Today I learned:
There are very few things that genuinely freak me out. I am not an easily scared individual by the traditional means; what works far better are subtle, psychological things, typically taking an hour to fully develop a fear. And half the time that does not even work because then I just am tickled pink that someone pulled it off. However, there is a tourist...attraction, for lack of a better word, that scares the everloving snot out of me, and I've just seen pictures. One such thing is "La Isla De La Munecas" in Mexico, situated by the Xochimilico Canals which feeds into the lake of the same name. The name means "Island of the Dolls" and was inhabited for 50 years until 2001 by one Don Julian Santano. He claimed that a little girl had drowned to death in the canal right by the island, and that her spirit was restless and haunted him. His attempt to pacify it? Providing dolls for it to play with. And I don't mean he went out to Wal Mart and picked up a few cheap dolls, or even that he painstakingly collected nice dolls. What I mean is that he gathered dolls from garbage dumps, traded home grown vegetables for them, and salvaged them however he could, and then proceeded to hang them on trees all over the Island. For decades he did this, hanging them on strings, staking them through the body to trees, on occasion dismembering them and hanging the plasticine appendages separately. There are about 5,000 of these dolls now watching over the island, their eyes unliving but seeming undead as they stare, motionless through the sun and storms that ravage and further deteriorate their condition. The only reason why Don Julian stopped? He drowned to death, in the same part of the same canal that the anonymous little girl had. I'd link to the pictures, but I bet you guys can google them. And I don't want to see them again.
The Barghest is one of the many Black Dog stories from the British Isles. This particular legend hails from the North, around Yorkshire especially, and tells of a large black hound with large claws and teeth that does things like prey on lone travellers and probably kick puppies and such. Variations on this particular theme include the ability to disappear in flames, and appearing before the death of people. It was the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and quite possibly parts of Bram Stoker's "Dracula." Related is the tale of the Yeth hound, which stalks the woods by Devon. It is a headless dog and the spirt of an unbaptised baby, wailing in the night sending shivers down the spine of all who hear. The thing these particular two legends have in common is that they were picked up as mosnters in DnD, and now plague low level adventurers. The Barghest has been jazzed up with the ability to shift into a Goblin and use some magic, and the Yeth hound has a head, but now can fly.
Bacon is heaven.
There is a grim satisfaction realizing you are the best at what you do, even if that ends up being dying in Super Mario Wii...
--Flynn ("I woke up halfway through killing the second assassin.")
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