within a few short years, the band was disbanded and Clapton was wallowing in the throes of heroin addiction. Years later, having cleaned up his life and enjoying a profitable solo career, Clapton was tragically struck by the death of his two year old son who fell from an apartment window to death several stories below.

  The tragedy surrounding The Allman Brothers Band is practically legend in the annals of rock and roll. At the height of their fame, in 1971, Duane Allman, who is said to have loved performing “Crossroad Blues” live, was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at another crossroads near Macon, Georgia where he swerved his motorcycle to avoid hitting a truck. He died later from his injuries. Just over a year later, in 1972, another band member, guitarist Berry Oakley, was killed while riding his motorcycle; he died less than a mile from the spot where Duane Allman had met his death. Though the band soldiered on, Duane’s brother Gregg felt compelled to immortalize his brother’s connection to a crossroads in the song “Melissa”: “Crossroads will you ever let him go? Or will you hide the dead man’s ghost?”

  The popular Alabama band Lynyrd Skynyrd added a cover version of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroad Blues” to their live performances. It’s raw power and driving rhythm were something that every audience looked forward to and the crowds kept coming as the band toured the south throughout 1976 and 1977. Then in October 1977, as the band was flying from Greenville, SC to their next show at the L.S.U. Assembly Center their aging Convair 240 lost an engine in mid-flight. The panicked crew lost control of the plane when they mistakenly dumped all the fuel. Minutes later the plane plunged into a swamp outside Gillsburg, Mississippi and broke into pieces. Both pilots, two of the band’s members, including singer Ronnie Van Zant, and other relatives were killed in the crash. What had been a promising future in rock music lay in pieces in a Mississippi swamp.

  Led Zeppelin was famous for lapsing into treatments of many of Robert Johnson’s blues songs, including a riveting live version of “Crossroad Blues.” It is from Johnson that singer Robert Plant borrowed the famous lyrics for The Lemon Song, “squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg.” Arguably one of the best and most influential rock bands ever, Led Zeppelin spent the 70’s defying gravity and riding their “lead balloon” to super fame and fortune. Near the end of the 70’s, however, the band fell upon some bad luck, triggered by the untimely death of Plant’s son to septic shock in 1977. Shortly after this, amid rumors of black magic and sexual sadism, guitarist Jimmy Page was battling his own demons trying to kick a monstrous heroin addiction. In the next several years, Led Zeppelin would lose its drummer, the phenomenal John Bonham, and the manager who had guided them to supergroup status and beyond, the inimitable Peter Grant.

  Finally, Kurt Cobain, the father of the grunge movement of the 1990’s, was said to have performed his own acoustic version of “Crossroad Blues” while traveling with Nirvana and for family and friends. Cobain considered reworking it for the band to play live and was said to have been toying with recording a new version of the Robert Johnson classic when his life came to a tragic end. In April 1994 Cobain was found on the second floor of his garage at his Washington state dead from a shotgun blast through the head. The circumstances surrounding Cobain’s death are still the subject of hot debate – with rival camps claiming that Cobain committed suicide and others claiming that he was murdered in a conspiracy that centered around his wife, Courtney Love – and it seems that the curse didn’t stop at Cobain’s death. Two people, one former Cobain employee and a Seattle cop widely reviled for having botched the death site investigation, have both followed Cobain to the grave.

ESU AND THE CROSSROADS LEGENDS

“The crossroads is where you make a pact with the devil.”

  The diety Esu was believed to be the guardian of the crossroads, and was an intermediate between gods and humans. When Christianity was brought to African Culture, these pagan gods were labeled as being similar to the devil. Hence, the concept that one could find the devil at a crossroad. In celtic tradition, the bodies of the unholy were buried outside of town near crossroads to preserve consecrated ground.

BLACK DOGS

“It’s all pretty vague. I mean, there’s spectral black dogs all over the world. Some say their animal spirits, others death omens. But, what ever they are, they’re big and nasty.”

  A black dog is a ghostly presence found primarily in British folklore. The black dog is essentially a nocturnal being, and it’s appearance is regarded as a foreshadowing of death. It is larger than a physical dog, and often has large, glowing eyes. It is often associated with electrical storms, crossroads, places of executioner and ancient pathways. In Norfolk legend the creature is supposed to be amphibious, coming out of the sea at night and traveling the lonely roads.

HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL

"They’re seeing dogs, alright. But, their not seeing Black Dogs. They’re seeing Hell Hounds. Demonic Pittbulls.”

  A demonic dog of hell, usually referring to Cerberus, the dog of Hades from Greek mythology. The ghostly hounds are said to haunt parts of the United Kingdom and many names are given to the apparitions. Black Shuck of East Anglia, Moddey Dhoo of the Isle of Man, Gwyllgi of Wales. Hellhounds are a common creature in fantasy fiction, such as in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hounds of Tinadalos.” They are common in role-playing and video games, including “Dungeons and Dragons”, “Shadowrun”, “RunScape”, “Adventure Quest” and the “Zork” series.

