Under the Bed

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Story 1: The Gurning Man of Glasgow

During the late 1970s, the inhabitants of Scotland's largest city were subjected to a series of terrifying encounters with a hideous nocturnal entity, whose incessant twitching and animalistic grunting put the fear of God into those who encountered him.

This week, we take a look at the Gurning Man of Glasgow.

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The city of Glasgow possesses a truly colourful history, steeped in tradition and heritage.

It is Scotland's most populated municipality and was historically the country's largest port, acting as the gateway to a new life for countless foreign workers and travellers.

Many of these migrants and their families elected to settle in the city, creating a vast and culturally diverse population.

For this reason, Glasgow is rich in folklore, possessing a wide variety of stories, myths and legends, some of which are well known, and others as obscure as they come.

From the murderous Kalpis that are said to haunt the waters and tributaries across the region, to the ghostly armies of dead soldiers which are said to rise from their graves and do battle with the English for all eternity, there is also no shortage of supernatural tales.

In 1954, the local police were called to a disturbance in the city's southern necropolis, a sprawling graveyard located in the Gorbals district which dates back to the 17th century.

Upon their arrival, they found approximately 200 schoolchildren, motivated by a combination of fear and anger, stalking amongst the tombstones, armed with kitchen knives and other homemade weapons.

When asked what they were doing, the children replied that they were hunting for a metal-toothed vampire, which had already taken and killed two of their number.

Every so often, one of the boys would see a dark figure framed amidst the smoke and sulphur from the nearby steelworks, at which point the horde of vengeful children would rampage towards it.

After several hours of corralling the angry mob, the police were able to finally disperse them.

Although no trace of this alleged vampiric killer was found, stories of monsters who killed their victims using metal teeth are a long-running theme throughout Scottish history.

These included a man-eating ogre known as the Iron Man and a female ghoul named Jenny with the Iron Teeth, who would enter the bedrooms of small children and devour them as they slept.

But amidst these various tales of malicious spirits, alongside such manifestations as the Leaper of of Dilmarnock Bridge or the Ghost Children of Tron Theatre, one haunting entity stands out in terms of the fear it imbued during its nighttime visits.

The first reported sighting of this ghastly apparition occurred at some point during the late 1970s, within the city's Cross Hill district.

In the early hours of a summer morning, Two young women were making their way home from a party when they noticed a figure watching them from the other side of the road, half hidden in the shadows being cast between the street lights.

As the partygoers stopped to try and get a better look, the silhouette quickly moved out of the half-light, remaining visible but difficult to identify, as it was now bathed in the darkness it had stepped back into.

Peering into this inky blackness, The two teenagers could see that the figure seemed to be in a continual state of movement, shuddering and twitching, despite the fact it was standing still.

When one of them shouted out for the man to show himself, there was no reply, and so the women resolved to continue their journey, moving away from this mysterious onlooker who was standing alone in the shadows.

They had just turned to leave, when the nighttime silence was shattered by a sudden and unexpected, high-pitched shriek.

Turning to look, the two witnesses saw the figure emerge from the darkness behind them, emitting a further piercing howl as it did so.

They estimated that he was an older male, in his late 50s, with a bald head and dressed from head to toe in black.

As he slowly crossed the street towards them, they could see that he was writhing and undulating.

as if not in full control of his own body.

But by far the most disconcerting feature of the strange man was his face, which seemed to be frozen in a pained and hideous gurning expression.

He was grunting and snorting with each step forwards that he took, his eyes staring piercingly at the two women as he drew ever closer to them.

With a cry, they immediately ran home as fast as they could and called the local police to report the encounter.

However, another incident would take place that same year, year, again in the early hours of the morning.

An elderly Cross Hill resident had risen early and made her way downstairs to start breakfast.

Heading into the kitchen, she collected her empty milk bottles, then walked over to the front door to put them outside so that the milkman who would be passing by shortly could replace them with full ones.

As she bent forward to place the empty bottles on the ground, she became aware of a clattering sound further along the street.

The early riser turned her head and squinted down the road to see if she could discern the source of the commotion.

For a few moments there was nothing, and then the sound of metallic clanging came again.

A tall and slender shape came shaking and twitching out from behind a group of metal bins.

hitting them with one sparking leg as he did so.

