Faerie Lore and Legends

Hiwassee River, Murphy, North Carolina

The Leech Place
Murphy, North Carolina

A small little town in Murphy, North Carolina sits atop an old Cherokee Indian mythology site known as “The Leech Place”. This spot was a place where the waters of the Hiwassee river would cross and notoriously swept hapless people to the bottom of the river. The river was controlled by a giant house-sized leech who made the waters drag people under so it could consume them. Its original name was “Tlanusi-yi” or “The Leech Place”. The story is told as “just above the junction where Murphy now sits is a deep hole in the river valley above which is a rock ledge running across the stream that early people’s once used as a foot bridge. On the south side of this trail was an ascension where one could look down into the river. One day, some men crossing the bridge saw a large red object as big as a house lying on the rock ledge in the middle of the stream below them. As they wondered what it was they saw it unroll and very alive, stretching itself out in full length like a giant leech with red and white stripes along its body. It rolled into a ball and stretched again at full length, crawling down the rock, into the deep waters. When it hit the waters, the water boiled and foamed causing a column of white spray billowing into the air like a waterspout drenching the area the men had been standing, which would have swept them away into the river had they not spotted it. Legend has it more than one person was carried down into that water hole by this method with their friends finding their bodies afterwards with their ears and nose eaten off. People feared crossing this bridge afterwards. One man fearless and laughing at the legend wanted to prove the townsfolk, painted his face, put on his bucksin, headed to the river, leading the townspeople down to watch. He went onto the ledge, sang to the high spirits: Tlanu’si gäe’ga digi’gäge, Dakwa’nitlaste’stï. I’ll tie red leech skins, On my legs for garters.” As he crossed, the waters boiled into white foam creating a great wave that rose and swept over the rock carrying him down to never to be seen again.” Legend also tells that 60 years ago before the great Removal, two women went to fish from that ledge, ignoring warning from their friends, and laid her child down on the rock to prepare her fishing line when the water rose and swept over the ledge, almost carrying off the child, with the mother barely saving it. People believe the great leech is still there as they can see something moving down below. Others say what is seen moving is the underground waterway across to Nottely river not far above the mouth where the river bends over towards Murphy and sometimes the leech goes there to make the waters boil as it used to at the rock ledge, calling this place on Nottely the Leech place as well. More about the Hiwassee River can be found at http://www.technogypsie.com/reviews/?p=5395. More information about the Leech place can be found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/motc077.htm.

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Gargoyle (Rated R: 2004. 84 minutes – Action / Fantasy / Horror. Russian produced.)

Director: Jim Wynorski. Starring: Michael Paré as Ty “Griff” Griffin; Sandra Hess as Jennifer Wells; Fintan McKeown as Father Nikolai Soren; Kate Orsini as Dr. Christina Durant; Tim Abell as Lex; William Langlois as Inspector Zev Aslan; Petri Roega as Father Adrian Bodesti; Rene Rivera as Gogol; and more.

Storyline tackles an age-old tale about a Christian priest killing off one of the world’s last gargoyles whose body falls down a hole into the earth that they seal with “the blood of Christ”. Jump to modern day where a CIA agent is sent to Bucharest with his partner to investigate numerous kidnappings and while trying to bust the thiefs, an earthquake releases a gargoyle from inner earth out to wreak havoc around the city. This gargoyle, ready to breed and multiply is also out for vengeance, and tracking down the only crossbow known to kill him. Effects are plain and definitely poorly done CGI. Plot has value, flow had errors, and after trying to watch this over 2 late nights, I fell asleep midway twice. Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5.

