Story

The village of Glenkeld in Scotland is small, nestled in a valley and surrounded by mountains. It is a picturesque and peaceful town, far away from Glasgow and Edinburgh and any of the well known Scottish cities. It is in this small sleepy town that the story of the Bogdan originated. Most of the village think it's merely a fairytale, a tale created to scare small children into being good, but some believe wholeheartedly in the story.

They tell of tales in their youth, children that suddenly went missing while playing in the woods, their bodies never found. They tell of livestock missing from farms and no evidence as to what had snatched them away in the night. One old man in the village believes he saw the bogdan as a youth, and he insists he remembers the incident clear as day. Many of the adults in the village believe he's crazy, a product of senility in his old age but the children like to listen to his story. They find it exciting, gripping, and never tire of the old man telling it.

The Bogdan, the old man says was a terrifying beast, large and wolf-like with bright red eyes. It was huge, a monstrosity that in his life time he would never soon forget, but for some reason and he knew not why, it had let him live that night. He was thirteen when he first saw the Bogdan and though the story had been passed down orally throughout the village when he was young he had always believed it was simply a fairytale. Parents used to caution their children to be good or the Bogdan would snatch them away in their sleep, and by the time he was thirteen, he had neither seen hide nor hair of the Bogdan and so simply believed it to be a fairytale. It was when he was coming home one night while playing in the woods behind his house that he saw the Bogdan. He had been walking home that night using the light of the full moon to guide him back. He was halfway home, a route he had taken a hundred, a thousand times, when he came across a dead sheep, its throat torn open.

He dismissed it. There were wild animals in the woods and sometimes they took livestock, but the cut, the way this animal had been torn apart was gruesome and when he looked at the sheep again he realized that the kill was odd and that the bite looked far too large to be any normal wild animal lurking in those woods. It was then he was scared, and he wondered, ever so slightly, if the tale his parents had told him of a mysterious beast named the Bogdan lurking in the woods was true. He dismissed it again, and continued on his way because if he dwelled on it he would get even more scared and he did not like the feeling of being scared. But, wandering along and wandering along, he eventually heard a strange sound. It sounded vaguely like the growl of a wolf, but strangely human, keening almost like an animal in anguish, but he knew that was not a sound any animal of this world made.

He ran then, the branches slapping in his face and faintly hearing the sound of something large loping after him, gaining on him. Eventually, he could run no further and he stopped. If he was to face his fate and die that night, at least he tried. At least he had tried. When he finally heard the sound of the Bogdan behind him he turned and stared into bright red eyes. Still, the Bogdan saw him and did not pursue. Maybe the Bogdan had feasted earlier and was not hungry that night, but eventually the large beast turned and walked away and he walked home safe.

The Bogdan has not been seen since, but villagers still insist it lurks somewhere in the woods, waiting. They insist they can still hear that strange growl at night, a warning to anyone that decides to venture into the woods that they are not safe there and that the Bogdan waits for its next victim.

Story and Profile Credits

profile by boogleloo
background from: wallpaper cave
story by myself, Historiography
overlay art by Godhead

Art

No artwork yet, links will be added as they're commissioned.