What is Gulyabani? Anatolia's Most Terrifying Folkloric Creature
What is Gulyabani? One of the most terrifying figures in Anatolian/Mesopotamian folklore; a creature with backward feet, hairy body, wandering through graveyards, attacking travelers and graves. Origin: A multi-layered legend extending from Persian and Arab mythology to Anatolia. Physical characteristics: Tall, bearded, foul-smelling, sometimes appears disguised as a woman. Literature & cinema: Popular culture impact extending from Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar’s novel to the film “Süt Kardeşler.” Imagine a creature wandering among graveyards on dark nights, confusing those who follow it with its backward feet, terrifying people with its hairy body and horrific smell. If you immediately thought “jinn” at the backward feet part, you’d be wrong. Gulyabani, one of…
What are the Backrooms?
Have you ever felt yourself lost in an endless corridor in your dreams, familiar yet utterly foreign? Can you imagine being trapped alone in a never-ending labyrinth filled with yellow wallpaper, damp carpets, and humming fluorescent lights? The answer to “what are the Backrooms” will introduce you to the internet’s most unsettling liminal nightmare. This creepypasta phenomenon has become one of modern horror’s most captivating legends. The Backrooms story, which began on 4chan in 2019 and rapidly spread across the internet, has embedded itself in the minds of millions. This parallel dimension you fall into by “no-clipping” out of reality offers an escape room of terror filled with infinite corridors,…
Scary Folklore Creatures from Around the World
Goatman (American Folklore) La Llorona (Mexican Folklore) Black Annis (English Folklore) Kuchisake-Onna (Japanese Folklore) Mngwa (African Folklore) Ghouls (Arab Folklore) and Gulyabani (Turkish Folklore) Yara-ma-yha-who (Australian Mythology) Every culture has its monsters. From the shadowy forests of England to the riverbanks of Mexico, from the mountains of Japan to the outback of Australia, terrifying creatures lurk in folklore around the world. Some of these beings are so feared that people refuse to speak their names aloud, referring to them only through whispers and euphemisms. These aren’t just bedtime stories meant to scare children, they’re deeply rooted cultural phenomena that reflect our universal fears and the darkness we sense lurking…
A Popular Folkloric Horror Tale: The Jinn Wedding
The Jinn Wedding is perhaps one of the most prevalent and enduring folk horror beliefs in Anatolia, passed down through generations for centuries. While there are many different folk beliefs about jinn haunting people and sometimes places, the Jinn Wedding stands apart from similar tales in a notably positive way. Both the widespread presence of memorates about this belief across different regions and its more coherent narrative structure compared to other jinn-possession themed stories make the Jinn Wedding narratives from Anatolia and beyond worthy of examination. What is the Jinn Wedding? Before exploring the belief, it’s worth explaining what the Jinn Wedding is, something you might be familiar with from…
Turkish Urban Legends No. 3: The Issız Cuma Cemetery – Where Gravestones Move on Their Own
We continue our exploration of folk horror beliefs from Anatolia with a paranormal urban legend centered around Çanakkale. What we find appealing about this particular story is that it isn’t the product of media sensationalism or a scenario that became an urban legend only after being featured in a horror film—it’s genuinely known among the local population. This article will examine the mysterious history of a cemetery that hosts a folkloric horror-themed urban legend, along with a narrative that can only be described as both haunting and tragic. Let’s uncover the secrets of Issız Cuma Cemetery together. Located in the Yenice district of Çanakkale, Issız Cuma Cemetery (which translates roughly…
Memorable Food Scenes in Horror Films
When we think of elements that frequently appear in horror films, I think mirrors are the first thing that comes to mind for many people. Along with mirrors, we also think of dolls and figurines, animals like spiders or crows. But there’s another element that appears frequently in horror films yet doesn’t get as much attention as the ones I just mentioned—food. Sometimes this element presents itself through characters eating in strange and nauseating ways, and sometimes in quite appetizing, well-attended scenes that somehow still convey an underlying sense of unease. As someone who loves both food and horror films, as you know, I felt it was my duty to…
Turkish Urban Legends No. 5: The Haunted Apartment of Antalya
In Antalya, there is a four-story building with sixteen apartments where no one lived for years, or according to those who make the claim, no one could live. This apartment building, which faces a cemetery and is allegedly built on top of another cemetery, has only a small grocery store on its ground floor. The employees say that when they arrive in the morning, they find shelves toppled over and items moved from their places. No one wants to move into this building, which was in the public eye for a period—a place where strange sounds were reportedly heard after midnight, where doors and windows supposedly moved on their…
