- A STORY YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO DEPARTMENT -

'Vampire' Skeleton Found in Mass Gravesite

In the Land Down Under, people there sometimes speak of a weird creature that was said to lurk in Australia's swamps, lakes and rivers. Many dismiss the tales of the bunyip as just a myth handed down from the Aborigines, the continent's indigenous people. But others insist the legendary creature is more than just a native folk tale.

In a land known for its unusual animals, the bunyip might have been the strangest of them all.

The monster's name is usually translated as "devil" or "spirit." Based on the reports that have emerged since Australia's colonial era, those sound like pretty good descriptions. However, no two physical descriptions of the bunyip are exactly the same. It has been described as having a dog-like face, dark fur, a horse-like tail and walrus-like tusks. Others say it has flippers and a duck-like bill similar to the duck-billed platypus.

Pretty much everyone who reported seeing the bunyip agreed that it lived in the lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands of Australia. They also said that it was a creature to be feared and respected, according to a Web site.

When Europeans settled in Australia, they first heard about the creature from the Aborigines. If they heard a strange cry or sound in the wilderness, they likely assumed that it was the call of the bunyip.

The Aborigines were so scared of the bunyip that they would not approach any water source where one might be waiting. It was believed that the creature enjoyed feasting on the flesh of humans.

One of the earliest reports of the bunyip dates back to 1821. Hamilton Hume, the first Australian-born explorer, found some large unexplained bones from Lake Bathurst in New South Wales. He wrote that the creature that was very much like a hippopotamus. Both Hume and the Philosophical Society of Australasia believed these bones proved the existance of the bunyip.

As the European settlers moved further into the outback, they came back with more and more bunyip sightings. A large number of these sightings occurred between the 1840s and 1850s, particularly in the southeastern colonies of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.

For example, a number of bunyip sightings emerged from one area in Australia in 1845. An unfossilized bone of a large animal was recovered from the banks of a small river in the Geelong area. A story about the big bone appeared in the Geelong Advertiser and that resulted in numerous people coming forward with their bunyip sightings. A local Aboriginal person looked at the bone and immediately identified it as a bunyip bone. Another person claimed that a bunyip had killed his mother in the Barwon River.

In no time, the legend of the bunyip grew and grew. It became Australia's version of the boogey man.

In the Greta area, local people often heard a loud booming sound which came mysteriously from the nearby swamps. Search parties were frequently sent out to the swamps to find out what was causing the loud booming. However, they could not find the source for the sound. Many locals assumed that the noise was being made by the bunyip.

When the swamps were drained, the sound went away. Some Greta locals believed that the bunyip moved on to another area. Others said it probably died when its habitat was destroyed.

As Australia became more settled and civilized, the sightings of the bunyip began to fade away. Many assumed that it never existed in the first place and regarded it as old folk tale.

But today, some cryptozoologists believe that the bunyip was really an ancient animal that should have become extinct about 10,000 years ago. Diprotodons were large rhinoceros-sized marsupials from the prehistoric era. Some researchers believe that the diprotodon did not become extinct after all but instead evolved into the animal the Aborigines called the bunyip.

While writing this column, I couldn't help but think about the late great Steve Irwin. I wonder if Steve ever encountered something like the bunyip in his explorations of Australia's wilderness and what he would have had to say about the legend.

Source: The Mcdowell News/Mike Conley
http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/content/2009/mar/11/mike-conleys-tales-weird-beware-
bunyip-land-down-u/

The feline image - sleek, silent, shadow-like, the embodiment of sphinx-like inscrutability - is unquestionably one of the most potent, diverse, and mystical of all animal symbols. There have been dark periods during its long affiliation with humanity, as in Europe during the Middle Ages, when the cat was denounced as a creature of evil, in league with witches and demons. Equally, however, as will be seen here, it has also inspired many much more positive, benevolent associations - everything from moon guardian to marriage blesser.

LUNAR GODDESSES AND OTHER EXAMPLES OF FELINE FEMININITY

The cat's lunar links date back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians, who likened the changing dilation and contraction of the pupils in its glowing eyes to the waxing and waning of the pallid moon, and its nocturnal activity to the moon's night-time visitations. Indeed, according to Egyptian mythology, the cat owes its eyes' shimmering phosphorescence to the sun-god Ra, who entrusted to it the sun's brilliant lustre, to be guarded and diligently transported by it throughout the night - so that our planet would never be entirely without light, and as a promise that the sun would itself return every morning.

