Bubák - Lurking in the dark and scary places of the Czech Republic and Slovakia is a monster known as Bubák. It stalks the woods at night on a full moon and has a cart pulled by void-colored cats. The Bubák takes on the form of a Scarecrow with a skeleton frame and mimics the cries of an infant to lure people (mostly children) away. It has a cloak that is made out of the souls of those it has captured.

Chaneques - Coming from the Aztecs is a monster whose name means "those who inhabit dangerous places", they are described as looking like children with the face of an old man. Chaneques will lure people away for up to a week, during which they have no memory of what happened to them. It is thought however that the victims of Chaneques are taken to Mictlán, the underworld. These monsters are known to scare people so badly that their soul leaves their body and can only be recovered by performing a specific ritual or they will die.

Bloody Mary and Mary Queen of Scots - Bloody Mary is a ghost from the modern legend who appears in mirrors after performing a ritual, this type of ritual is called Catoptromancy. How to do this varies, but one way is to go into a bathroom with a group of friends, with only candlelight, and chant the name Bloody Mary 3 times. After doing this she will appear in the mirror seemingly covered in blood. This ghost will then attack those who invoked it by either strangling them, drinking their blood, stealing their souls, or other ways. It is believed that the inspiration for Bloody Mary came from a woman named Elizabeth Báthory who was a Hungarian countess that allegedly tortured and bathed in the blood of over 600 young women. She did this because she believed it would make her younger.

A Shtriga is a vampiric witch from Albanian mythology that sucks infants' blood while they sleep at night. Shtriga can change their form into flying insects such as a fly, moths, or bees. The only way to cure a child who she attacked is to have the Shtriga herself cure them. 

One way to defend yourself from a Shtriga is to follow it after it attacks a victim, once it is in the woods it will puke it back up. Take a coin and soak it in that blood then wrap it in cloth.

Hiding in the waters of Belgium and the Netherlands is a monster known as Kludde. Whenever a child passes by water that the Kludde is in they will be dragged in and drowned. It not only lurks in the water but in the forest as well. If it happens upon a person walking alone at night it will jump on their back and become heavier and heavier until the person is immobile and proceed to tear them apart. The Kludde is described as a dark-colored dog that runs on its hind legs and has a chain around its neck.

In Cherokee mythology, Spearfinger is a monster with one finger that is as long as a spear. She is also called a stone dress because her skin is hard as stone. When she walks, it sounds like rocks are being crushed. She uses her long finger as a knife to cut open victims and eat their livers. To get close to her victims, she will transform into a family member of her victim, however, she cannot change back when she is in sight of other people.

Boraro - Standing as tall as the trees in the Amazon Rainforest with backward-facing feet is a monster called Boraro (The Pale Ones). It has black fur, pale skin, and huge fangs. Its main weakness is that it has no joints in its legs so if it falls it will be hard to get back up. When it catches its victim it will crush them with an embrace until their skin is pulp, but it will do this without breaking any bones or the skin. The Boraro makes a hole in the victims' head and drinks out their blood.

Ghoul - In Arabian myth, the Ghoul is a type of Djinn that lives in graveyards and feeds on dead bodies. It will try and lure people into the graveyard or other uninhabited places it stays in by turning into a beautiful woman, once it gets them in its territory the Ghoul will eat them. They can take on many different forms, sometimes a hyena, but one trait that doesn't change about them is their hooved feet.

• In Romanian mythology, Samca is a horrifying evil spirit. She has small eyes that glow bright like the stars and hair that goes down to her heels and breasts that drag on the ground. Samca also has iron hands with sickle nails and an ugly mouth that spits fire.

During the night of the full moon, she comes out and scares kids under 4 who are so afraid they become sick with a disease called " the children's malice". She also appears by the bedside of pregnant women and scares them to death. 

Kuri is a monster in English folklore who lives around makeshift graves. When a person dies in the forest a Kuri will linger over it until it finds a living person nearby to cling onto. At first, the victim doesn't know that it has been latched onto by the Kuri but over time the Kuri will start whispering into their ear incomprehensibly. As time passes, Kuri shows up in the victim's dreams and turns them into nightmares, and starts scratching them, over time causing the person to lose sleep and become paranoid. 

