During the early session, Elizabeth Kent told young listeners about Stiny Jack.

This year, the topics de jour for the Library’s Spooky Night were Elizabeth Kent’s journey through the lore and legends surrounding vampires, and John Olsen’s tales from his newest book, Stranger Idaho.

In what has become something of a tradition for the last half decade or so, Kent and Olsen celebrated Halloween by looking at some of the darker elements often associated with the holiday.

Prior to the evening discussion, Elizabeth Kent first told younger guests about the legend of Stingy Jack, which is tied to the origins of the jack o’lantern tradition that is an essential part of  Halloween.  Kent is trained as a Folklorist, and used her extensive knowledge of folk traditions in storytelling, as well as her specific experience in the Celtic worlds of Scotland, Ireland, and other European locales to tell the story of how “Stingy Jack” outsmarted himself in his attempt to defraud the devil.  While it’s hard to see the devil as a victim, exactly, the legend does explain how ne’er do well Jack irritated old Scratch so much that the latter eventually condemned the former to an eternity of wandering in a limbo state, seeking others to join him in his endless wandering through eternity.  The young audience was suitably enthralled by the drama, and asked perceptive follow-up questions about the incident, as well as the Irish tradition of carving turnips (rather than pumpkins, which are not native to Europe).     

For the evening session, Kent took up the figure of the vampire, which as she explained has been seen to exist in some form in a large number of cultures throughout history.  She recounted some of what is known about the origins of the world’s most famous vampire story, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Dracula, as Kent explained, was partially inspired by the novella “The Vampyre” by Dr. John Polidori.  It was started during the summer of 1816 at one of the most famous camping trips in Western history.  In addition to Polidori’s tale, which was the most significant literary influence on Dracula, fellow Romantics Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley tried their own hands at writing dark stories.  While Percy and Byron’s attempts didn’t directly turn into anything (Byron’s poem “The Darkness” eventually came out of it), Mary of course started work on the other major pillar of monster fiction, “Frankenstein”.

Kent went on to explain the evolution of the vampire character over time and the various ways in which the character has evolved.  Some of the major depictions in pop and literary culture were explored, like Max Schreck’s County Orlock from 1922’s “Nosferatu,” Bela Lugosi’s Vlad Dracula from the 1931 film, through the Hammer film versions, “modernized” versions like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sparkly emo-vampires like those in “Twilight,” all the way up to “the Vampire Diaries.”  As Kent noted toward the end of her presentation, there is a lot to say about vampires—they’ve been a standard figure in mythology almost as long as there have been people.

John Olsen spoke next, speaking for the most part about some of the stories he has collected for his newest book, “Stranger Idaho.”  Olsen is the author of the “Stranger Bridgerland” books, which are primarily based in the Cache Valley and surrounding areas.   “Partly from the experience of coming here every year, I realized it was time to finally do a book focused on Idaho,” he said.  Olsen has covered stories from Idaho in his volumes in the past, especially near the Bear Lake area.  But in this case, he presents a number of stories from around the state.

One of them, from the Ketchum area, involved the unsettling concept of a mimic.   He tells the story of Barbara, who was camping with her husband when late at night they hear the voice of a young child outside their tent asking for help.  While trying to figure out how to respond, the couple both developed an uneasy feeling and remained frozen.  The small voice continued to ask for help, and eventually began to try to work the tent’s zipper.  Eventually, the figure gave up and began to move away.  As it did, the couple noticed its enormous shadow heading away from the tent as the creature laughed.

Olsen then told stories about what it sometimes referred to as the most haunted place in the state, the Old Penitentiary near Boise.  As you might expect, the prison is rumored to be haunted by many of its unhappy residents who died during the facility’s years of operation.

Olsen told a number of stories about a range of topics and locations, from a potential UFO sighting at the Craters of the Moon  park, the “Smiling Man” who may or may not have been from another dimension or planet seen near Bear Lake, and the increasingly infamous Black Eyed Kids, whose eponymous eyes signal disaster.  

As with any Halloween audience with a captive supernatural researcher, there were a lot of questions for Olsen.  Some of them had to do with his own personal history, growing up in a haunted house.  According to Olsen, the haunted nature of his house was widely known both within and without his family, although during his childhood his family was mortified about it and he was encouraged to stay mum.  In the time sense, though, he and his family have discussed their shared experience of growing up in such an environment.  He has even been able to share the experience with his own kids, who have witnessed many unexplainable things of their own.

Desserts and extended conversations were then served up, and another Halloween at the Oneida County Library came to end just in time for Halloween itself.

John Olsen’s book “Stranger Idaho” is available on Amazon and other platforms currently, and can be found through his website as well, at strangerbridgerland.com.