The Fuil Bauchan

The following details the way to summon a paranormal entity known as the ‘Fuil Bauchan’. Many have used its services for centuries and have reaped the benefits of having such a strange connection to this bizarre oddity. Any person can summon this being, but they require a certain set of ingredients and a good understanding of English.

The Bauchan are small, peculiar creatures found within Scottish folklore; accounts and tales of their exploits are tied to human interaction. While labelled mostly as mischievous spirits, they can be seen as valuable accomplices and allies by their human associates, willing to assist in particular tasks depending on how the creature is appeased. The Fuil Bauchan is deemed to be one of the more dangerous entities within its species, but is seen to provide a fantastic reward if beckoned correctly.

Firstly, you can take comfort in knowing that the location of where the ritual takes place is not an important factor; it can be summoned in any country with the respective time-zone. You could do this in your own home or your dorm room, anywhere you feel you can call your own just as long as you will not be interrupted during the night. The ritual needs to have taken place after sunset, any earlier and the Bauchan will not manifest.

Now you will need to gather some ingredients. Depending on where you live, these may be difficult to come by, but with the advent of the modern internet it shouldn’t be too difficult to bring them straight to you through online vendors. If you are going to source the materials from websites, the reader is advised to order the goods so that they are delivered to your chosen location at around the same time, as certain goods may spoil or end up lost after a short while.

To start, you will need to find some sodium chloride, better known as salt which should be easy enough to find in a regular kitchen. About two teaspoons of salt should be added to a small bowl, which again should also be easily found. Hold onto this bowl, as it will hold the ingredients needed for the summoning ritual.

Secondly, you will need to acquire the ashes of burned oak wood. You don’t have to go looking for a tree to cut down, dismantling some old oak furniture and burning it will produce the needed component. Any other wood will not be sufficient. Once the flames have died down, take one handful of ash and place it into the bowl along with the salt.

The next ingredient is the leaves of Artemisia vulgaris, better known as Common Mugwort. Mugwort was said to hold mystic properties by the indigenous Celts populating the British Isles, but Scottish “enchanters” originally preferred to use a subspecies of Norwegian Mugwort (Artemisia norvegica subsp. scotica), which is native to Scotland. It became the preferred ingredient for the ritual but readers are advised not to go searching for this particular plant as it is now labelled as an endangered species. Common Mugwort will perform in the same manner as its Norwegian cousin, albeit with comparably stunted results.

If you are inclined to follow in the ways of cleanliness, you may want get any notions of summoning the Fuil Bauchan out of your mind, as menstrual blood is the next component. How you acquire it is entirely your own business but a few drops will be enough give the mixture its magical properties, meaning that squeezing a freshly used tampon is a viable method. Any other blood will not be sufficient.

The final step of this list is far less vulgar than the previous entry: Mead. This was an alcoholic beverage made with honey and was regarded as a sacred drink among the Celts; said to hold magical properties. It has become something of a niche market in recent years, but there are breweries dedicated to producing mead, though these will be difficult to come by depending on where you live. While there are several types of mead and varying ways of brewing it, the Bauchan does not appear to be too selective with its appetites and will be appeased with any variety of mead. Pour as much as your hand can hold and tip it into the bowl.

Just to summarise the needed ingredients:

·         Salt

·         Oak ashes

·         Artemisia vulgaris

·         Menstrual blood

·         Mead

With these ingredients all within a small bowl, they now have to be mixed together, preferably with the use of a pestle and mortar. Once the mixture has been ground into a peculiar liquid, you will have ended up with a concoction that the Scottish would have referred to as ‘measgachadh caca’; its translation from Gaelic into English roughly meaning ‘dirty mixture’. This substance now needs to be rubbed onto the skin. It can be applied anywhere on the human body, but it is preferable to avoid rubbing the mixture near the head, neck and genital regions.

While many of the people of old Scotland didn’t have this luxury, today’s audiences are recommended to use a set of gloves to apply the measgahadh as the combination of ingredients could have unfavourable results if they were to enter the bloodstream or swallowed. This also saves the applicant from the embarrassment of having menstrual blood on their fingers.

Gather a small portion of the measgachadh using your fingertips and rub it into the chosen part of your body. The area covered by the mixture should be around the width of a tennis ball, any larger is not preferable. Do not rub the mixture into a part of the body that has an open wound or is in the process of healing from an injury.

Once the measgachadh has been applied to the skin, this opens up a one-way channel of communication with the Fuil Bauchan; you will not notice any particular change but the entity will now be aware of your presence and will listen to what you have to say.