One of the steel containers was knocked over onto its side and rolled out into the middle of the street as the figure moved on past it.

The old lady shrank back in fear as the sinister apparition came towards her at speed, snarling and grunting as it did so.

The man's face was contorted into a picture of discomfort and rage, with his arms flapping and flailing wildly by his sides.

as if controlled by the devil himself.

With a guttural roar, the figure's pace immediately increased, as his body writhed and twitched, moving ever closer towards her.

Terrified to within an inch of her life, the resident cried out for help, only to see her attacker disappear before her very eyes, as soon as the desperate plea had left her lips.

But by far the most disturbing report of this sinister night-time interloper took place several years later at a residential property property in the same small area of the city.

The address in question was home to a married couple and their two young daughters, who had never had any cause to call the police for any reason prior to the incident in question.

One night, the mother of the family was awoken from her sleep by a deep and raspy breathing noise that was emanating from somewhere nearby.

Believing this to be the sound of her husband snoring away next to her, she turned to rebuke him, only to find her spouse lying silent and fast asleep alongside her.

She was still struggling to locate where the sound was coming from, when a shadowy form unfolded from the floor at the foot of their bed.

By the dim street lighting that was coming through the curtains, she could see that the intruder now standing in her bedroom was an older-looking man, dressed entirely in dark clothing.

His body seemed to be in a constant state of motion, frantically rubbing his hands up and down his chest and striking the sides of his torso.

The strange man's head was tilting and swaying from side to side, his eyes rolling around as if he was not concentrating or fully taking in his surroundings.

All of a sudden, his gaze fell upon the terrified mother.

and he emitted a blood-curdling, angry scream.

As the figure suddenly lunged forwards across the bed towards her, the woman's husband sat bolt upright and turned on his bedside lamp.

One moment, the hissing and snarling figure was reaching out for her with his twitching fingers.

The next, he had melted away at the same instant that the light from the lamp had spilled across the room.

A quick check of the house confirmed that all of the windows and doors were secured, with no sign of how the phantom trespasser had managed to gain access, or indeed that he had ever been there at all.

This would be one of six reports of what would become known locally as the Gurning Man appearing inside somebody's home, with a further 11 alleged incidents where he approached people in public.

Much like the Gorbles vampire before him, the Gurning Man was never successfully identified by the local police, and nobody was able to capture him on camera.

As a result of these factors, the majority of commentators have dismissed both alleged entities as textbook cases of an urban legend, where a tall tale or scary story has been built up over the years by the community into an alleged factual incident.

But unlike the agitated schoolboy witnesses of the 1950s incident, Those who reported encounters with the Gurning Man were all grown adults, with no identifiable reason to manufacture their accounts.

All were women of good character, and there was nothing contained within any of their testimonies that contradicted what the other witnesses had described.

Each of the 17 reported incidents took place between 1976 and 1979.

They all occurred between the hours of 9pm and 4am.

and all were located in or around the Crosshill district.

There has also been a more recent series of reports in internet forums describing a similar figure haunting the city's Queen's Park area, which is adjacent to the Gurningman's traditional stalking grounds.

One of these incidents involved a group of underage drinkers who were approached in the park during the early hours of the morning by a jittering and snarling old man.

When the youths attempted to capture their assailant on camera using their mobile phones, he promptly vanished right in front of them.

On another occasion, a female motorist who was driving past the same park was forced to brake sharply when a dark figure staggered out directly in front of her car.

She caught a momentary glimpse of a middle-aged man, his facial features contorted and full of pain or rage, before he evaporated into thin air as his writhing body was illuminated by her headlights.

If the gurning man Man is indeed a tangible being and not merely a tall tale regaled to children in the hopes that it might encourage them to behave, then who or what is he?

The most obvious answer is that he is a normal person, afflicted by some form of debilitating medical condition.

His apparent ability to disappear into thin air is harder to explain, however, but this might simply be a case of misperception.

Due to the stress his appearance might induce, witnesses may misremember what took place, or even momentarily look away in fear whilst he makes good his escape.

Other explanations are that he is a ghost or some other form of spectral manifestation, created as a result of a dark moment in the city's past.

Glasgow's history contains no shortage of tragedy and horror, and the large number of angry spirits that are alleged to haunt its streets are a testament to these many crimes and misdemeanours.

