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Something Told

Folklore, legends, living tradition, internet-native lore.

220 entries · page 1 of 5

A being in the beliefs of the Ewe people of West Africa, said to possess people, who are then treated as witches.

Before you read on. Among the Ewe, saying someone is possessed by an adze is a witchcraft accusation. It falls mostly on women, including women without children or thought to envy co-wives, and also on old and poor people (Atlas Obscura, 2020; Wikipedia).

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Agatha Christie vanishes and a medium is consulted

Agatha Christie disappeared on 3 December 1926. Arthur Conan Doyle gave a medium a glove of hers, hoping for answers.

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Religious tradition

Aisha Qandisha is a female spirit of Moroccan belief, described as a beautiful woman who may have a goat's or donkey's legs. Members of the Hamadsha and of zār groups seek possession by her in their rites.

Provenance · Religious tradition

Ajina is a demonic spirit of Central Asian folk belief, especially among Uzbeks and Turkmens and partly among Tajiks. It appears in many shapes, and its name is used to frighten disobedient children.

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Al-Naddaha (El Naddaha)

Al-Naddaha, whose name means the caller, is a figure of Egyptian folklore who lures people with her voice from the Nile and its canals. The story is best known in rural Egypt.

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Albasty is a female demon in the beliefs of Turkic peoples. Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Siberian Tatar tradition blames it for harm to women in childbirth and to mothers of young babies.

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Religious tradition

Aluxes are small beings of Maya belief said to live in the bush, forests and fields, guard the milpa and play tricks. Some people still leave them offerings.

Provenance · Living tradition

The ap, also spelled ahp, aap or arp, is a Cambodian spirit: a woman whose head and organs leave her body at night to look for food. It is the Khmer relative of the Thai krasue.

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Aswang is a Filipino umbrella name for a range of flesh-eating night beings. The oldest record here, from 1589, places the belief in the Visayas and says it was absent among the Tagalogs.

Before you read on. Kentaro Azuma (Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 2012) found that aswang rumours can be used to justify discriminating against and excluding particular people. A 2015 Rappler essay by Wel Mendoza says people with X-linked dystonia parkinsonism in Capiz have been linked to aswang, and that the stigma led some families to hide them, leaving them with little or no medical care.

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A witch of Slavic, and above all Russian, folk tales who lives in a hut on fowl's legs on a forest's edge. Her first known written mention dates from 1755.

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Births on 6-6-06

On 6 June 2006, some expectant parents tried to avoid a birth on 6-6-06 because 666 is called the beast's number. Press reports described some deliveries being postponed.

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Black Shuck at Blythburgh and Bungay

On 4 August 1577 a storm struck the Suffolk churches of Blythburgh and Bungay, and a black dog was reported inside during services. Two people died at Blythburgh in some tellings.

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Buda, the Ethiopian evil eye

The evil eye in Ethiopian belief. Others pin the buda label on artisan and manual-labour castes and on Beta Israel, Ethiopian Jews.

Before you read on. In Ethiopia others put the buda label on artisan and manual-labour castes, including ironworkers, and on Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). Finneran (Folklore, 2003) writes that landless artisans are widely looked down on by farming groups although only economic status sets them apart, and Wikipedia says mixing with them is treated as sinful.

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Bultungin is a Kanuri verb for turning oneself into a hyena, recorded in 1854 with the belief that everyone in one town could become a hyena. Wikipedia places the belief in the Lake Chad region.

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Cheonyeo gwisin, the maiden ghost

In Korean folk belief, the ghost of a young woman who died before she could marry. She is one of several kinds of gwisin, the ghosts of Korean folklore.

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The chipekwe, which Millais spelled Chimpekwe, is a large animal said to have lived in north-east Rhodesia. It is known mostly from second-hand reports by European hunters and writers of the early twentieth century.

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The churel is a female ghost of northern Indian belief: a woman who died while pregnant, on the day she gave birth, or within the set period of ritual impurity, as William Crooke recorded in 1896.

