Prologue:
No matter where you have been, no never-mind to where you come from, or in which direction you might be heading. At, through, and between, every end of the earth, there are stories passed down through folks. Folklore, myths, legends, and the occasional hauntingly spooky tale; first told over a hundred years prior. Through the smoke of a brush fire, long before cell phones and today’s technology. Whispered amongst ancestors, like a dirty secret, from generation to generation; foolishly revealed as a sinister-cloaked joke to present-day family-tree inhabitants. Stories that provide not only entertainment, but also knowledge, information, and occasionally a lesson or two.
Juicy melting-pots, of wonder and imagination, vividly detailed and seared into your memory. Stories or recollections you may remember hearing of, in years past. Whether it be, an apologue of your stereotypical heroism of a knight in shining armor, or a narrative of feel-good, uplifting, moments, or advice to live by. However, then you might hear a moral-bound parable. Say, a story of an arrogant, hastened rabbit and a humble, careful sea turtle. Morality, thus being defined as slow and steady versus rushed and reckless. From “Mother Goose” to “The Three Little Pigs”, all of which leave you with a lesson to take. All of these are fall under the category of generally happier, more upbeat, in nature, bedtime stories.
Aside from your happy ending, sleep tight, don’t let lightning bugs bite; there are those, similar to that of a Brothers Grimm twisted tale, that create everlasting, life-long fear, instilled into the souls of those who are either lucky or unfortunate enough to hear such a tale. With luck as opposed to fortune, I suppose it depends on which side of the tale you happen to be sitting on when you hear the telling. Among the extremely vast selection of legends, ghosts, and so forth, in the lore the world has to offer, occasionally one might come across an ancient anecdote in which there is a little bit of truth to be found. Each very different part of the world has a skeleton in its closet, so to speak. New Orleans, Louisiana, is no exception to the rule.
In 1920s New Orleans, by August of ’23, prohibition and the "roars" of the twenties were in full swing. People, all over the world, wanted to lay claim to a throne of their own. New up and comers wanted to take over; old dogs were spinning new tricks, hoping to rise again. Violent, record-breaking thunderstorms and sweltering heat waves, consistent with that of Louisiana August weather, did not ease tensions in the already, supposed to be, “dry” city, a highly regarded city for its spirits of all sorts. Despite the heavy bouts of rain, musical classics flowed in the streets. One could hear the blues and ragtime all within the same city block. While resting or window shopping, under the beautiful Creole architecture of the sidewalk awnings. Happiness, life, and soul-filling Jazz accented rebel-rousing women who preferred the flapper lifestyle. Most of the time, you could find such women in the back-room, hush-hush speakeasies. With their short bob-cut, Clara Bow-styled hair, knee-high length, thigh-high slit dresses; they held a clear, venom-filled, disdain for southern belle references and expectations. Young men, in the 1920s, were also making moves and racing on the heels of rebellion. Prohibition created a vast opening into the criminal underworld. The fruits of being a bootlegger or lawless rogue tempted with a portrayal of a future of diamonds, gold, and the root-of-evil within the world, money. Unfortunately, money makes the world go ’round. In the 1920s, during prohibition, becoming a criminal had more appeal than your typical nine-to-five. The wages and benefits appeared to be better as well.
Prior to the likes of Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie & Clyde, and Babyface Nelson, gangsters, if you will, were not keen on allowing themselves to be noticed. Before the “Smile and Wave Boys,” before the “let’s make every headline in the country outlaws,” there were ghosts, myths, and legends, who preferred to remain just that, rumors, whose anonymity was built upon fear.
Louisiana’s supernatural roots run deeply within folklore, some originating from true people or real-life events, some considered to be only lore. Louisiana’s ancestral history includes, but is not limited to:
Marie Laveau. The Queen of Voodoo. She is believed to still be walking amongst the lively, heart-beating, breathing souls upon St. Ann Street, in the French Quarter.
