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the tm book of monsters spirits demons and ghouls alex irvine illustrations by dan panosian supernatural created by eric kripke

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contents preface vi spirits the woman in white water spirits urban legends and vengeful spirits land spirits native and immigrant native american curses amityville route 55 wisconsin lakes curse oh and the bugs curse of kaskaskia 9 14 19 24 24 27 28 29 32 35 40 49 vanir lawrence death apparitions monsters wendigo shapeshifters 56 60 iii

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yenaldooshi bearwalker 61 62 64 65 66 leszy nahuales puca the animal wife selkies swan maidens kitsune lycanthropy 67 70 77 81 85 88 tulpas and other created beings homunculus golem rakshasa ghouls revenants et cetera ghoul shtriga draugr/draug vampire zombie how to kill a zombie/revenant other revenants 97 100 102 105 118 122 127 witches familiars and black dogs iv contents

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demons succubus/incubus jinn tengu abiku pishacha acheri the yellow-eyed demon lesser demons we have known reaper goofer dust appendix a herbs oils and hoodoo hands appendix b names and attributes of european demons about the author other books by alex irvine credits cover copyright about the publisher 195 175 145 147 148 149 150 151 152 155 171 174 contents v

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preface from ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties good lord preserve us old irish saying and when the good lord won t we will newish winchester saying s am and dean winchester at your service we re hunters dispatchers of spirits scourges of the undead and unnatural feared by demons and shapeshifters and boogeymen of all shapes and sizes in a nutshell we track down monsters and then we blow the suckers away we ve been in this line of work all our lives sam was six months old when a demon killed our mother dean was five years old you might say we ve both grown up in the family business neither one of us has ever held an honest job except for sam briefly while he was off deluding himself that he could lead a normal life the murder of his girlfriend jessica in exactly the way our mother was murdered put an end to that dream and he rejoined the firm of winchester and sons then last year the family business was cut back down to two our dad sacrificed himself to save dean cut a deal with the same demonic bastard that killed our mother and killed jessica now vi

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we re out to get that yellow-eyed son of a bitch and we re taking down every evil thing we run across along the way we re not the only ones you might not see them or recognize their work but there are other hunters out there people who have dedicated their lives to keeping you safe from things you didn t know existed and wouldn t want to believe in if you did some of them taught our dad the ropes daniel elkins bobby singer good people and some of them have helped us along the way like jo and ellen harvelle and some of them have let hunting turn them into the kind of monster they spend their lives trying to snuff yeah gordon we re talking to you it s a real problem you look into the abyss nietzsche said and the abyss looks back number one on the hunter s list of priorities is wasting evil but number 1a is making sure that what you re about to waste really is evil sometimes it isn t easy sometimes all you have to go on is your gut instinct and sometimes you make decisions that get people killed so how do you tell the difference between a haunt and a plain old run of bad luck that s one of the questions that s plagued hunters from the beginning back in medieval europe people were a little more likely to jump to supernatural conclusions now we find all the time that a series of accidents that might look like a haunting or curse isn t anything of the kind it s a rough old world out there even without the demons and black magic and unquiet spirits often enough though there are things that can t be explained by science or even by the various weird extremes of human behavior we ve learned to distinguish the supernatural from the merely bizarre our dad taught us to look for patterns if there s a string of unexplained deaths in a particular place has it happened before some supernatural bad guys appear for a few years or a few days and vii preface

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then disappear for a while shtrigas are like that and rakshasas and some kinds of demons some angry spirits work along the same pattern they take out their frustrations for a while and then lie low which makes it harder sometimes to figure out what s got them so riled up hard to waste a spirit when you don t know what s motivating it know thine enemy it says somewhere our dad drilled that into us too some patterns are easy to figure killings on the full moon fits the mo of a werewolf although it s not always that simple series of drownings year after year near the summer solstice we ll put our money on a nix mass disappearances near a certain location angry spirit details tk strange weather patterns and localized crop failures that one s probably a demon more later on that much more other patterns might include a relationship among all of the people affected do they hang out at the same bar did they all play baseball on the same little league team have they all owned at one time or another a particular item that might be carrying a curse this part of the job is just like police work the difference is that cops put criminals in jail we put spirits back in the afterlife and demons back in hell in this book we re going to take you through the various spirits and monsters and demons that we ve run into while searching for the big one the yellow-eyed demon that destroyed our family there s a war coming and when it starts we re all going to need to know as much as we can about the other side so read on and see what it s like when you take a step into the world of the supernatural preface viii