Before you read on. The Guardian reported in 2015 frequent fatal attacks in Jharkhand on women whom villagers blame for curses, and the Indian Express reported an estimate that more than nine in ten women in one state's 1,500 police cases from 2001 to 2015 were widows, separated from their husbands or childless. Neither report uses the word churel, so the link to this belief is indirect: it runs only through the word's loose use for a witch.

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Cromwell's death and the Devil's pact

Oliver Cromwell died at Whitehall on 3 September 1658, on the night of a great storm. A later story says he had bargained with the Devil seven years before.

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Dayan and witch accusations in India

Some women in rural India are believed to be dayans, or witches, and are tortured and killed for it. Official figures count more than 2,500 such deaths between 2000 and 2016.

Before you read on. Women, especially widows, accused of being witches are tortured and killed in Jharkhand, Odisha and other states of India. The National Crime Records Bureau counted more than 2,500 such deaths, mainly of women, between 2000 and 2016.

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Dead Hand (Perimeter)

A Soviet nuclear command system, codenamed Perimeter, built to order a retaliatory missile launch if the country's leaders were killed in an attack. How automatic it ever was is disputed.

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The div, or dev, is a demon or monster of Persian and wider West Asian lore. In the Shahnameh, divs are the chief enemies of the hero Rostam.

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Korean folk figures known for mischief, first recorded in a Silla-era tale. Folklorist Kim Jong-dae says the horned, club-carrying dokkaebi of modern pictures comes from textbooks printed under Japanese colonial rule.

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Doug and Dave's crop circle confession

On 9 September 1991 the British tabloid Today reported that two Hampshire men, Dave Chorley and Doug Bower, had started the crop circle craze back in 1978 for a joke.

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Draugr is a word for a dead person who walks again. Grettis saga applies it to Kárr the Old, and modern scholars use it for other saga revenants, such as Glam in Grettis saga and Thorolf in Eyrbyggja saga.

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The dwende is a small house and earth spirit of Filipino folklore, sharing its name with the duende. Isabelo de los Reyes wrote in 1889 that the local figure had taken on traits of native spirits.

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Edward VII dies as Halley's Comet blazes

King Edward VII died on 6 May 1910, while Halley's Comet was in the sky. Some people at the time read the death as the comet's doing.

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El Cadejo is a spectral dog of Central American and Chiapas folklore that appears to people out late at night, to frighten them, keep them company or do them harm.

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El Silbón, the Whistler, is a tall apparition of the plains of Venezuela and Colombia, known by the shrill whistle it gives as it walks the savanna at night.

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El Sombrerón is a figure of Guatemalan legend who braids the manes of horses and the hair of young women he courts. In Chiapas the name belongs to a tall rider in black.

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Religious tradition

Engkanto and diwata

Diwata and engkanto are spirits of Philippine belief. Colonial writers recorded the word divate in 1573, and people interviewed by GMA News in 2013 still described diwata as real and dangerous.

Provenance · Living tradition

A spirit of Indonesian belief, described as having a jet-black body and large fangs. Its name traces back to the Sanskrit gandharva, and Kompas has reported the 2021 death of a child in Temanggung, suspected killed by parents who believed a genderuwo possessed the child, and a 2025 case in Banyumas where a man sexually abused a 14-year-old under the pretext of a ritual to drive out a genderuwo.

Before you read on. The belief has harmed children. In 2021 a child in Temanggung died, suspected killed by both parents, who believed a genderuwo possessed the child after an adviser urged a cleansing ritual (Kompas); in 2025 a man in Banyumas sexually abused a 14-year-old under the pretext of a ritual to drive out a genderuwo (Kompas).

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Claimed sighting

Ghost Adventures

A paranormal reality television series that began on the Travel Channel in October 2008, following Zak Bagans and his team as they investigate places reported to be haunted.