GOOFER DUST

  Used in voodoo practices, it is a mixture of natural ingredients that can be used to cause harm, trouble, or even kill. The word goofer comes from the Kikongo word “kufwa,” which means “to die.” As late as the 1930s, “goofering” was a regional synonym for voodooing, and the meaning of the term was broadened beyond spells of damage, illness, and death to include love spells cast with dominating intent.

 INSIDE THE LEGEND WRITTEN BY: DEAN5339

Quotes obtained from both "Crossroads Blues" and The Multus Tempestas virtual series episode "Crossroads"

Hellhounds/Black Demon Dogs

  A hellhound is a supernatural dog, found in mythology, folklore and fiction. A wide variety of ominous or hellish supernatural dogs occur in mythologies around the world, similar to the ubiquitous dragon. Features that have been attributed to hellhounds include black fur, glowing red or sometimes glowing yellow eyes, super strength or speed, ghostly or phantom characteristics, foul odor, and sometimes even the ability to talk.

Legend says that if someone is to stare into its eyes three times or more, the person will definitely die. In cultures that associate the afterlife with fire, hellhounds may have fire-based abilities and appearance. They are often assigned to guard the entrances to the world of the dead, such as graveyards and burial grounds, or undertake other duties related to the afterlife or the supernatural, such as hunting lost souls or guarding a supernatural treasure. In European legends, seeing a hellhound or hearing it howl may be either an omen of death or even a cause of death.

  Some supernatural dogs, such as the Welsh Cŵn Annwn, were actually believed to be benign. However, encountering them was still considered to be a sign of imminent death.


Hellhounds Around The World

  The most famous hellhound is probably Cerberus from Greek mythology. Hellhounds are also famous for appearing in Northern European mythology and folklore as a part of the Wild Hunt. These hounds are given several different names in local folklore, but they display typical hellhound characteristics. The myth is common across Great Britain, and many names are given to the apparitions: Moddey Dhoo of the Isle of Man, Gwyllgi of Wales, and so on. The earliest mention of these myths are in both Walter Map's De Nugis Curianium (1190) and the Welsh myth cycle of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi (ca. 10th-13th century)

  In Southern Mexican and Central American folklore, the Cadejo is a big black dog that haunts travellers who walk late at night on rural roads. The term is also common in American blues music, such as in Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on my Trail".

Barghest

  Barghest, Bargtjest, Bo-guest, Bargest or Barguest is the name often given in the north of England, especially in Yorkshire, to a legendary monstrous black dog with huge teeth and claws, though in other cases the name can refer to a ghost or Household elf, especially in Northumberland and Durham. One is said to frequent a remote gorge named Troller's Gill. There is also a story of a Barghest entering the city of York occasionally, where, according to legend, it preys on lone travellers in the city's narrow Snickelways. Whitby is also associated with the spectre. A famous Barghest was said to live near Darlington who was said to take the form of a headless man (who would vanish in flames), a headless lady, a white cat, a dog, rabbit and black dog. Another was said to live in an "uncannie-looking" dale between Darlington and Houghton, near Throstlenest.

  The derivation of the word barghest is disputed. Ghost in the north of England was once pronounced guest, and the name is thought to be burh-ghest: town-ghost. Others explain it as German Berg-geist (mountain spirit), or Bär-geist (bear-spirit), in allusion to its alleged appearance at times as a bear. Another mooted derivation is 'Bier-Geist', the 'spirit of the funeral bier'.


Black Shuck

  Black Shuck or Old Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk coastline. Black Shuck is sometimes referred to as the Doom Dog.

For centuries, inhabitants of England have told tales of a large black dog with malevolent flaming eyes (or in some variants of the legend a single eye) that are red or alternatively green. They are described as being 'like saucers'. According to reports, the beast varies in size and stature from that of simply a large dog to being the size of a horse.

  There are legends of Black Shuck roaming the Anglian countryside since before Vikings. His name may derive from the Old English word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shucky meaning "shaggy" or "hairy". The legend may have been part of the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  It is said that his appearance bodes ill to the beholder, although not always. More often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives; in some cases it has supposedly happened before close relatives to the observer die or become ill. In other tales he's regarded to be relatively benign and said to accompany women on their way home in the role of protector rather than a portent of ill omen.

  Sometimes Black Shuck has appeared headless, and at other times he appears to float on a carpet of mist. According to folklore, the spectre often haunts graveyards, sideroads, crossroads and dark forests. Black Shuck is also said to haunt the coast road between West Runton and Overstrand.


