Editorials
The Most Frightful Foes From the Bestiary of “The Witcher 3”!
Between the possibly-going-to-be-shit-please-don’t-be-shit Netflix adaption getting closer, and CD Projekt’s recent announcement of a new RPG based in the Witcher universe, The Witcher series is still going strong, hanging around our humble hovels like we just refused to pay it for a contract. To give you something to meditate on until then, here’s some tasty folklore behind five of The Witcher 3‘s most terrifying creatures. Note that, for the sake of our reader’s sanity, we’ve chosen to omit the most dangerous of these beasts: very small hills. Enjoy!
Foglets
“he be a light that pass and pass before one until he be bewitched and follow the bright, hopping light on, on as it flashes back and then forward before the eye of the one be possessed.” – The Feu Follet at Otter Lake
“Most important of all, if you see a light in the fog, never, and I mean never, go towards it.” – The Witcher 3
Although the misleadingly adorable sounding ‘Foglet’ seems to be unique to the Witcher, these razor-toothed Necrophages bear more than a passing resemblance to the Feu Follet (French, ‘Marsh Fire) – better known as Will-o’-the-wisp. One dead giveaway, aside from the pun, is the presence of an especially tricksy Foglet in The Witcher 3 named ‘Ignis Fatuus’ — a medieval Latin name for the wisp that translates as “foolish fire”. The similarities don’t end there, though. Just like Foglets, these spirits are fond of luring travelers from well-trodden paths with glowing orbs of light. Unlike Foglets though, they generally don’t chew off their victim’s limbs afterward, although not having teeth is probably a factor here. Small mercies, then.
Lubberkins/Botchlings
The creature in English folklore known as the Lubberkin, Lubber Fiend, Lurdane, Lob, or Lob-Lie-By-The-Fire is a mischievous, Puck-like spirit. A bit of a dick, but fairly benign otherwise. Sometimes it convinces monks to drink too much wine, sometimes it does household chores in exchange for a saucer of milk, but no mention of the floating, translucent spectre that serves as a helpful compass in the Bloody Baron’s quest line.
If we look at the Scandinavian Myling, however, we find a much closer analog to the Witcher’s portrayal of the Lubberkin. The Mylingar were the lost spirits of unbaptized children. These fiendish hitchhikers longed to be buried in hallowed church ground, so were in the habit of jumping on the backs of unwary travelers and steering them towards the nearest graveyard. There are a few other tales similar to the Lubberkin from around the world, but if I wrote them here I’d just be paraphrasing this excellent video on the subject.
The Wild Hunt
“Many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge, and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats, and their hounds were jet black, with eyes like saucers, and horrible.” – English account of the Wild Hunt, 1127.
The motif of undead riders is a common one in European folklore, often the portend of some nasty omen or other, but the term Wilde Jagd (Wild Hunt) was developed and popularised by Jacob Grimm.
The leader of the hunt varies in the telling. Sometimes it’s Woden (Odens jakt, Swedish: The Hunt of Odin), sometimes it’s Krampus (which would have made a great boss fight), and sometimes it’s the devil themselves. Whoever was at the head, the Wild Hunt rarely meant good news to those who saw them, often stealing the spirits of those they passed to join to their spectral cavalcade. Much like our modern understanding of All Hallow’s Eve, Yuletide was once believed to thin the barriers between the realms of the living and dead, meaning that souls were easy pickings for the Hunt when they ventured out at this time.
We can make a safe guess that Norse myth factors heavily in The Witcher’s interpretation of the Wild Hunt, due to the ship where Geralt’s final confrontation with Eredin goes down. The fingernail clipping-hewn Nagflar (Norse: Nail Fairer) was a sure sign that Ragnarok was well underway, acting as a particularly grizzly troop carrier on its way to fight the gods.
Leshens
Also known as the Leshy (Russian: He from the forest), these glade guardians tended to change their attitude to humans depending on how big of an asshole they were to the trees, sort of like a terrifying Lorax.
Not outrightly evil, but fond of tormenting those who travel too deeply into the forest, encounters with a Leshy can still result in death. Notably, death by tickling, since the Leshy often don’t know where to draw the line. You can also, supposedly, gain the respect of a Leshy by putting all your clothes on backward, freeing you from further torment. The more you know.
Bruxa
This particular breed of bloodsucker comes from a Portuguese myth about women transformed not through the bite of another vampire, but through witchcraft. Boasting the ability to transform into birds, rats, and bizarrely, ants, the Bruxa primary trait, like most vampires, was ravenous hunger — one she often satiated with the blood of children.
Bruxa were supposedly invincible too, although there’s a fair chance the originators of the myth didn’t have access to a big fucking sword made of solid silver, which tends to bypass a fair few folklore caveats.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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