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Tag: folklore

The Lost Treasures of Cottenghe

Posted on April 9, 2022April 10, 2022 by TheCustodian

“In Trizac, in the wood of Marlhiou, where mounds of earth are found, rests Cottenghe, a Gaulish city of invisible treasures, left in the custody of serpents.” -Paul Sébillot Professional treasure-hunting has never been for the faint of heart. In Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt, those fortunate enough to own kutub al-mutālibīn  (treasure-hunting manuals) needed to…

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Mermaids and Anti-Colonial Resistance in the Andes

Posted on October 2, 2020April 30, 2022 by TheCustodian

“I had heard versions of merpeople stories—primarily those about mermaids—in many highland villages while doing research in the Andes…I didn’t yet understand how these stories tied into the larger sociopolitical context of Spanish rule.” -from “The Revolutionary Power of Andean Folk Tales” by Dr Di Hu Mermaids and sirens have long played a prominent role…

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Paganism in Early Modern Lithuania and Prussia

Posted on September 6, 2020October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“My aim is to move beyond the perception that Lithuanian paganism is a matter of interest only to Lithuanians, and to show that this extraordinary pagan faith matters to the religious history of Europe as a whole.” – Dr Francis Young Every age has had its relic-hunters, those who, propelled forward into untracked territory by…

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Johannes Praetorius and his Magical World

Posted on July 23, 2020October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“Praetorius’s world and his work were constructed of wonderment at the magical universe and of the speculations of the new science.” -from Ways of Knowing in Early Modern Germany: Johannes Praetorius as a Witness to His Time (2006) by Gerhild Scholz Williams Among Germany’s many legendary sites, the Brocken (formerly known as the Blocksberg) is…

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Hellebore and More: An Interview with Maria J. Pérez Cuervo

Posted on June 26, 2020October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“The idea that drives the subgenre is the survival of ancient cults, usually in remote rural areas, a mere step away from our ‘civilised’ surroundings…in folk horror the past always returns to haunt us.” -from “Archaeology and Folk Horror in Hellebore” (2020) by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo In 2019, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo launched Hellebore,…

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Sorcery, Trade Secrets, and Enterpise: the Case of William Wheeler

Posted on November 13, 2017October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“They hang people for poisoning your body, but no law can touch them when they inject poison in your mind.” -from Witchcraft: its Power in the World Today by William Seabrook (1941). Sorcery, it’s been argued, is both a composite art and an acquired taste. In all ages, the prototypical sorcerer or witch has been…

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The Mermaid Isles Project

Posted on September 12, 2017October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“A thousand fathoms down our home; Daughters we of the pathless deep, sprung from the ever dancing foam.”  –from The Mermaids by Edith M. David (1873). Mermaids, it would seem, have been shoaling around the sunless depths of the human psyche since the time of the ancient Mesopotamians. From the very beginning, marine humanoids were associated…

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Weather-Magic in the West Indies

Posted on July 18, 2017October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

WEATHER-MAGIC IN THE WEST INDIES “The soul of some people is such that they can stop the rain and command the winds and the storms.” –from De magia by Giordano Bruno (written circa 1588). “But the men marvelled, saying, ‘What manner of man is this that even the winds and sea obey him!’” -Matthew 8:27. From the earliest…

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The Heroine Cults of Ancient Greece

Posted on June 12, 2017October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“They say that there is a shrine also of the heroine Iphigenia…Hesiod, in his Catalogue of Women, says that Iphigenia did not die, but by the will of Artemis became Hecate.” -from Pausanias’s Description of Greece, vol. 1, trans. with a commentary by James George Frazer (1898).  To the Ancient Greeks, heroes and heroines were exalted beings—a…

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Bona Longobarda: Commandress of Imperial Venice

Posted on April 18, 2017October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“This valorous woman, with sword in hand…commanded troops of soldiers like a captain…”  -from Gynevera de le clare donne by Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, eds. C. Ricci and A. Bacchi della Lega (1888). “From her earliest years she hunted wild beasts, and almost like another Diana, she led many companions with her, running through the countryside and…

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