Appearance in Bungay and Blythburgh

  One of the most notable reports of Black Shuck is of his appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On 4 August 1577, at Blythburgh, Black Shuck is said to have burst in through the church doors. He ran up the nave, past a large congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church tower to collapse through the roof. As the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door which can be seen at the church to this day.
" This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) runing all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed."
  Other accounts attribute the event to lightning or the Devil. The scorch marks on the door are referred to by the locals as "the devil’s fingerprints", and the event is remembered in this verse:
" All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew."
  The appearance in Chignal St James/Chignal Smealy, small villages near Chelmsford, Essex are said to have occurred many years ago. All those said to have seen the devil dog are rumoured to have met an untimely end within a year of seeing the red-eyed devil dog, matching the legend that all that see Black Shuck will perish within a year of looking into his eyes. These are of course all rumours and superstition, however, many websites exist acting as directories of sighting of Black Shuck, and these can easily be found on the popular search engines. In recent times, sightings of Black Shuck in the Chignal area have been put down to sightings of black dogs that belong to residents roaming the village, such as The Three Elms pubs large black labradoodle and the Gardening Express nursery terrier cross.


Dip


  In Catalan myth, Dip is an evil, black, hairy dog, an emissary of the Devil, who sucks people's blood. Like other figures associated with demons in Catalan myth, he is lame in one leg. Dip is pictured on the escutcheon of Pratdip.


Cŵn Annwn

  In Welsh mythology and folklore, Cŵn Annwn (English pronunciation: /ˌkuːn ˈænʊn/, "hounds of Annwn") were the spectral hounds of Annwn, the otherworld of Welsh myth. They were associated with a form of the Wild Hunt, presided over by Gwynn ap Nudd (rather than Arawn, king of Annwn in the First Branch of the Mabinogi). Christians came to dub these mythical creatures as "The Hounds of Hell" or "Dogs of Hell" and theorised they were therefore owned by Satan. However, the Annwn of medieval Welsh tradition is an otherworldly paradise and not a hell or abode of dead souls.

  In Wales, they were associated with migrating geese, supposedly because their honking in the night is reminiscent of barking dogs. They are supposed to hunt on specific nights (the eves of St. John, St. Martin, Saint Michael the Archangel, All Saints, Christmas, New Year, Saint Agnes, Saint David, and Good Friday), or just in the autumn and winter. Some say Arawn only hunts from Christmas to Twelfth Night.The Cŵn Annwn also came to be regarded as the escorts of souls on their journey to the Otherworld. The hounds are sometimes accompanied by a fearsome hag called Mallt-y-Nos, "Matilda of the Night". An alternative name in Welsh folklore is Cŵn Mamau ("Hounds of the Mothers").

  In other traditions similar spectral hounds are found, e.g. Gabriel Hounds (England), Ratchets (England), Yell Hounds (Isle of Man), related to Herne the Hunter's hounds, which form part of the Wild Hunt.

Hunting grounds for the Cŵn Annwn are said to include the mountain of Cadair Idris, where it is believed "the howling of these huge dogs foretold death to anyone who heard them". According to Welsh folklore, their growling is loudest when they are at a distance, and as they draw nearer, it grows softer and softer. Their coming is generally seen as a death portent.

Gwyllgi

  The gwyllgi (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɡwɪɬɡi]; compound noun of either gwyllt "wild" or gwyll "twilight" + ci "dog"[1]) is a mythical dog from Wales that appears as a frightful apparition of a mastiff with baleful breath and blazing red eyes.

It is referred to as "The Dog of Darkness" or "The Black Hound of Destiny", the apparition's favourite haunt being lonely roads at night. It is said to resemble a mastiff.

Yeth Hound

  The yeth hound, also called the yell hound is a Black dog found in Devon folklore. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the yeth hound is a headless dog, said to be the spirit of an unbaptised child, which rambles through the woods at night making wailing noises. The yeth hound is also mentioned in The Denham Tracts.

Church Grim

  The Church Grim, Kirk Grim, Kyrkogrim (Swedish) or Kirkonväki (Finnish) is a figure from English and Scandinavian folklore. They are said to be the attendant spirits of churches, overseeing the welfare of their particular church. English Church Grims are said to enjoy loudly ringing the bells. They may appear as black dogs or as small, misshapen, dark-skinned people.

  In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sybill Trelawney, the divination teacher, associates Harry's tea leaves with the Grim, which she calls "a black dog who haunts churchyards." The Church Grim inspired the creation of the Grim, which is said in the book to be an omen of death.

Cadejo

  The cadejo (Spanish pronunciation: [kaˈðexo]) is a character from Belizean, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Costa Rican, Honduran, Guatemalan and southern Mexican folklore. There is a good, white cadejo and an evil, black cadejo. Both are spirits that appear at night to travelers: the white to protect them from harm during their journey, the black (sometimes an incarnation of the devil), to kill them. The colors of the Cadejo are sometimes exchanged according to local tradition. In some places the black cadejo is seen as the good one and the white cadejo the evil one. They usually appear in the form of a large (up to the size of a cow), shaggy dog with burning red eyes and a goat's hooves, although in some areas they have more bull-like characteristics. According to the stories, many have tried to kill the black cadejo but have failed and perished. Also it is said that if a cadejo is killed, it will smell terrible for several days, and then its body will disappear. Some Guatemalan folklore also tells of a cadejo that guards drunks against anyone who tries to rob or hurt them. When the cadejo is near, it is said to bring about a strong goat-like smell. Most people say never to turn your back to the creature because otherwise you will go crazy.