A rougarou. A creature described presenting as how one might appear if starting to “turn”, per se, into a werewolf. Complete, with a body resembling a human man, though with a hair-covered snarling Cheshire cat fanged grin, on the head of a wolf or large canine. A monster who wanders the murky, foggy, haze-filled evenings of the bayous of Southern Louisiana. In search of adolescent victims involved in no good tomfoolery.
Madame LaLaurie’s evil, disgraced, after-life specter is forever held in her former house of horrors; her own, truly fitting, permanent purgatory. The tortured, angry, vengeful souls of the slaves she viciously abused in life, sadly, are also forced to linger; though in death, wreak havoc and vengeance on LaLaurie’s eternal soul for her horrific unforgivable sins.
A fifolet is believed to be a hypnotizing, luminous, glowing orb, allegedly enchanting lost souls in the bayou. Enticing them in weak, unsure moments. As if it were an exquisite, seductive, North Star fairy. The illuminating sphere guides the lost being into the abyss of the mangled twisted turns of the bayou. As the tale recollects, the wanderer is drawn so deeply into the moonless, shadowy, maze of Cypress trees and Spanish moss; eternally lost, disappearing, and succumbing to a lonely, darkness-filled, death.
Amongst these tales, there is one that is surrounded by a hurricane of macabre, with a slightly twisted pinch of Edgar Allen Poe sentiment. A legend, just as prominent as the more well-known aforementioned lore, although it is rarely spoken aloud. Southern Louisiana’s dirty little secret. Mentioned in whispers amongst ancestors, murmured over nightcaps, and in drunken, foolish revelations of “Beaux”, The Bayou Barn Owl.
His name has shortened over the years, more so I think, to lighten the shroud of terror that follows the mentioning of it. A phantom. A spirit. A demon, rumored to have eyes in the back of his head an all-seer. The Owl is believed to be a malevolent soul who rains hellfire and brimstone and exacts revenge against all the soulless savages who have shed the blood of an innocent. The legend speaks of a hollow, wraith-like entity, that roams the bayou as a vengeance-filled, gargoyle-esque, hellhound, version of a barn owl. Those responsible, guilty of such horrific acts, are then killed in a torturing, excruciating, and unexplainable way. Nothing left afterward, except an enormous white body-shaped chalk-line, type of bloodstain for a clue. Folks say one will faintly smell sulfur just before hearing, the not too far off in the distance, shrill scream of a barn owl. An ear-piercing screech which disorients you just for a moment. In that unguarded moment, of distracted weakness, he swoops down stealing your soul and your last breath.
Fear is the almighty persuader, and the tiniest bit of truth in any tale can be the greatest advantage to keeping it alive for generations to come. Fear is what sets certain legends and stories of ghosts apart from other fables and then serves as a diamond-tipped quill, inscribing them on the stone titled: History. A name on a gravestone; the deceased’s memory is measured by the tears of the grieving. The Owl’s memory survives and is measured not by those who speak of him, but by those who stay silent, terrified to even think his name for a split second, let alone speak it aloud.
In 1923 New Orleans, a gravely feared backwoods bayou legend, of Voodoo origins, would become a nightmare, of the Krueger variety, come true. Born into the reality of the world, as the people of 1920’s New Orleans knew it. For the first time, the Barn Owl would claim notoriety, as well as that glimmer of truth in the lore that would allow the legend to live on immortally. Due to the aura of fear of saying, and only ever in the form of a whisper, “From his Cypress Bough, his head spins ’round, no sins go unseen, no mercy for you now, his scream heard low, as he steals your soul, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, beware The Bayou Barn Owl.” Imagine an almost singsong verse, as if words were absent, and one might mistake this sinister nursery rhyme for an eerie music box melody.
Nursery rhymes are pleasant and comforting, however, if it is "Beaux" the Bayou Owl you are expecting to encounter, you really should reconsider and try praying instead.
