Fortean Who (Part 2)

Cryptids:
Last time, we talked about the Loch Ness Monster being the Skarasen - cyborg-dinosaur pet of the alien Zygons. Or maybe the Borad - mad Karfelon scientist. Nessie ranks amongst the most popular of creatures known as Cryptids. Cryptozoology is a genuine science, which seeks to identify hitherto unknown insects and animals. Much is talked about the number of species which are going extinct due to human encroachment into their territory, or the effects of pollution, global warming and so forth. However, every year a number of new species are discovered in the remoter parts of the globe - the Amazon rain forest (what's left of it), the jungles of Borneo, Norfolk.
This has in part been spurred on by developments in DNA research. Just this year, an already recorded variety of lemur was found to be a brand new species of the animal. It had been known about for a long time, and looked similar to other specimens, but DNA proved it was actually genetically different enough from the more common variety as to be a whole new species.
Under the banner of Crytpozoology we also have the search for creatures thought to be extinct - and those only known about through myth and legend but which people in modern times have claimed to have seen. Two prime examples of this are the large ape-like hominids known as Bigfoot in Northern America, and the Yeti in the areas around the Himalayas.
Doctor Who hasn't so far got round to covering Bigfoot, AKA Sasquatch, but it has done the Yeti.
The ones encountered by the Second Doctor in 1930's Tibet proved to be fur-covered robots - servants of a disembodied alien entity which liked to call itself the Great Intelligence. However, at the end of the story a real Yeti is spotted by explorer Travers, and he runs off after it - so the genuine article exists in the Doctor Who universe.
The word Yeti is Tibetan and means "rocky place bear". The term "Abominable Snowman" was coined in 1921 by a journalist reporting on a recent Everest expedition who mistranslated Tibetan. Another name for the Yeti was Metoh-Kangmi (ape-man snowman). The journalist translated Metoh as "filthy", which he thesaurused into "abominable".
Strangely, when the Great Intelligence launched a second invasion attempt in the late 1960's via the London Underground network, it didn't opt to use robot Tube drivers or ticket inspectors, but stuck with the Yeti.

Werewolves:
"Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night, can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the moon is shining bright".
Not so much a potential Cryptid, though there are legends that people have been able to transform themselves physically and mentally into animals from every continent. These days, Lycanthropy is regarded more as a mental illness, whereby people only come to believe that they have taken on animal attributes, and don't sprout fur and fangs and slaughter their best friends whilst hiking across the Yorkshire Moors. There was a famous case from Germany in 1589, when a man named Stubbe Peeter was executed at Bedburg, near Cologne, after committing a number of murders around the area - possibly up to 25. Victims included men, woman and children, and it was said that the killer partially ate them. Under torture he had confessed to the crimes, claiming he had committed them whilst transformed into a wolf. After execution, his head was left on display atop a 16-spoked wheel - one spoke for each of his confirmed victims. His wife and daughter were also executed, as they were accused of aiding and abetting him.
A more recent Werewolf tale also comes from Germany, and that it the Morbach Monster. In the 1980's the USA had an airforce base at Morbach, where the service personnel heard local tales of a wolf-like creature which stalked the surrounding forests. One night in 1988, a commotion at one of the fences led to a guard seeing a huge wolf watching from the woods. It got up on its hind legs and ran off. Near the base was a shrine in which a candle burned constantly, and it was said that the monster would return if it ever went out. A few nights before the sighting, some of the Americans had been on their way back to the base and had noticed that the candle was not burning.
We have had a couple of Werewolves in Doctor Who, and it is always some sort of alien. On the planet Segonax the Seventh Doctor met a young woman from the planet Vulpana, who transformed into a Werewolf at even the sight of a full moon. Just a picture of one would trigger the transformation. Not sure why she came from a planet named after foxes. Lupana might have been more appropriate.
More recently we had the Werewolf which stalked the remote Glen of Saint Catherine in Scotland. This proved to be a series of hosts for an alien lifeform which fell to Earth in the glen in 1540. The monks of the nearby monastery came to worship it and abducted young boys to act as the hosts for the entity.
That quote at the top comes from the 1941 Universal horror film The Wolfman, and its sequels. Almost everything you know about Werewolves comes from this movie - such as silver being lethal, and the taint being spread by a bite - in much the same way that much Vampire lore comes from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and its many movie adaptations. Talking of which...

