A Few Trivias About Werewolves

                                                                                                                                                       Artwork from Magic The Gathering

The earliest examples of the werewolf legend can be found in Greek mythology. King Lycaon was

transformed into a wolf as a result of sacrificing a baby to Zeus. Lycaon was a king of Arcadia, son of Pelasgus and Meliboea, who tested Zeus by serving him the roasted flesh of a guest from Epirus in order to see whether Zeus was truly omniscient.

Zeus found out King Lycaon's vile sacrifice so he transformed the king into the form of a werewolf and killed Lycaon's fifty other sons with lightning bolts. The slaughtered child, Nyctimus, was restored to life.

Hammer Time!

Thanks to the Christian English translation of the Bible, the word chaspah in Exodus 22:18 was translated into the word “witch.” Pope Innocent VIII, believing literally in Exodus 20:18, issued a bull in 1484 designed to root out witchcraft in Christian Europe. Thanks to these two Dominican inquisitors, Henrich Institoris (Kramer) (c. 1430–1505) and Jacob Sprenger (c. 1436–1495) and their book "Malleus Maleficarum," A Hammer for Witches – we have now stereotyped witches as evil and Satan spawn. In this book, definite instructions were given to the prosecution of witches. The infamous Witch Hunt that has killed over nearly tens and thousand of innocent women as three hundred years of persecutions raged was the result of this book.

FYI: Warlocks are not Male Witches

                     Picture from WiseGeek.com

Thanks to Hollywood and other misinformation from local TV and reading materials (who were not written by a witch of course), we now think that a warlock is a male witch. That is not true. A male witch is called a “witch.” 

Now, how about a warlock?

The name “warlock” came from a Saxon word, wǣrloga that means an "oath-breaker." Simply put it, a warlock is a witch that broke his oath of not hurting or harming anyone.

But not every pagans agree. In other witches community, warlocks are known to be a “spell singer.” This was derived in Norse myth from the poetic eddas, a song called the Vardlokkur  which is sung to ward off evil spirits during a religious ceremony.

Death Knockers

There is this old legend that says if you hear three knocks that seemingly have no cause, someone you know will die. Silly, right?

Many believed that door knockers are spirit, who knocks your door in the middle of the night. It is believed that, whenever they come and knock your door, somebody will die on the next day. 

There are many legends of death knockers all around the world. Here's the Philippine version:

[From Wikipedia]

The Kumakatok (door knockers) are a group of three robed figures believed by many in the Philippines to knock on doors in the middle of the night, bringing bad omens. They allegedly look like humans but wear hoods which obscure their faces to some extent. One resembles a young female while the other two look like old people.

A visit from the Kumakatok is usually an omen of death, as either the eldest or an ill member of the house visited will subsequently die. The visits are supposedly more frequent after a disease outbreak. Residences of Luzon and Visayas at one time painted white crosses on their doors to ward off the Kumakatok. This trend was said to cause the trio to switch from residences to government buildings, hospitals, and even churches.

Reported sightings of the Kumakatok have decreased significantly since World War II. One explanation is that many buildings were destroyed at that time, leaving the Kumatakok few doors to knock upon.

[Reference: Paraiso, Salvador; Jose Juan Paraiso (2003). The Balete Book: A collection of demons, monsters and dwarfs from the Philippine lower mythology. Philippines: Giraffe Books. ISBN 971-8832-79-3.]

The Voice from the Grave: The Basa Murder.

On the evening of February 21, 1977,  the Chicago fire department was called to put out a blaze in a high-rise apartment building on the North Side. Two firefighters crawled into Apartment 15B through black smoke and saw that the fire was in the bedroom. A mattress lying at the foot of the bed was blazing. Within minutes, the firemen had put the blaze out and opened the windows to let out the smoke. When they lifted the waterlogged mattress, they found the naked body of a woman, with her legs spread apart and a knife sticking out of her chest.