Blair Witch
From Blair Witch
The Blair Witch is a legend in Burkittsville, Maryland , commencing with a woman named Elly Kedward who, after being banished into the local woods, was said to have transformed into a hairy, half-man, half-ape creature: the Blair Witch.
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[edit] Elly Kedward
In the winter of 1785, an Irish woman named Elly Kedward was banished from the town of Blair after several local children accuse her of performing witchcraft. She was presumed dead from exposure, but the next year, all of her accusers and half the town's children vanished without a trace. The townspeople immediately feared that a curse had been born. They awaited the dark winter until the weather broke in 1786, and then they fled Blair, vowing never to utter the name Elly Kedward again.
[edit] Robin Weaver
In 1886, eight-year-old Robin Weaver was in the forest around Blair (which had been rediscovered and renamed Burkittsville) when she got lost and met an old woman, whose feet, according to Robin, "did not touch the ground." She was initially frightened, but then she came to trust the old woman, who acted in a seemingly generous manner, and she followed the old woman deep into the wood to an old, abandoned house, which she entered. Robin followed the woman and entered the house, and followed the woman down to a basement down in the bowels of the house. The old woman said she would depart, and left promising to return. Hours passed, as Robin sat in the basement, which slowly grew darker as afternoon faded into evening. Robin grew more and more frightened: she had been feeling a growing feeling of evil ever since she stepped into the basement. As she pictured herself all alone in the woods, which were becoming swamped in the darkness of the evening, Robin stood up and found a window in the basement, through which she squeezed herself and then ran through the darkening woods, and out of the woods completely, racing back to Burkittsville, to which she returned safely, although from then after she avoided the woods, claiming to feel an evil presence about the Burkittsville forest.
While Robin had been in the basement, however, she hadn't been missed. Her grandmother had become anxious about her and she had alerted the authorities. The Burkittsville Police sent a search party up into the woods to rescue her at the same time Robin was led into the cellar by the old woman she had met in the woods. The Police arrived in the woods, and began looking for Robin, but when they arrived at Coffin Rock, the evil spirit of Elly Kedward, the Blair Witch, assailed the search party, having just left Robin in the house in order to seek out the search party. The search party were soon slaughtered by Elly Kedward, who disembowelled them and left their corpses on Coffin Rock, then returned to the house, supposedly to kill Robin. However, she discovered the empty house and realized that Robin had fled. Infuriated, Elly Kedward took the corpses of the search party, and dragged them off into the forest, all in a matter of two hours, but not before another search party had witnessed the corpses and knew of an evil force in the Burkittsville woods.
[edit] The Blair Witch Cult
Published in 1879, and following the hysteria which the people of Burkittsville had spread about Elly Kedward, The Blair Witch Cult, is an allegedly true story revealing all the evil acts of the Blair Witch and her despicable actions against the people of Blair, Maryland. This book is meant to be written in blood and has a faded green cover, and reveals some surprising facts about the Blair Witch, such as that she is not only confined to the Burkittsville woods - she apparently ventured into Blair itself to attack, kill and harm citizens. She was either not pure evil or not under demonic influence, as apparently she could enter a church - where she "wrenched the boy's head from his writhing body; staining the church with his warm blood." It also revealed other mysterious aspects about Elly Kedward; such as that the river supposedly ejaculated some remains of her victims, and many of her most mysterious acts in The Blair Witch Project, are revealed, as The Blair Witch Cult reveals "She controlled the animals of the forest: even the trees seemed to do her bidding."
The book may or may not be related to The Necronomicon, from The Evil Dead film series by Sam Raimi, because of its gory similarity. The Necronomicon, like The Blair Witch Cult, is meant to be a gory book full of demonic revelations, and originally The Necronomicon comes from author H.P. Lovecraft.
[edit] An Innocent Death
In 1887, Burkittsville was finally resettled and reinhabited. To celebrate this achievement, some wealthy families sought to celebrate down at Tappy East Creek, which is in Burkittsville. Among the families celebrating that day were the Treacles, whose eight year old daughter, Eileen went down to the Creek for a swim. However, a swim was out of the question, as the water was only six inches deep and impossible to bathe in. Eileen frolicked about by the water, under the watchful eye of her parents. However, to her parent's horror, a white, dead-looking hand erupted from the stream, seized Eileen viciously by the lapels of her dress, and dragged her into the suddenly deep water, which bubbled and then calmed once more back to its original shallowness. Eileen Treacle's parents were shocked, and sent search parties out to seek their daughter or her corpse. Surprisingly, neither were found.
The authorities reacted to this death with scepticism. Many wondered how a child could drown in such a shallow stream, while the majority dismissed the claims of this being the work of a spirit, claiming that "many are seen around Burkittsville." Not all authorities were so cruel and indecisive, however, and some wished to comfort the Treacle family. The act of Eileen's drowning had side-effects: for a week the Tappy East Creek was clogged with bundles of oily sticks, which came from up north in Burkittsville woods, and made it impossible for farmers to draw water or for animals to drink.
For the first time in recorded history, a death is blamed on Elly Kedward, the Blair Witch. ..
[edit] Massacre of the Burkittsville Seven
In late 1940, a hermit named Rustin Parr began abducting children from Burkittsville, having been previously ordered by the evil spirit of Elly Kedward to walk into Burkittsville and take the first group of children he found. He accomplished this by promising candy to the children. As Rustin was already being driven mad by the spirit of Elly stumbling about the woods at night and chanting foreign phrases in his sleep, this was an easy task for him to accomplish. He took the children back to his secluded house and brutally disembowelled them, just as Elly Kedward had done with the search party. Rustin hid this secret for two days, until Elly Kedward reappeared to him in his dream and proclaimed "Peace shall come to thee, unless thee reveal thy actions." Rustin followed out this order and he walked into town, claiming "I'm finally finished." Initially no-one knew what he meant, but the Police ventured into the woods, seeking his abode, and found the seven corpses of the children in the cellar. They removed them, taking them into Burkittsville, and this revelation tore up the community. The citizens of Burkittsville proclaimed Rustin Parr guilty as charged, and desired to have him executed. Parr did not deny anything - he confessed to the last degree, informing the authorities of Burkittsville that he was merely doing what an old woman dressed in black had told him to do. Parr was convicted and the authorities executed him by hanging in May 1941.
[edit] The Blair Witch Project
In 1994, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams went into the Black Hills Forest while filming a documentary about the legend, and never returned. Search parties went out looking for them but they were never found. The footage of their documentary was found a year later within the foundation underneath an old house in the woods. Part of the documentary that was found was not published, instead sent back to the families of the three students. A film of the documantary was made by piecing together footage from their film, and published in 1999.
