31 Days of Monsters - Day 11: Grindylow

Grindylow are water bogeys from the Yorkshire Dales. The live in ponds and reach out to snatch unwary children with their long rubbery arms. Parents often use tales of the grindylow to keep wandering children from venturing too close to dangerous waterways, but the threat is real.

31 Days of Monsters: Yeth Hound

Folklore is filled with monstrous death omens. In Devon, England, such a creature is the Yeth Hound. An un-baptised child that has been twisted into the form of a monstrous headless dog, the Yeth Hound roams wild places and lonely roads. Anyone who hears it's mournful childlike cry is marked for death within the year. There is no escape.

31 Days of Monsters: Varney the Vampire

Varney was the subject of numerous "penny dreadfuls" in his day. A Victorian gentleman cursed with vampirism, he was the prototype for many vampires to follow him. He was the first vampire in popular culture to sport fangs but unlike Dracula, Barnabas Collins and others after him, he could walk in the daylight, had no fear of the cross and lived much like a typical human until his bloodlust overtook him. Although he started out as a villain, he took on an antihero role in later tales.

31 Days of Monsters 2014: Black Annis

Black Annis is a bogeywoman from English folklore. A nasty, murderous crone, Black Annis lives in a cave in the Dane Hills of  Leicestershire. Black Annis has a taste for human flesh, and she particularly likes to devour babies whole. Her other victims she carefully butchers with her steel claws, tanning their skins to wear around her waist. 

31 Days of Monsters 2014: The Owlman of Cornwall

In 1976, two sisters were walking through the woods near a cemetery in Cornwall when they spotted a large owl-like creature hovering in the air over a church. After their story became known, more sighting happened around the region with details added by keen-eyed, or perhaps, more imaginative "witnesses". Noted hoaxer, Tony "Doc" Shiels' involvement in the early reports make many skeptics believe the Owlman is nothing but a prank. The whole story would have died out completely, but in recent years, sightings of the creature have begun again in Cornwall. Is Shiels behind the recent sightings, or is there really a large humanoid raptor lurking in the forests and fields os Cornwall?

31 Days of Monsters 2014: Spring-heeled Jack

Spring-heeled Jack is a figure who first came to people's attention in Victorian London. A diabolical figure capable of amazing feats of agility, Jack had the country in a grip of panic as he sprang from alleys attacking women and men with impunity. He became the subject of many penny-dreadful stories of the era, becoming a replacement for the bogeyman and even Satan himself in some traditional tales.