Christmas Horror & Sawney Bean
Vol. 82: And a tasty and effective punch for the (hic!) holiday celebration. Settle in for a long Winter's read.
Holiday Horrors, Christmas Creeps
This is the time of year that we get together with family, give of ourselves and treat strangers with a generous spirit. Aaah, that’s nice!
It’s also the time of year that we max out our credit cards buying presents for a bunch of ingrates, and as bad as it already is, retail theft and porch piracy goes way up. Instead of Peace on Earth, you might like to see Pieces on Earth, like on the front lawn.
Peruse this selection of Holidays Horrors and choose what speaks to you. Celebrate Christmas in a way that will worry your relatives. Bless your heart.
1. Santa’s Slay- This 2005 dark comedy has wrestler Bill Goldberg as a truly evil Santa who likes strip clubs and massacres. Turns out, Santa was only pretending to be a nice guy because he lost a bet, but now the terms have ended and he doesn’t bring presents so much as bringing the pain. Also features Robert Culp, James Caan, Fran Drescher, Saul Rubinek and Chris Kattan.
2. A Christmas Horror Story- Well-made 2015 horror starring William Shatner. Santa must save a small town from all the evil that’s been unleashed, including Krampus. Worth the time.
3. Black Christmas- The beloved classic has two versions, the 1974 original starring Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder or the 2006 remake starring Andrea Martin, Michele Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Hallmark Queen Lacey Chabert. It’s the story of sorority sisters being picked off at the holidays, but is the killer one of their own?
4. Await Further Instructions- A British family gathers for Christmas, including a son introducing his girlfriend to the family. That’s not the real horror though, that’s when they find themselves locked in the home and receiving instructions from whomever has taken over the television. As the instructions become more frightening, some of the family believes the government is in charge, while others will just do what they’re told without question.
5. Violent Night- Santa has lost his Christmas spirit and is ready to make this his last holiday when he drops in at the Lightstone home, a wealthy family of a-holes being held captive by even bigger a-holes. Santa is their only hope of survival and he has no problem with killing people on the Naughty list.
6. Elves- This darkly atmospheric Netflix offering plays on the Norwegian traditional folklore surrounding mischievous elves.
7. Krampus- Two families gather for what’s expected to be a nerve-fraying holiday. You’ve got the brothers-in-law who have little in common, the out of control kids, the loudmouth grandmother, and a blizzard. Then Krampus shows up. This is a horror comedy, but be aware that children don’t fare well in this movie. Which may be exactly what you’re looking for.
Krampus has arrived, and he’s stealing children! Hooray! Oh, yeah, St. Nicholaus eventually shows up too.
Drinkiepoo!
Here’s a recipe that has one foot in Autumn with the apple and spices, and one in Winter with the clementines. It’s a warm and tasty punch that’ll make your holiday something to talk about, because look at all that gin!
The original recipe calls for warming this in a pot over the stove, but I would suggest a slow cooker as it doesn’t need to be watched as closely.
Mulled Sloe Gin- recipe from Gin Made Me Do It
20 oz Sloe Gin
100 oz apple juice
2 lemons
12 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cardamon pods
4 clementines
¼ c sliced fresh ginger
fresh lemon juice
Pour the gin and apple juice in a pot. Stud the lemons with the cloves, then slice and add to the pot. Add in the cinnamon, cardamon, sliced (unpeeled) clementines and (unpeeled) ginger. Cover and set over a low heat for about one and a half hours, until warm and steam rises when you remove the lid. It should be a simmer, not a boil. Add in the fresh lemon juice to taste. Serve in heatproof mugs.
The holidays are a time for family, and let’s be honest, food. We overindulge in our favorites while having a grand time with the clan, just enjoying each other’s company. That reminds me of an old story that I want to end the year with, about a tight-knit family who loved to put on the feedbag together…
The Horrible Beans
History has seen a slew of infamous families that move like a many-headed hydra, murdering, robbing, and clawing their way to infamy. They’ve always existed. And yet, the Beans are in a class by themselves. Known as a large family that killed and robbed, which any uncivilized brood can do, they went beyond that by also being cannibals. Murdering, incestuous cannibals. Top that! They also straddle the blurry line between reality and myth. Like Robin Hood, there’s too much in this story for it to be entirely false. Here’s the infamous legend.
