To make matters even worse, young Betsy Bell started to experience physical encounters with a specter, claiming it had slapped her and pulled her hair. ![]() It wasn’t long before some weird stuff began to happen, including sightings of a strange animal with “the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit” out in the cornfields. ![]() The story of the Bell Witch, for instance, takes place during the 1800s in Tennessee.Īccording to author Pat Fitzhugh of the Bell Witch website, there was “a sinister entity that tormented a pioneer family on Tennessee’s early frontier between 18.” Fitzhugh explains that settler John Bell and his family relocated to Tennessee from North Carolina in the early 1800s, and purchased a large homestead. We typically think of folklore and mythology as originating in ancient, far-off places, but some of it is recent enough that it’s considered urban legend. The Bell Witch haunted a Tennessee pioneer family. The lovely Circe, who may or may not have borne Odysseus a couple of sons, gave him directions that sent him all over the place, including on a side quest to the Underworld.Īfter Odysseus’ death, Circe used her magic potions to bring her late lover back to life. After a year or so of luxuriating in Circe’s bed, Odysseus finally figured out he should head back home to Ithaca, and his wife, Penelope. Odysseus followed Hermes’ helpful hints, and overpowered Circe, who turned the men back into men… and she then became Odysseus’ lover. Before he got there, he was visited by the messenger god, Hermes, who told him how to defeat the seductive Circe. According to some accounts, she may have been the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and one of the Oceanids, but she is sometimes referred to as a daughter of Hecate, the goddess of magic.Ĭirce turned Odysseus’ men into pigs, and so he set off to rescue them. After a group of Odysseus’ scouts were captured and eaten by the Laestrygonian king, and nearly all of his ships sunk by large boulders, the Achaeans ended up on the shore of Aeaea, home to the witch-goddess Circe.Ĭirce was well known for her magical mojo, and had quite the reputation for her knowledge of plants and potions. According to the story, Odysseus and his Achaeans found themselves fleeing the land of the Laestrygonians. One of the best-known mythological mistresses of mayhem is Circe, who appears in The Odyssey. "Yet tell me," said the summoner, "if true: Do you make your new bodies always so Out of the elements?" The fiend said, "No, Sometimes it's only some form of disguise Dead bodies we may enter that arise To speak with all the reason and as well As to the Endor witch spoke Samuel.”Ĭirce goes to the shore of the sea to receive Ulysses. Geoffrey Chaucer makes reference to her in The Canterbury Tales, in the tale spun by the friar to entertain his fellow pilgrims. ![]() Though her identity is lost to myth and legend, she has managed to appear in more contemporary literature. Who was the witch of Endor? Well, like many other biblical figures, no one really knows. Disguising himself so she wouldn’t know she was in the presence of the king, Saul asked the witch to revive the dead prophet Samuel so that he might tell Saul what was going to happen. Saul started off by asking God for help, but God stayed mum…and so Saul took it upon himself to seek answers elsewhere.Īccording to the Bible, Saul summoned the witch of Endor, who was a well-known medium in the area. Saul and his sons were about to march into battle against their enemies, the Philistines, and Saul decided it was time to get a bit of supernatural insight as to what was going to happen the next day. In the first Book of Samuel, King Saul of Israel got in some trouble when he sought assistance from the witch and asked her to predict the future. The Christian Bible has an injunction against practicing witchcraft and divination, and that can probably be blamed on the Witch of Endor. Heritage Images/Getty Images / Getty Images Artist : Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Jacob (ca. Found in the collection of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
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