Freaky Folklore

Freaky Folklore

Host Carman Carrion explores myriad myths both modern and ancient to discover what mankind fears - and why we fear it. From monsters old and new as well as unexplained and unsolved cases, this podcast is sure to terrify. Where does our folklore come from, and why is it so freaky?

Episodes

BAUK – The Serbian Cave Monster That Eats Misbehaving Children

July 27, 2026 • 34 mins
Deep in the karst mountains of eastern Serbia lives a monster no one has ever described, because no one who saw it came back. The Bauk waits in caves, holes, and abandoned houses, lurching through the dark on a clumsy gait, and it can only be driven off by two things: light and noise. For centuries, Serbian parents used it to make children behave. Tonight, two American YouTubers turn its cave into content... and learn why the old r...
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A-Mi-Kuk - The Alaskan Monster That Swims Through Land

July 21, 2026 • 32 mins
Every coastal people on earth knows the same rule: if something takes you in the water, you swim for shore. The shore is safety. The A-mi-kuk does not care about the shore. Four long arms. No legs. A body of slick, naked hide, like an animal that was skinned and never got the message. It rises up under kayaks off the Alaskan coast and drags men down into the silt. And when you claw your way onto the mud, certain you have survived...
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Why Did Parents Invent Jenny Greenteeth?

July 13, 2026 • 30 mins
Jenny Greenteeth — Beneath the still, duckweed-choked surface of Britain's ponds and canals lurks Jenny Green Teeth, an ancient water hag from English folklore with elongated grasping arms, needle-sharp teeth, and a centuries-old hunger for children who wander too close to the water's edge. When a drainage project disturbs the old binding that has held her captive for generations, two young siblings discover that some legends...
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TOYOL– The Stolen Infant Spirit of Malay Folklore

July 6, 2026 • 35 mins
In the villages of Malaysia and Indonesia, desperate people pay shamans to raise a toyol—the enslaved spirit of a dead infant that steals riches for its master—but every coin it brings home comes with a debt no one can afford to pay.   #FreakyFolklore #Toyol #Tuyul #MalayFolklore #MalaysianLegends #IndonesianFolklore #SoutheastAsianMythology #GhostStories #BlackMagic #Bomoh #FolkHorror #CreatureFeature #Supernatu...
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The Grootslang - South Africa's Diamond-Cursed Serpent | The Monster That Was Never an Elephant

June 29, 2026 • 31 mins
Deep in the Richtersveld, where the Orange River cuts through some of the oldest, driest land on Earth, there is a cave the locals call the Bottomless Pit. They say it runs sixty feet straight down before it opens into the dark — and that it is the source of every diamond South Africa has ever surrendered. They also say something guards it. Something forty feet long, with diamonds set in its eye sockets, that leaves a trail t...
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GULON – The Ravenous Wolverine Monster of Norse Legend

June 22, 2026 • 27 mins
In the frozen forests of the far north, a greedy fur trapper learns that something has been feeding on his catch — a beast that gorges until its body swells tight as a drum, squeezes itself empty between two trees, and then returns to feed again, and again, and again, until nothing is left.   #Gulon #FreakyFolklore #NorseLegend #ScandinavianFolklore #Wolverine #OlausMagnus   CONTENT WARNING This episode of Frea...
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El-Naddaha - The Woman Who Calls You to the Water of the Nile

June 15, 2026 • 34 mins
Along the canals and riverbanks of rural Egypt, the old fishermen follow one rule: if a voice calls your name from the water after sunset, you do not answer. They call her El-Naddaha — The Caller. A beautiful woman in white, standing among the reeds, who whispers the name only your mother used, the name nobody else should know. And once she learns it, she never stops calling. This week on Freaky Folklore, we travel into the N...
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SMILE DOG – The Cursed Image and the Folklore Behind It

June 8, 2026 • 28 mins
A photograph you were never supposed to see is spreading across the internet — and everyone who looks claims to see something different, something wrong, something that follows them home.   #SmileDog #Creepypasta #ModernFolklore #CursedImage #InternetHorror #FreakyFolklore   EXPLORE MORE SPINE-CHILLING CONTENT: Freaky Folklore: https://www.eeriecast.com/podcasts/freaky-folklore Carman's Crypt (Original Horror)...
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Whispers from the Ouachitas - Granny Witches, Yarb Doctors & the Old Mountain Ways

June 1, 2026 • 20 mins
A little something different this week. Carman Carrion just got back from four days in a cabin on the Ouachita River near Hot Springs, Arkansas—and she didn't come home empty-handed. In this special shorter episode, there are no dramatized retellings. No fictional reenactments. Just a folklore field report from the deep hollers of the Ouachita Mountains, told the way it might've been told on a porch a hundred years ago. Pul...
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Nure-onna - The Snake Woman Who Steals Children

May 25, 2026 • 34 mins
Deep in Japanese coastal folklore lurks the Nure-onna, a terrifying yokai that appears as a beautiful woman in a white kimono—until she reveals her serpentine lower body. This "wet woman" haunts beaches, rivers, and tide pools, using an enchanted baby bundle to trap victims or stealing real infants from their mothers. Discover the chilling legend of a predator that weaponizes maternal instinct, the regional variations from Sh...
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Incubus - The Medieval Sex Demon Still Haunting Bedrooms