  In popular etymology, the name cadejo is thought to have derived from the Spanish word "cadena", meaning "chain"; the cadejo is at times represented as dragging a chain behind him. There is a fairly large member of the weasel family, the tayra, which in common speech is called a cadejo and is cited as a possible source of the legend.

Characteristics

  It ranges in many sizes according to different tales in various regions. It lurks in graveyards and dark alleys, waiting to attack a passing victim. It has a distinctive smell of concentrated urine and burning sulphur. It rattles with a jerking motion contracting its pharynx. Its gaze freezes anyone who makes eye contact. It glitters in the pitch dark with skin and short hair, similar to that of a pig.

  There are three types of black cadejos: The first is the devil himself in the form of a large, wounded dog with hoofed feet that are bound with red-hot chains. It is said that not even the white cadejo is able to completely stop him. Unlike the regular black cadejo it is not likely to pursue and attack a passing human, as it is a scout - the eyes of evil. Instead, anyone who spots him will have a sad event. In the short story "Leyenda del Cadejo" ("Legend of the Cadejo") by Nobel Prize laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias, this variety of cadejo terrorizes a young abbess and robs her of her braid.

  The second type of cadejo is the regular cadejo, the mysterious evil dog. It kills and savagely tears through its victim. First it demoralizes him with a series of sounds and other signs that it is nearby. Then, after the victim is scared, it leaps forward, and will kill him if the white cadejo is not near.

The final, and least powerful type of black cadejo is the offspring of a normal dog and the "regular" cadejo. It is a mortal hybrid and can (with difficulty) be killed by a strong man (bearing in mind that most men in those regions only carry a machete for protection). Once dead, it will completely rot in a matter of seconds, leaving behind a stain of evil, on which grass and moss will never grow again. This cadejo will never bite its victim. Instead, he kicks and pecks them with his snout. After this happens, people say "Lo jugó el cadejo" which means "he\she was handled by the cadejo". The victim goes mad. This term is sometimes applied to people that are born with a mental illness.

  A fairly popular version of the legend in El Salvador talks about two brothers who walk into the house of a black magician. During a storm, he asks the boys to help him with some logs for a fire. Both boys slack on the job but eat the man's food. Once he finds out the little bit of food he had is missing and that there is not enough wood for his fire, he puts a curse on the road that leads to the boys' village. Voices bother the boys and when they turn their backs on the voices they get turned into creatures: a white Cadejo and a black one. After going back to their village in their cursed form they get kicked out and have no choice but to wander.


The legend


  In 1900 Juan Carlos was a guardian who lived in a thatched house near Los Arcos, in the country fields near La Aurora. He worked near Parroquia Vieja and arrived to his house at midnight. Almost all the time, his wife and small children spend the whole day alone, in the middle of the lonely fields.
Every day, Juan found a white dog when he arrived at his house. When the dog saw he was coming, he would shake, turn around and disappear. Juan always tried to follow him but he could never reach him.

The Vanishing Hitchhikers/The Phantom Traveller

  The figure adopts the stance of a hitchhiker. The motorist stops and offers the figure a lift. The journey proceeds, sometimes in total silence, and at some subsequent point the passenger appears to vanish while the vehicle is in motion. The vanishing hitchhiker (or phantom hitchhiker) is a reported phenomenon in which people travelling by vehicle meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle. Vanishing hitchhikers have been reported for centuries and the story is found across the world, in many variants.

Variations

  A common variant on the above involves the vanishing hitchhiker departing as would a normal passenger, having left some item in the car, or having borrowed a garment for protection against alleged cold (whether or not the weather conditions reflect this claim). The vanishing hitchhiker can also leave some form of information that allegedly encourages the motorist to make subsequent contact.

In such tellings, the garment borrowed is often subsequently found draped over a gravestone in a local cemetery. In this and in the instance of 'imparted information', the unsuspecting motorist subsequently makes contact with the family of a deceased person and finds that their sometime passenger fits the description of a family member killed in some unexpected way (usually a car accident) and that the driver's encounter with the vanishing hitchhiker occurred on the anniversary of their death.

  Not all vanishing hitchhiker reports involved allegedly recurring ghosts. One popular variant in Hawaii involves the goddess Pele, travelling the roads incognito and rewarding kind travellers.

Another variant found in on the East African Coast where the local Bantu culture is heavily influenced by Arab Muslim culture involves paranormal beings called "djinni" (English genies). The story typically takes the form of a beautiful girl who is picked up by cross country truckers who are looking for some way to stay awake on their long journeys. At some point the truck driver will look over at his beautiful passenger and discover to his horror that she has goat's legs - like the god of mischief Pan. At this point the girl or djinni laughs and disappears, although in the worst case scenario, the driver is so shocked that he causes the truck to crash, which was the original intention of the djinni.

