Large Fierce Mammal

Artist Ray Villafane lives in northern Michigan with his wife and six children. Among other noteworthy accomplishments, he is famous for his pumpkin carving, and today I’m presenting a selection of seasonally appropriate creations that struck me as having come from the darker part of his soul.

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In the past few days, one of my readers asked me just how long my Dark Sentiments series was going to last. For that person, and anyone else eligible to pay the 200% Not Paying Attention Tax, I invite you to read my first post in the series; Dark Sentiments – Day 1.

Springheel Jack by Saint John

The thing called Springheel Jack plagued Great Britain from 1837 to 1920. To this day, urban legend born of widespread public hysteria in the day of the “penny dreadful” will no doubt forever cloud the truth, but there is no arguing that something corporeal was molesting the populace.

The earliest recorded sighting of Springheel Jack was in London in September 1837. A man returning home late at night reported that a ghastly figure vaulted effortlessly over the ten foot wall of a cemetery and landed in his path. He described it as having pointed ears, large glowing eyes, and a large pointed nose. The man was apparently left unmolested, but a short time later on the same night, the same thing, or one just like it, attacked a group consisting of three women and one man, catching one woman – Polly Adams – while the others fled. Polly should have chosen her friends more carefully. (more…)

In a speech delivered in 1999, physicist Steven Weinberg said, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”

I get endless mileage from the line that if there’s one thing we learn from history, it’s that people don’t learn anything from history, and here I go again because it’s one of the Great Truths. Sometimes the result of this unfortunate human propensity is simply wasted time and effort, other times somebody gets hurt. This article is about the latter, and deals with a subject that is as relevant today as it has ever been at any other time in history because it has repeatedly happened and continues to happen. Witch hunting is a growth industry that never falls out of fashion and shows no signs of slowing down. (more…)

A friend of mine just today referred to Russell Williams as “a flying monster”. I suppose so, but now he’s one monster that will never fly again, even though I personally wouldn’t mind taking him for one last ride far out over the north Atlantic. And here’s another dark sentiment for you – I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

So today I was driving while listening to the daily call-in show on CBC. I tuned in while it was already in progress, but taking the comments I heard in context, I inferred that the topic was public reaction to the media coverage of the Russell Williams trial. Not public reaction to the facts of the trial – reaction to the way the media exposed the facts. (more…)

I broached the subject of the Wendigo on Dark Sentiments – Day 17, and though that article provided an introduction to the nasty thing, what I wrote that day was intended as an introduction to a tale supplied by the good James A. Keating. But the Wendigo is deserving of deeper exploration, particularly because a cannibalistic murder committed as recently as 2008 could have been taken straight out of Wendigo lore.

It was through interactions between remote bands of Algonquian people and white fur traders, missionairies, and so called “civilized” officials that the Wendigo and its ways first came into the ken of Europeans. It came to be known that among the tribal bands involved, the failure of someone to return from a winter hunt or other endeavour that took them away from the community in that time was commonly attributed to their having been eaten by a Wendigo. Conversely, it was also understood that sometimes the person who left was not the same thing that returned.

In the time since, a small number of cases have been documented, mostly from court records coming out of dealings both with those who have killed someone they believed to be the host of a Wendigo spirit, as well as with actual perpetrators of killings that were of the sort characteristic of the Wendigo. (more…)

One hundred and thirty-one years ago in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the life of a young girl came to an abrupt end.

She was accused of a crime she didn’t commit and her death had nothing to do with mundane causes like illness, accident, or murder. Neither was it caused by execution or suicide. No, good reader. Instead, on the 19th day of September 1879, Sophia L. McLaughlin, aged fourteen years and six months, died of a broken heart.

Sophia was buried in Lunenburg’s Hillcrest Cemetery, and through the efforts of a group of twentieth century community sympathizers, her story was immortalized in a monument. With the kind and loving assistance of Mrs. LFM, Sophia’s grave was photographed today, and we will let the following images tell Sophia’s story. (more…)

"Mauri Eye" by Meat Meier

A week ago I encountered a news item that attracted a lot of international attention and no small amount of outrage. It reported that the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa had imposed a ban on admitting pregnant or menstruating women to the behind the scenes tour scheduled to be held 5 November 2010.

According to the aforementioned news item, “An invitation for regional museums to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa’s collections included the condition that ‘wahine (women) who are either hapu [pregnant] or mate wahine [menstruating]’ were unable to attend.” Women are also being encouraged, out of respect for traditional Maori beliefs, to be truthful about their condition if it isn’t otherwise apparent, and to refrain from challenging the ban.

According to museum Communications Manager Jane Keig, the policy was adopted because it was a condition the museum had to sign off on in order to obtain and show the collection, and comes from Maori cultural beliefs regarding the status of pregnant or menstruating women and the potential negative consequences of their being exposed to items in it. (more…)

Johnny Depp never fails to please us here at the LFM Estate. Devoted husband and father, he dotes on his fans, unwaveringly guards his private life from prying eyes, and is a gentleman in all the aspects of life that matter.

Johnny Depp is the subject of today’s dark sentiment because of his exceptional ability to capture a character in all its shades, and the fact that, far from shying away from the darker side, he  fearlessly embraces it at every opportunity. Today we have representative samples of what I mean in the form of trailers for movies you really must see, and if you’ve already seen them you need to see them again this season. As one final comment before the viewing starts, Johnny Depp + Tim Burton = MAGICK! (more…)

Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head ; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. ~ From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Wendigo – I will call it that but there are many iterations of its name – is a malevolent forest spirit that comes in winter. It needs human flesh to feed but can only slake its hunger by possessing a human that it then uses to hunt, kill, and devour its prey. The Wendigo comes to us through the spiritual teachings of the Algonquian people, and it’s said that when stalking its victims it has the ability to remain forever behind and out of sight. As the prey finally senses its presence, even the quickest turn of the head will never catch sight of it until too late.

Most powerful in times of hunger and famine, the Wendigo waits and hunts in the bleakest and most remote parts of the North American wilderness, ready for the solitary traveler with the right combination of fatigue, hunger, hopelessness, greed, weakness, and desperation. Most of all it loves weakness and greed, and such is its ravenous hunger that when it strikes, all known to its host, and any it meets along the way are at risk until none are left to tell the tale. (more…)