The Dance of Witches by Isaac Levitan

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🖤🖤🖤
There's a Scottish tale about a Lady of a House who kept a dark secret...
One morning a stable boy woke up (in the stable where they slept) to find his little brother sleeping beside him battered & bruised. He woke his brother & asked what had happened! ...

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In Cumbrian dialect, fellon-wood is deadly nightshade. As the name suggests, it's one of our most poisonous plants. Giving witches the power of flight, add it to a potion that includes bats blood and the fat of a child.


🎨 William Holbrook Beard

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takes place on the night of 30 April, Eve, when witches meet on the Brocken mountain in Germany, & hold revels with the devil. This year it coincides with the rising Img: Joseph Tomanek, c.1920

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‘Queen in heaven and hell’ ~ Hecate in the Aeneid. As a goddess of boundaries, she is a goddess of liminal spaces. 🖼 HEKATE, Maxmilián Pirner, 1901.
🖼 Hecate (Detail of Jupiter and Semele), Gustave Moreau, c.1894.

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The skrzak is a little flying imp in Polish and Wendish mythology. Since the earthquakes that have released the gods from the Void, many underground labyrinthine mazes have come to exist. One of the many inhabitants of these tunnels are the skrzaks.

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Norse Night goddess, Nott, rides about the Earth in Odhin’s chariot, drawn by a horse called Hrimfaxi [lit. Frost-mane]w/her son Dagr [Day], making day & night. In *Alvissmal* of the Poetic Edda, Nott is referred to as: The Hood; Lightless; & The Weaver of Dreams

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"Orphne ... not the least known of the nymphs of Avernus" (Ovid)

The nymphs of the Underworld, Lampades, companions of Hecate on her wicked forays, carrying torches that could drive a mortal mad.

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In Greek mythology, Demeter is the chthonic goddess of harvest, associated with the earth and its crops; but she presided also over sacred law, and over the cycle of life and death. The wrecked ship in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, the Demeter, shares her name.

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A wildcat dwells in the Underworld, called ‘Little Cat’, it guards a vast treasure. For a would-be thief, Little Cat transforms into a flaming arrow, reducing said thief to ashes

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The Devil has a hand in building bridges- for a price of course. Our devilish handyman will aid the locals but only in exchange for the soul of the first being to cross the bridge. In Wales and Italy, dogs were the first ones to cross over!
🖼️

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Hare’s observation that “the bright are sometimes poisonous”, was never truer than with the Black Bryony & its red berries. They appear in early autumn looking alluring, but due to being highly poisonous like the rest of the plant, should be avoided at all costs.

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"Poppy Time" seems to be a fairly good time in this 1893 painting by Walter Crane, doesn't it?

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An old Romanian practice requires young women find a belladonna plant, and make an offering to it, such as salt, bread and/or brandy. The offering is buried in exchange for the plant’s root, which is worn on the head to cultivate beauty.
🖼Laura Tempest Zakroff

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(1/2) In an the magistrate's wife is summoned in her dream to assist an elven birth. While there, she furtively dabs her right eye with a magic ointment which allows her to see through that eye.

🎨#ArthurRackham

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Winifred Knights: The Deluge (1920) depicts an apocalyptic flood with figures fleeing to higher ground while Noah’s distant ark glides away. The ark is more sinister than benign, sliding silently past as men, women (incl Knight) & children flee the rising waters.

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"It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality" (Virginia Woolf)

Darklings,

Tell your tales and share your images of

“Visions and Mirages"

tomorrow for

RTs commence between 10 am - 10pm CET

🎨 El Greco "The Vision of St John" (1614)

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Takshaka was a great Nagaraja who was mentioned in the Indian epic, Mahabharatha. He was known for his great powers, knowledge and wisdom. He gained a lot of popularity among other NAGAS. He is the friend of the Lord Indra Deva.

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Chinese myth tells the story of a female white snake demon who lives underwater but takes human form as Madame White, or Bai Suzhen. After Bai falls in love with and marries a mortal man, Xu Xian, a Buddhist monk, Fahai, reveals her true identity to her husband.

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13thc Scottish legend: a man who stole a taste of broth made from a magical white snake became a great healer & gained the ability to foretell events, read minds, understand the speech of animals. He became known as Michael Scott the Wizard
🎨Jeff Pfeil (b.1981)

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