Jessica Penot's Blog, page 14

The Origins of Easter

Happy Easter!  My favorite thing about our modern holidays is there strange origins.  They never come from where we think they did.  History is a strange thing.  Here is my story about another pagain holiday wrapped in Christian paper and decorated with years of traditions no one understands.



Holiday are off topic, but I love them.   Almost all our modern Christian holidays are just pagan holidays in different paper.  So many Christians won't celebrate Halloween because it is pagan, but the Easter bunny has nothing to do with Christ.   Where does the bunny come from?  It comes from the goddess Eostre.  Eostre was a European fertility goddess.  During the  Spring, her favorite Holiday, named for her, Easter, was celebrated across Europe.  Her totem animal, the bunny, was intrinsic  in the celebration of her holiday.   Easter was a fertility holiday and it isn't just a coincidence that estrogen, the hormone often associated with fertility and sex is also named after Eostre.  



Ancient Christians were quite brilliant.  They knew that if they wanted to convince the old pagans to convert they shouldn't ask them to abandon their old holidays and traditions, so the merely Incorporated their holidays into Christian beliefs.  So Easter was absorbed into the early Christian faith and linked to the celebration of the death of Christ.   So the totem animal of Easter became Eostre's totem animal, the bunny and other fertility rituals were also made part of the Christian Holiday.   Eggs, also associated with old fertility rituals, became part of holiday traditions.



By the fifteenth century, in many parts of Europe, it had become normal for children to build nests for the magic bunny to lay eggs in on Easter morning to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  Over time, this evolved into the putting out of Easter baskets for a magic bunny to put chocolate eggs and other treats in.  So, the resurrection of Christ and the fertility rights of Eostre became one to make the holiday we celebrate today, which is a beautiful fusion of Christian and pagan.

The Phantom Lion

The Cincinnati Zoo is the second oldest zoo in the nation.   It was founded in 1875 and featured a small collection of animals.   The zoo grew quickly and is now rated as one of the top five zoos in the nation and features a vast array of animals.  The zoo is also known for its architecture and is listed as a national historical landmark.   It contains the oldest reptile house in the Western Hemisphere.  No trip to Cincinnati would be complete without a visit to this historic zoo.



The zoo is also  known for  another animal.   It isn't an animal you can see in any exhibit and most visitors don't see this famous resident of the zoo at all.   It is known to be haunted by a phantom lioness that wanders the ground following visitors and terrifying those who happen to catch a glimpse of her.  Those who have seen this ghostly lion describe hearing her footsteps behind them.  Many times these witnesses have been terrified because they thought the lioness was real.  Other witnesses have believed the lioness was about to attack them.  The lioness has been described as having glowing eyes that cut through the shadows and dark.   When she is seen, she runs towards the unfortunate visitor as if to attack them and then vanishes into the shadows she came from.   Although the living animals in the zoo may be the main attraction at this zoo, a chance encounter with this phantom would make the Cincinnati Zoo one of my favorite zoos.

The Grand Hotel

The Grand Hotel embodies all of the beauty and histroy that begins in the Victorian era for Mackinac Island.   In a sense, the island is trapped in this time.  It clings to the old things and puts them on a pedastle making them great.  The hotel is the center of everything beautiful and historic on the island.   It's long, white walls can be seen from the water on the ferry ride to the island.  It sits away from the rest of the chaos of the island, amidst green gardens.  There are no cars on the island and during my many visits to the island, I have travelled to the old hotel using many modes of transportation.  Whether you approach by horse and buggy, bicycle, horseback, or on foot, the elegant porch gleams in the sunlight as the first part of the hotel you see.  The hotel is a piece of my history as much as it is the island's.  My great grandfather worked at the hotel and his father before him.  My great grandfather proposed to my great grandmother in the old hotel.  I still have the ring he proposed her with. 



The land for the hotel was bought in 1886.  During this time the popularity of the island for a summer get away was exploding.  Tourists were coming from as far as Chicago to see the scenic beauty of this quiet island.  The Grand Hotel was built to cater to the wealthier tourists that came from afar to relax in peace.  It was during the construction of the hotel that an untold number of bones were unearthed.  Most of the bones were relocated, but it is said that some of these old skeletons still remain beneath the foundation of this luxourious hotel. 



