# womensart folklore sun witchcraft enchantment

“… and when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you…“

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Illustration: Aleksandra Waliszewska

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2022-02-18

The South African impundulu, with its hamerkop appearance, acts as a familiar to a witch, doing her bidding forever

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2022-02-12

“Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.”
-Louise Erdrich

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2022-02-12

In a Flemish legend a girl who refused to marry was imprisoned in a cellar. She was visited daily by two swans who helped her simply by being there. She escaped and gave the city a fortune on condition that they took care of the swans and their offspring.

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2022-02-12

In Hungarian the hero is often aided by a táltosló, a flying and speaking magical horse that can foresee the future and eats hot ember to recover from wounds. In other folktales the hero is a shapeshifter who can transform into a táltosló Bihrle

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2022-02-12

Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Squire Toby’s Will’: the Squire haunts his son (who has cheated his other son out of his inheritance) with the help of a familiar animal: a grotesque, ghostly dog, circling the squire’s grave, its chilling howls deathly and foreboding.

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2022-02-11

In a Flemish tale a witch and a cat who lived in a tree almost always went for a walk around the village at night. If they didn't, they had met a traveller who was unaware of their existence. The witch danced in the branches while the cat dug a grave.

🎨Rackham

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2022-02-11

"My dear sir, you see the thing
Exactly as all men see it: why,
We must re-order everything,
Before the joys of life slip by.
Hang it!" (Goethe)

...or, the beginning of one of world literature's most peculiar male bonding scenes

🎨 Harry Clarke "Faust" (1926)

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2022-02-11

In Greek mythology Hermes is the god of speech, eloquence, trade & travel. He was known as a trickster god, is the patron deity of thieves & was a psychopomp guiding souls to the afterlife. He stole his brother Apollo's prized cattle when he was only a day old

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2022-02-11

The sun is just one of many, many, many casualties when almost everyone and everything dies at Ragnarök. Sharing a similar fate as grim, old Odin and her brother, the moon, she gets eaten by a dastardly wolf. 🖼️Dorothy Hardy

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2022-02-05

In Chinese, Japanese and Korean folklore the crow is believed to inhabit the sun & is depicted as a three-legged god. Legends suggest that Sun crows descended upon earth from heaven to feast on grasses of immortality. They interfere in human affairs for guidance.

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2022-02-05

Áine is an Irish goddess of many things! Of summer, wealth & sovereignty, & so is associated with midsummer and the She is also the goddess of love & fertility, & has command over crops/animals & so associated with agriculture. 🎨OlivosARTstudio 🌞

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2022-02-04

In the Grimm fairy tale "Seven Ravens," a girl searches for her seven brothers. She goes to the Sun for help, but he is boiling hot and devours children. Then the Moon, but he is also a cruel child-eater. Fortunately, the stars are benevolent, and help her quest.

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2022-02-04

Sköll and Hati are the offspring of the wolf,Fenrir, and the giant, Iarnvidia. In Norse mythology,Hati and Skoll are the two wolves that chase the Moon and the Sun, until the day they catch them and plunge the world into darkness during Ragnarök

Art:ThreepWoody

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2022-02-04

Legends of pig-faced women speak of ladies with human bodies & the face of a pig; a result of 🐷 If the husband, having claim to how others see her, tells her that choice is hers alone, the is broken. 🪄 Her face returns to a human form.

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2022-01-29

Morana is a pagan Slavic goddess associated with seasonal rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature. She is an ancient goddess associated with winter's death, rebirth and dreams.

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2022-01-29

An urban legend for The Goatman 🐐 - essentially a faun-like being is said to live in some Maryland woods in America and be responsible for disappearing dogs…
🖼 Faun whistling to a blackbird, Arnold Böcklin, c.1864.

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2022-01-29

Hel (Old Norse: [ˈhel]) is a female being in Norse mythology who is said to preside over an underworld realm of the same name, where she receives a portion of the dead.

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2022-01-28

Sorlds collide in the fictional city of Newford, the setting of Charles de Lindt's series of urban fantasy novels where old and new world meet. Inspired by Celtic and indigenous folklore with a digital spin, Newford is home to all sorts of people and creatures.

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2022-01-28

The area around Manchester Cathedral is said to be haunted by the demon-dog Black Shuck, whose appearance is an omen of death or portends a deathly curse. The legend exists elsewhere in the U.K., but usually in the countryside: its survival in the city is striking

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2022-01-28