Eventually, the Kuri will start revealing itself by putting its face over those of the people that are close to the victim so they start to avoid them at all costs and are deemed crazy when they try to explain themselves. As this goes on the victim gets to a point where all they can do is give into the pleas of the Kuri who wants to go back to the place where it latched onto them. They go into the woods, dehydrated, lacking sleep, and confused, until they falter and die, where the Kuri then repeats the process looking for a new victim.

   Lurking in the woods or walking through your neighborhood, monsters are waiting to attack. They will try to confuse you so you don't know when or where you are being attacked. These monsters sound close when far away or far away when nearby so you let your guard down.

El Sílbon - The Whistler, as he is called in English, was an evil child who murdered his father for not being able to bring him deer meat. His mother and grandfather both cursed him so he must carry his father's bones in a bag while running from dogs for eternity. El Sílbon has a distinct whistle that goes by the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, rising until F and falling in tone to B. His whistle is a foreshadowing of death for whoever hears it, unless a dog barks somewhere nearby, which will scare him away. 

La Llorona - In a Guatemalan version of La Llorona or "Weeping Woman" a woman drowned her kid that she had after cheating on her husband to not let him find out. After she died she was cursed to look around any place that has a body of water, she cries out 'Ay mis hijos!' (Oh, my children!) If you hear this call and it sounds far away she is close by and vis versa. Any child who hears this is taken away by La Llorona and is never seen again.

Tianak - Hidden in the forest of the Philippines a passerby may hear an infant crying out. If a person were to go and look for the baby to help, they will be attacked by an evil spirit that sometimes takes the form of a baby or a small old man. In some versions, when you pick it up it releases its claws and fangs and attacks you. If the baby's cries sound distant it means that it is close, and if they sound like they're nearby then it is far away.

Bathrooms and outhouses are common places for Yōkai to dwell. It is a liminal space, as said by Michael Foster in his book The Book of Yōkai : 

"In many ways, the bathroom is a danger-

ous liminal space, exactly the sort of no-man's land that yōkai like to frequent. In particular a school bathroom is shared, and in this sense it is very public; at the same time, however, it is also the most private of spaces, in which a person literally exposes herself. Moreover, a toilet with its hole leading to somewhere else can be thought of as a kind of portal to another world."

Aka Name - A small grotesque creature whose name means "filth licker." It dwells in outhouses and dirty baths eating the grime and human waste in it.

Aka Manto - If you find yourself in the fourth stall of a less frequently used bathroom. When you finish your business, you realize you're out of toilet paper. At that point, a man will ask you if you want red or blue paper. If you say red, you will be stabbed and sliced up to the point that it looks like you're wearing a red shirt from all the injuries. If you choose the blue paper, however, all of the blood will be sucked out of your body.

Kurote - A hand covered in hair that reaches up out of the toilet and strokes a person's behind.

Kappa - A creature with scaley skin, webbed feet, and hands, and has a bowl in its head filled with water. The Japanese hold the belief that the shirikodama, a small ball located inside the anus that they try and take because it holds the soul. They will sometimes go inside peoples toilets in order to get the shirikodama easier.

Toire no Hanako-san - Similar to Bloody Mary, she is the ghost of a girl who died in a school bathroom and haunts it, interacting with others. Girls will go into the stall and knock three times asking if she is there, if she says "Yes I am" the stall will open up and the girl will be pulled into the toilet and then to Hell.

The Hidebehind is a monster from Lumberjack folklore (also called Fearsome Critters) and is said to be the reason lumberjacks don't come back to their camps after going into the woods. This monster follows people through the woods, mostly tormenting the last person in a group. If that person kept looking back, they would be tormented even more to the point that they could die of fright. One way to overcome that panic is to ignore them completely. Lumberjacks believed that the smell of alcohol also drives the Hidebehind away cause it hates the smell.

The Hidebehind is described as looking like a tall slender creature covered in thick dark hair with large claws that it uses to disembowel its victim.