In 1887 the hotel opened and it was a success from the beginning.  During the long summers every room was filled.  Of course during the winter, when the bitter Northern Michingan wind freezes the lake and burries the hotel in snow, the hotel was still mostly empty.  In the 1890's, the hotel's owners proudly announced that they had built the longest porch in the world around the beautiful hotel.   In 1895, Mark Twain came for a reading in the Hotel's grand salon.   The Hotel was often host to famous people and  a couple of movies were shot at the hotel.  The most recent film shot there was made in the 1980's and stared Christopher Reeves as a love struck playwright.  The film was called Somewhere in Time.





Despite all this activity,  the hotel has continuously been a source of paranormal activity.  As the hotel expanded, the orignal Fort Mackinac Island cemetery was moved to make room for the horse stables.  So the stables now stand on yet another collection of old bones. Those that have worked at the Grand report phantom footsteps and doors opening and shutting.  Guests staying at the hotel have reported feeling ill at ease, as if there is something else in the room with them from time to time.   The hotel groans at night and, although all old things groan, the noises from this hotel seem loader that they should.

A Photographic Journey Through Nashville's City Cemetery

Nashville City Cemetery is one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Tennessee.  It was founded in January of 1822 and by 1850 11,000 souls were laid to rest in this beautiful necropolis.   The cemetery is home to many of Tennessee's prominent historical figures.  Two governors, 4 confederate generals, and many Nashville mayors now call this urban cemetery their resting place.   It is a pretty cemetery hidden between buildings and roads.   Its location is typical of an urban landscape and is unmarked by beauty or darkness, but the cemetery climbs out of this ordinary landscape and remains both lovely and serene.  

 

Movie Review: The Awakening

I try to watch all the haunting movies I can find.   Many of them follow a very similar story arc and I am rarely surprised by them.  Not that this is a bad thing,  I love ghost stories and I enjoy them in all their permutations.  However, it is nice to find a haunting tale that is a little surprising.  I found the awakening to be surprising.  



The Awakening is a mystery set at the height of the spiritualist movement in England.   It is just after World War I and the Spanish Flu and charlatans claiming to speak to the dead are prolific.  The heroine of this tale travels the country debunking fraudulent spiritualists and proving hauntings to be the machinations of man rather than manifestations of the dead.   Of course,  all this changes for our heroine when she is invited to investigate a haunting in a boys' boarding school.  Initially,  it seems that she will be able to quickly debunk the ghost story behind the boys boarding school, but as the haunting escalates, our heroine's wits begin to unravel and we often wonder if perhaps she is more haunted than the school itself.  



The Awakening does an amazing job of mixing the psychological hauntings of those who had survived World War I with the physical haunting of the school.  The ghosts of the soul are just as terrifying as the ones that wander the school and the combination of both creates a beautiful tension in all the characters.  I loved this movie in all its haunting beauty. 

How Valentine's Day Started with Naked Ladies and Dead Animals

It is time for my annual Valentine's Day Post.  This is my favorite post of the year because Valentine's Days origins are so interesting.  I hope you all have a happy Valentine's Day!



My favorite thing about holidays are their bizarre origins.  Most of our modern celebrations have roots in old pagan traditions.  Valantine's Day is no different.  Its pagan roots are just more bizarre than most. They are so strange I like to write about them every year.  I know it is slightly off topic, but naked people being flogged with animal hides is worth discussing in any forum. Apparently the ancient roots of Valentine's Day begins with the Romans. The Romans celebrated Lupercalia from Feb. 13 to 15. In Roman mythology Lupercus was the equivalent of the Greek god Pan who was known to be a sexy sort of fellow who promoted fertility. His holiday was a somewhat romantic kind of celebration. During Lupercalia the men would sacrifice a goat and a dog and then whip women with the hides of the dead animals. The women would line up naked in order to be whipped. They did this because they believed this ritual would make them more fertile. Afterwards, there would be lottery in which men and women would be paired up for a night of naked fun.