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spirits

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s pirits come in all kinds and they can be provoked to stay in the world of the living by any kind of emotion love or hate sadness or confusion dad quotes the english demonologist ebenezer sibly in his journals in the world of spirits is always a very great number of them as being the first sort of all in order to their examination and preparation but there is no fixed time for their stay for some are translated to heaven and others confined to hell soon after their arrival whilst some continue there for weeks and others for several years almost always a spirit is tied to a material object more often than not that material object is the spirit s own remains we spend a lot of time digging up bones but we ve also worked jobs where the spirit was residing in jewelry dolls picture frames you name it in a nutshell here s what we ve learned anything can be haunted after death some spirits don t want to go they think their work on earth isn t done or they feel they have to right some wrong or avenge some injustice so they don t go they hang around the 2 the supernatural book of monsters spirits demons and ghouls

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material world unable to touch anything or talk to anyone and their only company is other spirits as lost and confused as they are it doesn t take dr phil to figure out that eventually all of that feeling is going to turn bad when it does you ve got a spirit that might be evil or might be angry or might just be lashing out from pure anguish whatever the reasons these spirits tend to be fatal to the people who get in their way and it s our job to see them back on their path to the afterlife dispelling a spirit is pretty straightforward even though it s not always easy you find the remains or the object the spirit is using as a focus to stay active in the human world when you ve found it you salt it and burn it end of spirit maybe it lacks a little finesse spirits 3

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but it gets the job done sometimes you can even get away with just giving the body a proper burial that works if the spirit hasn t had time to go crazy in the limbo between this world and the next and if it turns out to be a death omen well they re satisfied just to be noticed here s an old story maybe one of the oldest about a spirit like that it s one of dad s favorites well was one of dad s favorites it s maybe the prototype haunted-house story pliny the younger letter to sura there was at athens a large and roomy house which had a bad name so that no one could live there in the dead of the night a noise resembling the clashing of iron was frequently heard which if you listened more attentively sounded like the rattling of chains distant at first but approaching nearer by degrees immediately afterward a specter appeared in the form of an old man of extremely emaciated and squalid appearance with a long beard and disheveled hair rattling the chains on his feet and hands the distressed occupants meanwhile passed their wakeful nights under the most dreadful terrors imaginable this as it broke their rest ruined their health and brought on distempers their terror grew upon them and death ensued even in the daytime though the spirit did not appear yet the impression remained so strong upon their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes and kept them in perpetual alarm consequently the house was at length deserted as being deemed absolutely uninhabitable so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost however in 4 the supernatural book of monsters spirits demons and ghouls

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hopes that some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this very alarming circumstance a bill was put up giving notice that it was either to be let or sold it happened that athenodorus the philosopher came to athens at this time and reading the bill enquired the price the extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion nevertheless when he heard the whole story he was so far from being discouraged that he was more strongly inclined to hire it and in short actually did so when it grew toward evening he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the front part of the house and after calling for a light together with his pencil and tablets directed all his people to retire but that his mind might not for want of employment be open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and spirits he applied himself to writing with the utmost attention the first part of the night passed in entire silence as usual at length a clanking of iron and rattling of chains was heard however he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen but in order to keep calm and collected tried to pass the sounds off to himself as something else the noise increased and advanced nearer till it seemed at the door and at last in the chamber he looked up saw and recognized the ghost exactly as it had been described to him it stood before him beckoning with a finger like a person who calls another athenodorus in reply made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little and threw his eyes again upon his papers the ghost then rattled its chains over the head of the philosopher who looked upon this and seeing it beckoning as before immediately arose and light in hand followed it the ghost slowly stalked along as if encumbered with its chains spirits 5

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