A more intriguing theory centres on the Gurning Man's apparent inability to fully process or relate with his surroundings, with only limited interactions in each instance.

Some believe he may be a visitor from another time, or potentially even another dimension.

Whatever process has brought him into our reality may have caused this traveller severe pain and distress, inadvertently pulling him to a different point in time and space before he can fully comprehend what is happening to him.

There are striking similarities between the descriptions of the Gurning Man and another entity who traditionally goes by the name of Indrid Cold, dubbed by those who have encountered him as the Grinning Man.

This mysterious figure has appeared to witnesses all over the world, since he was first sighted in West Virginia during the mid-1960s.

Cole purported to be an extraterrestrial visitor and much like the Goening Man, was tall and somewhat muscular in appearance, with exaggerated or enlarged facial features and devoid of hair.

He was benign in nature, engaging witnesses in conversation and asking them probing questions about their country and communities.

Could it be that this Glaswegian entity comes from a similar background, but has taken a more rudimentary and dangerous route, which has had a severe effect on his physical appearance?

As intriguing as the idea is of the Goen Man being the victim of flawed technology pertaining to interdimensional travel, the lack of documentary evidence to support these stories of his appearance does seem to suggest that he may well be a work of fiction rather than fact.

Whilst the witnesses were of apparent good character, the fact that they all lived in the same community and their experiences occurred in such a narrow timeframe suggests that they may have been the victims of mass hysteria, reliving the traumas they had overheard described by their friends and neighbours.

Or maybe he was indeed a genuine person, a criminal miscreant, who deliberately altered his appearance to deceive and intimidate his victims.

whilst he was committing his misdemeanours.

Perhaps if his appearances had been investigated with the benefits of modern technology, his antics would be populating the front pages of mainstream newspapers rather than the murkier corners of the internet.

Whatever his origins, should you ever find yourself walking through the streets of Glasgow in the early hours, be mindful of your surroundings,

because no one can be sure when or where the Gurning Man may end up making his next appearance.

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Story 2: The Night of the Tuckalash

In previous episodes, we have examined tales of strange and bizarre creatures.

But whilst often enigmatic in nature, few have been quite as malevolent and haunting as the entity we will encounter this week, an African legend in possession of supernatural capabilities, which it utilizes to carry out a truly evil agenda.

Join us as we examine the Tokolosh,

Making his way up the communal staircase, quietly cursing the fact that the building's only lift was out of action, the detective paused to rest for a moment.

Having arrived at a point in his career where his retirement was now in sight, he had done precious little in recent years in the way of physical exercise.

Now trying to catch his breath in the dimly lit stairwell, he could almost hear his wife's voice in his head, bemoaning his lack of motivation to stay in shape.

With a frustrated groan, he pushed the imaginary griping to one side and continued his ascent, arriving at the 13th floor a short time later.

There then followed a brief discussion with the patrol officer who was guarding the apartment in question before he entered.

The body of the dead woman was lying on her bed, along with various pieces of equipment the paramedics had used to try and save her.

He paused for a moment, searching for and failing to find anything that might suggest a cause of death, before moving on to speak with the crime scene examiner.

An old acquaintance, The forensics officer in question was in the midst of taking photographs of whatever he deemed relevant to the investigation.

Greeting the detective, he then conducted a walkthrough of the scene before returning to the bedroom where the incident had allegedly begun.

The dead woman's husband had made a statement, saying he had awoken earlier that evening to find his wife lying unresponsive next to him.

He had tried to revive her but was unsuccessful, and just as he was about to step off the bed to go and call an ambulance, he saw something strange.

There,

in the corner of the room, he perceived the outline of something attempting to conceal itself.

A small figure, whose eyes glistened a deep red when caught in the low light emanating from the dim bedside lamp.

Its childlike frame seemed to be covered from head to toe in a layer of dark fur,

making it almost indistinguishable from the shadow it was attempting to hide within.

From here, the crime scene examiner walked the detective out of the bedroom and into the living room, showing him the items of furniture pushed to one side by the husband as he had then pursued the small creature through their apartment.

This short tour culminated with the presentation of three fresh bullet holes, which had been shot by the resident into the wall of his abode using a handgun.