Other variants include prophetic hitchhikers who utter prophecies (typically of pending catastrophe or other evils) before vanishing.

Classifications

  The first proper study of the story of the vanishing hitchhiker was undertaken in 1942-3 by American folklorists Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, who collected as many accounts as they could and attempted to analyse them.

Beardsley-Hankey

  The Beardsley-Hankey survey elicited 79 written accounts of encounters with vanishing hitchhikers, drawn from across America.

They found: "Four distinctly different versions, distinguishable because of obvious differences in development and essence."

These are described as:

• A. Stories where the hitch-hiker [sic] gives an address through which the motorist learns he has just given a lift to a ghost.
  • 49 of the Beardsley-Hankey samples fell into this category, with responses from 16 states of the USA.
• B. Stories where the hitch-hiker is an old woman who prophesies disaster or the end of World War II; subsequent inquiries likewise reveal her to be deceased.
  • Nine of the samples fit this description, and eight of these came from the vicinity of Chicago. Beardsley and Hankey felt that this indicated a local origin, which they dated to approximately 1933: two of the version B hitchhikers in this sample foretold disaster at the Century of Progress Exposition and another foresaw calamity "at the World's Fair". The strict topicality of these unsuccessful forecasts did not appear to thwart the appearance of further Version 'B' hitch-hikers, one of whom warned that Northerly Island, Michigan, would soon be submerged (this never happened).
• C. Stories where a girl is met at some place of entertainment, e.g., dance, instead of on the road; she leaves some token (often the overcoat she borrowed from the motorist) on her grave by way of corroborating the experience and her identity.
  • The uniformity amongst separate accounts of this variant led Beardsley and Hankey to strongly doubt its folkloric authenticity.
• D. Stories where the hitch-hiker is later identified as a local divinity.

  Beardsley and Hankey were particularly interested to note one instance (location: Kingston, New York, 1941) in which the vanishing hitchhiker was subsequently identified as the late Mother Cabrini, founder of the local Sacred Heart Orphanage, who was beatified for her work. The authors felt that this was a case of Version 'B' glimpsed in transition to Version 'D'.
Beardsley and Hankey concluded that Version 'A' was closest to the original form of the story, containing the essential elements of the legend. Version 'B' and 'D', they believed, were localised variations, while 'C' was supposed to have started life as a separate ghost story which at some stage became conflated with the original vanishing hitchhiker story (Version 'A').
One of their conclusions certainly seems reflected in the continuation of vanishing hitchhiker stories: The hitchhiker is, in the majority of cases, female and the lift-giver male. Beardsley and Hankey's sample contained 47 young female apparitions, 14 old lady apparitions, and 14 more of an indeterminate sort.

Baughman

  Ernest W Baughman's Index of the Folk Tales of England and North America (1966) delineates the basic vanishing hitchhiker as follows:

"Ghost of young woman asks for ride in automobile, disappears from closed car without the driver's knowledge, after giving him an address to which she wishes to be taken. The driver asks person at the address about the rider, finds she has been dead for some time. (Often the driver finds that the ghost has made similar attempts to return, usually on the anniversary of death in automobile accident. Often, too, the ghost leaves some item such as a scarf or travelling bag in the car.)"

  Baughman's classification system grades this basic story as motif E332.3.3.1.
Subcategories include:

• E332.3.3.1(a) for vanishing hitchhikers who reappear on anniversaries;
• E332.3.3.1(b) for vanishing hitchhikers who leave items in vehicles, unless the item is a pool of water in which case it is E332.3.3.1(c);
• E332.3.3.1(d) is for accounts of sinister old ladies who prophesy disasters;
• E332.3.3.1(e) contains accounts of phantoms who are apparently sufficiently solid to engage in activities such as eating or drinking during their journey;
• E332.3.3.1(f) is for phantom parents who want to be taken to the sickbed of their dying son;
• E332.3.3.1(g) is for hitchhikers simply requesting a lift home;
• E332.3.3.1(h-j) are a category reserved exclusively for vanishing nuns (a surprisingly common variant), some of whom foretell the future.

  Here, the phenomenon blends into religious encounters, with the next and last vanishing hitchhiker classification - E332.3.3.2 - being for encounters with divinities who take to the road as hitchhikers. The legend of St Christopher is considered one of these, and the story of Philip the Apostle being transported by God after encountering the Ethiopian on the road (Acts 8:26-39) is sometimes similarly interpreted.

