Fun Fact:

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel." - Horace Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole

Apparently, the ancient Greeks had their own take on the werewolf legend.

On the slopes of Mount Lykaion, worshipers of Zeus-Lykaois (Zeus-the-Wolf) would conduct a ritual in his honor. A ritual that supposedly involved cannibalism and human sacrifice. Inspired by the well-known myth where King Lycaon kills his own son Nyctimus and tries to trick Zeus into eating his flesh only to be found out and transformed into a wolf, the ritual attendance would gather once every nine years in the dead of night and make their sacrifice consisting of a human volunteer and an animal. And after the deed was done, a portion of the volunteer's intestine would be mixed with the animal's entrails. The cult members would then each take a morsel of meat and whoever wound up eating the human flesh was transformed into a wolf.

The kicker is they would be stuck in their wolf form for nine years and the only way to be transformed back would be to abstain from eating human flesh that entire time. Not an easy task for a wolf.

Most monsters in this day and age are impeccably tailored and well-coiffed.

Not to mention, they smile on TV.

"My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C.S. Lewis." ― C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

"Conan Man-Ape" by Frank Frazetta.

Our tour begins before we even enter the Mansion itself in the Magic Kingdom, where you can see some of our guests in their corruptible...mortal...busts.

Pictured here, we have the Dread Family. Uncle Jacob Dread, Bertie Dread, Aunt Florence McGriffin Dread, Wellington and Forsythia Dread, and Cousin Maude (Dread, I'm assuming).

They were a family of six who once inhabited the manor before one day they all met their gruesome fate at each other's hands. Uncle Jacob was poisoned by Bertie for his wealth. Who was then shot dead by Florence as an act of revenge. Who was then smothered by bird seed by Forsythia and Wellington, who were then killed in their sleep with a mallet…by Cousin Maude. Who, as the sole surviving member of the Dread Family, burned to death because she liked to use matches in her hair instead of hairpins (really amazing thinking there Cousin Maude…🙄). And now, the Dread Family is no more and haunt the halls of the esteemed mansion.

Fun Fact:

The Cheshire Cat was first introduced in Lewis Carroll's novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The character was inspired by an old phrase "Smiling like a Cheshire cat". The origins of that phrase are still debated to this day, but the most widely accepted theory is that it refers to a cat living in the English county of Cheshire, which is known for producing a lot of milk and dairy, which cats love, hence the smiling. Carroll decided to personify the cat from that phrase, he gave it a physical form, a personality and magic powers. In the book, the cat doesn't play quite as large a role as he does in the Disney movie, but the two have very similar characteristics. They talk in really confusing ways that are sometimes funny but also kind of annoying, they raise philosophical questions to Alice even though she clearly doesn't understand them and while they sometimes appear to be making a situation worse for her, they're actually rooting for Alice to succeed and even are helping her indirectly.

Fun Fact:

History's greatest hero deserved better...

The ending to Hercules' story is quite a downer. When Hercules was traveling with his new bride Deianeira, they came across a flooded river and the centaur Nessus offered to carry Deianeira across while Hercules swam in front of them. Only when Hercules got to the shore, he saw that Nessus had turned around and tried running off with his wife. So the hero took out one of his poisoned arrows and sent it ripping through Nessus' chest. Refusing to die unavenged, Nessus told Deianeira that she could use his bloody shirt to cast a love spell on Hercules if he ever got bored with her. And years later, she gave it a try, without realizing the shirt had also absorbed the poison from her husband's arrows and so the moment Hercules was tricked into putting the shirt on, his body cried out in pain. The poison entered his bloodstream, causing it to boil and hiss and the tunic grafted itself to his skin. So the only way to get it off was by ripping off his own flesh. Left with no other option, the immortal Heracles made a funeral pyre to burn away his physical form and soon after, his spirit was welcomed to Mt. Olympus.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King.

An unrelentingly dark and emotional book. Very interesting and frightening read.

It says something when the best-selling horror author ever feels a book is too unnerving.

"The soil of a man's heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it."

- Stephen King

Anyone who hasn’t seen Scott Pilgrim is missing out.