As an emblem of the moon, which is traditionally portrayed in many mythologies worldwide as feminine in comparison with the masculine sun, it was inevitable that the cat too would become a symbol of femininity and associated with a number of important female deities. Most familiar of these is Bast, Egypt's golden-eyed cat-headed goddess of the moon (again) and fertility, via whom the cat has also become linked symbolically to childbirth.

Indeed, 'Ru', which is the Egyptian hieroglyph representing birth, was based upon the shape of a cat's eye, and when placed upon the Tau cross, representing time, yielded the famous ankh - symbol of life and immortality. This later became synonymous with Venus, the Roman goddess of love, thereby reinforcing the cat's link with femininity and fertility.

Similarly, Venus's Norse counterpart, the goddess Freya, not only symbolising love and passion but also ruling the dark, mysterious kingdom of the night, rode through the sky in a chariot drawn by a team of cats (originally lynxes). And in Hindu mythology, Shasti, goddess of childbirth, is borne aloft not upon a horse or elephant, but upon a cat instead.

CAT NAPPING

The cat's nocturnal lifestyle readily lends itself to deep, metaphysical feline symbolism. As revealed in Tom Chetwynd's Dictionary of Sacred Myth (1986), because the cat can see in the dark and is thus active at night, it has become a symbol of intuition, capable of navigating through the shadowy realm of the unconscious and seeing into the darkness of the future.

Notwithstanding this, the cat has failed to receive a very good press from those who specialise in dream divining. To dream about a cat is traditionally claimed to denote bad luck, unless you can chase it away before waking, whereupon you will successfully overcome sizeable obstacles and acquire great fame and fortune. Similarly, to dream of hearing a cat mewing or screaming is supposed to indicate that you have a false friend who will utilise lies and misleading words to create problems for you. As before, these odd ideas have no doubt been inspired by the cat's secretive, enigmatic nature and liking for night-time prowling.

DOUBLE IMAGES

In addition to the cat's personification of intuition, its lunar associations are not lost upon Chetwynd either. He notes that cats can be white or black, "...like the full and dark moon and so depict the extreme opposites of life and death, nourishing milk and dark poison. But they also come striped and so are the pattern of the transformations of the moon which governs the alternating rhythm of the tides, and so the whole great movement of life".

The cat's symbolic ambivalence is very apparent within Eastern cultures. For instance, both in China and Japan the cat was traditionally looked upon as a cunning shape-shifter, capable of transforming itself into many different guises. In China, however, it reputedly underwent these transformations for evil purposes, and was a symbol of yin (thereby allied yet again with femininity), whereas in Japan its transformations were beneficial. Moreover, Japanese sailors actively welcomed cats on account of their supposed ability to ward off dangerous maritime demons. Similarly, whereas in Zoroastrianism the cat serves the evil deity Ahriman, in Islam it is cherished by Muslims because it was blessed by Mohammed.

Perhaps the most familiar example of contrasting double images in the West concerns black cats and white cats. Once the superstition-ridden age linking cats and witchcraft had vanished in Britain, the black cat became associated with good luck, especially if one of these sable-coated felids should cross your path - whereupon you should make a wish and hope for it to come true. White cats, conversely, were looked upon as weird, unearthly creatures.

Yet in the U.S.A., as well as in certain continental European countries, such as Spain and Belgium, the reverse situation has prevailed. Here, a black cat still symbolises darkness and is viewed somewhat uncomfortably by the more superstitious-minded, whereas a white cat symbolises light and is welcomed as a sign of impending good fortune - so too are grey cats. Just to be different, in Russia lucky cats are neither black nor white, but blue. And in East Yorkshire, although it is lucky to own a black cat, it is unlucky to meet one.

SNEEZING, SAILORS, AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS OF THE FELINE KIND

The cat features extensively in superstition and folk-beliefs. For instance, if a cat should sneeze once, good luck will visit its owners - or the weather will become rainy! If it should sneeze three times, however, its owners will all develop colds (rather like the cat, one would imagine, if it has sneezed three times in succession!). And if it should sneeze near a bride on the morning of her wedding, her marriage will be a happy one.

