Folklore & History
Winter customs, old beliefs, strange societies and the odd corners of history behind our books.
Folklore & HistoryThe Hellfire Club: Mock Monks and Rumor Beneath West Wycombe
The Hellfire Club of Sir Francis Dashwood: mock monks at Medmenham Abbey, candlelit chalk caves at West Wycombe, and why the rumors outran the evidence.
Folklore & HistoryJoanna Southcott's Box: A Prophecy Still Waiting for Its Bishops
Joanna Southcott's box, sealed until twenty-four bishops gather: the Devon prophetess, her seals, the Shiloh pregnancy, and the Panacea Society's long wait.
Folklore & HistoryThe Victorian Séance: How the Dead Became a Parlor Game
Victorian séance history: how two sisters' rapping knuckles launched spiritualism, filled respectable parlors with mediums, and changed horror forever.
Folklore & HistorySpirit Photography: How the Victorians Photographed Ghosts
Spirit photography history: William Mumler's ghostly portraits, the Mary Todd Lincoln photograph, the fraud trials, and why the pictures still unsettle.
- Folklore & History
The Ghost Story as Christmas Gift: A Tradition Revived
For the Victorians, a ghost story was a Christmas gift: seasonal books, fireside readings, a shiver shared. How to revive the tradition this year.
Folklore & HistoryLiminal Places in Folklore: Why Thresholds Frighten Us
Liminal space folklore explained: why doorways, crossroads, bridges, and midnight have frightened every culture, and what the old beliefs knew.
Folklore & HistoryThe Voynich Manuscript: The Book Nobody Can Read
The Voynich Manuscript: a fifteenth-century book of unknown plants, star charts and bathing women, in a script that has beaten every codebreaker who tried it.
Folklore & HistoryThe Krampus Legend: Saint Nicholas and His Christmas Devil
The Krampus legend: the horned Alpine devil who walks with Saint Nicholas on December 5, from carved masks and banned dances to numbered devils in Salzburg.
Folklore & HistoryWhy the Victorians Told Ghost Stories at Christmas
The Victorians spent Christmas Eve telling ghost stories by firelight. Here is where that eerie tradition came from, and how to revive it this winter.
Folklore & HistoryThe Icelandic Yule Cat, Grýla and the Thirteen Yule Lads
The Icelandic Yule Cat and its family: Grýla the child-cooking ogress, her ragged husband, and thirteen troll sons who raid the farms before Christmas Eve.
Folklore & HistoryThe Mari Lwyd: The Horse Skull That Sings at Your Door
The Mari Lwyd, a ribboned horse skull on a pole, went door to door in south Wales between Christmas and Twelfth Night and had to win a rhyming duel to get in.
Folklore & HistoryThe Black Dogs of England: Folklore's Favorite Omen
Black dog folklore: Black Shuck, the Barghest, and the phantom hounds of the English lanes, from the Bungay church door to the Baskerville moor.
Folklore & HistoryReal Cryptids the Victorians Believed In
Victorian cryptids were front-page news: sea serpents logged by naval officers, ape-men, and beasts that turned out to be real. The strange true history.
Folklore & HistoryCorpse Roads and Crossroads: Folklore of In-Between Places
Corpse road folklore: the paths the dead were carried along, the crossroads burials, and why Britain's old ways are still walked carefully after dark.
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