May 18, 2026 • 27 mins
The male demon that visits women in their dreams, stealing more than just sleep. Handsome, seductive, and deadly—the Incubus is the dark counterpart to the Succubus, and his victims wake up exhausted, violated, and sometimes pregnant with something that shouldn't exist.   #Incubus #Succubus #DemonLover #Cambion #Merlin #MedievalDemonology #SexDemon #FreakyFolklore #DarkFolklore #ChristianDemonology #MalleusMaleficarum ...
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Mongolian Death Worm - The Acid-Spitting Worm That Hunts Beneath the Gobi Deser

May 11, 2026 • 34 mins
The Gobi Desert holds a secret that has terrified Mongolian herders for centuries: the Olgoi-Khorkhoi, or Mongolian Death Worm. This two-to-five-foot creature allegedly kills from a distance—spitting corrosive acid that melts flesh in seconds and discharging electricity through the sand. No eyes. No legs. Just a thick, blood-red worm that surfaces when the ground gets hot and leaves nothing but blackened corpses and stained s...
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Père Malfait – The Moss-Covered Demon That Crushes You in Its Arms

May 4, 2026 • 39 mins
Deep in the Louisiana bayou, where Spanish moss hangs like funeral shrouds and cypress trees rise from black water, Cajun parents have been warning their children for generations: don't stay out after dark, don't wander too far from home, and never, ever ignore the call to come inside. Because if you do, Père Malfait might find you. And when this moss-covered demon wraps its arms around you in a crushing bear hug, there's no escape...
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Aufhocker – The Leaping Demon That Crushes Your Back

April 27, 2026 • 30 mins
In the dark forests and lonely roads of Germany, travelers learned to fear something worse than bandits or wild animals. The Aufhocker didn't rob you or tear you apart—it jumped onto your back and stayed there, growing heavier with every step you took. This wasn't a creature you could fight or shake off. Once it mounted you, your only hope was to reach sanctuary before the crushing weight broke your spine, drove you to madnes...
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Vetala – The Corpse-Possessing Spirits of Hindu Folklore

April 20, 2026 • 34 mins
In the cremation grounds outside ancient Indian cities, where funeral pyres burned and the boundary between life and death grew thin, something waited in the darkness. The Vetala weren't mindless undead stumbling through graveyards—they were intelligent spirits that possessed corpses, animating dead flesh with terrible purpose.   #Vetala #HinduFolklore #FreakyFolklore #IndianMythology #BuddhistFolklore #SanskritLegends...
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The Serbian Dancing Lady – Internet Horror Made Flesh

April 13, 2026 • 34 mins
In the summer of 2019, videos started appearing on TikTok that made viewers sleep with the lights on. A woman in a white dress, dancing alone on empty streets. Nothing that unusual—except her movements were wrong. Joints bending at angles that made your stomach turn, limbs jerking like a marionette with cut strings, bare feet slapping pavement with mechanical violence. The videos spread like wildfire, spawning thousands of...
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Baykok – The Flying Skeleton Warrior of Ojibwe Folklore

April 6, 2026 • 35 mins
Long before European contact transformed the Great Lakes region, the Ojibwe people told stories about something that hunted from the skies—a skeletal warrior with glowing red eyes that flew on invisible wings, firing arrows no living person could see. The Baykok wasn't a cautionary metaphor or a teaching story for children. It was a predator. A hunter of hunters who targeted the strongest, most skilled warriors and left them ...
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Monsters of the Jungle - 6 Deadly Creatures

March 30, 2026 • 218 mins
As winter finally loosens its grip and warmer days call us toward beaches, jungles, and humid nights under foreign stars, I find myself drawn to the monsters that thrive in heat and darkness—the creatures that hunt where the air is thick, where the jungle closes in, and where something ancient waits beneath the canopy. Today we're diving deep into the tropical terrors of Southeast Asia and the Philippines—a collection ...
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Redcap – The Blood-Soaked Goblin of the Borderlands

March 23, 2026 • 45 mins
For centuries along the Anglo-Scottish border, crumbling castles and forgotten towers whispered warnings about something far worse than human violence. Redcap doesn't haunt these ruins because they're atmospheric—he lives there because they're perfect hunting grounds, soaked in the blood of centuries of warfare. This malevolent goblin of English and Scottish folklore isn't content to frighten travelers. He murders them, bruta...
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Aka Manto – The Red-Cloaked Spirit That Haunts the Last Stall

March 16, 2026 • 39 mins
Born from 1930s Japanese schoolyard whispers and now embedded in global horror culture, Aka Manto represents modern urban legend at its most psychologically visceral. This isn't ancient folklore passed down through centuries—it's a contemporary yokai that emerged from the anxieties of modern life, transforming the mundane vulnerability of a bathroom stall into a trap with no escape. When you answer the wrong question, there's...
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