'This I do vow & this shall ever be; I will be true despite thy scythe & thee'
(Shakespeare Sonnet 124) Art Charles Robinson

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According to a Galician medieval chronicle, a lord entered the Cova da Coruxa ('the owl's cave') with his soldiers. They saw a wide river, and handsome people singing and dancing on the other side. Both the lord and his companions died over the next year...

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“Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be”

— Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus


🌙 Dillon Samuelson

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The river Styx forms the boundary between the earth & the Underworld, with ferryman Charon transporting the souls of the newly dead across the river to the world below. Some believed the Styx had miraculous powers & bathing in it made one invulnerable.

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"No longer will good men be able with easy conscience to join that indignant “Hush!” by which the evil-doers have hitherto silenced every attempt to make articulate the smothered wail that rises unceasingly from the woeful under-world." 6/6

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Mythological paintings
Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1861)(left)
Ishtar in Hades, from Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Ernest Wallcousins (1915) (right)

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‘Haunted’ from The Tatler, circa November, 1927 😱

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The Nattmara is a wraith like creature from Scandinavian folklore. She transforms into sand and passes through cracks and keyholes so she can sit on the chest of her victims and plague them with night terrors.

Image Imgur

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Neither death nor Chatterton for The people of were not sleeping well at night. They were afraid. They had reason to be so.

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I wrote "At the Dream's door" as a song about the last thought we have just right before sleeping. Will we remember it in the morning? Will it shape into what it should become? Will it cease to exist? Here my drawing and LIVE version --> https://t.co/x02MJmlStZ

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Are all the giants dead?
And are all the witches fled?
Am I quite safe in bed?

—Mary Norton, old bedtime poem
art by Brian Froud

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Benjy and the Nightmare by Alice Bolingbroke Woodward, 1932

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Baku are not what they seem: creatures of dreams, they look a little like a discolored ant-eater. They keep evil dreams at bay, devouring nightmares and the creatures that bring them.

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Plica Polonica or Polish Plait is a medical condition that causes hair to become irreversibly tangled & matted. Some believed its appearance was evidence of a night visit from an elf, mare or witch. Others thought it could ward away illness & was therefore lucky.

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Gullah people tell of the Boo-Hag, skinless, dark soul of an evil person who "rides" their victims at night, sucking their life energy via their breath. Can take their skin to wear like a suit. They are repelled by indigo blue! "Don't let de hag ride ya!”

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In Japan spiders are thought to be demons in disguise. In the day they go unnoticed in spider-form but at night, when everyone is asleep, they transform back into their demon form and carry out evil deeds.

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Why do they say ghosts are cold? Mine are warm, a breath dampening your cheek, a voice when you thought you were alone.

Julie Buntin
Marlena



🎨Ava Vongoth

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In Turkic cultures, Alkarısı or Albastı is a female spirit that plagues post-partum chambers by night, incapacitating the mother by sitting on her chest. For protection, new mothers wear red ribbons and a red cloth may me spread over the infant 🧿

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In medieval folklore an incubus is a demon assuming the form of a man to seduce young women as they slept. Men too were subject to these visitations but by horses in female form called a succubus. Hence nightmares. Sweet dreams! 🎨Henry Fuseli, Philip Burne Jones.

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The Night-hag visits folk in their dreams to torture them with desire. She sucks on their hair, braiding it, leaving them with ‘mare-locks’ or ‘mare-tangles’...

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