Art/Fiction

• The Stephen King short story, Riding the Bullet is an example of an opposite version of this story, in which case, a dead man picks up a young hitchhiker, tells him of his mother's upcoming death, and subsequently disappears.
• Hilton Edwards directed a 1951 movie called Return to Glennascaul, starring Orson Welles, which centred around a Vanishing Hitchhiker event.
• In 1942, the radio show Suspense broadcast an episode titled The Hitchiker in which Orson Welles plays a man who repeatedly sees a mysterious hitchhiker while driving cross-country.
• The Twilight Zone aired an episode titled "The Hitchhiker" which was based on the radio show. One point in the Suspense show written by Lucille Fletcher who also authored "Sorry, Wrong Number" and the Twilight Zone episode the DRIVER is dead and the Hitchhiker is the Angel of Death
• In the 1960 British horror film The City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel) actor Valentine Dyall plays a centuries-old warlock who hitches a ride with two different characters in the movie and then vanishes from the car as soon as they reach an ancient New England witch village.
• Dust Devil a 1993 cult film by Richard Stanley set in South Africa was, according to the DVD commentary, inspired by the director's memory of being told the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend as a youngster.
• The 1985 film Pee Wee's Big Adventure includes a scene that is a variation on "Phantom 309". While hitchhiking across the country in search of his stolen bicycle, Pee Wee (Paul Reubens) thumbs a ride with a truck driver named "Large Marge" who relates to him the story of "the worst accident I ever seen." When Pee Wee announces to the truck stop that Large Marge sent him, one customer recounts that this particular evening is the anniversary of said accident. It is also explained that this accident happened to Large Marge herself.

References

• Bielski, Ursula, (1997) "Road Tripping" from Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City (Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 1997).
• Brunvand, Jan Harold, (1981), The Vanishing Hitchhiker (ISBN 0-393-95169-3)
• Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, A Case of Identity, an adventure in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes describes something similar to this concept.

Skin-Walker

Etymology

  In some Native American traditions (Navajo, Hopi, Mohawk...) the skin-walker or yeenaaldlooshii is a human who is able to shapeshift into various animal forms through witchcraft. Skin-walkers are generally considered frightening, evil, dangerous, and difficult to kill.

Yeenaeldooshi means literally "he who walks on all fours" in the Navajo language. The Mohawk Indian word "limikkin" is sometimes used to describe all skin-walkers.

Description/Morphology

  A skinwalker is usually described as naked, except for a coyote skin, or wolf skin. Some Navajos describe them as a mutated version of the animal in question. The skin may just be a mask, like those which are the only garment worn in the witches' sing. The skinwalkers are described as being fast, agile, and impossible to catch. Though some attempts have been made to shoot or kill one, they are not usually successful.

Behavior

  Skin-walkers sometimes transform themselves into animals simply for the purpose of traversing great distances quickly. They may also transform in order to wreak havoc on others, as their identity will be hidden and they will be able to escape quickly if necessary.

A skin-walker typically wears the pelt of the animal he or she will transform into, usually with no other clothing. Because of their association with skin-walkers, wild animal hides are taboo in Navajo culture and rarely seen.
 "They curse people and cause great suffering and death," one Navajo writer explained. "At night, their eyes glow red like hot coals. It is said that if you see the face of a Naagloshii, they have to kill you. If you see one and know who it is, they will die. If you see them and you don't know them, they have to kill you to keep you from finding out who they are. They use a mixture that some call corpse powder, which they blow into your face. Your tongue turns black and you go into convulsions and you eventually die. They are known to use evil spirits in their ceremonies. The Dine' have learned ways to protect themselves against this evil and one has to always be on guard."

Powers/Weaknesses

• Like the werewolf, the skin-walker is a shape-shifter, human at times, and at other times taking on the aspect of an animal, usually at night. In its animal form, a skin-walker may be virtually anything, including a wolf, coyote, fox, bear, owl, or crow. Although skin-walkers may have a favorite form that they customarily use, they have the power to become anything they wish. In animal form, a skin-walker is very fast and impossible to catch.

• According to Navajo legend, skinwalkers can have the power to read human thoughts. They also possess the ability to make any human or animal noise they choose. A skinwalker may use the voice of a relative or the cry of an infant to lure victims out of the safety of their homes.

• Both humans and animals can easily tell a skin-walker from a real animal, as the skin-walker is unable to move completely naturally in animal form. For some unexplainable reason even a well seasoned skinwalker cannot obtain the perfect animal gait or leave the proportionally correct sized animal tracks.

• A skin-walker can only be defeated if one can discover his or her human identity. This is possible if the skin-walker is tracked back to his or her home, or, in some stories, if a skin-walker is wounded and the same injury is later noted on a human. It is said that if a Navajo was to know the person behind the skinwalker they had to pronounce the full name by saying, "[Name], you are a skin-walker !". And about three days later that person would either get sick or die for the wrong that they have committed.

• While it is virtually impossible to kill a skin-walker in human form, there are magical ways to protect oneself and even to kill a skin-walker. Traditional faith healers can perform ceremonies to protect one from the danger of skin-walkers, or a person going out at night can cover his or her body with corn pollen, cedar ash, or juniper berries. " If a person discovers the human identity of a skin-walker, he or she can kill the witch

Beliefs

  Similar creatures can be found in numerous cultures' lores all over the world, closely related to beliefs in werewolves (also known as lycanthropes) and other "were" creatures (which can be described as therianthropes). While the skin-walker is known mainly from Navajo folklore, analogies exist in the mythology of other tribes, including the Mohawk, Hopi, and Aztecs. The Yaqui have a similar creature they call Morea-kame. this is a person who practices witchcraft or what we might ball black magic. These creatures also change shape, appearing as animals or even as ghosts. They kill using their thoughts or the evil eye.

