Mr. Spindlespine

Mr. Spindlespine is a Villish folk tale, often told to children to ensure that they stay inside during the cold, wintry nights. He is an enigmatic figure, and sometimes considered to be more fact than fiction due to suspicious circumstances that happened across Vilstrung.

Summary

Mr. Spindlespine tells of a tall, scraggly man with an exceptionally long torso. He's called 'Spindlespine' due to the long, winding spine that allows him to bend and contort around uncanny angles, and often walks on all fours despite being relatively humanoid. During the cold, wintry nights and harsh snow storms, it's said that Mr. Spindlespine will wander out and kidnap any children that stray too far from their family, stuffing them in a sack before he drags them off to work in his toy shop until they inevitably collapse from exhaustion. Mr. Spindlespine then turns them into a toy for children to enjoy. Other rumors go as far to say that Mr. Spindlespine can 'sniff out' people that misbehave; during cold, wintry nights, he will watch children from afar, and should anyone misbehave, he will break into the house to discipline the child, and family for failing to teach the child 'good manners'.

Historical Basis

There are many historical accounts that are often attributed to Spindlespine, though due to the outlandish nature of them, they are sometimes considered hoaxes.

Villish Visits

During a wintry month, blizzards wracked the country side and left a perpetual white out -- while Vilstrung is known for being the coldest region in Tregaron, this was considered unusual due to the snow blotting sight. These sightings often told of a man that stood within the storms, often alongside nearby pine trees or isolated homes within the kingdom. The shadowy figure had an abnormally long torso that stretched him out to roughly twice the length and height of a man's. Some children even approached the figure out of curiosity, but before they could reach the figure, it had disappeared within the blistering blizzard, leaving only a children's toy where it stood. Toys vary; from dolls, to mechanical things like carousels and jack-in-the-boxes that were wound up to spring out the second they were investigated.

The Toy Killer

The next month after, sightings persisted, only this time in much more isolated spaces of Vilstrung. Homes that are normally out of the way and farther from Villish settlements, found within either small communities or in isolated cottages had witnessed the same figure that stood within the snowy cold. This ended with a string of savage killings and kidnappings that, to this day, remain unsolved mysteries. Houses were raided, with adults in the household left mutilated beyond recognition, and children left missing entirely. Bloodied drag marks were also found nearby these homes, leading on towards the dense pine woods that isolated these homes from civilization. Very few survived an encounter with the enigmatic 'Toy Killer' during this time, but many gruesome cases surfaced that left a common pattern. The murderer was called the 'Toy Killer' because there were several cases where adults had their lips forcefully stitched into a wide smile, with buttons sewn over their eyes to replicate the likeness of a human-sized doll. Toys were also later found through some sections of the invaded homes, with human body parts used to fashion them. Bones were used to make dolls, and in some cases, limbs or other parts were impaled to the top of jack-in-the-boxes. In some cases, adults lived through this harrowing event, but many were inconsolable or left too broken to recount the events. The few that managed to recount them properly would all speak of similar happenings, though; their children would claim to see a man watching them from the treeline, and sometimes, at night, he would tap at their windows to show his smiling face. When a wintry white out raged on outside, he'd arrive in the house during their sleep, dragging the adults to be bound and tied at the middle of the room. There, the children were forced to watch as their parents were maimed and mutilated, before they were stuffed in a sack and dragged away from their homes.

Exorcisms

When the murders became rampant and notable, exorcists of Aine were sent out with the belief that Demons were behind the killings. The Villish thus tried to send crusaders to drive out the force behind these killings in hopes of ending them, going as far to encourage people -- especially isolated home owners, to report any odd sighting or circumstance that would happen at their home. Crosses were also handed out to families to further deter the killings. Much to their delight, the exorcists had actually seemed to have an effect; killings went down as they travelled through the woods in search of this elusive killer. Crosses were soon handed out to families in hopes of halting the demonic force from haunting them. Much to their horror, they found that the killings only continued; crosses were shoved through the eyes of their victims, with mocking messages writ across their walls in blood. Worse yet, exorcists were beginning to disappear in the woods, only for their bodies to be found beheaded, arms outstretched and legs held together to mimic Aine's cross. Jack in the boxes were later found with their heads impaled upon the springs.

Tregaron Orphanage

Perhaps most infamously -- and recently, were the events that transpired in an orphanage of Tregaron city. An orphanage was ran by an elderly woman and her husband. This is one of the few rare instances where a dangerous Fae is found to interact with human settlements, in time, the orphanage was later discovered to be used as a front to lure children in by a hag. The hag also worked alongside Spindlespine; this became the first instance where Mr. Spindlespine acknowledged his own name. When the orphanage was searched, they found that the basement was hidden off from the rest of the building; it was repurposed into a toy shop where, as the few surviving children reported, Spindlespine forced them to work on macabre toys using the parts of other orphans who failed to make toys. Everyone was expected to make toys, stopping only at bed time before they inevitably collapsed from the exhaustion.

Cultural Reception

The legend is often only spoken in hushed tones, with the name 'Spindlespine' being treated as a sort of bogeyman to encourage children to hide or keep away from strangers during a wintry night. Its notoriety and dark subject matter has lead to most public places or institutions shunning the idea of speaking of it, especially due to it having historical grounding.

Related Ethnicities