Now that we’re residents of Columbia, South Carolina … its time to look into the legends and lore of these intriguing lands. The Legend of the Third Eye Man was the first to find, whether it be an urban legend or a true creature or spirit, time will tell. Apparently there is a massive network of catacombs and steam tunnels underneath the University of South Carolina. Haunting these halls is supposedly a phantom cyclops. He was first spotted on November 12th, 1949 on the campus of USC. Records state he is a strange looking man dressed in bright silver who was spotted opening a man-hole cover on the corner of Green street and Sumter street, opposite the haunted historic Long street Theater. He became known as “the sewer man” at that point. Six months later on April 7th, 1950 he re-surfaced and was sighted again by a university police office on patrol who discovered two mutilated chickens behind the theater. He reported chicken parts to be strewn all over the loading dock. When he returned to his car to report the scene, thinking it was a fraternity prank, he returned to the scene to find a silver man huddled over the chicken parts. He shined his flashlight on him to find a very disturbing face, grotesque in color and shape, and a third eye in the middle of his forehead like that of a cyclops, staring back at him. He retreated from the scene, called backup, and was laughed at when nothing was found on the docks but a few feathers and chicken bones. By the 1960’s students started hunting down and invading the tunnels. When a fraternity had three pledges down in the tunnels for a challenge, from the basement of Gambrell, they ran into a crippled looking man dressed in all silver and reported the sighting to the police. He charged at the students with a lead pipe, knocking student Matthew Tabor to the ground, suffering minor cuts and shock. The first official man-hunt for this attacker took place coming up with nothing, but that started the tedious task of sealing off many of the entrances to the catacombs and making them off limits. The catacombs do exist, as photos of them are rampant online. Whether or not this mysterious hominid exists is a whole different story. Legend tells that these tunnels link various venues of the government to the USC campus allowing undetected and protected transportation between them, some say even to Fort Jackson. Some say they go back to the days of the confederate war. Many say the Three Eyed Man is also the ghoul that haunts the Longstreet Theatre, and instead of living in the tunnels, he lives in the theater late at night. He has played the terror and villian in many a fraternity initiation through the years.
More info:
http://www.mostlyghosts.com/index.php/the-third-eye-man-of-usc/
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6JAB_The_Legend_of_the_Third_Eye_Man_Columbia_South_Carolina

cross-posted from http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/04/the-loch-ness-monster-zombies-and-the-law/ .

In a post last year, I looked at some of the United Kingdom’s weird laws.  I started to research a “part two” to that post, but ended up finding so much interesting (and yes, shockingly legal) information relating to the Loch Ness monster (commonly and affectionately referred to as “Nessie”) that I decided to dedicate an entire post to her instead.  (I will do another weird laws post soon, I promise.)
The first sighting of Nessie was allegedly in the sixth century.  This sighting was subsequently reported in the seventh century, when a writer stated that Saint Columbahad driven a water monster away from the Loch through prayer.  As the Scottish government notes, this prayer apparently wasn’t as successful as first thought, as there have been continued sightings of Nessie throughout the years.

Oliver Herford, “A horrible monster glared at them” (Illustration in “Mr. Rabbit at Home: A Sequel to Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country” by Joel Chandler Harris, 1895) (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Reproduction Number LC-USZ62-94648)

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Canada’s Loch Ness Monster Caught on Tape? | ABC News Blogs – Yahoo! News.
A possible sighting of Canada’s version of the Loch Ness monster at a lake in British Columbia has stirred up the legend of the sea creature long-rumored to reside there.
A man visiting British Colombia’s Lake Okanagan claims he filmed video of what could only be the elusive monster, known to locals as Ogopogo. The 30-second video shows two long ripples in the water in a seemingly deserted area of the lake.
“It was not going with the waves,” Richard Huls, who captured the scene on camera during a visit to a local winery, told the Vancouver Sun. “It was not a wave, obviously, just a darker color. The size and the fact that they were not parallel with the waves made me think it had to be something else.”
 
Ogopogo is the Canadian version of Scotland’s famous Loch Ness monster. The first recorded sighting of the alleged creature in Loch Ness was nearly 1,500 years ago when a giant beast is said to have leaped out of a lake near Inverness, Scotland, to eat a local farmer. Since then, the legend has taken on a life of its own through first-person accounts of those who claim to have seen it and in public imagination.
 

As with Loch Ness, the Ogopogo phenomenon dates back hundreds of years and is believed to have its origins in native Canadian Indian folklore with a creature called N’ha-a-itk. The locals would not cross the area of the lake where they thought the monster resided without an offering to feed the monster if attacked.
Ogopogo is most commonly described as a 40- to 50-foot-long sea serpent. There have reportedly been thousands of sightings of the monster through the years, including a marathon swimmer in 2000 who claimed he saw two large creatures in Ogopogo’s likeness swimming with him at times. The lake has been searched and no concrete evidence of the monster has turned up. Still, the legend of the lake monster lives on.
 

So, is the latest video just a ripple in the water or something more? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.