Navajo tradition

• A Yeenaaldlooshii is one of several varieties of Navajo witch (specifically an ’ánt’iihnii or practitioner of the Witchery Way, as opposed to a user of curse-objects (’adagash) or a practitioner of Frenzy Way (’azhitee)). Technically, the term refers to an ’ánt’iihnii who is using his (rarely her) powers to travel in animal form. The ’ánt’iihnii are human beings who have gained supernatural power by breaking a cultural taboo. Specifically, a person is said to gain the power to become a Yeenaaldlooshii upon initiation into the Witchery Way. Both men and women can become ’ánt’iihnii and therefore possibly skinwalkers, but men are far more numerous. It is generally thought that only childless women can become witches.

• Yenaldlooshi gain power by killing a close relative, sometimes even a sibling. They are known to desecrate sand paintings by urinating, spitting, & defecating on them. They also practice cannibalism and necrophilia. Yenaldlooshi are also said to be able to create a pollen from ground human infant bones that when sprinkled on sleeping Navajo families, causes sickness, social problems, & death.

• Although it is most frequently seen as a coyote, wolf, owl, fox, or crow, the Yeenaaldlooshii is said to have the power to assume the form of any animal they choose, depending on what kind of abilities they need. Witches use the form for expedient travel, especially to the Navajo equivalent of the 'Black Mass', a perverted sing (and the central rite of the Witchery Way) used to curse instead of to heal. They also may transform to escape from pursuers.

• Some Navajo also believe that skinwalkers have the ability to steal the "skin" or body of a person. The Navajo believe that if you lock eyes with a skinwalker they can absorb themselves into your body. It is also said that skinwalkers avoid the light and that their eyes glow like an animal's when in human form and when in animal form their eyes do not glow as an animal's would.

• Because animal skins are used primarily by skinwalkers, the pelt of animals such as bears, coyotes, wolves, and cougars are strictly tabooed. Sheepskin and buckskin are probably two of the few hides used by Navajos, the latter is used only for ceremonial purposes.

• Some tribes believe that skinwalkers can use the spit, hair, or shoes and old clothing of a person to make curses that will attack that specific person. For this reason many Navajo will never spit or leave shoes outside. They also take great care to see that any hair or nail clippings are burned.

Hopi tradition

In ancient Hopi culture there was a ritual ceremony once performed called the Ya Ya Ceremony. In this ceremony members would change themselves into various animals using the hide from the animal they chose, and the members use certain animal attributes like sight, strength,etc. The ceremony was banned after members developed a disease of the eyes.

Norse beliefs

• In Norse folklore, a skin-walker is a person who can travel in the shape of an animal and learn secrets, or take on certain characteristics of an animal. The person is then said to be wearing that animal's hide. The most well-known example of the latter is the warrior who takes on the strength and stamina of a bear, called "bear shirt" or ber sarkur, the origins of the word berserker; similarly, there were wolf-based warriors, called ulfheðnar or "wolf-coats". They were said, aside from the battle-rage the animal spirit granted, to have the ability to send out their soul in the form of their animal, in a practice called hamfarir or "shape-journey".

• According to Mythology, the Norse hero Sigmund and his son Sinfiolti became Skinwalkers for a short time, discovering two magic wolf skins that turned them into wolves when they put them on. When they became overcome by their animal instincts and began fighting over meat, Sigmund almost killed his son and so they decided to burn the skins.

• The use of an animal shape for other purposes was considered unholy, and people accused of having such abilities were frequently cast out or summarily executed. Females so charged got off more lightly.

Sightings

  One story told on the Navajo reservation in Arizona concerns a woman who delivered newspapers in the early morning hours. She claims that, during her rounds, she heard a scratching on the passenger door of her vehicle. Her baby was in the car seat next to her. The door flung open and she saw the horrifying form of a creature she described as half-man, half-beast, with glowing red eyes and a gnarly arm that was reaching for her child. She fought it off, managed to pull the door closed, then pounded the gas pedal and sped off. To her horror, she says, the creature ran along with the car and continued to try to open the door. It stayed with her until she screeched up to an all-night convenience store. She ran inside, screaming and hysterical, but when the store employee dashed outside, the being had vanished. Outsiders may view the story skeptically, and any number of alternative explanations might be suggested, but it is taken seriously on the Navajo reservation.

  Although skinwalkers are generally believed to prey only on Native Americans, there are recent reports from Anglos claiming they had encountered skinwalkers while driving on or near tribal lands.