Alexander Bean was likely born in the 16th Century in East Lothian, Scotland, and was called “Sawney” from a young age. His father was said to be a ditch digger who also did some garden work. That’s all that’s known of his childhood. As he grew older he tried to follow in his father’s low-paying profession but he quickly realized that he didn’t like working, so replaced an honest vocation with thievery.
He met a woman called ‘Black’ Agnes Douglas, who was rumored to be a witch and had a reputation for her viciousness. They became a criminal duo specializing in theft, and Agnes was soon considered Sawney’s common-law wife. The legend doesn’t claim an official marriage. The two discovered a cave along the coast near Ballantrae, near what is now the A77 Highway, and moved in. From the road, the path to the cave is remarkably steep and slippery, making it a difficult place to visit, which would be an added benefit. Now known as both Snib’s Cave and Bennane Cave, it’s located just over an hour southwest of Glasgow and is closed to the public due to the likelihood of injury.
It’s believed that the first acts of cannibalism occurred soon after Sawney and Agnes began living in the cave. They had moved on from simple thefts such as pick-pocketing and were now accosting travelers in the forest, but to keep their actions a secret, they needed to kill their victims.
Most thieves would use the money they had just acquired to buy food, but legend has it that these two had a ‘waste not, want not’ outlook, so they ate the victims. And they began having children. Eventually, the Bean clan swelled to include eight sons and six daughters. The locals were completely unaware of a family living in a nearby cave, which means the Beans weren’t going into the village to socialize and find spouses, yet the family would eventually include thirty-two grandchildren. They were a mob unto themselves, the men waiting in the forest to attack and kill travelers, then take the bodies back to the cave for the women to dress out and cook. One of the ways they stretched their food was through pickling body parts in barrels. But they didn’t eat every part, and what they considered the ‘trash’ parts were sometimes found scattered along the shore as if they had been thrown out in the bay and were brought back by the tide. These parts were found by locals who at first believed wild animals were dragging people to the beach to eat them. While the Beans hadn’t been noticed, the number of people who disappeared in the area had. Eventually, the idea of man-eating animals was discarded and the townspeople realized they had a murderer in their village. A murderer, they thought, not a family of murderers. And then the Beans picked the wrong victims.
A fair was going on, a big event which brings visitors with money. The Beans waited in the forest until they saw a couple riding on horseback away from the fair. They attacked. The wife was pulled off her horse and dragged away, but the husband had combat experience and was armed with both a sword and pistol. The fight was loud enough to draw people from the fair, who chased the attackers away, and saved the husband’s life. Now the murderous Beans had been exposed.
A battalion of soldiers, often said to be led by King James VI himself, raided the cave. No one had bothered to check the cave before due to its difficult location and the fact that it flooded each time the tide came in, but the search party found that the cave was over one thousand feet deep and had thirty foot ceilings, leaving plenty of space untouched by the waters. They also found the huge Bean family there surrounded by human parts that hung from the ceiling and walls like aging beef. They had amassed piles of valuables that had been taken from victims, which were believed to number more than one thousand. The wife of the man who fought them was there, dead.
There are two versions of what happened next. In one version, the soldiers used gunpowder to cause the cave entrance to collapse, sealing the family in to die. In the more widely told version, the family were surprised by the arrival of the soldiers and gave up without a fight. They were taken to either Glasgow or Leith. The women were burned at stakes like witches and the men had their hands, feet and genitals hacked off and bled to death before the gathered crowd.
This story is hundreds of years old, and at this point we can’t positively sort out the facts from the lurid additions, but research makes it seem likely that there was a family of killers in the area. A huge clan of incestuous killers? Impossible to say now. As for the cannibalism: maybe, maybe not. The body parts that were found along the shore may have been the result of dismemberment, but not cannibalism. Chopping up a body makes it harder to identify, and if these parts were scattered, wild animals could have been the source of the cannibalism charges. Historian Sean Thomas searched for mentions of a cannibal family in 16th Century Scottish newspapers and came up empty-handed, though he theorizes that the Beans may have lived much earlier, or very likely, that the ghoulish details were added on later as the story made its way through generations. There’s no doubt that the legend of Sawney Bean and his family have permeated Western culture. The Beans were the basis for the horror movie The Hills Have Eyes and inspired short stories by Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison and Dorothy L. Sayers, along with the novel Off Season by Jack Ketchum. So you may think your family is a nightmare, but the Beans put things into perspective.
Let me leave you with one of my favorite Christmas songs. I hope it warms your heart with the Christmas spirit:
Autumn Lives Here will be back January 2nd. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, you filthy animals!