Black Annis
While we’re used to hearing about the boogeyman…what about the boogeywoman? Black Annis has haunted the thoughts of countless English children for decades and I think she’s much scarier than any monster-in-the-closet that I’ve ever mentioned. The good news is Black Annis’ hunting ground seems to be limited to the English countryside…the bad news? Well, if you live in the English countryside you’re sharing your land with a terrifying creature.
It is said she makes her home in the Dane Hills, in a cave where she sleeps during the day. That cave is not something you’d just want to stumble upon, in fact not only does it host a murderous monster its also said to be decorated with the bones of Black Annis’ victims. At night, she emerges and ventures to hunt. It is believed she feeds on human flesh, and specifically children's flesh. However, some other tales seem to believe she enjoys the scent of fear just as much. And, with a presence like her it doesn't take much to elicit fear. She's said to have corpse-blue skin, iron claws, and clothes made out of the skin of her victims.
One of the signs she is near is the sound of chattering teeth and footsteps as she creeps through the countryside. This is a warning to hide, but once she has you in her clutches there isn’t much you can do. It is said that people intentionally created smaller-than-average windows in hopes of keeping her out. But, she doesn’t just hunt in people’s homes. She is also said to hide in trees and pounce on unsuspecting victims who failed to heed her warnings and stay inside. If human flesh is too hard to get, she will settle for farm animals, ripping them apart.
One infamous account dates back to 1942 and describes three young children running into Black Annis in December. Their stepmother had sent them to the forest to collect wood, but the sun had just set. The children had begged to put off the chore because they knew the only thing Black Annis feared was daylight, but their stepmother sent them anyway. When they ran into the witch, perhaps hearing the forewarning of her clacking teeth, they screamed, dropped their sticks, and started to run. In her utter excitement at the thrill of a chase (and 3 shiny new victims almost within reach) Annis ended up cutting her legs all over the forest and leaving quite the trail of blood. Realizing she had hurt, she paused her hunt momentarily, to check her wounds and clean them up a bit. While the children thought they had escaped, she was hot on their tails before they could reach the cottage door. And, this would have been the end of them, if their father hadn’t been heading home at the exact same time and heard their screams. He rushed to meet them, ax in hand, and buried it in Black Annis’ face. She fell down screaming for blood and began stumbling home in the direction of her cave. It was said that the church bells began to ring for the season and she fell down, dead.
Of course, she wasn’t dead-dead. Her body was never discovered, and sightings and rumors persist today.
While the legend of Black Annis may seem like a typical urban legend, there is something longer and more rooted in her tales. Some believe she is a remnant (or vengeful) Celtic goddess, Danu. Danu was believed to be the Irish mother of all people and the earth and, perhaps in the razing of pagan worship, she turned into something vengeful and evil seeking out to harm the creations that once venerated her.
Of course, some people believe the legend was based on an actual person. Historian Ronald Hutton has a theory that the Black Annis urban legend arose from Agness Scott, a late medieval hermit who had lived a secluded and isolated life of prayer in a cave in the Dane Hills. She died and was buried in the churchyard in Swithland. However, perhaps the memory of this old lady who lived in a cave stuck with the folk of the area and somehow grew the thorny legend of Black Annis, aimed at scaring children into behaving.
View south-east off the Dane railway viaduct captured by Christopher Hilton. This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. See this photograph's page on the Geograph website for the photographer's contact details. The copyright on this image is owned by Christopher Hilton Edit this at Structured Data on Commons and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
Thanks to Stephen for this blogstonishing suggestion!