All three rounds he had fired impacted less than two feet above the floorboards of the room.

With a sigh, the detective finished taking down his notes, shaking his head wearily, before underlining the last word he had written on the pad in his hand.

Tokolosh

The first foreigners to learn the legend of the Tokolosh were the Dutch traders and merchants who settled South Africa during the mid-17th century.

In discussions with one another at various meetings and social gatherings, it became clear that a strange tradition had been identified amongst the indigenous population.

Local women who had been taken on by the settlers as nannies and housekeepers were found to have inexplicably raised their beds several feet off the floor.

These actions were usually completed without the approval or knowledge of their employers, using whatever items came to hand to elevate their bedsteads well clear of the floorboards below.

Various inquiries amongst the community eventually revealed that the women were taking this precaution because they believed that if they didn't, they could well die in their sleep.

There had been numerous instances amongst local families in which children and young women had mysteriously passed away, whilst others living under the same roof had survived.

And the reason for these unexplained deaths had been attributed to the presence of a tiny demon, known in Ghorsa teachings as the Tokolosh.

It was believed that these entities were used by individuals to carry out acts of maliciousness and revenge against those who were perceived to have wronged them.

When paid for the service, a witch doctor would locate a recently buried corpse and pierce its eyes with hot metal, pouring a mystical powder into the newly created apertures.

A sacred chant would then substantially shrink the cadaver before this miniature corpse would reanimate itself as a tokolosh.

Described as a small biped, almost rat-like in appearance, This tiny monster possessed razor-like claws and pincer-like teeth.

It was also believed to have the ability to render itself completely invisible to human eyes, either by drinking water or swallowing a small pebble.

The demon would then access the home of those identified by its master via an insecure portal, taking up temporary residence there before going on to carry out acts of malice.

Having located its target, the demon would scratch them with its sharp claws as they slept, resulting in deep welts and sores which would become infected and cause severe discomfort.

It would also whisper into the ears of its victims, persuading them to lose interest in their sexual partners or to commit acts of violence and murder against other people, including their own family members.

But there was a great price to pay for the services of the Tokolosh.

The demon itself would demand the soul of a loved one from the one who summoned it, to be taken at a time and place of its choosing.

The only way to ensure safety from a Tokolosh was for the victims to raise their sleeping mats above the floor, to at least waist height.

This made it impossible for the creature to harm them, as it did not possess the ability to raise itself upwards from the ground.

It was also possible to evict a suspected Tokolosh by enlisting the help of a holy man, who possessed the ability to see and then banish the demon from any affected property.

The main factor which seems to set the Tokolosh aside from similar Taursa myths, such as the Mamlambo and Lightning Bird, is its apparent longevity.

Even in modern times, doctors and social workers continue to be approached by members of their communities who claim to have seen or been influenced by these demons.

The Tokolosh has been repeatedly cited in legal proceedings as being responsible for cases of misery and tragedy, such as divorce and murder.

In the 1950s, a series of brutal killings took place in one isolated rural community situated in South Africa's northern Veld region.

Many of the slayings had taken place during broad daylight, with no witnesses as to who or what the attacker may have been.

It was only several weeks into the police investigation that a local man who had been reported missing from his own community many weeks before was finally detained.

When interviewed, the suspect fully admitted to murdering the victims, but stated in his defense that he had not been in control of his own actions at the time of the kings.

The murderer told the authorities that immediately prior to going missing, he noticed his wife acting strangely towards him.

She had gradually become cold and distant, refusing to allow him to touch her and demanding that he sleep in a separate bed.

Suspecting that she may be having an affair, he pretended to leave for an overnight trip to a nearby village, only to then sneak back into their home later that same evening.

Having done so, he found his wife in bed with a small figure lying next to her, apparently talking to her while she slept.

Amidst her slumber, she was smiling and giggling, seeming to enjoy whatever the creature was whispering into her ear.

In a fit of blind rage, the husband seized a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed his sleeping wife to death.

In the act of doing so, he had ignored the small creature itself, which then managed to grab hold of his arm and perch itself upon his shoulders.

The man immediately lost control of his own body, and over the coming weeks, having fled his village, he stated that he had been under the control of the demon.

He said that it remained seated upon him, completely invisible to others, deciding when he ate and slept and forcing him to kill many of those he encountered.