Vampires:
I recently wrote a bit about Vampires when I covered State of Decay in my "Inspirations" series of posts, so I won't cover the same ground again.
All it needs to be said is that Vampire myths are also found on every continent, and most of the stories we have heard derive from legends coming out of Central and Eastern Europe. The fear of Vampires is still pretty strong in some parts of Romania, as a recent news item about the corpse of a villager being dug up to be staked, decapitated and burnt will testify. In 2017, a curfew was imposed in a part of Malawi following a number of "vampire murders". Earlier this year David Farrant died. He gained notoriety in 1970 for instigating the hunt for the Highgate Vampire - said to be stalking the atmospheric Highgate Cemetery in North London. (If you're a London-based Vampire, it's the only place to be seen. You wouldn't be seen undead anywhere else). Farrant was sent to jail over this, accused of vandalism and desecrating graves. The story actually began a couple of years previous to these events, and a couple of miles away. A grave in Tottenham Park Cemetery was disturbed at Hallowe'en, 1968 - the corpse having a crucifix-shaped iron rod staked through it.
Many have put the Highgate Vampire scare down to the popularity of the Hammer series of Dracula films, starring the late great Christopher Lee as the Count. 1970 saw the release of Taste the Blood of Dracula (a movie where you can really play spot the Doctor Who guest star). This is the film which brings the Count to London - with a lot of the location sequences filmed in Highgate Cemetery.
Once again, Vampires in Doctor Who have tended to be of alien origins. There was once a race of powerful Vampires who were around at the beginning of the universe, and who were hunted down by Rassilon and the Time Lords. The Saturnyns in 16th Century Venice only looked like Vampires, due to a perception filter. (The look is totally based on Hammer's The Brides of Dracula). A number of corpses were recently discovered in a medieval cemetery on one of the Venetian islands, which had been staked into their graves. There is a film called The Vampire of Venice - only one letter away from the 2010 Doctor Who story title - which starred Klaus Kinski. It was a sequel to the remake of Nosferatu. Sabalom Glitz called his spaceship the Nosferatu, though that story (Dragonfire) is full of cinema references and they were probably looking for something close to Nostromo.
The Plasmavores in Smith and Jones were alien, whilst the Haemovores from The Curse of Fenric were actually a degenerated form of humanity, from an alternate far future.

Folk Horror:
Rather than look to the future, let's look to the past. Recently, Fortean Times has published a number of articles about a sub-genre known as Folk Horror. This sub-genre deals specifically with dark doings in the heart of rural England - usually to do with the maintenance of ancient pagan rites, such as human sacrifice. During the dying days of the Hippy era, some people looked to reject modern ways and concentrate on a more pastoral existence - seeking a golden age just like those nutters who wanted to turn back time in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Folk Horror said that such times weren't all that golden. There are three movies which you should see for an introduction to this sub-genre - 1968's Witchfinder General, its unofficial sequel Blood on Satan's Claw, and 1973's The Wicker Man. (God forbid you should watch the wrong the version of the latter - the abomination that is the 2013 Nicholas Cage one). The first two films are set around the time of the English Civil Wars of the mid-17th Century, and involve witchcraft (theme of the recent Doctor Who story The Witchfinders) and devil worship, whilst The Wicker Man shows how ancient pagan ceremonies can still survive in remote rural outposts, such as the fictional Summerisle.
The 1970's saw a slew of British TV dramas with Folk Horror themes - some of them even aimed at children. Prime example is Children of the Stones, but you can also count Sky (written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin) and Robin Redbreast. Anthology TV series abounded - such as Nigel Kneale's Beasts, some episodes of which touched on Folk Horror. (Check out if you can the episode entitled Baby - that one gave me nightmares back in 1976). Even those public safety information films they used to show on Saturday mornings have been co-opted. The one everybody remembers is The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, which was designed to stop children from playing too close to the water. It's like a mini-horror film, or a segment of an Amicus portmanteau horror movie. Kids are playing by rivers and ponds, and a cowled monk-like figure lurks behind them.

What really makes it is the narration - by Donald Pleasence no less. It's one of the spookiest 90 seconds you'll ever watch. For those of you who didn't watch TV in the 1970's, at least not in the UK, you should be able to find it on You Tube - do search it out. (Another one people remember is the one designed to stop you going near electricity pylons, the dangers of which one boy learns to his cost when he tries to retrieve his frisbee...).
Last time, we talked a lot about The Daemons (probably the most Fortean of all Doctor Who stories). That too can be said to be an example of Folk Horror, with its quiet country village setting, pagan archaeological sites, and the local vicar having his very own black magic coven. (OK, so it's the Master...).

I was going to do just two of these posts, but I'm rather enjoying them, and there are some other Fortean / Doctor Who crossovers still to be explored - so keep an eye out for Part 3.