21-25 Creepiest Folklore Creatures
21. The will o’ the wisp is a strange light that lures hikers off of trails until they are lost. It’s not as terrifying, but pretty creepy. The folklore is possibly related to a real phenomenon in which people hallucinate when in the wild for long enough, and can wander randomly off the trail. This is also linked to people seeing strange lights, particularly in swamps, in which there are bioluminescent insects and flora, as well as swamp gas. This myth has variations from several continents.
22. Time to throw in some Chinese! Although I’m not from China, but Chinese, so this is stretching the question slightly. Anyway, the Chinese “zombie” or jiangshi (僵尸) is a mummified corpse that has risen from the dead for various reasons. They don’t eat brains or flesh. They drain you of your life force. They cannot walk or bend their limbs due to rigor mortis and as such hop after their prey. That may sound silly at first but imagine it. Actually imagine walking on a dark road at midnight, by a graveyard. And as the cold night air brushes against your ear, you hear something. Something like footsteps, only heavier, pounding through the grass, stirring the cool air behind you:
Thump. Thump. Thump.
You don’t want to look back. You don’t want to look back.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I had nightmares about it when I first learned of it. Of it hopping in the dark. Its outstretched arms, wrinkled gray skin, legs locked together, dead face in a slack, frozen leer.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
23. Turkish here but I guess it is more related to Islam than country. We have djinn. And it is nothing like the Robin Williams.
According to folklore and religion, there are good ones and evil ones. Good ones mostly Muslim so they don’t bother you. Evil ones mostly don’t believe in god.
So if you say Djinn, they are drawn to you. And sometimes they haunt you just for fun. They don’t have a specific shape because they can shapeshift but the most noticeable feature is that their feet are backward. They live next to walls, abandoned houses, bushes, and trees. When you have to pee at night you shouldn’t pee at those or they will get angry and haunt you.
They are from another plane so normally invisible unless they want otherwise. It is always told that they like to toy with people. They like burning people, possessing people, even raping the beautiful young girls. They target people who don’t believe them and who believe them and but terrified of them.
Some people claim to have power on them. These things can know everything about a person by just looking at one of that person’s belonging. They can travel huge distances in a blink. There are some verses from Quran that can them keep at a distance, depending on the creature’s power.
I had a teacher, also a friend of my father, who allegedly was perfect at fending them. According to his stories and his wife’s words, he tried to send away a group which haunted a girl. He thought he managed until the next day. One remained and tried to suffocate his newborn son with telephone cable. Wife says the phone was flying, glasses were flying and hitting them and there were no one in the house. Eventually, he managed it.
I saw a similar thing when I was 7. But I still don’t know if it was a dream or reality after all these years. But I still get the goosebumps thinking about it.
24. Hawaii, USA – Nightmarchers. They’re the spirits of ancient Hawaiian warriors. You can tell they’re coming when you hear drums and see torches. To avoid them from killing you, you’re supposed to avoid eye contact, and take off your clothes and pretend to be dead. Or just get out of there as fast as possible. I’ve also heard that if you have an ancestor marching in the party, you’re safe.
I have always heard stories about them growing up and was terrified of running into them because I have no Hawaiian blood and I’d freak the hell out if I heard their drums.
25. Redcap – England. A red cap or redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent, murderous dwarf, goblin, elf or fairy found in Border Folklore. They are said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims’ blood (from which they get their name). Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron spikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible.
I have lived in albuquerque for 21 years and have never heard the one described in this. Not from anyone that I know that has lived here their whole lives. Weird.