In order to summon the Bauchan, you will need to recite a verse that will determine the details as to how the entity will interact with you. Originally a Gaelic verse would have been spoken to rouse it, but this has since been lost over the years. A roughly interpreted English version was made in the 16th Century and works to the same effect, possibly due to the close proximity of English and Gaelic speakers at the time of the Bauchan’s peak in popularity. This verse needs to be recited in English and spoken properly; any mistake or deviation means the entity will not appear.

“This night, I ask your ear and time,

A gift from you, shaped as a crime,

I offer my body, not cloth or ring,

I desire ­_____ above any other thing,

Take what is yours, fulfil your end,

Meet me in sleep, I shall not defend,

Work your powers, like in days long passed,

I will be neither the first, nor the last”.

You will have noticed in the verse that there is a blank space in the fourth line. At that point, the speaker is to state a certain influence they would like to have bestowed upon them. This trait has to be within the capabilities of the human body, so the powers of flight and immortality are totally out of the books. Such traits that were desired at the time of this ritual were ‘Strength’, ‘Intelligence’, ‘Fertility’, and ‘Health’, among many others, and it is advised that readers are to stick with this line of thinking when stating a desired characteristic.

Once you have shouted the incantation, lay down on a bed (or any suitable surface) and try to go to sleep. You must turn off all the lights and be in total darkness otherwise the Bauchan will not make itself known. Hopefully, you will be fully unconscious when the Bauchan has been brought to your current location. If not, keep totally still and do not make a sound. Alerting the creature will botch the ritual and the summoner could be at the receiving end of some potentially fatal injuries.

The Fuil Bauchan itself is rather small, but moves with surprising speed. The first thing it will do when it has manifested within the vicinity is to smell the air, trying to sniff out where the measgachadh has been applied. Within a few seconds, it will have located the area where it has been rubbed in and will proceed to crawl over your body. Its skin is cold and covered in scales much like a snake, so be prepared for when it comes into contact. If you are lying beneath a set of covers, it will crawl under and start muttering to itself once it has finally found the area applied with the measgachadh. Hopefully you will have placed the mixture in a sensible part of your body for the following reason.

After finishing its muttering, the creature will then quickly bite into the area where the mixture has been rubbed in, sucking the blood of the summoner, grunting and growling in the process. The bite can be greatly painful and the razor sharp teeth of the Bauchan will dig deep into the flesh. Again, make no sound as it is at this point where the summoner is at their most vulnerable. Several unlucky souls are known to have died violently from giving into fear at this point.

The measgachadh caca acts as an opening for the Fuil Bauchan, fermenting the blood in a way that allows it to provide its services to the recipient, albeit in return for a macabre snack. Upon having its fill of blood, the Bauchan will remove its mouth from the area where the mixture was applied, only to lurch downwards with another painful bite. This time instead of sucking, the entity will secrete a chilling fluid into the body, which will travel through the bloodstream. This is not a pleasant process and the subject is required to remain silent and unmoving for this final part of the ritual.

The Fuil Bauchan should then remove itself from the summoner and crawl away, back into the darkness. It will then demanifest, satisfied with a belly full of blood. If the summoner has kept quiet and docile at this point, then the ritual can be considered a success.

The following morning, the summoner will find that the trait they requested to be improved in the verse will be amplified to a great extent. Those requesting strength will find that they are able to perform in the manner of a professional athlete while others who called for good health will find themselves as fit as a mahogany fiddle. These bestowed benefits have allowed the Fuil Bauchan to develop a devoted audience over the years, used time and time again for a great many purposes. However while it appears that summoning the Fuil Bauchan holds great potential for those determined to contact it, these sessions come at a very dear price.

The effects that the Bauchan provide are temporary, usually dissipating within the space of a month. Records show that the scotia subspecies of Artemisia vulgaris would be able to provide the effects to last longer in the body, but this is no longer a viable option for modern audiences. The other detriment is that the viscous bitemarks left by the entity will remain on the body permanently. While this has deterred several from attempting to summon the creature again (if at all), some persistent few have gone to have many further meetings with the Bauchan, rubbing the measgachadh caca in more areas of the body hoping to retain the changes they had felt since the first ritual, which in turn means more bitemarks that take greater effort to hide.

With all this said it does make one wonder, especially in today’s society that demands perfection, how far will a person be willing to go to change themselves for their own benefit? The truth is that those who are summoning the Fuil Bauchan are more frequent than you realise and possibly very near and dear to you. Ask yourself, have you noticed any friends or relatives that will go out of their way to cover up certain areas of their body? Whether it’s your one friend who insists wearing trousers in the peak of summer, or your cousin who always wears shoes inside the house, do you ever question what their deal is? Does it ever make your wonder what it is they have to hide?

A bitemark? Maybe more?