My old art with witches from our local folklore, wearing black and red striped cloth called zapaska świętokrzyska. I was one of those strange kids fascinated with them.
According to legends every year witches celebrated Sabbath on the top of Bald Mountain nearby. There was once an old Slavic temple, then a church and a national park, now just a church and a bunch of irresponsible people devastating the nature after borders of the park have been moved.
Photos taken by folklorist Gustav Henningsen of the folk magic performed in rural Galicia, Spain, in the 60s.
1) Amulet worn by a cow to make her give milk again 2) Ritual to cure jaundice 3) Ritual to remove the evil eye from a kid 4) Cattle going over the remains of a bonfire lit in St. John’s night 5) Divination method by wise women 6) Funeral
EOS sent me this asking for an explanation after John saw it and immediately scheduled “essential maintenance” in which he would be “unreachable” up on Five from April 30th to lunch time on the 1st of May…
I’m not an expert on gardening and couldn’t find much to verify this tradition, but John seems to be playing things safe…
It’s all a lie, he’s not unreachable because of this, he’s unreachable because I have another workshop at a festival and he doesn’t want me to drag him to it again. This one isn’t a small one for my local groups, it’s a federation run one, so it’s thousands of people. The cucumber is an excuse, he knows I don’t grow vegetables.
*heaves a deep sigh and picks up her comm* EOS? you don’t need to worry about cucumbers or why they were planted like that. In the old days the men worked the fields and they sometimes did it naked so that they wouldn’t get their clothes dirty.
*turns back to Scott, checking her comm was off* That’s a total lie, the tradition is there because of the peen. Apparently, if a woman or an old man planted them the cucumbers would be small and useless. If they were planted by a young man in the prime of his life the cucumbers…well, let’s just say that you’d pick the young man who already had an impressive… cucumber…as a way of showing the seeds exactly what they were supposed to be measuring up to. Their “visible virility” I believe was the term used.
I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to go into more detail about your brother in that way so it’s probably best we just let it go, yeah?
My October, November and December magical plant print rewards from my patreon. These are from my herbologist reward tier, where each month patrons receive an A6 print of an illustrated plant and card with it’s mythological & magical history! These plants are real species from around the world that have intriguing past histories and folklore.
(Currently my herbologist tier is sold out but I hope to open up more slots in 2021!)
My June, July, August and September magical plant print rewards from my patreon. These are from my herbologist reward tier, where each month patrons receive an A6 print of an illustrated plant and card with it’s mythological & magical history! These plants are real species from around the world that have intriguing past histories and folklore.
(Currently my herbologist tier is sold out but I hope to open up more slots in 2021!)
I found this story in a book of Santeria folklore, of all places; I changed the setting to the modern-day US because there was no way I could depict the original without a zillion cultural errors, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same. Still kind of appropriative? Yeah, but in fairness, this folktale had some…really evocative imagery.
is the Devil’s Tramping Ground like. a widely known thing outside of North Carolina? b/c it’s funny as fuck, it’s this circle of dirt that supposedly nothing will grow in and it’s b/c the devil stomps around there or whatever. allegedly ppl have tried camping there and woke up miles away
it’s literally just a patch of dirt that ppl are scared of. that being said, i would not go there if asked b/c while i am not superstitious, i am a little stitious
*Tamp Tamp*
The Devil: ah I see you’ve noticed me tamping down the soft earth
Old folk and fairy tales are wild. Sometimes they’re filled with hidden gems like how to consort with spirits, make bones talk, and unlock portals to other realms…and other times they’re talking shit on the farmer’s wife down the lane from three generations ago or attempting to explain why corn and beans grow in the shape that they do.
On the right: Wolpertinger (german folklore animal) edited by an unknown artist from Young Hare (on the left), a painting of a hare by Albrecht Dürer (1502).
