The Wendigo; For those of you in Haloween withdrawal

The Wendigo is a creature from Algonquin mythology.

The wise men of the old tribes say there is a spirit who lives among the land and skies of the Earth who possesses a pure evil spirit and will punish those who are not true at heart. Man should always be mindful of their heart’s desires, or they will be visited by this beast, for the beast can only see a wicked heart.

A wicked man lived among the village. He was feared by the villagers and often treated them cruelly. His cruel treatment of the villagers drew the attention of the unseen beast. He never felt the eyes watching him from the peak of the nearby mountain.

He took what he wanted from his neighbors and harmed those who opposed him. The villagers lived in fear of him. Every evil act he committed against his kin filled him with a sense of pleasure which branded him as an evil man.

Despite his cruel nature, the wicked man was a great hunter. The villagers rejoiced when he would go to his hunting lodge. There was another who rejoiced at his departure, and was eagerly awaiting the feast the wicked man would yield.

He packed his tools and set out for his hunting lodge in the mountains up from the village. It was winter and the people of the village needed to venture out to find the game which provided them with food and shelter.

After several days of hunting the wicked man had gathered a nice collection of skins and meat which he would not be overly willing to share with the villagers. While cleaning the carcass of a freshly slain animal, he heard the crack of a broken limb and saw a strange shadow in the trees a distance off from his camp. He went to look, but found nothing.

One night while he was resting in his tent, he heard a shrill noise on the wind. He felt a pang of apprehension, for the wind sounded like it was calling his name.

The next night, the wind began to howl again and he was certain he heard the wind calling his name. He was a cruel man and did not wholly fear the wind. He thought it may be some of the villagers and he marked them for revenge when he returned.

The following night the wind blew fiercely. The wicked man heard his name whaled over and over again as the wind blew on. For the first time in his life he was afraid and refused to leave his tent.

The following day, he left his tent and found large footprints in the snow. They were unlike anything he had ever seen. They were in a neat circle which repeated itself over and over again around his tent.

That night, the wind blew harder than the wicked man had ever seen in his life. The voice on the wind had returned as well. It howled his name without rest. After some time, the walls of the wicked man’s tent began to buckle, like some unseen force was flapping a large set of wings against the animal skin shelter.

The wicked man did not know what was happening, but his mind was slowly slipping away from him. The shear terror he was experiencing was slowly stripping away all the parts of his being which made him the wicked man all the villagers knew.

After some hours he was reduced to little more than a sobbing child, curled in a ball on the floor of his animal skin shelter. The voice on the wind howled on, merciless. In his terrified state he could feel an unseen force pulling at his soul.

The terrible storm blew on and the wicked man’s fire eventually died. The voice in the wind blew on. He felt the sweat pour from his body and the chills of the cold winter wind struggle for dominance on his shivering form. His stomach tightened and his mind left him. He charged from the tent. The voice in the wind blew on.

The wicked man ran, blind and senseless. The voice on the wind was all around him. He came to realize at that moment the voice on the wind could have taken him from his tent at any time. He shuddered as he realized he was being tortured. The wind raged on, the voice on the wind was all around him. It was not so much a thing heard with his ears, but heard directly in his mind and soul. He ran frantically.

The wicked man ran, like one of the scared villagers he had tormented so many times or one of the animals he had been slow to finish during a hunt. The wicked man ran from a voice on the wind that moved in front of him in a moment and circled behind him in another.

The wind seemed different now. Instead of its persistent howling, it was now a dreadful scream which seemed to consume the wicked man, all the time howling his name. He ran with all his strength. He felt the iron claws sink into each of his shoulders and bury their terrible points deep into his flesh, and his soul.

The wind shrieked. The wicked man’s fear was abandoned now. Instead, it was replaced by a kind of white terror unknown to living man. A terror reserved for those who are in the grasp of a demon and are fated to never return to warn those who still live. The wind keeps howling, its hellish voice calling his name.

The wicked man feels his feet lifted from the ground and a horrific force blast against his exposed flesh. The cold air burns as the wind screams louder in his ears. The cold wind burns like the largest fire any of the villagers had ever seen, but there was no light, only heat. The wind still screams. The wicked man’s fear is voiced with shrill cries, usually reserved for the torment of the underworld.

The wicked man feels a terrible force as he is hurtled through the night air. He feels the dreadful pain of the razor sharp talons gripping his flesh, and feels the searing heat of the frigid night air. He reaches for the paws of the winged beast which now holds him and realizes he can not grasp the paws.

The wind screams and the air burns. He tries again to grip the beast and realizes he has no fingers to grasp at the terrible claws. In his white terror, he realizes his fingers had burnt away in the searing night wind. No sooner has he realized this then he feels the skin on his naked chest and face crack. Just before the wind stops screaming, the wicked man hears the horrible beast whisper his name one last time.

Silence now, nothing seen or heard. The wicked man feels his eyes and ears melt away with his arms and legs. The beast is carrying him off faster than any human was meant to travel through the air. He feels the searing winter wind tear the skin from his chest and face. He tries to scream, but there is nothing left of his upper form to allow the sounds to issue from him. All he has is his blind terror, which is amplified by unfamiliarity. The beast flies faster and faster as the wicked man burns away.

After a time, there were only a few shreds of dried flesh left in the beast’s clenched claws. He lets them fall back to the Earth, for he has no need of them. He has feasted on the fear of the wicked man. The beast had picked his prey wisely, for he knew that a man with a wicked heart was capable of greater fear than a man with a timid face. The wicked man would be a part of the beast forever more; his torture would feed the beast for all time.

The people of the village had just finished the customary gathering in the giant tent where they retired to for stories and other village business. It is not uncommon to find women and children huddled together while listening to the medicine men tell stories of great spirits and their deeds. The warm fire gently sooths their tired bodies.

The villagers, their bellies full of fresh moose, beans and rice, feel a sense of contentment as the fire warms their tired bodies after their time in the harsh winter air. The wicked man was gone from the village, and there was a sense of peace among them. As they sit in the tent, enraptured by the tales of the medicine man, they hear a shrill cry. It was a cry that sent chills up and down their spines and despite the warm and comfortable fire, the villagers are gripped with an unfathomable fear.

It is not unusual to hear different noises in the silence of the night. However, the cries heard by the villagers that night were beyond anything they had ever heard, and the unearthly sounds gripped one and all by their souls and lent them a fear that would not be soon forgotten. Perhaps, they were most frightened by the howling wind which seemed to accompany the terrible noise.

As the men went from the tent to see where or what the terrible noise was, they noted it had come from the top of the nearby mountain where the wicked man was known to go to hunt. The men of the village gathered with the elders and it was decided to send a party to look into the mysterious noises.

The following day, a party of six young warriors traveled into the mountain and picked up the trail leading to the wicked man’s camp. When they found the camp they were unable to make sense of the bizarre sight.

The wicked man’s tent and all of his belongings seemed to have burnt, but there was no sign of fire. The animal skin shelter cracked and turned to dust, as any other burnt hide would, but there was no burn marks on it like a fire would have left. His bow, arrows, and spear were in a like condition. They also found a strange circle in the snow surrounding the wicked man’s camp, but they could not make out what might have made such tracks.

One of the warriors discovered a set of footprints leading away from the tent and heading into the woods nearby. They picked up the trail and followed it for several hundred paces. There in a clearing, with no trees or rocks standing nearby, the footprints stopped. The wicked man was gone, like he disappeared into the thin winter air.

They told their tale to the wise men and elders of the village. Some of the oldest and wisest among them remembered a similar thing happening long ago and warned of a spirit who takes the form of many animals, and will prey upon those who are cruel to others.