In Japanese folklore, Kuchisake Onna, or "slit-mouthed woman" is a vengeful ghost of a woman who died a gruesome death and seeks to take it out on others. She approaches people at night and asks them if they think she is beautiful. If they say yes, she pulls down the cover she is wearing on her to reveal her gruesome mutilated mouth and asks if they still think she is beautiful.

If the victim says no or becomes frightened by the sight of it, Kuchisake Onna will slit their mouth from ear to ear to match her own. If the victim lies and says yes, she will walk away but later follow the person home and slaughter them there.

One way to supposedly get away from being attacked by Kuchisake Onna is to either give confusing answers or throw money or candy at her and run away.

In Alaska, there is a monster called Kushtaka (land-otter Man), which lures people into rivers by imitating the cries of a baby or a woman screaming Once there, Kushtaka will attack the person by ripping them to shreds and consume their soul or turn them into another Kushtaka. Its exact form isn't clear. Some say that it can be similar in characteristics to Bigfoot, while others, as the name suggests, take the form of an otter or half human half otter. 

Kushtaka can also travel in the woods in groups in the form of men and appear as though they are lost or injured. If you were to go and try to help them, they would lure you into the woods and attack you.

In the folklore of Central America, La Cegua (La Sihuanaba) is a monster that, from the back, looks like a beautiful woman who lures unfaithful men into the woods. She may also appear to look like the man's girlfriend or wife from a distance. When they finally catch up to her, she turns around to reveal her face, which is that of either a horse or a horse skull. The sight of this will drive the man insane or cause him to die of fright on the spot.

The Sihuanaba will also lure children away into the woods by taking on the appearance of their mother. She will then grab the child, which causes them to go insane and she will leave them there lost and insane in the woods.

Jack O' Lanterns were made originally out of Turnips and placed in windows or in front of doors in order to ward off evil spirits.

The origin of the name came from Britain in the 1600s, which referred to a man carrying a lantern at night or to night watchmen. It was also associated with the ignus fatuus or fool's fire A.K.A. will-o-the-wisp. There is a folk tale about a figure named Stingy Jack who would constantly play tricks on the Devil. He eventually got himself banished from the afterlife and was forced to roam the Earth forever.  The Devil gave Jack a piece of burning coal, which he took and put inside a carved out turnip to help light his way.

In the 1800s, this myth and tradition made its way to America where turnips being less common was replaced with pumpkins.

In Balinese folklore, the Leyak is a monster that is a flying head with fangs, unusually long tongues, and its entrails hanging from beneath it. They fly around trying to find newborn children or pregnant women to suck out their blood (similar to the manananggal or penanggalan). Leyak commonly haunts graveyards and feeds on corpses as well.

The Witching Hour (A.K.A. The Devil's Hour) is an event that happens somewhere between midnight and 4 a.m. During these hours, witches, demons, and ghosts are believed to be at their most powerful. This is because the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinest, allowing for crossovers (such as events like the summer and winter solstices). It is also called The Devil's Hour because it is an inversion of the death of Jesus, which was believed to have been at 3 P.M. Witches would practice their dark rituals at this time, and other malevolent spirits would be out causing mischief (sleep paralysis demons and incubi are also more prevalent during this time).

In Scottish folklore, the Baoban Sith (Sith is pronounced she) is a violent fairy that seduces and deletes men who are out hunting in the woods. They appear as beautiful women usually wearing a long green dress that conceals the fact that they have deer hooves instead of feet. They appear to men who are alone or with a group of men out in the woods. The men will bring up how they desire to be with a partner, and the Baobhan Sith show up and start interacting with them.

However, one of the men will notice that the other men seem injured from the and will runaway on horseback being chased until daylight in which she will disappear. When the man returns, he finds all of his friends drained of their life force. It is said that the man on horseback was able to survive because of the iron in the horseshoe acting as a ward against the fairies. The Baobhan Sith appear immediately after the men bring up the desire for them because there is a Scottish folk belief that if you were to make a wish without invoking God's protection, that wish would be granted in a negative way.

In the folklore of the Chiapas (Southern Mexico), La Mala Hora is an evil spirit who takes on the form of a beautiful woman. She is mostly seen walking on the side of the road at night by men who decide to follow her. Some men who follow her are lucky enough to notice that she is not walking but floating away into the woods. Or they will notice that her feet are backward. Men who are too caught up in a daze will not notice anything strange and be led over a cliff to their death. In some versions, La Mala Hora is seen as an omen of death to those who see her or of someone the person knows. 