Once Caucasian family still speaks in hushed tones about its encounter with a skinwalker, even though it happened in 1983. While driving at night along Route 163 through the massive Navajo Reservation, the four members of the family felt that someone was following them. As their truck slowed down to round a sharp bend, the atmosphere changed, and time itself seemed to slow down. Then something leaped out of a roadside ditch at the vehicle.

 "It was black and hairy and was eye level with the cab," one of the witnesses recalled. "Whatever this thing was, it wore a man's clothes. It had on a white and blue checked shirt and long pants. Its arms were raised over its head, almost touching the top of the cab. It looked like a hairy man or a hairy animal in man's clothing, but it didn't look like an ape or anything like that. Its eyes were yellow and its mouth was open."

The father described as a fearless man who had served two tours in Vietnam, turned completely white, the blood drained from his face. The hair on his neck and arms stood straight up, like a cat under duress, and noticeable goose bumps erupted from his skin. Although time seemed frozen during this bizarre interlude, the truck continued on its way, and the family was soon miles down the highway.

  A few days later, at their home in Flagstaff, the family awoke to the sounds of loud drumming. As they peered out their windows, they saw the dark forms of three "men" outside their fence. The shadowy beings tried to climb the fence to enter the yard but seemed inexplicably unable to cross onto the property. Frustrated by their failed entry, the men began to chant in the darkness as the terrified family huddled inside the house.

  The story leaves several questions unanswered. If the beings were skinwalkers, and if skinwalkers can assume animal form or even fly, it isn't clear why they couldn't scale a fence. It is also not known whether the family called the police about the attempted intrusion by strangers.

The daughter, Frances, says she contacted a friend, a Navajo woman who is knowledgeable about witchcraft. The woman visited the home, inspected the grounds, and offered her opinion that the intruders had been skinwalkers who were drawn by the family's "power" and that they had intended to take that power by whatever means necessary. She surmised that the intrusion failed because something was protecting the family, while admitting that it was all highly unusual since skinwalkers rarely bother non-Indians. The Navajo woman performed a blessing ceremony at the home. Whether the ceremony had any legitimacy or not, the family felt better for it and has had no similar experiences in the ensuing years.

Art /Fiction

• The first skin-walker film is The Werewolf, a 1913 lost film.
• Skinwalkers (1986) is also the title of a mystery novel by Tony Hillerman.
• A skin walker is the villain in the movie Shadowhunter (1993).
• Skinwalkers were mentioned in the movie Arizona Werewolf, a version of which retitled Werewolf was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• Skin-walkers feature prominently in Thunderhead (1999) a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
• There is a 2002 TV movie called Skinwalkers, based on Hillerman's novel.
• Skinwalker is also the title of a 2003 comic book published by Oni Press written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir with art by Brian Hurtt.
• Skin Walker (2004), stars Roxana Zal, RuPaul and Joey Buttafuoco
• Skinwalker: Curse of the Shaman (2005), shows two college student investigating an Indian curse.
• There is also a 2007 film also entitled Skinwalkers.
• In the television series Smallville, one episode was titled "Skin Walker". It involved a Native American female with the ability to change into a white wolf. She attacked people working on sacred land to protect it. The source of her power was the exposure of her ancestors to Kryptonite (in Smallville parlance meteor rocks) by Kryptonian visitors to Earth in pre-historic times.
• In the Ben 10 episode Benwolf, an alien werewolf is believed to be a Navajo werewolf.
• The protagonist, Mercedes ("Mercy") Thompson, in Patricia Briggs' novel, Moon Called (2006) and its sequels, is a skinwalker with the ability to change into a coyote.
• In Supernatural, Dean and Sam mention skinwalkers during the episode 'Skin', associating them with other shapeshifters and agreeing that all such creatures can be killed by a silver bullet to the heart.
• Birds of the Feathe, the first aired episode of the television series The Dresden Files, features a villain referred to as a skinwalker.
• A song entitled "Skinwalker" appears on the 1994 Robbie Robertson album, Music for the Native Americans.e.
• The book Kitty Takes a Holiday' by Carrie Vaughn features two skinwalkers that follow the Native American superstition that one must kill a member of the immediate family to become a skinwalker.

References

• Wall, Leon and William Morgan, Navajo-English Dictionary. (Hippocrene Books, New York City, 1998 ISBN 0-7818-0247-4)
• Brady, M.K., Some Kind of Power: Navaho Children's Skinwalker Narratives. (University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1984 ISBN 0-87480-238-5)
• Marika, K.. Werewolves, Shapeshifters and Skinwalkers. (Sherbourne Press, Los Angeles, 1972)
• Teller, J. The Navajo Skinwalker, Witchcraft, & Related Spiritual Phenomena: Spiritual Clues: Orientation to the Evolution of the Circle. Infinity Horn Publishing, Chinle AZ, 1997 ISBN 0-9656014-0-4)
• Kluckhohn, Clyde. Navaho Witchcraft. , Boston, 1944. Library of Congrezzss cat. No. 62-13533zz