I know, you are now wishing we still celebrated Valentine's day this way. Enough with the cheesy cards. Where are the dead animals, whippings, and naked people? It was the Catholic Church that ruined the fun. Emperor Claudius II killed two Valentine's in different years of February 14th. Both men were martyred and the day derives its name from these two martyred saints. In the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I got confused and merged the two martyrs into one person and named February 14th after them. He also absorbed the romantic traditions of Lupercalia into the day in order to soften the pagan debauchery and retake the day for Christianity. Christianity has a long history of doing this type of thing. Christmas was taken from Roman Saturnalia traditions and Norse Yule traditions. By absorbing pagan holidays rather than forbidding them, ancient Christians were able to gain new followers rather than lose them.



Chaucer and Shakespeare can be credited with further romanticizing St. Valentine's day and turning it into the romantic, kissy holiday it is today, but I will always think back to better days when women ran naked through the streets being beaten with dead animals.

Kuntilanak: The Monstrous Ghosts of Those Who Die in Childbirth

The Kuntilanak is an extraordinarily malevolent spirit found in Malaysian folklore.  A Kuntilanak is the ghost of a pregnant woman who died in childbirth or died from complications resulting from pregnancy.  The Malaysian word  for a Kuntilanak is Pontijanak which means pregnant.  Kuntilanaks are usually seen either crying or laughing hysterically.  They are often found in old buildings and  and are sometimes said to kidnap and devour small children.  



The Kuntilanak usually appears as a beautiful young woman and this makes her more beguiling to her potential victims.  The smell of fragrant flowers follow them wherever they go.  They use their many charms to seduce men and they are often found by unscrupulous men looking for a good time.  Men find them wandering the side of the road and when the men pick the ghost up the men are rarely heard from again.   The Kuntilanak  also enjoy harming pregnant women and causing miscarriages.  Pregnant women are most vulnerable to Kuntilanak when they are traveling and the only way a pregnant woman can protect herself is to carry nails or scissors with her at all times. If the nail or scissors are driven into the base of the Kuntilanak's skull and left there it will drive the evil from the ghost and she will become a woman again until the nail is removed.



Ever the friendly ghost, when the Kuntilanak kills its victims it usually digs its fingernails into its victim's stomach and pulls out their intended's guts and gorges herself on them.  In the case of men, the kuntilanak often pulls off the genitals, the source of her unfortunate pregnancy and death, and devours those first.  Some argue the kuntilanak is more of a vampire than a ghost because it must feed on the living to continue its preternatural existence, but the images and stories of visitations of Kuntilanak's are more consistent with ghost stories than vampire stories.  Either way,  if you run into a lonely woman crying on the road or wailing like a baby it is probably best to carry a few nails with you because the kuntilanak sounds like a horrific ghost to encounter.  As someone whose been through a terrible childbirth experience,  I can understand where these nasty pregnant ghosts are coming from.  I certainly wanted to rip out someones guts halfway through my labor.

Insatiable: The Magazine of Paranormal Desires

I have been a fan of White Cat Publications for some time.  They have a wonderful collection of literary magazines for those who have a taste for the paranormal or the otherworldly.  I have even been lucky enough to write a column for White Cat for a while.   All of this is why I'm thrilled to have been given the opportunity to be the editor of the new White Cat Magazine, Insatiable:  The Magazine of Paranormal Desires.



Insatiable is primarily dedicated to quality paranormal fiction with a romantic or erotic twist.   I've spent my last week reading all kinds of submissions and I have to say that I am thrilled by the quality of the submissions to the magazine and I believe that this is and will continue to be an outstanding publication.   A magazine can only be as good as its writers and if I continue to receive submissions of this quality, the magazine will be amazing.  The first issue of Insatiable was fabulous and if you have any interest you should take a peak at:   http://www.whitecatpublications.com/?wpsc-product=insatiable-premiere-issue



Due to this change in my paranormal interests, periodically I will make announcements regarding Insatiable on this blog.   Insatiable magazine is currently open to submissions and I am now reviewing submissions.  If you are a writer who loves the paranormal, please consider submitting your work.  You can find submission guidelines at:  http://www.whitecatpublications.com/?page_id=1995

The Vengeful Ghost of Emily's Bridge

In Alabama, the stories of haunted bridges fill almost every small town and county.  Cry baby hollows and cry baby bridges bring stories of children lost to tragic ends in turbulent waters.   Interestingly,  there is a similar story in Vermont.  There is a haunted bridge that is said to be lost in tales of woe. However it isn't a sweet babe that haunts this bridge, but an angry woman.  Emily's Bridge is located in Stowe,Vermont in the lovely valleys of the Green Mountains.



