Witches Get StitchesLists about real practices of witchcraft and the occult and their pointy-hatted, warty-nosed, buckle-shod, broom-ridin', high-pitched cacklin' depictions in media.
Is the Blair Witch legend true? Is there a real Blair Witch? By now, everyone knows (spoiler) The Blair Witch Project is a work of fiction. However, the mythology behind the film does resemble several real-life events. That isn't to say the Blair Witch was inspired by these events, but rather that there are many Blair Witch-esque events in history.
This list of Blair Witch-adjacent true creepy legends will leave you with chills. The subject matter ranges from witches to child serial killers. Some are real haunting accounts, others are true historical tales of torture and disapperance. All elements of the Blair Witch mythology are covered and compared to these events. Unlike our favorite found footage film, though, these stories are real.
Though Elly Kedward, the historical witch of The Blair Witch Project, is fictional, there is a real legend of a famous witch who lived in Maryland.
Moll Dyer is said to have lived in Leonardtown during the late 17th or early 18th century. During one harsh winter when an epidemic illness hit Leonardtown, townspeople suspected Dyer of cursing them. A group of vigilantes chased her into the forest. There, she knelt beside a stone and, placing one hand upon it, prayed for justice.
According to the legend, the mob of townspeople killed her. A few days later, they found Moll's hand still imprinted on the rock. The rock was moved to the town courthouse, where it sits to this day.
Elly Kedward, AKA the Blair Witch, is said to have lured children to their doom so she could draw blood from them. In the early 17th century, Countess Elizabeth Bathory did just that in Hungary. Probably the most prolific serial killer of all time, Bathory is said to have murdered 650 people, though this happened so long ago that it's hard to know for sure.
She was believed to have tortured and murdered servant girls as well as peasant girls she abducted. Legend has it she would bathe in their blood to maintain her youthful appearance. This earned her the nickname The Blood Countess.
In the annals of Blair Witch mythology, the township of Blair is said to have disappeared, cursed by the witch. The colony of Roanoke, NC, disappeared in 1590. Roanoke was England's first attempt at a permanent settlement in the New World. A group of settlers arrived in 1587, but when ships returned three years later with supplies, it was learned that the colony had vanished.
All that remained were the mysterious words "Croatoan" carved into a gatepost and "Cro" carved into a tree. Though there are many theories, the true fate of the colonists remains a mystery.
According to Blair Witch legend, a book was published in 1809 called The Blair Witch Cult. There have been many written accounts of witchcraft through the ages, such as The Munich Handbook of Necromancy. This famous manuscript, currently held in the Bavarian State Library in Munich, is a grimoire (a book of spells and incantations) from the 15th century.
The textbook of magic includes three major types: Illusionist, Psychological, and Divinatory. The manual is a sourcebook for summoning demonic spirits.
Ghost Of Drowned Girl Captured On Camera
According to Blair Witch legend, in 1825, a pale hand was seen reaching up from the waters of Tappy East Creek and pulling 10-year-old Eileen Treacle under. Her body was never found. In 2014, Australian woman Kim Davison was swimming in Murphy's Hole in Queensland's Lockyer River with a friend and three children. A photo taken that day has four children in it. No one knows who the fourth kid is, but she looks like a ghost.
What's more, it was revealed that a 13-year-old girl drowned in that very spot 100 years before the photo was taken.
The Blair Witch has a flair for disembowelment, having done it to an entire search party in 1886. Disemboweling was Jack the Ripper's calling card.
At the end of the 19th century, he murdered and disemboweled at least five sex workers in London's East End. His victims' throats and stomachs were cut open, their organs removed, and their bodies butchered. The case remains unsolved.