During the late 1990s, a priest living in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo was approached by a wealthy local resident who pleaded for his assistance.

The homeowner stated that she believed her housemaid detested her and was employing supernatural powers to try and kill her in her sleep.

When the priest asked the woman why she believed this, she went on to show him a series of deep cuts and slashes, which she had sustained to her arms and lower back.

She told him that these had been inflicted upon her by an invisible assailant whilst she was asleep.

Furthermore, she had witnessed small items and trinkets being moved around her house by this same unseen entity, but only ever during the hours of darkness.

Promising that he would assist in any way he could, the priest agreed to call at the woman's house the following evening, gaining access with the key she had provided.

Upon entering the residence, he had been cautiously moving from room to room when he was startled by an audible scurrying noise behind him.

Turning quickly, the holy man managed to make out a roughly two-foot-tall silhouette dashing behind a piece of furniture in an effort to escape detection.

Acting quickly, he cast the obstruction aside to find a short, red-eyed furry creature staring back at him.

Seeming to recognise his religious attire, the creature hissed angrily bearing a set of sharp teeth, and then lashed out with its clawed hands.

Suspecting he knew the identity of the assailant, The priest produced his crucifix and spoke a series of prayers, sending the creature scurrying out the front door and into the night.

Days later, he was then contacted by the homeowner who thanked him for his services.

She also informed him that shortly after his attendance, her housekeeper had fallen gravely ill and died mysteriously only a few days later.

During the summer of 2016,

authorities in the Zimbabwean region of Matabilaland had been forced to respond to to numerous reports of missing children.

Many of those who had disappeared were never found again, but one young girl from the town of Inyati did reappear.

Almost a week since she had last been seen, the 13-year-old had walked back into her settlement, delirious and malnourished.

After being given time to recover, when she was later spoken to by police, she stated that she had been kidnapped by the inhabitants of a neighbouring village.

They had taken her to a large residence with an upper attic space, where she was detained and kept tied up.

In addition to the six people who lived in the house, she had also seen four small monsters that would occasionally sit on the shoulders of the inhabitants.

These furry creatures would whisper into the ears of the residents, ordering them to carry out foul and unnatural acts.

It was under the direction of these demons that the six people from the address kidnapped and killed the children of surrounding settlements, sometimes engaging in acts of cannibalism.

The creatures would consume the flesh of the dead and compel those under their control to do so as well.

Unfortunately for the police, others from her town who were present also listened to the girl's story, and an angry mob was soon formed.

Before the officers could stop them, this gang had made its own way to the property in question and set fire to the building, killing those who lived there and removing any possibility of confirming the missing girl's version of events.

Whatever the truth behind the stories of the Tokolosh, it is a legend that continues to cause significant harm harm to the people of the nations situated in southern Africa.

It has been used as an apparent justification in instances of rape and murder, as well as other equally sinister acts.

In 2018, a four-year-old boy disappeared from the town of Esigadini, taken from a nearby river whilst his mother was washing their clothes.

An investigation by the local authorities failed to locate the child, but numerous witnesses claim that the people who had removed him from his mother were local witches.

Some believed they had done this to save him from a tokolosh who had taken hold of him, whilst others claimed he was abducted with the intention of turning him into a demon.

Ultimately he was never found, and his disappearance highlighted the ongoing prevalence of the legend.

Many observers claim that it's tragedies such as this one that give rise to the legend in the first place, and that there is a far more scientific reason for the unexplained sleep deaths.

They point to the fact that many African families traditionally slept on the floor of their Ondarvals,

lying in a circle around a wood-burning fire.

During the night, this fire would deplete the oxygen levels within the dwelling, replacing them with poisonous carbon monoxide.

This would cause death within the residents, usually affecting anyone who suffered from existing poor health or undiagnosed medical conditions.

Ignorant of the science behind this, the legend of the Tokolosh then took hold, going on to be adopted as a wider justification for acts of crime and violence towards others.

There has never been any physical evidence to validate the existence of such a creature, despite the many encounters it is alleged to have been involved in.

And whilst this may be the result of its strong supernatural powers, it may also illustrate how this alleged monster may be little more than the darkness that dwells within each of us,

a psychological manifestation of the inherent evil we are all capable of.