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Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

A closed psychiatric hospital in Gonjiam, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, which drew ghost hunters after CNN listed it among the world's creepiest places and gave its name to a 2018 horror film. The building was demolished in 2018.

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A giant snake of South African folklore, said to live deep in a cave in the Richtersveld and, in later retellings, to guard diamonds. A prospector's 1920 memoir describes dynamiting the water where it was said to live and finding only fish.

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The fox spirit of Korean tales. English Wikipedia says the word first named a magical fox in Joseon dynasty novels, and in modern Korea it covers every fox spirit in traditional sources.

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Hanako-san of the toilet

A ghost said to live in a girls' toilet stall in Japanese schools, called out by knocking and saying her name. Japanese Wikipedia traces the story to about 1950; it spread among children nationwide from about the 1980s.

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A very tall woman from a ghost story posted anonymously on the Japanese message board 2channel on 26 August 2008. Nippon.com lists her among internet horror tales that have reached a wide public.

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Claimed sighting

Haunted dolls sold on eBay

An online trade in dolls that sellers say are haunted, found on eBay and similar sites and reported by VICE and NPR in 2015.

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The fictional house in Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House, later the basis of a 2018 Netflix series.

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Himuro Mansion (Fatal Frame)

The haunted house in Tecmo's video game Fatal Frame, which Tecmo marketed in North America in 2002 as drawn from a true story.

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Hitobashira, the human pillar

Hitobashira, or human pillar, is the Japanese legend that people were buried or drowned to make an embankment, bridge or castle hold. The stories attach to real places such as Matsue and Maruoka castles.

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Religious tradition

Hungry Ghost Festival: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

An observance held during the seventh lunar month, known as Zhongyuan in China and Yu Lan in Hong Kong, with offerings to ancestors and rites for wandering ghosts. It is practised in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Provenance · Religious tradition

Religious tradition

Hungry Ghost Month in Singapore and Malaysia

The lunar calendar's seventh month, when many Chinese Buddhists and Taoists in Singapore and Malaysia believe the gates of Hell open and spirits wander. Communities hold rites and offerings for the dead and stage shows for them.

Provenance · Religious tradition

Impundulu, the lightning bird

The impundulu, or lightning bird, is a witch's familiar in the beliefs of South Africa's Pondo, tied to thunder and lightning. Monica Hunter recorded it in 1936, and a Port Elizabeth paper explained it in 2005.

Before you read on. Monica Hunter (1936) recorded that the impundulu is always kept by a female witch. In 2005 The Herald, Port Elizabeth, explained the belief in its report on an attack on a toddler, which its headline blamed on the killer's belief in omens and spirits.

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Jacko, the Yale ape-boy

On 4 July 1884 the Daily Colonist of British Columbia reported the capture of a gorilla-like creature named Jacko near Yale. Two other papers said within days that no such animal had been caught.

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James Dean and the Little Bastard Porsche

James Dean died on 30 September 1955 in a crash in his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed the Little Bastard. Later accounts tie the car to a warning from Alec Guinness.

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Jangsan beom, the Jangsan tiger

An urban legend from South Korea about a white, tiger-like creature on Mt. Jangsan in Busan that copies human voices. Korean Wikipedia dates the legend to 2009, and it spread widely after a 2013 webtoon.

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Jiangshi, the hopping corpse

A reanimated corpse in Chinese legend and folklore, sometimes called the Chinese hopping vampire. Hong Kong films fixed its modern image: a stiff corpse in the robes of a Qing dynasty official.

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Jikininki, the corpse-eater

A shapeless thing comes in the night and eats a corpse and its offerings, while Musō, keeping watch beside them, can neither move nor speak.

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Jinmenken, the human-faced dog

A Japanese urban legend about a talking dog with a man's face that races cars at night. AERA dot and Japanese Wikipedia both report that the leading theory is that Popteen magazine's editors and a writer planted it.

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