# faustianfriday icelandicfolktale elves arthurrackham indian folklore mythology

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!
🖼️

5 20
2022-04-15

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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2022-04-08

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

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2022-04-08


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

1 7
2022-04-08

(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

5 19
2022-04-02

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.

3 18
2022-04-01

"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)

18 70
2022-03-31

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.

3 4
2022-03-26

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.

7 39
2022-03-26

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)

22 97
2022-03-25

"Long green train of her skirt thickened and grew solid, and seemed to be all one piece with the writhing green pillar of her interlocked legs.... The great serpent which the Witch had become, green as poison, thick as Jill's waist...."
- C S Lewis, "Silver Chair"

7 34
2022-03-25

Snakewoman by Ray Harryhausen

The Naga in Harryhausen's film "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" is a dancer with four arms and is just called the Snake Woman.

In and nagas are snake human hybrid beings who can assume either form.

1 10
2022-03-25

Mowgli felt Kaa's back grow broader as the python hissed like a sword drawn from a scabbard:
"I have seen all the dead seasons, & the great trees & the old elephants, & the rocks that were bare & sharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art thou still alive, Manling?"

1 8
2022-03-25

"Snakes in the ancient world, because of their skin-shedding ability, often symbolized immortality or eternal youth" (Alice K. Turner)

The Wicked bid you welcome to a serpentine

We RT between 10 am and 10 pm CET

🎨 Jessica Roux

26 115
2022-03-25

An old superstition about the mandrake is that it 'shines like lightning until approached' - a feature noted by multiple Roman scholars. In reality, Mandrake leaves are particularly attractive to fireflies, which would well explain the mystical vanishing lights.

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2022-03-19

The Priestess of Delphi,
John Collier, 1891.

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2022-03-19

The Cumaean Sibyl prophesied by singing the fates and writing on oak leaves. She would place these in the entrance of her cave. She lived for about 1000 years.She asked Apollo to live for as many years as a handful of sand in exchange for her virginity… 1/3

8 39
2022-03-18

'And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.'
— (Rev. 12:3–4, KJV)
🎨William Blake

33 135
2022-03-18

In the tale "The Girl Who Changed Her Fate" a girl is cursed w/ a bad fate & so everything she does ends badly. So, she climbs a mountain where all the fates live & gives a gift to hers - which is ragged & wild - & by doing so restores her relationship with it.

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2022-03-18

“The sheep shall eat the men.” During the Clearances, families were driven from the Highlands by the landowners & the land they farmed given over to the grazing of sheep. North Sea oil was also predicted: “A black rain will bring riches to Aberdeen.”

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2022-03-18