Emily's Bridge is mired in rumor.  Its true history is somewhat bland.  It is the oldest remaining covered bridge in the Stowe area.  The stream beneath the bridge once had a little gold in it, but not enough to make anyone rich.   The bridge is picturesque and warn by time, but it is the ghost that haunts it that makes it famous.  No one knows for sure who Emily was.  Some say she was a young woman who had her heart broken by her true love.   Desperate and despairing, she threw herself into the water below the bridge to end her life.  Others say she was a mother, whose husband ended his life and who lost her babies.  In a fit of despair, she also ended her life.



Whoever Emily was,  the stories of the white lady of Emily's bridge are terrifying.  Emily is a vengeful ghost.  It is said that after she is seen throwing herself off the bridge, she often chases her observer.   Some who catch a glimpse of Emily, are said to leave covered in cuts and bruises from her brutal attacks.  Strange noises are often heard on the bridge.  Screams, scrapings, and footsteps are said to haunt the quiet nights there.  Those who park on the bridge say that they hear Emily tearing and scraping at the outside of their cars.



Whoever Emily was, her sad story endures, even in the shadows of rumor and legend, because her ghost story endures.  As long as her tragic screams are heard in the shadowy nights of Emily's bridge, her story will remain.

The Ghosts of Native American Burial Grounds

One of my ex high school classmates posted an interesting bit of news on Facebook this morning.  The news was that my high school may be relocated to a place off of Weatherly Drive in South Huntsville, Alabama that is currently the location of three Native American archaeological sites dating from 1200 BC to 1500 AD.   One of these sites is said to be the resting place of Native American remains.  This means they may be moving my old high school to a location on top of an ancient Indian Burial Ground.   So many images popped up in my head when I found out about this.   Old ghost stories crept up from the dusty corners of my mind, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's high school popped up,  and many other images.   I am thrilled.  This could be the making of a thousand ghost stories whispered by high school students down over the generations.  



Stories of ghosts associated with Indian Burial Grounds have been pervasive in American folklore for generations. Indeed, where ever you find an Indian Burial site a ghost story is almost always close at hand. Some Native Americans buried their dead in large mounds.  These mounds have made for some interesting Native American Burial Ground ghost stories.  Indian Burial Mounds almost always have ghost stories associated with them.  One resident of Grandville, Michigan told a story of ghostly visitations nearby the Mounds there.  He described phantom noises and strange visitations.  In Alabama, Dauphin Island is known for its shell like burial mounds.   Phantom Native Americans have been seen in the shadows there.  Mounds aren't the only type of Native American Burial Sites that are haunted.  Robinson Woods in Chicago was known to once be the site of an Indian Burial Ground and stories of ghosts and paranormal activity abound in this area.  In Malone, New York there is an elementary school called Flanders Elementary.  It was built on top of a cemetery which was built on top of an Indian Burial ground.  Of course, the ghosts that wanders this school are legendary.   When I did research for my book, Haunted North Alabama, I discovered a paleo Indian graveyard might contribute to the hauntings associated with the Space and Rocket Center.  These stories are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Native American Burial Ground stories.  I could fill a book with these stories.



With the prolific nature of ghost stories associated with Native American Burial grounds, you would think that builders would avoid these sites for construction.  You'd think even skeptics would say it is probably bad business to build in a location that will inevitably be associated with stories of ghosts and horrors, but it doesn't ever seem to phase anyone.   I always wonder why people build on these sites just because it seems bad to destroy such ancient archaeological sites that surely hold unique pieces of American history.   Of course, none of these things phase those who decide where to build things.   So Virgil I. Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama could very well be the next of many places haunted by the ghosts of Native American Burial Grounds.  I wish I could send my children there.  I would love to hear the stories.



To read more about the relocation of Virgil I. Grissom High School:  http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/01/huntsville_school_officials_do.html#incart_river_default