Grimoires are books and manuscripts used for spells, magic, curses, and how to use them. You can use them for things like summoning the devil or demons and how to put a curse on someone. The original meaning of the word Grimoire dates back to and comes from the word 'grammaire' or grammar, which used to refer to all Latin books.

The oldest examples of Grimoires date back to the 5th and 4th century B.C. Ancient Egypt also used them seemingly as far back as the 300s B.C. In Irving Finkle's book 'The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies, ' he talks about how there are Mesopotamian spells that are used to ward off ghosts.

One of the more popular Grimoires is The Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, said to be made by King Solomon of the Old Testament. It contains spells that can be used to summon demons which he used to help build temples for him.

Another famous Grimoire is the Codex Gigas. This book was said to have been written by a monk one night who was trying to avoid being walled up alive for breaking his monastic vows. He promised to make a book containing all human knowledge. He made a pact with the devil for his soul in return for help with the completion of the book before midnight. It is estimated that to write this book it would have taken 20 years of non-stop writing (not including the illustrations or embellishments). The Codex Gigas contains the entire Latin Vulgate Bible, two works of Flavius Josephus, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, a book on the art of medicine, the Chronica Boëmorum, texts on driving out evil spirits, and more.

Hungry Ghosts are a class of the dead who are afflicted with insatiable hunger and thirst as a result of the bad deeds they performed during their lifetimes. These hungry ghosts are most often described as having bulging stomachs, thin necks, tiny mouths, and withered skin. Hungry Ghosts are created in many different ways, such as:

- Not having ancestors to honor you after you died.

- Dying a violent or unhappy death.

- Being greedy, desireful, angry.

- Killing, stealing, or inappropriate sexual behaviors.

In Japan, these ghosts, which are known as Gaki, are sometimes forced to eat only feces, vomit, and corpses. Others are cursed not to be able to eat at all and anything they try to eat just bursts into flames.

Every year in China, they celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival. During this time, the dead come to visit the living. To appease these spirits, people will lay out food and other offerings of things like clothes and joss paper (spirit money).

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
- Mark 8:36-37 KJV

Selling your soul to the devil (A.K.A. a Faustian Bargain) is the idea that one can exchange their soul for something such as fame, wealth, and knowledge among other things. The oldest known origin of a person trying to sell their soul to the Devil seems to date back to the 6th century A.D. A man named Saint Theophilus of Adana signed a deal with the devil in his blood to become the Bishop. He also had to renounce Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. After he got the position, he started fearing for his soul and was eventually able to destroy the contract and his good standing with God, where he then died from sheer joy.

This tale is what would later inspire the story of Faust who sold his soul at a crossroads for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. This motif has been made very popular over the centuries; one of the more famous examples of this is the story of the Blues musician Robert Johnson, who is said to have sold his soul for musical talent.

The landscape of myth and folklore is a very integral part of a lot of cultures day to day life. Some people, such as animists, believe that all objects possess a spirit. These spirits and beings can affect how people interact with the world around them. In some instances, there are even laws put in place to prevent either people or these spirits from being harmed or causing harm.

- Salic Law (Frankish) during the 6th century outlawed anyone from carrying witch's cauldrons.

- Norwegian laws in the 11th and 12th centuries made it illegal to come into contact with and seek knowledge from Trolls.

- Skamania County in Washington State made it illegal to hunt Bigfoot. If anyone is caught doing do will result in a $10,000 fine and 5 years in jail.

- One of many such acts against Witches and Witchcraft is the Witchcraft Act of 1541. It was put into law by King Henry VIII and it was made Witchcraft an illegal act punishable by death.

- Djinn, like humans, are required to follow the Divine Islamic law of Sharia as they are considered adults (mukallāf).

In Catalonian Folklore, the Dip is a vampiric hellhound. It is an acquaintance to the Devil and is lame in one of its legs. They have been known to drain cattle of their life force at night (similar to El Chupacabra). Their evil eyes are visible at night and they have been known to go after drunk men.