To say the word 'cat' outloud down in a mine or on board a ship is not recommended, at least according to early superstitions, but the presence of a cat on a ship is said to bring good luck, and the ship's cat is often among the first individuals to be rescued by the crew in the event of a shipwreck. It bodes particularly well for a ship's good fortune if a cat should come aboard uninvited and decide to stay - woe betide anyone foolish enough to try to chase it off! And any sailor's wife living on the Yorkshire coast who kept a pet cat at home would feel reassured that her husband would always return safely home from the sea.

Last but not least: the reason why cats are said to have nine lives is that in ancient times, the number nine was deemed to be exceptionally lucky, because it was three times three, or a trinity of trinities. And of all animals, what could be more suited to being blessed by the gift of nine lives than that not only very tenacious but also famously lucky species, the cat?

Source: ShukerNature
http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2009/03/at-sign-of-cat-feline-symbolism.html

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An article on Iceland's de facto bankruptcy in the April issue of Vanity Fair notes that a "large number of Icelanders" believe in elves or "hidden people." This widespread folklore occasionally disrupts business in the sparsely populated North Atlantic country. Before the aluminum company Alcoa could erect a smelting factory, "it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it." How do you find an elf?

With psychic powers. According to a poll conducted in 2007, 54 percent of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves and 8 percent believe in them outright, although only 3 percent claim to have encountered one personally. The ability to see the huldufólk, or hidden folk, can't be learned; you're just born with it. To find elves, seers don't really need to do anything—they'll just sense an elfin presence. The Vanity Fair article says that elf detection can take six months, but it's usually a quick process that can last under an hour. And although the magazine claims that a "government expert" had to certify the nonexistence of elves, the Icelandic Embassy insists that these consults are performed by freelancers, not government contractors.

The huldufólk are thought to live in another dimension, invisible to most. They build their homes inside rocks and on craggy hillsides, and they seem to favor lava formations. The port town of Hafnarfjördur, near Reykjavík, is thought to have a particularly large settlement of elves—as well as other mystical beings like dwarves (who also fit under the broad category of huldufólk). According to local clairvoyants, the huldufólk royal family lives at the base of a cliff in that town.

Elf-spotting is an intergenerational phenomenon in Iceland, although more children than adults report seeing huldufólk. Indeed, it's thought that many who are born clairvoyant lose the ability after the age of 8 or so. Furthermore, it's not just Icelanders who have this capacity—theoretically, anyone, from any country, can have the power to communicate with elves. Clairvoyants see elves year-round, sometimes in their own backyards, but Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are considered especially good occasions for elf-spotting. That's because according to some legends, these holidays are traditional moving days for the huldufólk. Elves often dress in old-timey, 19th-century outfits like homemade-looking ankle-length skirts, and they come in all sizes. There are thought to be at least 13 types of elves, some of whom are as tall as humans. Others, like the Blómálfar, or flower elves, are just a few inches tall.

When Icelanders try to build roads or settlements through elf dwellings, the elves are said to go bonkers—causing equipment failures and other problems. In the early 1970s, for example, contractors trying to move a large rock to make way for a highway near Reykjavík hired a clairvoyant, Zophanías Pétursson, after experiencing several minor mishaps. Pétursson detected the presence of elves and claimed to obtain a waiver from the supernatural creatures so that work could progress. But the elves weren't finished: A bulldozer operator who had helped move the stone fractured a water pipe that fed into a fish farm, killing thousands of trout hatchlings.

Although Pétursson apparently failed to mollify the highway-hating elves, huldufólk experts believe negotiation is possible. If a construction supervisor suspects he might be heading into an elfin zone or just wants to rule out the possibility, he can hire a medium (by asking for a reference from the Icelandic Elf School, for example). Elves sometimes agree either to move or to let a construction project go forth unimpeded as long as the workers don't blow up their nearby dwelling.

A minority of construction projects face elf-related delays. But if a clairvoyant reports seeing elves hanging about a particular rock, an Icelander will probably think twice before blowing it up to make way for a swimming pool. And as the New York Times reported in 2005, planning councils in towns with sizeable elf populations, like Hafnarfjördur, try to keep elfin-interests in mind.

Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2213353?nav=wp