# japanesefolktale darkacademia japanesefolklore

18th century-It was apparently common for pirates to add gunpowder to rum. Blackbeard in particular, was said to drink gunpowder-laced rum before boarding enemy ships. It was said to be a form of Dutch courage, & enforced his reputation as a crazed foe.

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2022-04-17

Also the title of a book by me.

Available on the Folklore Podcast website and elsewhere

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2022-04-17

🍄🍎🍄Folklore warns against accepting food or drink from Faeries - no matter how deliciously tempting it may appear - otherwise you will fall under their power!

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2022-04-17

In a a monk manages to bring the statue of Kichijōten (goddess of beauty) to life by fondling it. They marry. The union is dissolved with a shocking twist after the monk cheats on his heavenly wife.


Quote: Japanese Tales, R. Tyler, ed.

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2022-04-10

🍀💍🍀A four-leafed clover placed in the right shoe is said to be a divination charm - the first eligible person you meet on the first journey wearing it, will be your future spouse!

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2022-04-10

To marry someone whose surname begins with the same letter as yours is considered bad luck in Cambridgeshire according to this rhyme:
'Change the name and not the letter,
Change for the worse and not the better'.

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2022-04-10

The mythic Hindu warrior Aravan chooses to be ritualistically sacrificed to ensure victory in war, but wants to marry first to ensure a proper funeral. The god Krishna turns into a woman, Mohini, to marry him, then back into a god after mourning his death.

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2022-04-10

The only pre-modern story in which Robin Hood directly encounters the supernatural is Ben Jonson's play "The Sad Shepherd" (1641). Robin has to stop the Witch of Papplewick from using her shape-shifting and illusion to trick, rob, and torment the local shepherds.

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2022-04-04

Roman author Pliny the Elder said that eggshells were used by witches in spells. Reginald Scot in 1584 wrote that witches could, "Saile in an egge shell, a cockle or muscle shell, through and under the tempestuous seas!"

BreeAnn Veenstra 🐈‍⬛

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2022-04-04

In Poland, Death – Śmierć or kostuch – has an appearance similar to the Grim Reaper, although its robe was traditionally white instead of black. Because the word śmierć is feminine in gender, death is frequently portrayed as a skeletal old woman.
- Anne Stokes art

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2022-04-04

"...And when they came quite up to the little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar."

- Hansel and Gretel, by the Brothers Grimm 🎨 by Arthur Rackham

https://t.co/QAC9VuqZr6

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2022-04-04

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
--from Witch-Wife by Edna St.Vincent Millay


🎨 Arthur Rackham

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2022-04-03


I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms & the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

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2022-04-03

Witches were believed to be attracted by the human scent of a shoe, & on entering one, found themselves trapped, unable to reverse. C14th saint, John Schorne was said to have trapped the Devil in a boot, a legend that may have its origin in ancient folk beliefs.

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2022-04-03

The old archetype of the Green Man was long seen by ancient cultures as symbolic of spring & fecundity. In British cultural history, he can be linked with the Gawain Poet’s Green Knight, Bath’s Romano-British hot springs, medieval churches, & Jack in the Green 🍃#FolkloreSunday

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2022-03-28

Legend tells the beautiful, mythical Adarna bird has a long tail with many shiny metallic colors which surprisingly change to even more lovely shades and hues after each of the seven sweet songs it sings. More: https://t.co/iaSotcZF1j

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2022-03-27

In English lore if the first butterfly of the season you see is white then it foretells a rainy summer. If the first butterfly is dark in colour there will be many thunderstorms. But if the first butterfly is yellow then it will be a summer full of sunshine.

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2022-03-27

Subfusc, in England, is the dark clothing worn on formal occasions at the old Universities. The black robes of the scholar recall the habits of the religious orders who founded the first institutions of study. https://t.co/aEOq0N2z3w

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2022-03-27

"...And when they came quite up to the little house they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows were of clear sugar."

- Hansel and Gretel, by the Brothers Grimm 🎨 by Arthur Rackham

https://t.co/QAC9VuqZr6

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2022-03-21

In there's a gruesome practice known as hitobashira, where a living human being is buried alive in the foundations of a building, especially castles or bridges. These sacrifices were a form of magic based on the belief that sacrificing a...

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2022-03-20