The Candy Lady

Have you heard of the candy man? If you ever had a childhood, I’m pretty sure that you and your friends did the dark bathroom bit where you said a name 3-5 times. Well, there’s always a story that originally happened and somewhere down the line settings and events change until it’s a legend.

In the early 19th century of Irland, children in a sparse village started going missing while playing in the forest meadow. There was talk of seeing an old lady wandering around the forest picking herbs and berries. She was seen as the village’s hermit because she never goes into town or talks to anyone other than the children who enter the forest. At first, it wasn’t weird because she’s a hermit. But the people in town thought it was weird when their children keep disappearing from the meadow. They would sometimes find their clothes and toys in the forest. With more kids disappearing, the parents and townspeople started going after the ‘Candy Lady’ for their children. They caught her in the meadow picking berries. They accused her of killing the children for witchcraft and eating them.

Talk of her grew until one day the village's leader's daughter went missing in the forest meadow after being warned to stay away. In an uproar, the entire village went looking in search of the little girl fearing the old hag has gotten her. An angry mob was gathered and went in search to find her. When the people finally came across the hermits' house, they tied up the old lady and forced her to tell them the whereabouts of the child to which she was in the cellar. In the cellar, they found the girl alive and tied up... but all of her teeth were missing, and around her were the bones of all the missing children scattered on the floor. in the corner were shelves lined with rows upon rows of teeth... children's teeth and a table area used for making candy by using the blood and teeth of her victims.

After finding the little girl and the other horrors that lie within her home, the village leader locked her up in his house. He brought in the Candy Lady along with their priest who performed an exorcism on all the village folks. They burned the old hag at the stake and her cursed house as well.

Years after her death a young hunter went hunting in the meadow near her property when he found a young girl dressed in rags in the middle of the forest holding a basket. The hunter tried not to scare her off thinking she was a lost child, so he approached her carefully, but then he heard a branch snap behind him. He turned quickly and saw nobody, and when he turned back, the child was gone. filling a chill in the air he ran into the village and told his story to the priest who said it was the evil spirit of the Candy Lady trying to lure him to his death.

Word of what the hunter saw was spread throughout the village and that area of the woods was now off-limits to all.

Other strange occurrences happened around the area of the village itself. One report stated that a farmer found the rotten teeth of a child in a candy wrapper around his front porch.

A stranger came to the village and brought in stories of his travels across countries. He admitted to others that he thought he saw a very similar-looking child his own age walking in the forest. Other times children would tell of finding blood-stained candy wrappers with candy in them of their window sile.

To this day, there are still sightings of the lady around the town, and anyone who is brave enough to traverse the forest is never seen alive again. Their bodies are found weeks later with their stomachs hollowed out and filled with candy. Nowadays if a kid goes missing, all the locals point to the spirit of The Candy Lady saying that she takes them somewhere and pulls out their teeth and fills their bodies with candy.